A composite image showing a cat, Christopher Luxon, Blur and the Ranfurly Shield. Photo: Various
Everybody likes to use the end of the year to collate lists on the big events and favourite entertainment of the past 12 months, and RNZ is certainly no exception.
2023 might already feel like a distant memory in the bright light of the new year, but RNZ's staff and contributers have plenty of suggestions for the best movies and music you might have missed:
In the news
To help digest the year, start thinking about the new one, or just discover some stories you might have missed, here's a selection of the best journalism in 2023 from RNZ's In Depth team.
Claire Concannon, host of RNZ's award-winning science and nature podcast Our Changing World, presents a few of her favourite episodes from 2023 - "Prepare to be intrigued and entertained by Aotearoa's fascinating researchers".
And if you really need to catch up on some of the weird and wildest stories of the year, there are the oddest news RNZ covered in 2023. Or maybe you just need the best animal news stories.
Music and movies
If you've found it hard to keep up with modern music, there's a good reason for that, writes Charlotte Ryan, with 120,000 new music tracks released every day on music streaming platforms. She looks back at the best of times, the worst of times of 2023 in music.
Charlotte also picks her 10 favourite interviews of the year, from Dolly to Florence.
Dolly Parton. Photo: Calvin Samuel
RNZ resident music guru Tony Stamp names his best singles of 2023 for The Sampler, and if that isn't enough music for you, there is also Tony's best local albums of 2023.
For the best in movies, RNZ film critics nominated their favourite international and local movies of 2023 here, while Simon Morris looked back at the year and found that while 2023 started out the same as the last 10 years - a few blockbusters, a couple of Oscar hopefuls, and a dumb movie starring Jason Statham - things started changing after that.
Photo: Supplied to RNZ
Sport and games
RNZ sports writer Jamie Wall had plenty to choose from when picking rugby's bottom 10 moments for 2023, and you can just go straight to his unofficial rugby awards for some more straight talk.
If you'd rather be parked in front of a console than out kicking a rugby ball, RNZ also has you covered, with Pratik Navani singling out the videogames that blew everybody's minds in 2023.
A dose of culture to close the year
If you need to catch up with your culture in the new year, the team from RNZ's Culture 101 show pick their favourite stories of 2023, while Sunday Morning has its own favourites.
Meanwhile, if a good summer read is what you're after, we asked 10 of Aotearoa's top authors and book lovers to tell us the best New Zealand book they read this year.
If culinary inspiration is what you need, there are the six best cookbooks of the year, and if you just really need to get your shit together, there are the 10 best hacks of 2023, and eight tips for ageing well.
