Listicle / Top X Script Template

Use for "top 10," "best of," ranking, and list-format videos. Adapt the number and ordering criteria to your specific topic and audience.

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Creator Archetypes

Lemmino

Lemmino approaches each item on his lists as a mini-investigation rather than a known fact being confirmed. The item is presented as a question that gets answered, not a ranking position being justified. This creates micro-Outcome Debt for each item: you know you're getting a list, but you don't know what the investigation will find. He spends disproportionate time on items with counterintuitive answers and moves quickly through items where the answer is what you'd expect. The deliberate asymmetry is what keeps viewers engaged — they can't predict where he'll dwell. This turns a predictable format into an investigative one.

Johnny Harris

Harris designs his lists around a central thesis, not a central topic. The items are evidence for an argument, not a collection of related things. This gives the list a structural reason to end: the thesis is demonstrated when enough evidence has accumulated. He uses a first-person investigation frame even for historical topics — "I went to find out why X happened" rather than "here's why X happened" — which creates dual debt: knowledge (what did he find?) and outcome (what happened during the investigation?). The result is that viewers are watching both the list and the story of how the list was made.

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Written Example: 7 Channels That Make You Smarter

This section shows items 1, 3, and the honorable mention written out fully — no brackets. Use it as a model for pacing and how to make each item feel like a discovery rather than a confirmation.

The hook:

Most "educational YouTube" lists include the same five channels. They're good channels. They're also the channels you already know, which means this list isn't for you if you've done any looking. What I found when I went past the obvious choices is different — and the overlap with every other list you've seen is zero.

I'm ranking these by the ratio of insight to time invested. The question isn't "is this channel informative" — every channel on this list is informative. The question is: how much does a single 15-minute video change how you think about something? By that measure, here's what I found.

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Honorable mention — before we get to the list:

Before I start the ranking, there's a channel I almost left off because it doesn't fit the format: Nicky Case. They don't post often. They don't have a traditional channel. What they have is a series of interactive essays that are better explanations of game theory, emergence, and social systems than anything I've found in a traditional video format. If you want to understand how individual incentives produce collective outcomes, start with their piece on trust. It's worth the detour before the list.

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Item 3: 3Blue1Brown

Grant Sanderson makes mathematics feel like it has something to say about the world rather than being a system of arbitrary rules. The visual approach isn't decoration — it's the actual explanation. The animations show the reason behind the formula rather than the formula itself. Most people's experience of calculus was learning to differentiate functions without ever understanding what a derivative represents geometrically. 3Blue1Brown fixes that retroactively. If you took math through calculus and always felt like you were following procedures without understanding them, the "Essence of Calculus" series is the one to watch.

What I want you to notice about how Sanderson structures these videos: he always starts with the question the concept was invented to answer, not with the concept itself. "Derivatives" starts with the problem of finding instantaneous speed. "The Fourier Transform" starts with the problem of separating mixed signals. The concept earns its introduction by arriving as the solution to a real problem.

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Item 1: CGP Grey

Grey releases videos rarely and never explains why. There's no channel update, no "I'm back" video, no posting schedule. What there is, when he does release, is work that has clearly been made until it's finished rather than released on a schedule.

The thing that makes Grey's work distinct isn't the subject matter — he covers everything from electoral systems to the history of countries that no longer exist. It's that he finds the exact angle on a topic that makes you realize you've been thinking about it wrong. "The Trouble with Transporters" is a 5-minute video about teleportation that is actually a philosophy video about personal identity. "Humans Need Not Apply" is a video about automation that reframes the conversation in a way that made it one of the most-watched policy-adjacent videos on YouTube.

The ranking logic: Grey's videos have a longer shelf life than almost any educational content I've found. You'll watch one, think about it for three days, watch it again, and find something you missed. That ratio — insight per minute, measured across multiple rewatches — is higher than anything else on this list.

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The Template

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Hook (0:00–0:30)

Option A — The subversion hook:

"Most [top X] lists about [topic] include [obvious, expected items]. This one doesn't. I've spent [time] looking at [sources], and the [X items] that actually [meet your criteria] are almost none of the ones that get talked about."

Option B — The criteria hook:

"I've [researched/tested/watched] [X items] in [topic]. [Number] of them are genuinely worth your time by any honest measure. The rest are [overrated/outdated/hype]. Here's exactly which is which — and why."

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The Ordering Reveal (0:30–1:00)

State your ranking criteria. This creates a meta-hook — viewers are now tracking whether your criteria are fair, which keeps them engaged beyond just the items themselves.

"I'm ranking these by [specific, non-obvious criteria]. Not by popularity — by [criteria]. Some of the highest-ranked items are ones you might not have heard of. The most popular ones don't necessarily make the cut."

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Items at the Bottom of the List (Move Quickly)

Each item:

• Name and one-sentence description (15–25 seconds)
• The specific, non-obvious reason it made the list — not "it's good" but "here's the thing it does that nothing else does"
• A forward-pull bridge to the next item: "But [next number] is where the list gets interesting..."

Pattern interrupt: Around the midpoint, add a moment that breaks the expected structure: an honorable mention, an item you almost left off, or a brief tangent that teaches something. This creates a retention bump by giving viewers something they weren't expecting.

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Top 3 (Slow Down, Go Deep)

Your top three get significantly more time. Viewers who've made it here are invested.

Item 3 — The controversial pick: Something that will create debate in the comments. State the controversy directly: "I know this one is going to get pushback, so here's the specific reason it's ranked where it is."

Item 2 — The practical pick: The most immediately actionable item. What should someone do with this information today?

Item 1 — The definitive pick: Back your top pick with your strongest reasoning. Open a secondary point before delivering the final verdict: "The reason [item] is at the top isn't the obvious one. It's because of [specific, non-obvious reason]."

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CTA

"Disagree with the ranking? Tell me specifically which [item] you'd move and why — I read all the comments. And if you want [related list topic], that video is [here]."

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What Kills This Format

1. Ordering by popularity or familiarity. If your top three items are the ones every viewer already knows, your list confirms existing knowledge rather than creating new value. The items that will be shared, discussed in comments, and watched again are the unexpected ones — the picks that make viewers think "I hadn't heard of that" or "I never would have ranked it that high." Prioritize surprise in the top half of your list, not safety.

2. Equal time on every item regardless of depth. Not all items have the same amount worth saying. Structural symmetry — giving every item two minutes — produces a list where the interesting items are underserved and the less interesting items drag. Your job is editorial: give items the time they deserve, not the time that makes the pacing look even. An item with a great story gets four minutes; an item that's straightforwardly good gets 45 seconds.

3. Teasing the number one pick before you get to it. "Stay until the end for number one — it's probably not what you think" pre-defuses the surprise that's the entire point of counting down. Viewers who know the reveal is coming spend the middle of the video calculating what it might be rather than engaging with the items you're presenting. Let the number one pick land without preview. The organic surprise is worth more than the manufactured anticipation of the tease.

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Quick Reference

• Odd numbers outperform even numbers in listicle titles: "7 channels" performs better than "6 channels" across most A/B tests
• Your #1 item should appear in the thumbnail concept — implied or teased, not spelled out
• A pinned comment with timestamps to each item increases session time and signals video organization to the algorithm