TOP TEN 2016

Other Top Ten Lists.

Every time a year ends we try to tie a bow around what that year meant to us. We do this through top ten lists, editorials, retrospectives, lists of dead celebrities, timelines, and even the assigning of personalities to the year we just lived through. This year, the dominant narrative seems to be that 2016 is a killer, a sociopath, a ruthless tyrant. It's easy to feel like a victim of the worst of times.

We must remember that 2016 is only what it is--a number on a calendar. Every year has peaks and valleys, and demonizing 2016 only has the effect of dispelling responsibility. 2016 didn't do this to us; glacial cultural forces did this to us. Social movements that have their roots going back decades, even centuries. Some of them are obvious, while some lurk beneath the surface.

Art helps us realize how we got to where we are today, and how we might get to where we want to go in the future. Films like Green Room, Moonlight, and Arrival can teach us how to fight, how to live, and how to come together. Sometimes they feel incredible, prescient, like they predicted the climate in which they would be released. That's the job of a powerful artist: to see the roots.


2016 was a poor year for summer blockbusters. As such, my top ten list will look especially eclectic. In times past, big movies have been able to tap into something elemental in the populace, something that captures the collective imagination. 2016's wide releases have only seemed to inspire divisiveness (Captain America: Civil War), fandom aggression (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), or an outright outpouring of blatant sexism (Ghostbusters). Hollywood seems to have temporarily lost its way in a morass of fan service and guileless manipulation. Hopefully it is only the nadir of a new cycle. In the words of the brilliant Guillermo del Toro via his twitter feed:

When I started in the 80's, 90's and on, iconoclastic stories were needed to fight complaciency [sic] and status-quo and superficiality. I feel that now with darkness and despair around us, we need unironic, rebuilt, Neo-classic humanity. With monsters, of course. When I speak of values I don't mean social mores and convention. Just backbone ethics of good. Things that make us better humans.

Stories shape reality, and what our reality desperately needs is for us to enter a post-postmodern era of earnestness, thoughtfulness, and passion. Every year hundreds of brilliant artists come together to make films with heart and soul. This list is a celebration of those films.

First, some films I missed that could have figured into my top ten:

Moana, The Fits, The Little Prince, Swiss Army Man, The BFG, Pete's Dragon, Lion, Toni Erdmann, 20th Century Women, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Weiner

And a few awards for the less-inspiring movies I watched this year.

Untoward Awards

Most Disappointing: Jason Bourne
Most Inane: Nocturnal Animals
Most Nonsensical: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Most Generic: Arq
Most Infuriating: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Most: The Mermaid

Can't Remember: Jason Bourne

Most Improved: Ouija: Origin of Evil
Sophomore Slump: Finding Dory

Kindred Spirits: The Conjuring 2 + Ouiji: Origin of Evil
Kindred Names: The Girl on the Train + Train to Busan

Best Names:
3. Silence
2. The Wailing
1. The Neon Demon

Worst Names:
3. 10 Cloverfield Lane
2. Ouija: Origin of Evil
1. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Worst Superhero: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Worst Adaptation: The Girl on the Train
Worst Sequel: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Worst: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Honorable Mentions

Don't Think Twice - This was the last and most difficult to cut from my list. Mike Birbiglia is the stand-up comic behind one of my very favorite comedy specials (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend), and now he's made one of my favorite movies of the year. It may be that a year in the Philly improv community has biased me, or it may be that this is an airtight, dramatically satisfying dissection of a niche American comedy subculture. My Review.

Kubo and the Two Strings - Having not seen Moana or The Little Prince, I can't say for sure whether Kubo is the best animated film of the year, but it sure feels like it must be. Much of this movie is unspeakably beautiful. My Review.

La La Land - I'm no friend of musicals, but La La Land is too charismatic to ignore. My Review.

Ouija: Origin of Evil / Hush - Mike Flanagan is swiftly becoming established as an unheralded genre filmmaking genius. This year saw the release of two Flanagan films, both of which take strict narrative limitations and turn them into crackling premises. In Hush, Flanagan makes a compelling, convincing thriller out of a deaf woman being terrorized by a home invader. Even more impressively, in Ouija: Origin of Evil, Flanagan makes a prequel to one of the worst horror films in recent years, and in doing so tells the tragic story of a single mother and her two daughters. My Review of O:OoE.

Captain America: Civil War - Maybe it's superhero fatigue, or maybe my tastes are changing, but Civil War is the only superhero story I've been able to muster up any excitement over since... Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe? It's excitement well-earned. Civil War takes the impossible task of rounding out Cap's trilogy with an Avenger's sized cast of characters, and somehow manages to make the results sharp and fun. My Review.

Silence -

Manchester by the Sea - In my time on this earth I have been fortunate enough to avoid major tragedies. I'm sure that's why Manchester didn't hit me harder. Even with my distance from the subject matter, it's still apparent to me that Manchester is one of the more powerful and unflinching examinations of grief to be found. I fully expect to someday return to this movie, ready to be emotionally demolished. My Review.

Into the Inferno - Ever since I was a child I've been obsessed with natural disasters. The power and majesty of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes... we live in a world of small things, so the enormity of an unfeeling natural disturbance can take on a naked religious quality. That's Werner Herzog's approach. Although the narrative spun here is fractured, it comes together as a thematic exploration of the way different cultures have tapped into the power of nearby volcanoes for their own religious or political purposes. It is incredible and devastating to behold.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople - Taika Waititi is one of the funniest people making movies. His movies are precise, brutal, violent, hilarious, humanist, and above all delightful. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a coming-of-age story that handily clears all those bars.

I watched 46 movies released in 2016. Here are my top ten.

ALTERNATE. The Handmaiden / The Wailing / Train to Busan

By ALTERNATE, I mean that any of these three films could easily make my top ten list in any number of positions. Rather than cheating, I'm choosing to think of this as an opportunity to point out how incredible Korean cinema was this year.

Train to Busan is a case study in heartfelt, economical screenwriting. It's also a fast-paced horror movie that continually tightens the vicegrip on its audience. The stakes are through the roof, but no matter how bleak it gets, the film never forgets to emphasize the meaning of self-sacrifice and the pitfalls of capitalist self-interest.

The Wailing is a crypto-religious horror thriller set in and around a Korean village and its lush jungle environment. This may be my favorite of the three. What begins as an offbeat horror comedy slowly transforms into a crushing metaphysical tragedy.

The Handmaiden is probably the best movie of the bunch. Park Chan-wook (Snowpiercer, Oldboy) has got to be one of the more interesting directors in the world. This film is no exception; a tense, erotic, psychological thriller that plays out in several timelines from several perspectives, the intricate layers of The Handmaiden could only have been achieved by an absolute master of the craft.

I realize that it's not entirely fair to group a triad of movies together just because they issue from the same country, but although the subject matter is wildly different, each of the three films shares the quality of being gripping from the first frame to the last.

10. Jackie

You were at the center of it all. It's impossible to have perspective. I assure you, it was a spectacle.

One of the most wide-ranging and critical ideas we can learn about the world is this: the personal is political. Every action you take has some political repercussion, every piece of art has political meaning. That concept is built into the DNA of Jackie, a movie that couldn't be less interested in either the minutiae of the American bipartisan system, or the dominant mythological narrative of our historical figures. Rather, Larraín and company are interested in the folks who construct those mythologies through their actions. Larraín's Jackie Kennedy is a thoughtful and circumspect mythmaker, and Jackie is a monumental psychological study of the forces behind the forces that shape our nation.

Original Score: 9
My Review.

9. Elle

I killed you by coming here.

Nobody does cinematic satire that bites quite like Paul Verhoeven. His films can be enjoyed or deplored on multiple levels. Elle is something different, something beyond that, maybe an evolutionary next step for the nearly octogenarian filmmaker. Elle transcends satire to exist in a realm of quasi-realism that manages to simultaneously intensify and elide whatever satire is happening beneath the surface. To put it differently, it's a movie that functions as an icy commentary on so many aspects of gender and sex in modern society, and yet remains impossible to pin down into any singular interpretation. It also features Isabelle Huppert in a masterfully inscrutable performance that is exactly as powerful and ambiguous as the movie built around her.

8. Moonlight

In moonlight, black boys look blue.

There exists a tremendous lack of movies about the black experience in America that don't have to do with slavery or servitude. Moonlight fits that bill in the most spectacular of ways. It also functions as a coming of age story, an exploration of sexual development, an examination of intersectionality, a deep psychological study, and a wildly risky and successful formal experiment. The film exists in three chunks, set years apart from each other, with three different actors playing the role of protagonist Chiron. For the film to unfold as beautifully and seamlessly as it does requires an outstanding talent behind the camera, and Barry Jenkins pulls it off with aplomb.

7. The Mermaid

So humans are evil. But...

Stephen Chow has made a career of directing kung fu comedies with hilarious CGI elements, like 2004's classic Kung Fu Hustle. If you haven't heard of his new film, you can entirely blame its botched American release--it broke records for being the highest-grossing film ever in China. With The Mermaid, Chow has taken his kung fu comedy model and exploded it into an incredible melange of genres. You could call it a... romantic comedy action drama? Look, it's hard enough making a decent movie that adheres to the constraints of a single genre. Mashing tones together, especially juggling different tones from scene to scene, becomes exponentially more complex. You look to masters like Spielberg for tonal balancing like that. But then something like The Mermaid comes along, a film that shifts tones wildly from scene to scene, or sometimes moment to moment. You'll be in a love scene, take a lengthy detour for a world-class gag, then find yourself in a breathless action scene followed by an emotional gutpunch. It's insane, and it's so funny that I found myself doing something I haven't done since I was a child: rewinding segments just to see the same gag over again.

6. Green Room

It's funny. You were so scary at night.

Green Room was one of the three most intense moviewatching experiences of my year (up there with Lights Out and The Neon Demon). On the surface, it's a simple thriller about a young punk band trying to escape captivity in a venue owned by white supremacists. Yet the real worth of a movie comes not from its content, but how it goes about communicating that content, and Green Room communicates exceedingly well. Every shot in this film is geared towards ratcheting up the tension, explicating the stakes, and making you feel just as trapped and helpless as the protagonists. Every new plot development exists in a rich tapestry of cause and effect. Jeremy Saulnier is both a ponderous and potent maker of thrillers, yet somehow his ponderousness never interferes with his potency.

Original Score: 9
My Review.

5. The Invitation

I'm so glad you're here. We have a lot to talk about. So much to say tonight.

Continuing the trend of whip-smart indie horror films, as well as the trend of female filmmakers making a name for themselves in genre fiction, Karyn Kusama delivers a masterpiece in The Invitation. The less said about the film the better. One could easily read much of it as a straight-up drama about persevering through everyday life in the wake of crippling loss. But there is an ethereal Hitchcockian tension surrounding the dinner party that our protagonist attends. An eerie discomfort. A creeping anxiety. Even as the plot mechanisms are finally unveiled, it never feels forced because the true meat of the film lies in that lead-up. Haven't we all experienced social gatherings where we've suspected smiling faces to be masks hiding something more sinister?

4. The Neon Demon

You know what my mother used to call me? Dangerous.

I think of top ten lists as an organic relationship between my favorite films, and what I consider to be the best films of the year. If I made a list fueled purely by favoritism, The Neon Demon would probably top it. I have been in director Nicolas Winding Refn's pocket ever since I was one of the few people to adore Only God Forgives. Admittedly, much of his talent would be wasted were it not for his partnership with composer Cliff Martinez. This is one of my favorite working relationships in film. Refn's bombastic visuals and Martinez's synthy heaven/hellscapes are inextricable from each other. The result is mesmerizing beyond compare. If you were to read the screenplay you could probably pick it apart, but especially in this case the audiovisual manifestation of the movie is the movie.

Original Score: 9
My Review.

3. Arrival

If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?

In a time of rampant xenophobia, Arrival may be the most important movie of the year. An alien invasion story that plays out more like a meeting of the minds than a mustering of might, Arrival achieves that greatest of storytelling tricks: providing a simple message in a fresh and endlessly complex package.

Original Score: 9.5
My Review.

2. The Witch

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Cinema has the power to transport us to other worlds. The best films do this in their own unique way, just as the worst films exist in a boilerplate version of a reality we've seen a hundred times before. The Witch shares the trait with my number one film of being a story that really transports its audience. We follow a family that has been excommunicated from their colonial civilization, and their lives get a whole lot worse once they are stuck in the woods with each other. The film has so much on its mind concerning religion, faith, family, and the nexus between them. It has a lot to say about God and the Devil, Good and Evil. It explores the themes of culture and counterculture. But most of all, it is one of the most dang unsettling things I have ever seen.

Original Score: 9.5
My Review.

1. The Lobster

The code grew and grew as time went by and within a few weeks we could talk about almost anything without even opening our mouths.

Admittedly this was the first time I made one of these lists without a clear-cut number one in mind. That shouldn't take away from The Lobster's fire, though. The film is utterly captivating. Meticulous like a deranged Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos spins a yarn of perverse magical realism that feels at once inventive and believably lived-in. He brings Kafkaesque absurdism to the realm of romantic relationships. The Lobster is another one of these genre-defying anomalies, a dramatic, comedic, dystopian anti-fable. Although I spent a great deal of my life underappreciating him, this film is more proof that Colin Farrell is one of the best in the business when guided with a sure directorial hand. He leads a cast of odd, disaffected washouts in this parable about love and ennui in the era of not giving a shit.

It's a miracle when hundreds of artists not only deliver their best possible work, but do so in perfect communion with the work of each of those other artists. That's what great movies need in order to exist, and The Lobster exemplifies that miracle.

Original Score: 9.5
My Review.