MoonlightHello, there.
Boy, I sure have been gone for a while, haven't I? Last time I was here, Donald Trump's campaign was mostly considered an entertaining circus and not a real winner, several beloved celebrities who have since passed away were still among us on this Earth, and various pro-sports teams had yet to hilariously blow 3-1 series lead. But, anyways, I'm back and with the long-delayed list of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2016.
The rules and criteria for being on the list is pretty much the same as in years past. The difference is that, once again, the amount of top-ten lists that I chose was expanded. For the year 2016, 400 different lists were chosen. Many of these lists came from U.S. based critics, although critics and publications in the U.K., France, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and even Iran were chosen, too. Because lists from different nations were chosen, we once again saw certain movies from the 2015 list make re-appearances from critics who hadn't gone around to seeing them until they made 2016 premieres in their home country.
Overall, the year's top choices weren't that suprising to those who kept up with the festival circuit as well as some of the more notable year-end polls (Village Voice, Indiewire, etc). Also, as with years past, a lot of familiar greats returned to strut their stuff, while some newer and previously obscure directors decided to take their talents up to a higher stratosphere. Some of these films will be treated less favorably over time; others much moreso. Some of these will likely develop into cult classics; others will likely be films that time forgot. At the very least, for a brief December/January window in time, a few handful of film reviewers decided to recognize their artistic and cultural merit.
Because you've all been so patient, I decided to not post the two-part countdown this time around and begin right with the highest placers:
1. MOONLIGHT (dir: Barry Jenkins)
2036 points
For the first time since 2013's 12 Years a Slave, the year's Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards was also the top finisher on this site's aggregate list. Featuring great performances from the likes of Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris, a tight script and much lauded-about cinematography, Barry Jenkins' arthouse hit explored three stages in the life of gay black man living in South Florida. The film merited a ton of praise from critics worldwide, racking up appearances in roughly 68% of the top ten lists used for 2016 (Manchester by the Sea was the second-most prominent with appearance on 49% of the lists), as well as a leading 92 no.1 spots (the next closest was La La Land with 44).
2. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (dir: Kenneth Lonergan)
1325 points
Kenneth Lonergan doesn't usually come out with a new directorial effort, but when he does, you can usually bet that it's a good one. You Can Count on Me was arguably the best movie of 2000, while Margaret earned such a devoted following among critics in 2011 that they launced a #TeamMargaret campaign on Twitter in order for Fox Searchlight to release it to the public. In 2016, Lonergan delivered once more with an Oscar-winning script about a grief-stricken New Englander (played by Casey Affleck, who also won an Oscar with his performance) forced to take care of his nephew (Lucas Hedges) following the death of his brother (Kyle Chandler).
3. LA LA LAND (dir: Damien Chazelle)
1258.5 points
The year's Best Picture winner at the Oscars for a brief two minutes stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as two young artists trying to get by in Los Angeles. This is already the second time that the 32 year old Chazelle has appeared on the list's top-five following Whiplash's #5 spot in 2014. In January 2017, it also picked up the Golden Globe award for Best Musical or Comedy.
4. TONI ERDMANN (dir: Maren Ede)
871 points
The critical sensation at 2016's Cannes Film Festival (breaking the Screen Jury Grid's ratings record in the process), this nearly three-hour long German comedy tells of the tumultuous relationship between a businesswoman (Sandra Huller) and her play-acting father (Peter Simonischek). The film is Ede's second feature, and the highest-placing for a female director on this list since Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty grabbed the top spot in 2012.
5. ARRIVAL (dir: Denis Villeneuve)
811 points
For the second straight year, a Villeneuve movie breaks into the top-ten. Last year, it was Sicario (which placed at #9). This year, it's the even-higher finishing Arrival, based on the short story by Ted Chiang. Will Villeneuve's hot streak continue in 2017 with Blade Runner 2049? Come back in 2018 to find out!
6. HELL OR HIGH WATER (dir: David Mackenzie)
654 points
Speaking of Sicario, the writer of that film (Taylor Sheridan) has also had another one of his movies crack the top-ten for the second straight year. In his case, it's his other scripted venture Hell or High Water (a movie in which he also played a minor role in). Directed by Starred Up's David Mackenzie, it featured Chris Pine and Ben Foster as two Texas brothers robbing banks in order to pay off their parents' land.
7. O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA (dir: Ezra Edelman)
626 points
Alright, so let's get this straight: this "movie" is not really what you would traditionally call a movie. Sure, it played in a few L.A. theaters for a couple of weeks in the spring, and it was honored with the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but this eight-hour documentary series will mostly be known to people as a TV series that aired back in June 2016 on ESPN as part of their 30 for 30 series. Then again, with the rise in Netflix and with more-movies being released to VOD and theaters on the same day, I suppose that our conception was a movie even is anymore is about to change as much as the concept of "television" has been the previous five years.
8. PATERSON (dir: Jim Jarmusch)
607 points
Another beloved movie from Jarmusch, this time about a Paterson, New Jersey bus driver (Adam Driver) who also dabbles in poetry.
9. ELLE (dir: Paul Verhoeven)
594.5 points
The Dutch director of such dramas as Showgirls and Basic Instinct returned to cinema with a new shocker. Starring the legendary Isabelle Huppert in her first-ever Oscar-nominated role, it centers on a video game developer living in Paris who gets involved in a quest to find the man who had raped her in her home.
10. THE HANDMAIDEN (dir: Chan-wook Park)
574 points
2016 was a decent year for Korean cinema in this poll, with appearances of such acclaimed filmmakers as Sang-soo Hong and Sang-so Yeon. However, none of them came close to touching the latest from the director of Oldboy, a delightful and twist-filled drama about a poor woman (Kim Tae-ri) asked to help grift a noblewoman (Kim Min-hee) in the era of Japanese-occupied Korea.
11. THE LOBSTER (dir: Yorgos Lanthimos)
419.5 points
This film has already appeared in this poll back in 2015, finishing at #69 thanks to a well-received Cannes screening and an in-year premiere in the U.K. Such a high-ranking gave the assumption that Lanthimos' English-language debut would also be treated warmly in 2016 by more critics as it made its North American premiere. Its high-placement on this debut proved the assumption correctly.
12. CAMERAPERSON (dir: Kirsten Johnson)
370 points
In the past, Johnson has been the cinematographer of various documentaries. In 2016, she came out with a movie showing deleted scenes from several of them, analyzing the purpose of her craft as well as all the aspects that makes cinema so important.
13. JACKIE (dir: Pablo Larrain)
366.5 points
2016 was a good year for Larrain. The Chilean director, who was previously known for the drama No (appearing at #62 on the 2013 countdown), came out with two movies in this year, each of them making it onto the top 100 (only Jeff Nichols was able to achieve the same feat). The higher of the two on the list is this biographical look into the life of Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman), set during the weeks following the assassination of her husband, John F. Kennedy.
14. AMERICAN HONEY (dir: Andrea Arnold)
344 points
Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes (her third), Arnold's latest has newcomer Sasha Lane star as a teenager who travels across the American heartland with an eccelectic group of misfits in order to sell magazines.
15. CERTAIN WOMEN (dir: Kelly Reichardt)
331 points
A quiet drama centering around three different women living in Montana. This movie marks the second time this decade in which Reichardt finished with a top-15 placement, following 2011's Meeks Cutoff (which also appeared at #15 on that year's ranking).
16. SILENCE (dir: Martin Scorsese)
278.5 points
What a shock: Another well-liked Scorsese drama! It's almost as if this man is one of the best filmmakers still alive today.
17. THE VVITCH: A NEW ENGLAND FOLKTALE (dir: Robert Eggers)
278 points
Ranked as the year's most acclaimed feature from a first-time director, The Witch wowed critics from its premiere at Sundance 2015, thanks to its brutal vision of life in 17th Century Massachusetts.
18. EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! (dir: Richard Linklater)
277.5 points
Boyhood absolutely crushed this list back in 2014 in a way which made it impossible for Linklater to top. That being said, it's not like his 2016 follow-up was a big letdown either. Considered to be the "spiritual sequel" to his beloved '90s cult comedy Dazed and Confused, the movie was an entertaining look into the weekend of an incoming college freshman (Blake Jenner) enjoying time on his new baseball team before school began. This movie marks a remarkable fourth time in five years in which a Linklater joint appeared in the top 30, following Boyhood's #1 spot, Before Midnight's #5 spot in 2013, and Bernie's #30 spot in 2012.
19. LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (dir: Whit Stillman)
262 points
An adaptation of Jane Austen's unpublished novel Lady Susan as told through the wit expected out of the director behind Metropolitan.
20. 20th CENTURY WOMEN (dir: Mike Mills)
231.5 points
Annette Benning stars as the matriarch of the Fields family in this autobiographical work from the director of Beginners (ranked #16 in 2011) that also features Greta Gerwig as a thirty-something artist and Elle Fanning as the female friend of the lead character, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann).
21. GREEN ROOM (dir: Jeremy Saulnier)
229.5 points
Saulnier has appeared on this list before, finishing at #37 in 2014 with his directorial debut, Blue Ruin. Now, he returns with an even more acclaimed follow-up about a punk rockers who attempt to escape from a bar operated by a bunch of neo-Nazi skinheads. The film features Patrick Stewart as the head skinhead, as well as Anton Yelchin in one of the final roles before his untimely death.
22. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
218 points
A bizarre sleeping illness infects a group of Thai soldiers in this meditative and heavily political drama from the beloved director behing the Palme d'Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (both #43 in 2010 and #18 in 2011).
23. THE FITS (dir: Anna Rose Holmer)
208.5 points
An 11-year old (Royalty Hightower) struggles to get along with a dance troupe after she becomes the latest member. Clocking in at 72 minutes, this debut feature by Holmer is the shortest to make it onto the list in 2016.
24. SING STREET (dir: John Carney)
204 points
A coming-of-age musical drama centering around a young Irish boy that sets up a punk rock band in order to gain the affection of a girl he has a crush on.
25. LOVING (dir: Jeff Nichols)
197 points
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton star as the famous Virginia couple who, in the 1960s, helped make interracial marriage legal across the United States.
26. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (dir: Raoul Peck)
192 points
A documentary on the life of James Baldwin, as told by archival clips and written pages of his unpublished memoir (read by Samuel L. Jackson). The movie had a lot of love by U.S. critics in 2016, and it even got nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. However, for many other critics, the movie had yet to be released to them until early 2017, so expect to see this make a re-appearance (perhaps while also being ranked in the top 30).
27. NO HOME MOVIE (dir: Chantel Akerman)
184.5 points
The film world said goodbye to the great Belgian director in 2015 after it was reported that she had committted suicide. No Home Movie represents her final output as an artist, in which she has a series of conversations with her mother, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camps during World War II.
28. 13th (dir: Ava DuVernay)
174.5 points
The director of Selma (ranked #8 in the 2014 rankings) goes the documentary route with her latest (released on Netflix in the fall) as she explores the effects of the mass incarceration of African-Americans since the mid-20th Century and the legacy of slavery's abolishment in the U.S. following the Civil War.
29. HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (dir: Taika Waititi)
171.5 points
In 2014, Waititi co-directed a vampire mockumentary with fellow New Zealander Jemaine Clement that earned itself a #60 spot on 2015's list. His latest venture, about an old man (Sam Neill) and his young foster child who spend time in the wilderness in order to fend off child services that are trying to separate them, was a solo effort and a more effective one (based on the higher placement in this year's list).
30. THINGS TO COME (dir: Mia Hansen-Løve)
160 points
Hansen-Løve continues to develop a following among cinephiles with perhaps her most beloved work yet, about the happenings in the life of a philosophy professor (played by Isabelle Huppert, her second appearance in the top thirty).
And now, here is the list of the remaining seventy in this year's top 100, presented without commentary due to me simply not wanting to.
31. WEINER (dir: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg)
159 points
32. KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (dir: Travis Knight)
150.5 points
33. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS (dir: Tom Ford)
150 points
34. AQUARIUS (dir: Kleber Mendoca Filho)
141.5 points
35. FENCES (dir: Denzel Washington)
139 points
36. ZOOTOPIA (dir: Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Rich Moore)
137.5 points
37. KRISHA (dir: Trey Edward Shults)
132 points
38 (tie). A BIGGER SPLASH (dir: Luca Guadagnino)
131 points
38 (tie). HAIL, CAESAR! (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
131 points
40. THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN (dir: Kelly Fremon Craig)
129.5 points
41. DEADPOOL (dir: Tim Miller)
122 points
42. RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN (dir: Sang-soo Hong)
120 points
43. SULLY (dir: Clint Eastwood)
117 points
44 (tie). EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (dir: Ciro Guerra)
116 points
44 (tie). THE LOVE WITCH (dir: Anna Biller)
116 points
46. I, DANIEL BLAKE (dir: Ken Loach)
115 points
47. THE NICE GUYS (dir: Shane Black)
114 points
48. FIRE AT SEA (dir: Gianfranco Rosi)
108 points
49. THE NEON DEMON (dir: Nicolas Winding Refn)
106 points
50. KNIGHT OF CUPS (dir: Terrence Malick)
97 points
51. CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (dir: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)
93 points
52. TOWER (dir: Keith Maitland)
87 points
53. HAPPY HOUR (dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
86 points
54. HACKSAW RIDGE (dir: Mel Gibson)
82 points
55. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (dir: Jeff Nichols)
81 points
56. CHEVALIER (dir: Athina Rachel Tsangari)
74.5 points
57. KAILI BLUES (dir: Gan Bi)
74 points
58. ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (dir: Gareth Edwards)
73 points
59. MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (dir: Jia Zhangke)
72.5 points
60. NERUDA (dir: Pablo Larrain)
69.5 points
61. JULIETA (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
68 points
62. LITTLE MEN (dir: Ira Sachs)
67.5 points
63. MOANA (dir: Ron Clements, John Musker)
62.5 points
64. CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (dir: Matt Ross)
62 points
65. LEMONADE (dir: Kahlil Joseph, Beyonce Knowles-Carter)
60.5 points
66. MY GOLDEN DAYS (dir: Arnaud Desplechin)
60 points
67. HIDDEN FIGURES (dir: Theodore Melfi)
59.5 points
68 (tie). CHRISTINE (dir: Antonio Campos)
58.5 points
68 (tie). SON OF SAUL (dir: Laszlo Nemes)
58.5 points
70. SWISS ARMY MAN (dir: Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert)
55 points
71. MUSTANG (dir: Deniz Gamze Erguven)
54.5 points
72. SUNSET SONG (dir: Terence Davies)
54 points
73. COSMOS (dir: Andrzej Zulawski)
52 points
74 (tie). 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (dir: Dan Trachtenberg)
51.5 points
74 (tie). SPOTLIGHT (dir: Andrew McCarthy)
51.5 points
76. DON'T THINK TWICE (dir: Mike Birbiglia)
50 points
77. LION (dir: Garth Davis)
49 points
78 (tie). THE INVITATION (dir: Karyn Kusama)
48 points
78 (tie). TRAIN TO BUSAN (dir: Sang-ho Yeon)
48 points
80 (tie). A MONSTER CALLS (dir: J.A. Bayona)
46 points
80 (tie). THE RED TURTLE (dir: Michael Dudok de Wit)
46 points
82. KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (dir: Robert Greene)
45.5 points
83. THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER (dir: Brady Corbet)
44.5 points
84 (tie). THE JUNGLE BOOK (dir: John Favreau)
44 points
84 (tie). WIENER-DOG (dir: Todd Solondz)
44 points
86. OUR LITTLE SISTER (dir: Hirokazu Koreeda)
43.5 points
87. THE OTHER SIDE (dir: Roberto Minervini)
42.5 points
88. AFERIM! (dir: Radu Jude)
41.5 points
89. PETE'S DRAGON (dir: David Lowery)
40.5 points
90 (tie). ANOMALISA (dir: Charlie Kaufman)
40 points
90 (tie). SIERRANEVADA (dir: Cristi Puiu)
40 points
92. DE PALMA (dir: Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow)
38.5 points
93. GLEASON (dir: Clay Tweel)
38 points
94. TICKLED (dir: David Farrier, Dylan Reeve)
37 points
95. THE TREASURE (dir: Corneliu Porumboiu)
36 points
96. THE SALESMAN (dir: Asghar Farhadi)
35.5 points
97 (tie). EVOLUTION (dir: Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
35 points
97 (tie). FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS (dir: Stephen Frears)
35 points
97 (tie). TIL MADNESS DO US PART (dir: Bing Wang)
35 points
100. POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (dir: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone)
34 points
I promise that I will return in January with a traditional top 85, two-parter. If I feel like it, I might come back in the few days with a list of near-misses as well as the critics lists selected. Or, not. It's not like I'm obligated to do any of this.
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