Tessera

@videoessayacademic.bsky.social

[in]Transition @intransition.bsky.social · last wk.

New issue just launched, with nine new video essays on topics including Red Desert, One Night in Miami, surveillance footage, visual representations of sound, feminist zombie narratives, the British cine-club movement, and Before Sunrise! Check them out: intransition.openlibhums.org/issue/1969/i...

[in]Transition | Issue: Issue: 3(13) (2026)

intransition.openlibhums.org

Good Omens Appreciation Society @gociety.bsky.social · 9mo ago

PDF/online here: www.buechner-verlag.de/wp/wp-conten... #goodomensbooks #goodomens

Good Omens Appreciation Society @gociety.bsky.social · 9mo ago

NEW: Heaven, Hell, And Everything In-Between - Critical Perspectives on Good Omens www.buechner-verlag.de/produkt/cunt... Source/Thanks to: Vera Cuntz-Leng (ed.) Büchner Vlg - buechner-verlag.de Wisesnail - IG (cover image) #goodomensbooks #goodomens

Good Omens Appreciation Society @gociety.bsky.social · 9mo ago

NEW: Heaven, Hell, And Everything In-Between - Critical Perspectives on GO A year or so ago we mentioned in one of our stories that there’d be a new GO book in the works. It’s out/published in GER (English!) Dive into a scientific analysis of the popular TV series GO #goodomensbooks #goodomens

Jiří Anger @jirianger.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The best video essays of 2025 are here! It was a pleasure to co-organize the poll with Veronika, Occitane, and Kevin. Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to those whose video essays were selected.

Sight and Sound magazine@sightsoundmag.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll, organised by by Jiří Anger, Veronika Hanáková, Kevin B. Lee and Occitane Lacurie, showcases a record 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

Ben @heyitmeben.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Incredibly honoured to have been featured as an emerging voice alongside so many talented video essayists on Sight and Sound's THE BEST VIDEO ESSAYS OF 2025 list, thank you so much for the kind words @lambhoot.bsky.social! www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

OutOfCharacters @outofcharacters.bsky.social · 9mo ago

This is my first year contributing to the sight and sound best video essays of the year poll! I have somehow managed to trick everyone into thinking that I am person who can be trusted with voting on such things lol www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Miklós Kiss @mikloskiss.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Here it is, for the 9th time, the best of the end-of-the-year best of lists: BFI’s ‘The best video essays of 2025’! www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

josh (with parentheses)@joshwithparenthes.es · 9mo ago

Delighted to say that the BFI's Best Video Essays of 2025 poll released yesterday, and I was delighted both to participate as a nominator and to be mentioned myself! A brief thread: 1/ www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

hotcyder @hotcyder.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Happy Sight and Sound’s Best Video Essays of 2025 to all that celebrate www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Shannon Strucci @strucci.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Went all-in on my picks this year lol :) www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Sight and Sound magazine @sightsoundmag.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

renegade cut @renegadecut.com · 9mo ago

well, well, well. I'm mentioned in BFI's Best Video Essays of 2025. not for any particular essay but for my body of work. tight. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Neilly from the Leftist Cooks (She/Her)@neillyleftistcook.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The BFI's Best Video Essays of 2025 has dropped! We were honoured to be part of the selection committee and honestly could have highlighted 20 more essays if we'd had the chance. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so... 1/

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Lily Alexandre 🛰️@lily-is.online · 9mo ago

hehehehehe yay

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Sarah Z @sarahz.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Everyone's Cheating at Chess (Allegedly) got a brief mention here!!! <3 This is an amazing list and I'm now convinced I NEED to watch the star wipe video. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 9mo ago

My video on Still Wakes the Deep got mentioned in Sight and Sounds's best video essays of 2025 WHAT THE EVERLIVING HELL!? I'm a video essayist now!?

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Jacob Geller @jacobgeller.com · 9mo ago

Honored as always to contribute to @sightsoundmag.bsky.social list of "The Best Video Essays of 2025." Here are my favorites of the year. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

Video essayist on YouTube and Nebula who often uses video games as a springboard to speak about larger topics of art, philosophy, and politics. His first book, How a Game Lives, is available now from all major booksellers.

This year, I’ve been thinking about the different generations of mainstream YouTube video essayists. While the first wave of YouTube essayists may have been inspired by film, television, and/or written essays, many popular 2025 creators are young enough that they grew up alongside the video essay. This younger cohort has been presented a goal that didn’t previously exist!

While the first generation of essayists may have turned to YouTube in an attempt to ‘do something’ with their film and philosophy degrees, younger creators may indeed pursue certain fields of study with the goal of disseminating this knowledge as a video essayist. While the goal of becoming a YouTuber can result in a passion for algorithmic success over academic rigor, this new generation is also willing to push the boundaries of the familiar form, creating more ambitious and stylistically striking projects.

$"Trans Day of Vanishing by Lily Alexandre The best video essay of the year, Alexandre’s work melds text and form in a dizzyingly ambitious trip through an unspeakably awful question: should trans people reduce their social visibility in an act of self-preservation? The essay itself, shot in extreme widescreen, builds a sense of paranoia – Alexandre herself only takes up a fraction of the scene and the urban landscape, cold and artificially lit, stretches out beyond her. It’s a testament to the video’s magnitude that Alexandre literally being tear gassed on the streets of Montreal is only its second most striking scene. The most striking is when she taps into the feed of a public surveillance camera, finding production quality in the constant, unwilling scrutiny she lives under."$

The 25 Best Films of 2024: A Video Countdown by David Ehrlich

A countdown of the best films of 2024, sans traditional script or voiceover, seems outside the realm of typical video essay. And yet, Ehrlich’s 23-minute montage isn’t just a countdown but a conversation made through editing, a weaving together of hundreds of cinematic motifs from an entire year.

The montage finds constant moments of delight in juxtaposition: the overture features scenes of Anora, Megalopolis, Dune, Challengers, and dozens more all choreographed together to a song from The Greatest Showman. I Saw the TV Glow functions as a meta-framing device throughout the montage – Justice Smith looks directly into the camera and intones “I watched these tapes over and over again, but they never got old.” The choice of musical accompaniment is, also, revelatory. In one standout sequence, Ehrlich introduces Nosferatu alongside Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, only to continue the song through his next pick, The Beast, finally climaxing alongside Dion with Challengers. The track is hilarious, yes, but also exactly captures the thematic core of each film.

However, it’s the finale of the piece that cements it as Ehrlich’s best work so far. The crescendo seems to come early; after Anora (his #3 pick), the montage escalates into an ecstasy of scenes and sounds and emotion set to an epic rework of Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’. And when it seems the montage can rise no higher… it doesn’t. It crashes back down to Earth with the sparse harmonica of Springsteen’s The Promised Land and Ehrlich’s final two picks, No Other Land and Nickel Boys. An impossible level of craft throughout.

Death of the Author: An Alan Wake Series Retrospective by Noah Caldwell-Gervais

Much as series protagonist Alan Wake can’t help but spiral around his own universe of autofiction, Noah Caldwell-Gervais is helplessly drawn back to developer Remedy’s series of games. Having previously covered Alan Wake, Max Payne, and Control on his channel, Gervais now revisits each along a gargantuan journey to understand the layers of meaning woven throughout Alan Wake 2. Although the runtimes of many video essays have ballooned over the years, only Gervais is capable of keeping his writing on-target and engaging for nearly 200 minutes straight.

And as Alan Wake 2 snakes through the themes of nearly every Remedy game, longtime fans of Gervais’ channel will see how this retrospective engages with many of his defining interests: Horror and noir, self-loathing writers, King’s Dark Tower series, goofy Rock and Roll stars. Gervais’ channel seemed incomplete without an essay on Alan Wake – and Alan Wake 2 itself seemed incomplete without an analysis by Gervais. Finally, both are settled.

Big Joel @bigjoel.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Wow, "You Are Into Mouse Trap YouTube" is featured multiple times on the BFI video essay list this year! I like that it's not a video essay, that makes it feel like a greater w. Thank you! www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2025

Now in its ninth year, our annual poll showcases 255 vital video essays, nominated by 72 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Jason Mittell @jmittell.bsky.social · 12mo ago

So very excited to announce that as of today the number of Videographic Books in the world has doubled! Check out ADAPTIVE FORMS, Gregory Brophy & Shawn Malley's fabulous new open-access book on contemporary science-fiction - complete with video essays on ARRIVAL, SNOWPIERCER, BLACK PANTHER, etc.!!!

Adaptive Forms: Videographic Criticism and Contemporary Science Fiction Film

An examination of media adaptation in contemporary science fiction film, with 14 video essays <br><i>Part of the <a href="https://www.leverpress.org/videographicbooks/">Videographic Books</a> series</...

fulcrum.org

@videoessayacademic.bsky.social · last yr.

I just came across this, as I was looking for the blog entry about #YouTube 's 20th anniversary: blog.youtube/culture-and-...

Hour-long & Lovin' it: The joy of video essays

Who knew an hour-plus video breaking down a meme's history could be so gripping? Shoutout to the creators mastering the art of the deep dive.

blog.youtube

@videoessayacademic.bsky.social · 2y ago

Very happy that this article by @jamesmacdowell.bsky.social is finally out in public to join the small, but growing, scholarship about the YouTube video essay. It's OA: doi.org/10.1080/1050...

A screenshot of an academic article, written by James MacDowell, titled "Breaking and Making the Fourth Wall on YouTube: Direct Address and Audiovisual Narration in Online Video", published in the journal "Quarterly Review of Film and Video".

@videoessayacademic.bsky.social · 2y ago

My three main-takeaways from this year's Video Essay Poll (2024) on @sightsoundmag.bsky.social, as analyzed by @queline.bsky.social, @willwebbful.bsky.social and @cydniiwilde.bsky.social. Thank you for your great work this year!

A screenshot of the 2024 Sight and Sound video essay poll with the following section highlighted: "Interestingly, while YouTube was the most common publication method (70 uploads to Vimeo's 56), Vimeo-published videos collected more total nominations (99) than YouTube (90). The average runtime continues to increase year by year, reaching 30 minutes in 2024."

A screenshot of the 2024 Sight and Sound video essay poll with the following section highlighted: "Our longest submission this year, Jenny Nicholson's The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel, has a few close competitors from the YouTube space, including Contrapoints' Twilight retrospective and the aforementioned Hbomberguy epic."

A screenshot of the 2024 video essay poll. A section about "Plagiarism and You(Tube" by Hbomberguy (Harry Bewis): It reads "Released at the end of 2023 (and therefore just missing the deadline for inclusion in last year's poll), this nearly four-hour epic reverberated throughout 2024, bringing to light issues about citation practices on YouTube that had been brewing for years. Considered by this year's voters to be a "mic-drop" moment (Sam Kern) and "one of the most influential and important video essays of recent years" (Ariel Avissar), Brewis's essay may very well become a foundational text for YouTube video essayists moving forward."

Miklós Kiss @mikloskiss.bsky.social · 2y ago

Autofictional Authenticity: Bo Burnham’s Inside, Netflix Comedy and YouTube Aesthetics by James MacDowell and Tom Hemingway A comprehensive analysis of Burnham’s Netflix special and its (and his) metamodern quirky new sincere post-ironic autofictional authenticity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0_C...

Bo Burnham's INSIDE: Autofictional Authenticity, Netflix & YouTube Aesthetics [Video Essay]

YouTube video by The Lesser Feat

youtube.com

Miklós Kiss @mikloskiss.bsky.social · 2y ago

What Would Billy Wilder Do? by Every Frame a Painting (Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou) Yes, it’s EFaP again (Zhou’s return feels like reuniting with a long not seen friend). www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_aY...

What Would Billy Wilder Do?

YouTube video by Every Frame a Painting

youtube.com

Miklós Kiss @mikloskiss.bsky.social · 2y ago

The Sustained Two-Shot by Every Frame a Painting (Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou) Hi, his name is Tony… and after seven years of absence, he brought back Every Frame a Painting from its long hibernation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn2D...

The Sustained Two-Shot

YouTube video by Every Frame a Painting

youtube.com

Queline (kikikrazed)@queline.bsky.social · 2y ago

I co-edited the Sight and Sound poll for the best video essays of 2024! Thank you to everyone who contributed a list. We've highlighted a few notable essays, but it’s worth diving into the full list (183 unique vids!) Thanks for having me @sightsoundmag.bsky.social 🎉 www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2024

From film festivals to TikTok, our annual poll showcases 183 unique video essays nominated by 47 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Sight and Sound magazine @sightsoundmag.bsky.social · 2y ago

From film festivals to TikTok, our annual poll showcases 183 unique video essays nominated by 47 international voters www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The best video essays of 2024

From film festivals to TikTok, our annual poll showcases 183 unique video essays nominated by 47 international voters.

bfi.org.uk

Filmscalpel @filmscalpel.bsky.social · 2y ago

Sight and Sound has published its annual poll of the year's most notable video essays. @queline.bsky.social , @willwebbful.bsky.social, and @cydniiwilde.bsky.social tallied a total of 183 videos. Better start now if you plan to watch them all before the year ends. Or skip Christmas dinner.

The best video essays of 2024

From film festivals to TikTok, our annual poll showcases 183 unique video essays nominated by 47 international voters.

bfi.org.uk