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Vox’s gift guide for pop culture nerds

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Amazon gift cards are swell, but if you really want to show your pop culture–obsessed friends and loved ones you care, you'll appeal directly to their interests in TV, movies, music, and books. Anyone can pick up the latest blockbuster on DVD, but we've gone one better and rounded up several unique presents to serve tastes across the pop culture spectrum. —Alex Abad-Santos, Constance Grady, Bridgett Henwood, Genevieve Koski, Tanya Pai, Jen Trolio, Todd VanDerWerff


FilmStruck subscription

Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection have teamed up to create the best streaming site ever for serious movie nerds. FilmStruck’s smartly curated collection boasts classic films, arthouse favorites, and amazing cinema from around the world, giving you plenty of options to discover new favorites. FilmStruck/$6.99 to $10.99 per month; $99 for a full year


The Fade Out deluxe edition

Ed Brubaker’s ambitious, immersive Hollywood murder mystery should appeal to comics fans and cinephiles in equal measure. Set during the height of the studio system, The Fade Out dives into the underbelly of the golden age of Hollywood and turns up a sordid tale of sex, murder, and influence, all set against the backdrop of the looming Red Scare and Hollywood blacklist.

This gorgeous hardcover edition collects all 12 issues (presented in three "acts") of Brubaker’s story, in a glossy format that does justice to the noir-inflected art from Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser. An extra 50 pages of back matter fills readers in on the research and artistry that went into The Fade Out and more than justifies the "deluxe" tag. Amazon/$35.52


David Bowie's Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set

This exhaustive collection spanning five years of David Bowie’s career boasts every song from Diamond Dogs to Station to Station — all on pristine 180-gram vinyl. More importantly for Stardust completists, the set features a remastered version of The Gouster, the legendary unreleased Bowie album; this is the first time fans can hear them in their original glory. A hardcover photo book and handwritten note from the singer himself round out the selection. Amazon/$214.49


The Decemberists' reissue of The Crane Wife

This indie classic is now 10 years old, and to mark the occasion the Decemberists are reissuing it as a box set full of music geek goodies: five LPs (including demos, B-sides, and outtakes), a Blu-ray of a concert at Washington, DC’s 9:30 Club, and a 20-page booklet with liner notes by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke and an essay by Hamilton creator and Decemberists superfan Lin-Manuel Miranda. Amazon/$112.80


Star Wars R2-D2 coffee press

You don’t need to be a coffee drinker to appreciate this R2-D2 coffee press; its first function is being cute and making your kitchen a better place. Of course, if you’re a Star Wars fan who also appreciates smooth French press coffee, this is definitely the droid you’re looking for. ThinkGeek/$39.99

Abbi Jacobson's Carry This Book

Peek into the pockets and handbags of several real and fictional people, from Oprah to Batman, to see what they carry around with them, as illustrated by Broad City star Abbi Jacobson. Donald Trump, for example, carries huge gloves ("for show") and five different varieties of self-tanner. Jacobsen’s artwork is playful and funny, and each page contains multitudes. Amazon/$15.14


The Ultimate Laika Collection

Over the course of seven years and four feature films, the Portland stop-motion animation studio Laika has established itself as America’s most idiosyncratic animation purveyor. This collection assembles Laika’s four features to date — Coraline, Paranorman, The Boxtrolls, and this year’s Kubo and the Two Strings — in a Blu-ray format that emphasizes the visual splendor of the studio’s modern, kinetic approach to the often staid stop-motion format. Perfect for kids and animation lovers alike. Amazon/$39.99


Wonder Woman 75th-anniversary box set

Wonder Woman is turning 75 in 2017 and finally getting her own movie. In honor of her upcoming birthday, DC Comics has released a four-volume comic book collection commemorating the legendary hero, featuring some of the game-changing writers — Greg Rucka, George Perez, Gail Simone, and Brian Azzarello — who helped shape her legacy. (If you have a Wonder Woman devotee on your gift list but don’t want to shell out for the full box set, pick up a copy of the character’s 75th-anniversary special issue for $7.99.) Amazon/$35.53


The Defenders season one

An all-time TV classic is on DVD for the first time, thanks to Shout Factory. The legal drama — which touched on many of the hot-button issues of the 1960s — hasn’t been aired anywhere since the 1970s, so this DVD is a vital historical document. A multiple Emmy winner, The Defenders also features an essential performance by E.G. Marshall as a crusading lawyer. Amazon/$27.31


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