Recommended Mods

engine fixes for sse (skse plugin that applies additional fixes to the engine, pretty handy)
360 walk and run (lets you walk 360 degrees instead of backing up or side stepping)
acquisitive soul gems multhreaded (makes it so you can't fill soul gems with souls smaller than the gem)
alternate start (lots of different ways to start the game instead of the default helgen start)
apocalypse (tons of new magic)
better jumping (allows you to jump while sprinting like original skyrim. why they disabled it in SE, I'll never know)
better messagebox controls (improves dialog functionality and lets you accept dialogs like crafting with E instead of having to manually click options)
bodyslide and outfit studio (adjustable body dimensions far beyond what the default allows)
caliente's beautiful bodies enhancer (this will replace your default female body with a much more attractive one)
cbbe smp (physics for the above body enhancer)
I recommend the Bijin all in one as well, it's a collection of NPC visual overhauls and they support CBBE with optional addons
check out the uploader named `Pfuscher`. he makes a ton of excellent high res mods. entire city overhauls, environmental stuff, flora, roads, etc. highly recommend
convenient horses (extra control over what your horse does in and out of combat and allows additional combat on horses, and also autoloots things you kill while mounted and autoharvests things around you when you stop moving near nodes)
cutting room floor (I forget exactly what this does but it's a handy dependency for a lot of mods. read more about it on the mod page)
I recommend some sort of lighting overhaul. I think `Enhanced Lights and FX ` is one of the better ones. I use it
FNIS (fores new idles in skyrim) is required. most mods that involve animations won't run without it.
 I also recommend FNIS sexy move and the 360 pack for the female player (supports the 360 walk and run thing from earlier. configurable mod for sexier walk animations. configurable for player and NPCs so you get more random variety of walk animations. I find the sexiest ones should be disabled cause they make footstep sounds break in my experience)
harvest overhaul (can increase the yield of plants, etc. to be more realistic
HDT-SMP (skinned mesh physics mod. required by some mods)
hearthfire multiple adoptions and custom home support (lets you adopt more kids and also lets you move kids into houses outside the default game, like ones added by mods)
immersive armours including cbbe bodyslide (tons of new armours added to the game. cbbe bodyslide allows those armors to be built for your CBBE body style including any custom bodyslide changes so your armours will conform to whatever body shape/size you use)
immersive citizens (makes citizens less fucking stupid. they'll hide inside if they're not suited to combat during vampire/dragon attacks. helps avoid important shopkeepers dying because they try to fight things they can't handle)
immersive patrols (makes alliance soldiers patrol the countryside. you can run into them randomly. sometimes they'll run into each other and fight. sometimes they'll wanna fuck with you. pretty fun)
immersive weapons (like immersive armours but weapons instead)
JContainers (JSON expansion of the papyrus scripting environment, required for some more advanced scripted mods)
magical college of winterhold (makes the college a lot more magical, mostly visual mods) choose patches for MCoW as needed for other mods you have including cutting room floor, image space fix, ELFX (enhanced lights and fx from earlier)
My Home is Your Home (allows you to set the default home of followers to your home/location. when you dismiss them, they will return to this location instead of where they normally spawn)
New Beginnings (extends alternate start mod with more options)
Ordinator (complete overhaul of the perk trees)
PapyrusUtil (adds new utility functions to the scripting environment. required for some scripted mods)
pretty combat animations (adds some options to change animations for combat. makes some stuff look a lot nicer)
pretty female idles (adds new idle animations for female characters so they aren't so boring)
RaceMenu (required. this is a character creation mod that's required for many other character mods and adds tons of new customization options and supports bodyslide and cbbe so you can modify your character with those through character creation.)
realistic ragdolls and forces (I just started using this recently. just makes physics based force and ragdolls less absurd and broken)
reverb and ambiance overhaul (including ELFX patch. overhauls the way sounds reverb and whatnot. makes for more immersive sound)
rich skyrim merchants (I use this because I find the default money merchants carry to be unrealistic, especially after you've just bought a fuckton of stuff and they have like 10k+ and then 2 days later they have 750 again. stupid. this configures them with a new default amount. you can choose how much it is during install)
Rustic Soulgems (visual mod for soul gems to make them way cooler looking and make them glow when they're full. also makes them transparent. looks awesome)
SKSE obviously. and the scripts it comes with. throw them into a .rar archive and install them manually in vortex.
Skyrim Better Roads (I grabbed all of them cause it does some of the cities separately. makes roads look much sexier)
Skyrim Flora Overhaul (overhauls much of the trees/plants in skyrim and makes them look way nicer)
Skyrim Immersive Creatures (adds tons of new and unique creatures to the game. highly recommend)
Skyrim is Windy (makes trees and plants as well as other stuff like signs react to "wind"). be sure to grab the harvest overhaul patch if you use harvest overhaul
SkyUI is absolutely required (makes the UI way better and also handles configuration of installed mods)
Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM - improves static meshes on things. fixes a lot of issues with meshes on a lot of things. probably required)
True Storms and/or Vivid Weathers (Vivid weathers makes prettier and more realistic looking/immersive storms, but also handles the brightness of the game outside (daytime, nighttime brightness) and also in buildings/caves (allows you to make the game way more immersive by darkening night and caves so you actually really need to use torches and stuff to navigate dark areas. true storms does the same thing with weather related stuff, but extra stuff. I dunno which one is better. I use both.)
Unofficial Skyrim SE patch (basically required. some stuff requires it. even if they didn't, it just fixes a lot of shit that bethesda broke and never fixed. makes the game more stable.)
Unread Books Glow (makes books glow if you haven't read them before. skill books glow a different colour. I find this very handy)
VioLens (killmove mod. let's you configure those slow motion killmoves. also lets you disable them entirely. that's what I use it for. I find killmoves annoying and distracting and inconvenient)
Wearable Lanterns (adds lanterns you can craft that you can wear as a piece of gear. gives you some light without having to carry a torch. works nicely with extra dark areas from vivid weathers)
XP32 Maximum Skeleton (required for many mods that add new meshes with skeletons, like creatures or new player models. extends the way skeletons work)
Zim's Immersive Artifacts (makes uniques like daedric artifacts better to align with the fact that they're unique and powerful. makes spellbreaker a little broken by creating an unbreakable ward while blocking, but otherwise is pretty well balanced)
probably more too, but that's the main stuff I use