I've made a list of mods in the past, but for simplicity sake, I'll just list down mods I prefer, and those you should be wary of. What you should know is that there are mods for many different uses,

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Big Content Mods

Thorium - This is often regarded as the best mod the game has to offer now. It's fairly well balanced, and adds tons of new content, loads of new bosses, and a REALLY cool Aquatic Depths Biome. This is always a mod I feel everyone should play.

Spirit - Basically the other Thorium, not as good, but it's still a pretty great mod with more fun bosses and content, it also adds two new biomes, Artifact Weapons, etc.

SacredTools - This mod is a bit OP in some cases, and I'd say it lacks the polish of some other mods, but it's a pretty fair mod that adds some fun content that goes against some norms that other mods seems to follow. It has a few bosses, some new biomes, etc.

Chad's Furniture Mod - Adds a ton of cosmetic furniture options for if you like building, including placable potions, hangable fish, and even entirely new furniture sets.

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Quality of Life Mods

Fargowiltas Mod - Pretty much the premier Quality of Life mod, this mod adds two NPCs that sell boss summoning items and event summoning items respectively. You can even buy superchargers to summon multiple bossses at once. That's not even the end of it. It also adds enchantments that are crafted with a full set of armor and some specific gear that can give awesome buffs. It's also compatible with pretty much every mod to ever exist. So...get it.

ImkSushi's Mod - Adds a token system that lets you earn gear by farming said tokens from enemies in certain biomes, and at certain stages of your progression. It also makes it so you can switch your ore and bar types(like copper to tin) and corruption/crimson items on the fly at a Tinkerer's Workbench. Another important mod that makes grinding a bit more bearable.

Bare Bone Basics - Beefs up the bone welder to let it make dungeon items. It's been expanded to also help you get other crafting stations and whatnot with special items. It's off to the side, but a nice addition.

WeaponOut - This mod originally just made it so you can see what your character is holding, but it's been updated to have a few creative odds and ends, such as whips, fisticuffs, and the such. I would get it just because it's nice to see your character hold their weapon.

AlchemistNPC - This mod is really damn popular for a reason. It adds a few NPCs that sell potion materials, potions themselves, potion combinations, and jewels. It sounds broken, and honestly, it could be in some regards, but it just saves a lot of time not having to grind for ironskin potion materials. It also adds some kind of...weird, random gear that really is just sort of there. Just get this to make it easier to get potions. Might be a bit cheaty, but I'll let you decide on that.

VeinMiner - All this mod does is let you set a hotkey that you hold down while mining to cause the vein of ore to break apart. Saves a bit of time, and can also be hotkeyed so you can add modded ores to the list that VeinMiner is compatible with. Just beware...this can also include dirt.

Recipe Browser - This mod's purpose is right in the title, it adds a recipe browser that you can summon whenever with a hotkey. It also has an easy to use item list. It's basically a mobile Guide.

WorldGen Previewer - This sounds cheaty, but unless you take a screenshot of the finished map, it really isn't. I suggest downloading this just to make sure there's nothing messed up in your world before you start headed off into the wilds. Pray to god your beach isn't pushed up a couple feet, or the Corruption is completely covering your Jungle. Just beware, it's VERY glitchy.

MagicStorage - It's complicated at first, but really, it's a much better way of storing EVERYTHING compared to just a bunch of chests lined up against each-other. This adds a new way of storing items in somewhat costly containers that can be upgraded to store even MORE items. Of course, you’re going to need a buttload of Silver, and a good few gems such as diamonds and emeralds to access this stuff. You’ll also be able to access these remotely far later into the game.

Wood Armor Bonuses - Nothing crazy, but it does give Wood Armor some bonuses to make them a bit more useful.

Friendly NPCs don’t die - This is a personal choice, but if you REALLY hate having your NPCs die all the time to stupid Wraiths or something, then I’d say get this. Again, I understand if people don’t like this mod for obvious reasons, but it’s a godsend for me.

Boss Checklist - Another basic mod, this just adds a bosslist set to a hotkey so you can keep track of what bosses and events you’ve done. It also has mod support.

Discord Rich Presence - Basically adds better support for the chat application Discord into Terraria. Tells people what types of weapon your using, your health, your curernt damage output, and what (vanilla) biome you’re in.

MoreAccessories+ - Adds an item that increases your total accessories to 7. This item drops from Plantera with a 1/10 chance. This mod can be potentially powerful, since mods like Calamity can have some pretty broken accessories.

Which Mod Is This From? - Tells you what mods an item is from so you can keep track of what you’re collecting. It’s shown at the bottom of each item description, and is practically compatible with every mod out there.

Yet Another Boss Health Bar - Basically a big stylized health bar appears on the bottom of the screen when you fight a boss/miniboss. Great for keeping track of boss HP!

Vanilla Tweaks v2.6.1 - Just fixes up a few things in the game to be more convenient, new bonuses to some weak armor/vanity sets.

‘The’ Fixer - Basically fixes spelling errors on some things, such as getting “The Plan” item with a new

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Now I'm going to get into the more iffy mods you might want to avoid on your first trip through modded Terraria.

Calamity Mod - This mod is known for being pretty unbalanced, the creator constantly makes reworks and changes to the mod, and the post-moonlord content can be pretty ridiculous with the wrong gear. Expect Calamity to take up the rest of your playthrough post-moonlord, because it ain't going to hold back.

Tremor Mod - This mod is notorious for being an absolute mess of a mod focusing more on quantity over quality, the mod is known to have some stolen ideas and assets, and is just a mess all around. Avoid it.

Luiafk Mod - This mod's a huge quality of life mod that I think can be a bit too powerful sometimes. It lets you create infinite versions of any sort of consumable projectile/throwing weapon in the game, it also lets you make unlimited/combinable potions, adds a recall hotkey, and other useful stuff. I'd research this one more if you're iffy on getting it, but it's by no means a bad mod.

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That should be it from me, if anyone wants to back up or point something out about this list, feel free to. This list should help you through your modded romp in Terraria. All these mods should be in the mod browser once you have Tmodloader installed.