2016 Films of the Year

[Panayot Hitov]

Every other medium gets a thread, why not film?
(Haven't seen La La Land, Arrival, Moonlight, Cameraperson, No Home Movie, etc.)
My Favorite films:
Toni Erdmann - Too good. I got a chance to see this in Lebanon, and it's finally out in the US. Go see it!
Green Room
Certain Women
Weiner
Manchester by the Sea
Elle
Aquarius

Best Director: Maren Ade
Best Actor: Casey Affleck
Best Actress: Sonia Braga (Aquarius) -Oulaya Amamra (Divines) and Isabelle Huppert (Elle) are also very good.
Supporting Actor: Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Supporting Actress: Lily Gladstone (Certain Women)
Other good movies: Hell or High Water, The Handmaiden, Divines, American Honey

Wild Cards: I really enjoyed the title sequence of Divines, with all the snapchat videos. The music selection in Aquarius is amazing. Black Terry vs. Wotan is my westling match of the year.

Other cool movie things: I was very fortunate to live in Beirut during the fall, home to the best cinema in the world, the Metropolis. The $1-2 pirate DVDs were also v cool.

[vengefulsweatermensch]

I HAVEN'T SEEN: Toni Erdmann, Elle, Silence, Moonlight, 20th Century Women or Hell or High Water yet, so this is all subject to change.

Film of the Year: Manchester by the Sea. This felt like a lackluster year in film, domestically at least (I don't get down to the arthouse much). That said, this is the best and most accurate film I've ever seen about grief. It's bleak, hopeful, absurd in different places, sometimes all in the same messy moment. Casey Affleck does good work as the tormented tough-guy lead, but the real star here is Lucas Hedges, playing his charismatic asshat nephew/orphan ward. Director Kenneth Lonergan's static framings might strike some people as pretentious or repetitive - these people are right! - but in this case I think they complement the subject matter nicely.

I was also impressed by (in no particular order): Arrival, La La Land, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Hail, Caesar! I was disappointed by Everybody Wants Some and The Lobster. Sausage Party made me laugh a lot, especially during the "literal food orgy" scene.

Director of the Year: If Denis Villeneuve is the second coming of David Fincher, and Fincher is the second coming of Alfred Hitchcock, than Villeneuve is like, what, Hitchcock's French-Canadian spiritual grandson? With Arrival, Villeneuve proves he's able of emulating Spielberg and Kubrick, too. Arrival drags at the end, sure, but few films manage to balance science, thrills and emotion with such ease. (It's the love letter to popular science Interstellar was supposed to be). I'm expecting great things from his upcoming Blade Runner reboot.

[Martin-Baker Mk.5]

Some films I enjoyed: Hell or High Water, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Manchester by the Sea, Deadpool.

Overrated: Arrival, Don't Think Twice

My Personal Favorite: Swiss Army Man: This was an extremely odd film, but it worked very well for me. It was not negatively emotional in the vein of other good films on my lists, but there was a great feel and emotion in the direction and acting, which was brilliant, especially from Radcliffe. I can understand why it is so polarizing, but I for one enjoyed it immensely, and it is one film that I would buy on DVD.

Best Actor: Casey Affleck
Best Actress: Amy Adams (almost by default)
Best Supporting Actor: Bridges
Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams, I guess
Best Director: Lonergan

[Charm Bison]

A preliminary list, because there's still a ton of stuff I haven't seen.

#1 is definitely La La Land. Just...I adore everything about this movie. The songs, the cast, the characters, the score, the costumes, the cinematography, the editing, the setting, the colors...everything. The soundtrack has been stuck in my head for a month. Damien Chazelle followed up on his immense promise from Whiplash and delivered an unforgettable movie musical

#2 is then Manchester by the Sea. Its mix of incredibly sad and depressing moments with a nice dose of humor really worked for me, especially when the actors are this good. Casey Affleck says so much about his character's emotions with just his gestures (especially in his big climactic scene which I won't spoil here), Michelle Williams just tears your heart out in her limited screen time, and Lucas Hedges makes himself one to watch with his performance as Patrick.

#3? I'm not really sure. So far, I've seen a bunch of pretty good films this year, but not as many that were really great. Stuff that was pretty good, in no particular order: Hail, Caesar!, Sully, Fences, Deepwater Horizon, Sing Street, Everybody Wants Some!!, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Don't Think Twice, 10 Cloverfield Lane. You could probably pick any from that list. Films I expect to leapfrog all of those once I see them: Moonlight, Arrival, Hell or High Water, Jackie, maybe Silence or Hacksaw Ridge.

Awards so far:

Best Picture: La La Land
Best Director: Damien Chazelle
Best Actor: Casey Affleck
Best Actress: Emma Stone
Best Supporting Actor: Alden Ehrenreich in Hail, Caesar! (Would that it t'were so simple)
Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis
Best Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea
Best Adapted Screenplay: Fences, basically by default

[Charm Bison]

Adding this because I just thought of my #3: Ezra Edelman's sprawling, jaw-dropping, eight-hour documentary O.J.: Made in America. I don't know what prompted Hollywood to catch OJ fever again this year, but we're all the better off for it, with one of the best TV series of the year going along with this film. It gets points for not only how comprehensive it is in evaluating both OJ Simpson's life and the circumstances surrounding him, not just for the wide range of interviewees they got (Marcia Clark, Mark Fuhrman, F. Lee Bailey, Jeffrey Toobin, Carl Douglas, a few of the jurors, Gil Garcetti, the list goes on), not for how stunning some of the footage they got their hands on is (especially in the last episode), not even for how relevant it still is today, but because it becomes one of the only films this long to hold your attention the whole damn time. It's an incredible work of filmmaking, hard to even propose, much harder to pull off. But Edelman did it. And we are all grateful.

[Panayot Hitov]

Best Adapted Screenplay: Fences, basically by default

I think that The Handmaiden deserves this. I don't think that Fences changes much from a staged version (which definitely was a good move by Denzel, but isn't really worth awarding), and The Handmaiden managed to move a film from Victorian England to Occupied South Korea very effectively. Meanwhile, you should really see Divines if you haven't yet, it's on Netflix, it's great, and Amamra should get lots of recognition for her role. She is still really young, but she was amazing here and really good in a short I saw her in, Mariam.

[Frater Taciturnus]

A few quick thoughts:

• I would definitely agree with this being a down year for "prestige" cinema (with the caveat that Silence and Toni Erdmann as far as I can tell haven't made their way here), but I am legit shocked that no one in this thread has mentioned Loving yet.
• Did anyone else go see Miss Hokusai?
• I really came away with the impression that Race, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Florence Foster Jenkins, Kubo and the Two Strings, and The Nice Guys all got severely underrated (I think we only did like 35 total showings for Popstar because nobody went to go see it).
• Hail, Caesar! probably should have gotten more acclaim, but I got a sense that audiences didn't really get the humor.
• I think the thing that really stood out to me is that so many of the animated "family" movies this year were actually...good. Sing, Moana, Trolls, and Storks all came out at the tail end of the year, and earlier in the year, Kubo, Finding Dory, and Zootopia all received very solid reviews.

[Charm Bison]

I haven't seen The Handmaiden, so I didn't list it. That slot will probably be filled by Moonlight.

[vengefulsweatermensch]

A few quick thoughts:

• I would definitely agree with this being a down year for "prestige" cinema (with the caveat that Silence and Toni Erdmann as far as I can tell haven't made their way here), but I am legit shocked that no one in this thread has mentioned Loving yet.
• Did anyone else go see Miss Hokusai?
• I really came away with the impression that Race, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Florence Foster Jenkins, Kubo and the Two Strings, and The Nice Guys all got severely underrated (I think we only did like 35 total showings for Popstar because nobody went to go see it).
• Hail, Caesar! probably should have gotten more acclaim, but I got a sense that audiences didn't really get the humor.
• I think the thing that really stood out to me is that so many of the animated "family" movies this year were actually...good. Sing, Moana, Trolls, and Storks all came out at the tail end of the year, and earlier in the year, Kubo, Finding Dory, and Zootopia all received very solid reviews.

I forgot to mention The Nice Guys - loved that! And I liked Zootopia a lot, too. It's the best neo-noir marketed at children since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

I'm liking people's posts so far, so here's a question to stir the pot: what was the best scene of the year? I liked Sausage Party's "food orgy," the opening credits of Deadpool, Jackie's first assassination flashback, the Back to the Future homage music video/dream sequence from Sing Street, and the last 10 minutes of La La Land.

[merv1618]

I don't get to the movies that much, but a wonderful film from last year nobody's brought up yet is A Man Called Ove (Swedish, dir. Hannes Holm).

[Panayot Hitov]

I'm liking people's posts so far, so here's a question to stir the pot: what was the best scene of the year? I liked Sausage Party's "food orgy," the opening credits of Deadpool, Jackie's first assassination flashback, the Back to the Future homage music video/dream sequence from Sing Street, and the last 10 minutes of La La Land.

The Whitney Houston scene fromToni Erdmann, the magic world scene in Dr. Strange, and the ending of Aquarius were all really really good. I'm a sucker for dinner party scenes, so I really liked the dinner party in Elle too.

As for animation, I haven't seen enough this year, but I really liked Finding Dory.

[women, fire and dangerous things]

Sophia Takal's Always Shine has a scene near the beginning which plays with and then undermines the audience's expectations in a really neat way, which I won't spoil.

There's a brief conversation between Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck near the end of Manchester by the Sea which is unbelievably painful to watch, and incredible.

The beginning and end of Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids are pretty cool.

[Charm Bison]

I also totally forgot The Nice Guys.

Best scenes? The opening of La La Land, the ending of La La Land, the two big back-to-back flashback scenes in Manchester by the Sea (don't want to spoil them), the "Drive it Like You Stole It" scene from Sing Street, any scene with the brother from Sing Street, the forty-five minute stretch of O.J.: Made in America where they discover the murder, the "Would that it t'were so simple" scene in Hail, Caesar!, any scene with K-2SO in Rogue One, the plane crash in Sully, and the rig explosion in Deepwater Horizon. Fun year.

[Sam]

I don't get to the movies that much, but a wonderful film from last year nobody's brought up yet is A Man Called Ove (Swedish, dir. Hannes Holm).

A Man Called Ove was a semi-big deal in Minnesota, and the director visited Minneapolis for its premiere here. There was an interview with the director on MPR that ended with this anecdote:

Holm said he heard tales of the wonders of Minnesota while growing up in Sweden. So he was delighted to switch on the TV in his hotel room to see a weather forecast delivered by someone named Sven Sundgaard.

[Muriel Axon]

I found Hail, Caesar! annoying.

I enjoyed Love & Friendship. It was a very superficial movie -- not in a negative way, but in the literal sense that it's really all about the one-liners and slapstick, not anything deeper. Gorgeous costumes, too. Whit Stillman came to the Twin Cities for a screening, so that was fun.

Fences and Zootopia were really good. La La Land and Moonlight were fine. That concludes the list of movies I saw that came out in 2016.

[Frater Taciturnus]

You've got to be kidding me.

[UlyssesInvictus]

You've got to be kidding me.

What was your issue with the noms? Other than maybe the snub for Amy Addams, and the even-more-overwhelming love of Hollywood for itself than usual evidenced by the La La Land noms, it's pretty much as expected.

[AKKOLADE]

No women directors have been nominated since 2009. Only one woman writer was nominated this, Allison Schroeder, who was nominated with a man.

[ValenciaQBowl]

I didn't see Florence Foster Jenkins (and probably won't--just doesn't seem that interesting to me), but does Meryl just have a permanent nomination or what? I mean, she's got three statuettes and a million nominations; can't they just let her slot go to someone else this year?

[Charm Bison]

I'd just like to mention that the phrase "Oscar nominee Suicide Squad" is now valid.

[Panayot Hitov]

The Oscars would be SO much better if they made an attempt to have one of the nominations for every category be a wild-card "historically underrepresented" thing (women, POC, foreign, first-time, small-budget, etc.). Some awards do things like "best first feature," which would be great. I'm not asking the Oscars to be something it has never been, a ceremony to honor the best in world film each year. It can keep on being the infomercial for Hollywood it has alwaays been, but it would be nice if AMPAS used its platform to promote some undersign-but-amazing films/actors/writers/editors etc.

[The Story of a Head That Fell Off]

I'd just like to mention that the phrase "Oscar nominee Suicide Squad" is now valid.

Do you mean: Oscar winner Suicide Squad?

Also: Congrats to La La Land for winning Best Picture for 2 minutes!

All jokes aside, glad to see Moonlight getting recognition (La La Land was still good though)