It’s really hard to make a movie. No one sets out to make a bad movie. Well, maybe Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (infamous creators of the 2000’s spoof movie empire) do. But mostly every single filmmaker sets out to make something great, or at least good. They strive to connect, to entertain, to heal, to teach. The same way that most critics don’t want to give a bad review. While there’s the few vengeful types out there that perhaps salivate at the idea of taking down a particular film, most critics don’t want to sit through something they’re not going to enjoy. The reason we make movies can often be the same reason we consume movies. To connect, to be entertained, to feel healed, to learn something about the world at large we did not know before. We yearn to see a new perspective, to feel understood, to be affected in ways no other can medium can affect us.
Every year, there seems to be a trend in what connects some of the best films of the year. It’s always some sort of happy accident, but it happens nonetheless. This year was one for the books. Most people around the world shared the same sentiment that 2016 was indeed, a fucking shit show. A year that started with the death of David Bowie and ended with the election of Donald Trump. It was a year for untimely deaths and broken hearts, minds and spirits. It was one that was by far the worst for me personally and one of the worst, if not the worst, for many others close to me in my life. This year, fittingly enough, the connective thread in the films released throughout the year seemed to be identity. Who are we? What are we? What makes us get up in the morning? What makes us who we are? What defines us?
Films like Barry Jenkins’ magnetic “Moonlight”, Ezra Edelman’s epic 8 hour documentary “O.J.: Made in America”, Raoul Peck’s ever-important “I Am Not Your Negro” and Ava DuVernay’s stirring look at the American prison system and modern slavery “13th” begged the question “What does it mean to be black in America?” Films like Garth Davis’ moving “Lion” asked “Who am I? Where do I come from?” Denis Villenueve’s masterful “Arrival” asked us to reflect on what binds us? Is it memory? Is it how we communicate with one another? Andrew Dominik’s heart-shattering look at grief and creativity “One More Time with Feeling” asked who we become after we lose the ones closest to us and how does death define our lives.
This was also a fantastic year for genre fare. From Fede Alvarez’s pulse-pounding thriller “Don’t Breathe” to Nicolas Winding Refn’s appropriately trashy “The Neon Demon to Tom Ford’s newest foray into directing “Nocturnal Animals”, 2016 was a high mark for genre filmmaking and thrillers in general. There was once again a bevy of incredible foreign films, most of which seemed to come from South Korea, in the form of the truly bonkers “The Hanmaiden” and “The Wailing”. My favorite import was the sublime German film “Toni Erdmann” from director Maren Ade. Some of the films mentioned earlier were a part of the milestone year documentaries had. “O.J.: Made in America” was a transcendent experience, “13th” was eye-opening, “Weiner” was cringe-inducing, “I Am Not Your Negro” was tragically relevant and “City of Gold” was a love letter to LA that nobody but Jonathan Gold could’ve written.
Television remains culturally important and ever-evolving, but film is still where some of the worlds true masters are working. There’s still nothing like watching a film in theaters. No matter how many must-watch TV shows come out every year (and there are more now than ever) seeing a film in a theater is still an unmatched experience. People stream through Netflix, watch screeners around the holidays or unfortunately, illegally download a lot of the films released throughout the year, and it’s still never quite the same. Watching a film on your couch with the distractions of Facebook and Instagram is not watching a film. You’re observing portions of it, but you’re not truly experiencing what the filmmakers intended you to experience. Watching “La La Land” on a small screen would lose half the impact of the film. Even a small film like “Paterson” deserves a big screen viewing, just to keep your distracted eye from wandering during some of its most quietly powerful moments.
Film is still very much alive and thriving. This year, like many other years before it, proved that. This year, I watched almost 100 films in theaters and at home. Almost half of them were either excellent or at the least, good. Here’s a list of my 25 favorites, one special mention and a handful of others that blew me away in 2016.
The first of several films on this list that cast a light on being black in America, “Lemonade” is one that caught me the most off guard. It’s not that I don’t find Beyoncé to be one of the most talented voices in pop music, it’s just that I never found myself fully connecting with her before “Lemonade”. I’ve admired her and respected her place in pop culture, but I knew the music she made wasn’t for me and that was okay. With “Lemonade”, an hour plus music video directed by seven different iconic music video directors, including Knowles herself, Beyoncé made something more vital than she ever had before. An indictment of white America, an empowering ode to black women and an unflinching look at modern day police violence, “Lemonade” is the masterpiece of Beyoncé’s career. It’s not only a visual marvel, it’s a compelling and potent symbol of the power of the artist in 21st century America.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul makes singular and distinct films. There truly is nobody else like him in the world. He’s a director I recently came to after watching “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” earlier this year and one that I’m now inclined to believe is one of the greatest filmmakers working today. His newest film “Cemetery of Splendor” revolves around a spreading epidemic of sleeping sickness where spirits appear to the stricken and hallucination becomes indistinguishable from reality. It’s a plot that feels specific to Weerasethakul and his vision. Like “Uncle Boonmee”, it could easily veer into a contrived, borderline goofy film, but Weerasethakul somehow manages to pull off the bizarre plot with ease. His gift as a filmmaker, presenting grand ideas with a subtle hand, is one that pays off miraculously here and one that more American filmmakers could take note of.
Some movies will soothe you. Some movies have the power to heal. Some have the power to distract you from our daily problems. Some movies just wanna fuck your shit up. “The Wailing” wants to fuck your shit up. “The Wailing” wholly succeeds in fucking your shit up in ways you couldn’t imagine possible. Korean director Na Jong-Hin grabs viewers from the very first sequence, showing an unimaginable crime committed in a small village and the borderline inept detective with a big heart but little in the way of a clue, who shows up on the scene. What follows is an epic 150 minute tale of spirituality, revenge, witchcraft and pure dread. “The Wailing” is a film that doesn’t fuck around. It comes out swinging and rarely falters in it’s no holds barred school of filmmaking. There are scenes that will forever be implanted in my memory due just how simultaneously ridiculous and truly terrifying they are. “The Wailing” is the real deal and a must watch for any genre fan.
“La La Land” is the only film on this list that earns a spot by bringing itself together in a final act that salvages all mistakes it makes getting their along the way. The ending is so perfect, so breathtaking and so moving, that it manages to almost wipe the viewers memory entirely clean of what’s come before it. What comes before it is a fine film. It’s lively and well-crafted, but it’s also devoid of stakes, proper character development and keeps things off screen that should be seen. For instance, we get to see the inner life of Gosling’s character Sebastian and the true heights of his passion for jazz, while Mia is simply just an actress. We never get to see her passion come to life. We see her struggle, but we never grasp why the struggle is worth it. When she puts up a one-woman show, we never get to see it. We never get an insight into who Mia is or what makes her an artist. It’s a flaw of the screenplay and one that keeps the film from reaching the levels of “masterpiece” that so many critics and fans have dubbed it as. There’s also that opening scene. What’s supposed to be a slam-bang introduction into the world we’re about to enter comes off like one of those late 90’s holiday Gap ads. What does keep the film together is Gosling. He’s the glue of the film and the final look he gives in the film is not only possibly the crowning achievement of his acting career thus far, but reason enough to make “La La Land” not simply a good film, but a great film.
When a genre film is done right, there’s sometimes nothing more pleasurable to watch. Sitting in a packed theater with friends, enjoying a slick, excellent piece of popcorn cinema that knows to wrap itself up in under 90 minutes. That’s what Fede Álvarez has done with “Don’t Breathe”. A lot of critics seem to be prejudice towards a well-made studio horror thriller, but what Álvarez accomplishes in “Don’t Breathe” is no different than what Jeremy Saulnier achieves in “Green Room”. While I admire “Green Room” more overall, “Don’t Breathe” is a well-oiled machine with top of the line sound work, picture editing and three central performances that are well above the genre standard. Jane Levy, the films lead and an actress who has to a considerable amount of dramatic heavy lifting, in particular gives a fully committed performance. It also packs a twist ending that’s not only unexpected but deliciously tasteless, over-the-top and pure fun. It’s an ending that leaves the audience in hysterical fit of laughter, disgust and edge-of-your-seat mania.
It’s been a truly remarkable year for documentaries. From political documentaries like “Weiner” to the ever timely “13th” from Ava DuVernay, it’s been a year where documentaries have truly shined and been more relevant than most narrative features. Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” focuses its attention on the work of writer James Baldwin, a political journalist and writer who spoke out against civil rights violations and atrocities in the 1960’s alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Peck uses Baldwins own words to guide us through a narrative that suggests Baldwins work was just as relevant then as it is today. We see an American culture fraught with racial bias then and now and see just how much things have not changed. It’s scary, thought-provoking stuff and like “13th”, essential viewing for every single American.
Yet another genre film — this one from the auteur Nicolas Winding Refn — that managed to overcome what could have been a fairly preposterous premise. Never being one for subtlety, nor should we want him to be, Refn uses an exploitative lens to tell the story of a young model trying to move her way up the ranks in the LA fashion world. Aided by Elle Fanning, who seems to be getting better and better as the years go on, and another iconic score by Cliff Martinez, Refn’s dark tale of beauty and the price we pay for it is oozing with sleaze and his trademark pitch black humor. Holding the title of one of the best endings in recent memory, “The Neon Demon” is the only cannibalistic, necrophiliac movie featuring a scummy Keanu Reeves performance you’ll ever need in your life.
“The Salesman” is the last film I watched on this list and one I haven’t fully digested yet. With time, it could place higher or lower, depending on how it sits with me over the next few weeks. Asghar Farhadi’s newest film is a nerve jangling thriller and also a quiet meditation on guilt and paranoia. Revolving around a couple, both actors, reviving Arthur Miller’s famous “Death of a Salesman” when an terrible incident causes major friction between the two of them. The film, like “A Separation” uses one major inciting incident to draw a complex tale of human error and the anger that can be spawned from one tragic moment. It’s extremely well directed, with every scene ratcheting up the suspense of a thriller while still remaining wholly grounded and human.
Every generation ushers in a new era of auteurs and exciting voices in cinema. The 70’s Golden Age gave us Scorsese, Coppola, Freidkin and many others that in turn influenced the 90’s boom of indie directors like Soderbergh, Tarantino and Wes and Paul Thomas Anderson. While there’s been directors like Bennett Miller, JC Chandor and Jeff Nichols emerging in the last 10 years or so with strong, distinct voices, a new director named Trey Edward Shults made one of the most electrifying feature debuts I’ve ever seen this year. Filmed over the course of 9 days on an incredibly small budget, using his own family as actors and his mothers home as the only location, “Krisha” is not only a revelatory debut but a fucking miracle for independent film in general. Watching the movie, you feel like you’re experiencing the first real debut feature of a director raised in the 90’s. His film is like the volatile love child of PTA and John Cassavetes with a hint of David Gordon Green’s loose Southern improv style thrown in for good measure. This is a film that not only announces a new voice in filmmaking but does so while being the prime example of “There’s no excuse not to make a movie.” Using all available resources and pulling from his own experiences, it’s personal, heart-shattering and cinematically adventurous stuff that should get any cinephile and aspiring filmmaker excited for the future of film itself.
Kelly Reichardt is one of the last remaining pioneers of the 90’s new wave of independent cinema that has remained true to her heart. Since her rugged, excellent Sundance debut “Rivers of Grass” in 1995, Reichardt has made small, intimate films about small, intimate lives. From “Old Joy” to the truly sublime “Wendy and Lucy” to this years little wonder “Certain Women”, Reichardt has continued to be one of the most singular voices in film. “Certain Women” tells three different stories about three very different women all connected by the small town they live in. But it’s the final story that truly knocks it out of the park. While following a lonely young woman (a beautiful turn by Lily Gladstone) who sparks a friendship with an out of town teacher (Kristen Stewart in the best work she’s ever done), “Certain Women” takes on a whole new life. In fact, watching the third act, I kept thinking how I’d love to see an entire film just about these two. But that’s what works so well about the film. By adapting Maile Meloy’s “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It”, Reichardt gives us small three small treasures. Each one unpacked ever so gently, each one a gift that haunts the viewer long after the film has ended. These are Reichardts true strengths as a director: her power to lure a viewer into an insulated world and send us out of the theater with our heads abuzz with ideas, wanting even more.
What happens when you take the sleaze of Brian DePalma, the surrealism of David Lynch and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock and throw them into a blender? Well, you end up with something closely resembling Tom Ford’s second directorial effort “Nocturnal Animals”. A moralistic thriller oozing with sleaze and pulp like something out of a Jim Thompson novel, Ford’s film is one that’s defined by its big moments. What truly works about “Nocturnal Animals” is the way it unnerves its audience with its extremely well-directed set pieces, like the one featuring Jake Gyllenhaal’s Tony as he finds himself being harassed on the side of the road by a group of small town sleazebags, led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a career best performance. What also works about “Nocturnal Animals” is Michael Shannon. An actor who can do no wrong in my books, Shannon moves through the movie with an air of confidence that’s unrivaled by his peers. While it’s Adams and Gyllenhaal that have to do a lot of the films heavy lifting, it’s Johnson and Shannon that make the biggest impression. They’re the heartbeat of the film, keeping it alive, exciting and surprising you at every turn.
All you really need to know about “A Bigger Splash” is that there’s an elongated sequence of Ralph Fiennes dancing to The Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue” and that it’s every bit as majestic as you would think. But there’s also the fact that Luca Gudagnino has directed a sumptuous, gorgeous movie featuring four fantastic central performances. One of those fantastic performances comes from the never not fascinating Tilda Swinton, who gives an almost entirely silent performance as an aging rock star who’s lost her voice. Swinton and Fiennes together are a thing of magic and their moments are bursting with passion and life. Their performances are perfectly in sync with one of the central themes of the film itself: passion. How passion drives us towards each other and away from each other, how it can destroy our lives and how it can better them. Whether it be passion for love or passion for art, Guadagnino’s film is concerned with the different roads our lives lead us down, all of which are driven by the central passion to live life to the fullest.
Sixteen years ago, David Gordon Green burst onto the filmmaking scene with his mini-epic of small proportions, “George Washington”, a film that captured this writers imagination and paved the way for a whole new generation of directors. Whether or not she was directly influenced by Green’s debut, Anna Rose Holmer’s narrative debut “The Fits” is a fitting heir to “George Washington”. Not since Green’s film have I seen such an audacious tale of adolescence. It’s a small film with a lot to say and what a poetic, lovely way Holmer decides to tell her story. Seen through the eyes of a young boxer (a hell of a debut performance by the incredibly named Royalty Hightower) who dreams of being on the dance troupe at her junior school, “The Fits” shifts seamlessly between coming of age story to something more akin to body horror when some of the girls on the dance team fall victim to epileptic seizures a.k.a. “The Fits”. The film is a delicate balance between those two plots and Holmer finds a way to not only bind them together in a beautiful way but also deliver a knockout of an ending — one that hasn’t left my mind since my first viewing.
“American Honey” is a near three hour epic about a group of young people in a van traveling through middle America selling magazines. More than half the film might consist of the ragtag group of youths singing hip-hop songs in the van. It absolutely should not work, yet it does. Andrea Arnold’s fourth feature is a pure head rush of a film. She’s able to capture that chaotic rush of being young and alive and in love with everything around you. It’s unwieldy and totally indulgent, but also bursting with energy and love for its characters and film itself. It’s a hyper-realistic journey into a forgotten America and the youths that hustle their way through a life with few promises and even less guarantees. When people are finding more and more reasons to turn away from film and embrace binge-worthy television, Arnold comes out with a three hour epic about lost souls that’s purely cinematic and probably the most explosive look at youth since Larry Clark’s “Kids” in 1995. It’s funny, pulsatingly alive and totally frustrating at times, but it sticks with you and leaves you in a daze. Not only that, it features the single best performance of Shia LaBeouf’s career and one that should prove anyone doubtful of his skills wrong. He’s the heart and soul of Arnold’s mini-epic and he gives one of the most unique and memorable performances of 2016.
Watching “Swiss Army Man”, music video veterans The Daniels’ feature film debut, I realized the power of the fart joke. Within the first fifteen minutes, I was in a hysterical fit laughing at what was essentially one neverending fart joke. I also realized the art of the fart joke. There’s an easy way to make an audience laugh at a fart joke (the “Austin Powers” movies) and then there’s the way The Daniels are able to win us over with a major plot point that revolves around a fart joke. Have I mentioned there’s fart jokes? But what makes “Swiss Army Man” so special and so unique is that the directors are able to take what could have been a gimmicky, infantile plot of a depressed man being guided back to life by a farting corpse and made it into a truly moving story of companionship and what it means to be alive. “Swiss Army Man” is about what makes us get up in the morning. What makes us care. What makes us seek out others in this unforgiving world. A man who has lost hope in the world and more importantly, in himself, is able to see the wonders of the world again through a man who is no longer living. On the surface, “Swiss Army Man” is a silly Sundance movie aimed to give us a good belly laugh, but beneath it’s clever exterior is a truly moving piece of cinema about the gift of life itself and how we forget about all its small wonders.
In another edition of Korean filmmakers fucking my shit up beyond repair, there’s Park Chan Wook’s gorgeous and totally bonkers “The Handmaiden”. A film that totally caught me off guard as far as what to expect. I haven’t watched any of Wook’s work outside of “Oldboy” so being unfamiliar with a filmmaker has rarely paid off as wonderfully as it has watching “The Handmaiden”. It’s truly a pleasure to watch a film that’s so gorgeously rendered, so wholly realized, so achingly romantic and so truly out of its fucking mind. The set design, the costumes, the cinematography, all of it so incredibly beautiful, it’d be a disservice to any cinephile not to consume this film immediately.
Pablo Larraín is a force to be reckoned with. Churning out two political biopics in the same year, Larraín made a name for himself in 2016 as the new auteur to watch. Having been unfamiliar with his work until finding myself absolutely floored by the groundbreaking “Neruda”, Larraín has now become my favorite new name in cinema, beside Denis Villeneuve. Both films have the same directorial DNA running through them, but couldn’t be more different in many ways. “Jackie” took me two viewings to come around to and by the second time, I was just as enthralled as I was watching his other 2016 effort. Playing like a ghost story, one about the fragmented memories we experience when we grieve, “Jackie” was a two-hander for Larraín and the simply astounding central performance by Natalie Portman. What Larraín is able to convey about grief in “Jackie” is something that Noah Oppenheim’s script only scratches the surface of. It’s a true case of a director rising above a perfectly fine screenplay and making it their own.
With “Neruda”, Larraín switches gears to something that resembles more a black comedy than political biopic. In fact, what’s so exciting about watching “Neruda” is watching Larraín rewrite not only the political thriller but the political biopic as well. Utilizing a fictional police officer played by Gael Garcia Bernal, in what ends up being the most surprisingly funny performance of the year, as a man tasked to track down the political poet Pablo Neruda, Larraín transports us to a world that feels like a fever dream. Shot as if we were entranced in some sort of a haze, “Neruda” is a testament to what a director can accomplish when they step outside the box and start thinking big. Both films are masterclasses and have helped Larraín make a major mark on the filmmaking landscape.
I’m of the belief that every film should be experienced in a theatre. If you can make it to a theatre and scarf up the money they’re charging these days or you get an invite to a screening, see the movie that way. There’s nothing like sitting back and keeping life’s distractions away for two hours while you let a story consume you. There’s also certain films that need to be experienced in a theatre. Not only in a theatre, but with an audience. “Green Room” is that movie. A film with “midnight screening” written all over it, Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to the 2013 thriller “Blue Ruin” is a punch to the gut. A film that’s designed to kick ass and take names. Pulsating with a moody ambient score and punk classics, “Green Room” buzzes along with an energy that’s quite simply contagious. The first audience I saw “Green Room” with was fully on board for the ride. Hooting and hollering at the screen, taking in every savory moment of violence and mayhem, the audience devoured “Green Room” the way it was meant to be. It’s visceral, exciting cinema and a film that solidifies Saulnier as a new master of the genre.
There are moments in Maren Ade’s new film “Toni Erdmann” that simply should not work, but they do. To even delve into those moments would be to take away from the pure magic that exists within the films 160 minute runtime. Yes, “Toni Erdmann”, a black comedy/drama about a lonely father trying to reconnect with his distant daughter, is 160 minutes long. I remember watching the film and asking myself at least once or twice, “Does this film need to be 160 minutes?” By the time The Cure’s “Plainsong” sends us on our way, I could safely confirm it was worth every single minute. “Toni Erdmann” is a film that totally sneaks up on you and has the power to transcend you. It’s a film so quiet and subtle at times, you hardly realize the magic it’s working on you. It’s a total knockout by Maren Ade and a film I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I first saw it.
It’s rare we get to see big budget sci-fi films that challenge us. Every year, we get an onslaught of films that are engineered to build a franchise. We get a new “Transformers” movie or we get a new “Star Trek” reboot and after a while, we’re left feeling numb from the 2 hours plus of mindless explosions and plot exposition. That’s not to say there aren’t simple pleasures to be found in watching Michael Bay destroy shit. There most definitely are.
Denis Villenueve, thankfully, is not that director. For the last few years, Villenueve has been making lean, intelligent and brilliantly well-crafted thrillers. Since his Academy Award nominated “Incendies” in 2010, he’s been a rare foreign director to cross over from adult minded fare to American genre pieces without delivering something like “Safe House”, for instance. With “Arrival”, he’s made his most thoughtful and well-crafted film yet. A film that couldn’t be more timely, “Arrival” deals with language and communication at a point in history where there seems to be barriers up between all of us. A story that values language and intelligence over forceful, violent action, “Arrival” has been released at a time where it couldn’t feel more valuable to our country and our world at large.
Everyday life can be monotonous. We get up, we make our coffee and eat our meals and go to our jobs and hope for the best. We try to be good to one another. We try to share our lives with others. We make art. We consume art. We go to bed. We get up and we try again. “Paterson” is a film about those small moments in our daily routine and everything in between. It’s quite simply about a week in the life of an ordinary man with an extraordinary gift. The beauty of Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson” is that it never becomes a tale of a gifted poet and his rise to success. It’s about the small wonders of everyday life and in doing so, it never has to become a story about a rise or fall. It’s simply about a man. A man living his life, loving his girlfriend, existing in his community, doing his best to love his bulldog and most importantly, a man who likes to write poetry. He writes poetry for himself and nobody else. It’s something so simple, yet we seem to never see it in cinema. A man who just exists to make art because it makes him happy. What “Paterson” is able to do by avoiding the cliché pitfalls of the artist story is nothing short of miraculous. It’s a film with small gifts and one that can break your heart and lift your spirits, much like life itself.
Some films are so special to us, conjure such raw feelings inside of us, that it’s almost difficult to write about them. “One More Time with Feeling” is such a beautiful, intimate piece of filmmaking to behold, words cannot describe what the power it withholds. It has the power to shatter you into a million pieces and have you walking out of the theatre a changed person. It’s that fucking powerful. It’s a staggering piece of cinema, a heartbreaking ode to passion and artistry and a beautifully existential look at grief and how it shapes us. Listening to Cave discuss everything from the grief itself to his own artistic endeavors is a treat for any viewer, even if you’re unfamiliar with Cave’s body of work. The film hits you like a dagger to the heart and leaves you reeling, leaving the theatre feeling like you’ve forever been changed. It’s not only a cinematic experience for the ages, but the single best use of 3D this viewer has ever witnessed.
There’s something about a Mike Mills movie that’s so soul soothing and warm. “Thumbsucker” got me through some rough teenage years, “Beginners” got me through my mothers death and “20th Century Women” might just help me get through the shit show that is 2016. A gentle, richly textured and simply sublime ode to mothers and women, Mills’ third film not only cements his status as one of the best new auteurs working today, but gives Annette Bening the finest role of her career. He’s able to capture a snapshot moment in a changing America while telling an intimate, delicate story of strong women and their often small battles with themselves, each other and the men who orbit around them. It’s a film that encourages love, understanding, empathy and empowerment. As someone who grew up with a strong, single mother, it made me remember a specific time in my life and the beautiful woman that raised me and made me into the person I am today. I’ve seen a lot of really beautiful and powerful films this year, but nothing has really made me want to live inside of it and relive it over and over again like “20th Century Women”.
When Casey Affleck utters the line “I can’t beat it. I just can’t beat it” in Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea”, your heart will burst into a million pieces. Affleck’s long been one of the most consistently fantastic and interesting actors working but not until “Manchester” has he truly gotten the proper vehicle to showcase the full potential of his power. This guy knocks every single moment of the film out of the park. His performance is so subtle, so powerfully moving, so unexpectedly funny and full of pain, it’s hard to imagine anyone topping his work this year. His portrayal of grief and depression is a towering achievement for an actor who’s already given some of the best performances of the 21st century. It’s nice to be reminded of great art and great work at a time this dark and Affleck’s achingly human and profoundly moving work in this film is something to be cherished. Sometimes the weight of the world and the mistakes we make can crush us and sometimes we can heal ourselves. Affleck’s performance and Lonergan’s creation will remind you of the fragility of being human at a time when it’s most needed.
What does it mean to be black in America? This is the question director Ezra Edelman asks us in his towering 8 hour masterpiece “O.J.: Made in America”. It’s been a revival year for the so-called trial of the century, with FX’s melodramatic but often watchable “The People v. O.J. Simpson” and now with Edelman’s ESPN documentary about the life and times of O.J. Simpson. What separates the two is that Edelman’s vision of the Simpson case goes far and beyond the trial. It’s not just about the theatrics and the way the media changed course during and after the Simpson trial. It’s about being black in America. It’s about how we view race. It’s about Los Angeles, a cultural melting pot that’s felt the scorn and prejudice of one of the most vile and corrupt police departments in the world. It’s about abuse and the terrible ramifications an abusive relationship can have not only one’s life but on the family and friends around them. It’s about football and how Americans worship athletes on a semi-religious level. “Made in America” is about so much, you would think it would overflow with ideas and yet it never does. It’s 8 enthralling, unforgettable hours chronicling one man’s life and the spiderweb effect his life and his crime had on so many other lives. It’s about how a city was forever changed and O.J. Simpson, a man who never once cared to speak up during the civil rights era of the 1960’s, became the new face of the civil rights movement in the 1990’s. It is rare that we get one masterpiece in a year, but Edelman’s magnum-opus and the number one film one this list are absolutely marvels of filmmaking and genuine masterpieces that will be looked at and appreciated for ages.
The way Ezra Edelman asks what it means to be black in America is the way Barry Jenkins asks us who we are. “Who is you?” asks Kevin (Andre Holland) in the penultimate sequence of Jenkins’ masterpiece “Moonlight”. Masterpiece is a word that gets thrown around quite a bit these days. In fact, masterpiece has always been a word that gets thrown around as if its true meaning meant nothing anymore. Last year featured over 25 films that were excellent and some of that ranked with the best of the decade so far, but none I could qualify as masterpieces. 2016 has given us not one but two masterpieces. Both about race, both about identity and both about very specific parts of the country. While “O.J.: Made in America” focused most of its attention on Los Angeles, “Moonlight” casts its eye on Miami. “Moonlight” is concerned with many things but identity, like many of the 2016 entries on this list, is the central theme. “Who is you?” What defines who we are? Is it the stories we tell ourselves? Is it the experiences that change us and alter our way? “Moonlight” tells the story of Little who becomes Chiron who becomes Black. Three different sides of one complicated, one deeply hurt man. A man who has felt the pain of adolescence, of an abusive mother, of bullies, of a first love and the crushing weight of life itself. “Moonlight” captures these different sides through three of the best performances of 2016. The emptiness of Alex Hibbert, the frailty of Ashton Sanders and the gentleness of Trevante Rhodes. Three performances so in sync and so utterly united by the world view of Barry Jenkins. Like Donald Glover’s similarly groundbreaking FX series “Atlanta”, you watch “Moonlight” and you’re gifted such an original vision, something so special, that it feels like you never have and may never will see anything quite like it again. It’s sad to see a film like “Moonlight” lose its attention to a film like “La La Land” in a landscape like 2016. Not that awards matter for merit, but it begs to question the very subjectivity of them. If we’re going to give awards and the best is so subjective, why not give them to the film that felt the most groundbreaking? The film that may pave the way for future storytellers. The film with a heart so big and so gentle and full of love. That film is “Moonlight”. It’s the film of the year, the film of the moment and the film of the future.
Other Favorites
There were at least a dozen other films that easily could’ve made this list in any given year. There was the action packed Peter Berg double feature of “Deepwater Horizon” and “Patriot’s Day” that proved Berg was a serious new name in action and in one particularly breathtaking sequence, a true disciple of Michael Mann. Speaking of double features, Jeff Nichols churned out two completely different, equally restrained and well-made features in the form of “Loving” and “Midnight Special”.
Antonio Campos returned with the cold and blackly funny look at Christine Chubuck in “Christine” featuring one of the best performances of the year from the highly underrated Rebecca Hall. Los Angeles received the love letter it deserves in the Jonathan Gold centric “City of Gold” from Lara Gabbert. Mike Birbiglia magically pulled off a film about the improv world that almost too realistically covered the perils of success in “Don’t Think Twice”.
Martin Scorsese delivered his 20 year in the making “Silence” and while it was problematic for me and 45 minutes too long, it’s still a film worth cherishing and marveling over. Two very different black and white shot mini-wonders arrived in the form of “Blue Jay” and “The Eyes of My Mother”, both of which were wonderful debuts. J.A. Bayona proved his big budget skills with the moving monster parable about grief, “A Monster Calls”. There was also the neo-western “Hell or High Water” featuring the best Jeff Bridges performance in 20 years, Chris Kelly’s touching Sundance dramedy “Other People”, the Casey Affleck/Woody Harrelson led early year surprise “Triple 9” and two highly entertaining comedies in the form of Richard Linklater’s “Everybody Wants Some!!” and Nicholas Stoller’s superior sequel “Neighbors: Sorority Rising”.
Best Director
Maren Ade, “Toni Erdmann”
Ezra Edelman, “O.J.: Made in America”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Pablo Larraín, “Jackie”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”
Best Actor
Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
Adam Driver, “Paterson”
Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
Shahab Hosseini, “The Salesman”
Peter Simonischek, “Toni Erdmann”
Denzel Washington, “Fences”
Best Actress
Amy Adams, “Arrival”
Annette Bening, “20th Century Women”
Krisha Fairchild, “Krisha”
Rebecca Hall, “Christine”
Sandra Hüller, “Toni Erdmann”
Ruth Negga, “Loving”
Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
Gael Garcia Bernal, “Neruda”
Ralph Fiennes, “A Bigger Splash”
Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”
Shia LaBeouf, “American Honey”
Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals”
Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, “Fences”
Greta Gerwig, “20th Century Women”
Lily Gladstone, “Certain Women”
Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”
Molly Shannon, “Other People”
Kristen Stewart, “Certain Women”
Best Original Screenplay
Mike Birbiglia, “Don’t Think Twice”
Guillermo Calderón, “Neruda”
Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, “Swiss Army Man”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Mike Mills, “20th Century Women”
Best Adapted Screenplay
Seo-Kyung Chung & Park Chan-Wook, “The Handmaiden”
Tom Ford, “Nocturnal Animals”
Eric Heisserer, “Arrival”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Kelly Reichardt, “Certain Women”
Best Foreign-Language Film
“Cemetery of Splendor”, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
“The Handmaiden”, Park-Chan Wook
“Neruda”, Pablo Larraín
“The Salesman”, Asghar Farhadi
“Toni Erdmann”, Maren Ade
Best Documentary Film
“13th”, Ava DuVernay
“City of Gold”, Laura Gabbert
“I Am Not Your Negro”, Raoul Peck
“O.J.: Made in America”, Ezra Edelman
“One More Time with Feeling”, Andrew Dominik
“Weiner”, Josh Kriedman & Elyse Steinberg
Best First Film
“The Eyes of My Mother”, Nicholas Pesce
“Krisha”, Trey Edward Shults
“Kubo and the Two Strings”, Travis Knight
“Other People”, Chris Kelly
“Swiss Army Man”, The Daniels
Best Original Score
Brooke Blair & Will Blair, “Green Room”
Nicholas Brittel, “Moonlight”
Johann Johanson, “Arrival”
Mica Levi, “Jackie”
Roger Neill, “20th Century Women”
Best Cinematography
Sergio Armstrong, “Neruda”
Stephane Fontaine, “Jackie”
James Laxton, “Moonlight”
Sean Porter, “20th Century Women”
Robbie Ryan, “American Honey”
Bradford Young, “Arrival”
Best Film Editing
Bret Granato, Maya Mumma & Ben Sozanski, “O.J.: Made in America”
Julia Bloch, “Green Room”
Tom Cross, “La La Land”
Joi McMillan & Nat Sanders, “Moonlight”
Joe Walker, “Arrival”
Best Art Direction
Dante Ferretti, “Silence”
Helina Gebarowicz, “Jackie”
Jonathan Guggenheim & Adam Willis, “Loving”
Chris Jones, “20th Century Women”
Seong-Hie Ryu, “The Handmaiden”
Best Costume Design
Madeline Fontaine, “Jackie”
Sang-Gyeong Jo, “The Handmaiden”
Jennifer Johnson, “20th Century Women”
Linda Muir, “The Witch”
Mary Zophres, “La La Land”
