The 91 Best Gadgets of the Year

These products show the wide range of the year’s latest and greatest tech.

View in Browser  Tuesday, October 13, 2026 We used to have a grasp on all the world’s tech and electronics. “Yes, the TVs and stereo systems that are sold at Best Buy or Radio Shack—I know tech.” But now? “Tech” means “anything with an app or internet capability,” and that’s ... everything. This year, the Esquire team tested almost one thousand products to settle on this: The Esquire Gadget Awards. —Luke Guillory, commerce editor Plus: Trump’s elevation of Ken Paxton gets a little dumber every single day How an American cowboy hat gets made Thank Zoe Saldaña for Lioness season 3’s perfect cliff-hanger The 91 Best Gadgets of 2026 These products show the wide range of the year’s latest and greatest tech. For this year's Gadget Awards, we put nearly a thousand products under the microscope, and these are the 91 that we unanimously agreed will make your life better. If you’re tech curious, we say lean in. Live a little. Who knows? You might sleep better, eat better, and improve your day-to-day. If you’re tech cautious, well ... in 20 years your toothbrush will probably have a camera on it, just like ours do now. These are the best and most noteworthy products and brands of the year. Watch out; they’re about to be everywhere. READ THE STORY The culture war around Digger is just beginning. The Tom Cruise film hasn't performed in the box office. Josh Rosenberg thinks we’re learning the wrong lessons from the epic flop. >> Jaden Smith is catapulting Christian Louboutin into the future. The brand's red soled-shoes are iconic. Margherita Malaguti chats with Smith about being their first men's creative director. >> Trump’s Fundamental Electoral Strategy is Violence Chants of “USA!” rang out at the president’s Ohio rally after a MAGA goon punched a protester in the face. Bet you can’t guess who got high-fived, and who got escorted out of the venue.   Ultimately, this is what he's going to rely on to keep his presidency alive and his ass out of a federal prison. For all the intricate plots that have circulated concerning his plans to play monkey mischief with the midterm elections, the president's fundamental electoral strategy remains violence, or the specter thereof. He's not depending on lawyers, or on arcane parliamentary maneuvering. It is the image of masked goons smashing windows and beating up Capitol Police officers. And if he can't manage full orchestration every time, a small performance like the one in Youngstown will serve his purposes just as well. Those chants of "USA" celebrating the beating of a woman opposed to him are the music behind his life now. By Charles P. Pierce READ THE STORY The Hat That Conquered America The baseball cap isn’t much of a hat, really. It’s nothing more than a duckbill visor attached to a skullcap. It throws the face into shadow and can make one’s head look disproportionately small. As for style, it hasn’t got much going for it either. It lacks the panache of a snap-brim fedora; it hasn’t got the larger-than-life bravado of a cowboy hat or the authority of a commodore’s kepi. More often than not, it has writing on it—sometimes the name of a team, but more likely nowadays the name of a corporation or a brand of beer or a slogan, political or otherwise. In this way, the cap denotes belonging. Indeed, as the Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan notes, the red Make America Great Again cap rises to the level of symbol. The MAGA hat “is not a statement of policy,” she wrote. “It’s a declaration of identity.” The baseball cap is spunky and unpretentious, though; that much can be said for it. And in its way, it embodies the eternal youthfulness of our national spirit. By John Berendt READ THE STORY Follow Us Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences | Privacy Notice | CA Notice at Collection Esquire is a publication of Hearst Magazines. ©2026 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This email was sent by Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3779

Every Ben Affleck Movie, Ranked

He’s a leading man, a reluctant superhero, a tabloid fixture and a rabid Dunkin’ enthusiast. And a great actor, too.

If you’re having trouble viewing this email, view in browser Every Ben Affleck Movie, Ranked by Eric Francisco   Ben Affleck is a legit American treasure. A square-jawed, cleft-chinned heartthrob who can really act (and write, and direct, and smoke dejectedly). The man has done it all in his career of more than thirty years, including winning Best Original Screenplay in his mid-twenties (for Good Will Hunting) and Best Picture, for his 2012 drama Argo.   His latest film, Animals on Netflix, sees Matt Damon’s BFF play a Los Angeles mayoral candidate who races against the clock to rescue his kidnapped son. It’s a solid flick; more than worth adding to your Netflix queue when it drops on October 9. Sure, not everything Affleck has made has been gold—you remember Gigli?—but he is rarely the worst thing about them.   From Hollywood wunderkind to being married to not one but two different Jennifers, Affleck has grown up before our eyes. To celebrate the release of Animals, the editors of Esquire have taken it upon themselves to rank every single movie made by and/or starring Dunkin’s biggest fan. Yes, even his Batman movies. Behold the official word on the Book of Affleck—and yes, he is still the bomb in Phantoms. Read the Story Ben Affleck on the cover of Esquire's April 2009 issue. Mailbag!  Esquire last interviewed Ben Affleck when he was on the cover of the April 2009 issue (above), right before he would direct one of his best films: The Town, which follows a Boston bank robber who looks to pull off a heist at Fenway Park.    “There's always a worry among directors that—unless you're some genius like Paul Thomas Anderson—you'll get pigeonholed, that maybe you can only tell stories about one city,” Affleck told Esquire. “It's simple: I just respond to the story. I have since I first read it. That fact that it's set in Boston may be part of that, but I'm not out there looking to document Boston. I want to tell good stories."   Let me know what your favorite Ben Affleck film is at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.    Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here. The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk Hoon Lee, who plays Lee in Netflix’s East of Eden, spoke to Brady Langmann about his standout role in the celebrated John Steinbeck adaptation. “I felt the book had come to me as a gift,” he says. Read the interview here.    The Exorcist: Martyrs director Mike Flanagan gave Esquire an exclusive first look at his new film, which stars Scarlett Johansson as a detective who investigates a religious serial killer (played by John Leguizamo). “The way we’ve used the horror genre is to try to take the horrors of being alive on the earth and confront them,” he told Anthony Breznican. “In fiction, we can stare the devil in the face.” Check out the first images from the film here.   Hoon Lee / photo by: Shane McCauley The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week Winner: Nicolas Cage   The actor stated during a panel at New York Comic Con over the weekend that he’s not interested in working with Amazon again. Why? He refused to sign a waiver allowing them to use AI on his Spider-Man spin-off series, which Prime Video did not renew for season 2. “Amazon is a very AI-friendly company,” Cage said. “I am not an AI-friendly actor, so it’s like, connect those dots!”     Loser: Hollywood   “Hollywood is over,” director Ava Duvernay declared while speaking at the BFI London Film Festival on Monday. “Did you guys hear? It’s done. They’re buying each other, they’re collapsing. It’s all changed.” We don’t disagree—so we broke down why people are feeling this way following the Skydance-Paramount-Warner Bros. merger here.    Winner: Animatronic Birds    The most unhinged story of the week? Kelly Clarkson is feuding with a toy and puzzle store in Brooklyn over an animatronic bird. According to Clarkson, she offered to buy the $15,000 wall decoration, but the employee—who may not have recognized her— assumed that she couldn’t afford it. The store, in return, claims that the item wasn’t for sale. My question: why did Clarkson want a $15,000 animatronic bird?     Loser: The Dutton Family   Luke Grimes said that he hasn’t spoken to his Yellowstone costar and TV dad, Kevin Costner, since the Western series ended. “Not for any other reason than, you know, we’re both busy guys and life moves on,” the actor told USA Today. Still, there’s nothing stopping John Dutton from appearing via flashback in Marshals should Costner come around to the idea, right? “I doubt that will happen at this point,” Grimes said.    Winner: Avatar: The Last Airbender Fans    It’s been twelve years since the Avatar: The Last Airbender sequel series, The Legend of Korra, ended on Nickelodeon. But following a leaked film—one that was made without the creators—and a fan campaign to continue the story, the third series, Avatar: Seven Havens, finally premiered. Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko spoke to Eric Francisco about the exciting new future ahead for Avatar fans and unveiled their plans for a fourth series after Havens. Read the interview here. Glen Powell Conquered Hollywood. Was That What He Actually Wanted? How the Collapse of Marvel’s Blade Led to One of the Year’s Best Movies The Best Part of the New Carrie TV Series? Her Mom. The Best TV Episodes of 2026 (So Far) Follow Us Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences | Privacy Notice | CA Notice at Collection Esquire is a publication of Hearst Magazines. ©2026 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This email was sent by Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3779