These Might Be the Best Films of 2016

It' s that time of year again: the doldrums of mid-January, in which I finally get around to naming the best films of the previous year, mere weeks after the real critics have published their lists and moved on.

My list, as always, is preceded by a self-deprecating preamble where I explain that I saw only a fraction of the 2016 films that serious and/or professional critics took time to view. (A grand total of 77, as of this weekend.) Also, I remind you that the list of films I see is shaped both by my personal tastes and the rigors of my work schedule; as such, it generally excludes anything excessively violent, anything produced by the Marvel franchise, or anything that was in-and-out of theaters in two weeks or less, especially if those two weeks coincided with a looming work deadline.

On the other hand,  the fact that I'm not obligated to see the many, many crap movies released in a given year means that the ones I do see are carefully curated to ensure maximum viewing value.  So the list you're about to read might, in fact, be the best films of 2016. You've already seen almost all of these on 'real' critics' lists. There won't be many surprises here.

A couple of quick notes about eligibility:

To be on my "Best" list, the film must have been released in the Chicago area for the first time sometime during the 2016 calendar year, whether in theaters or via home streaming.  By this criteria, the following 2015 films were under consideration for this year's list: 45 Years, Anomolisa, The Revenant,  Son of Saul. (SPOILER: None of them made it.)  It also means that some films showing up on other "Best of 2016" lists will be considered for my 2017 list: Silence, Hidden Figures, Toni Erdmann, 20th Century Women, Neruda, Paterson, Things to Come.

The other criterion for eligibility is, of course, that I had to actually see the film.  I ran out of time, opportunities, or (in a couple of cases) inclination to see all of the following: Loving, Elle, Arrival, Green Room, Nocturnal Animals, Hacksaw Ridge, The Handmaiden.

The good news?  There was a whole lot of great film to be enjoyed in 2016 - so much so that I decided to do a "Fifteen Best" list this year, rather than the traditional "Ten Best."

In ascending order of preference, those films are:

15. Everybody Wants Some! (Richard Linklater)

Linklater's easygoing campus comedy takes place over a late August weekend in 1980, following the members of a Texas college baseball team as they settle into a ramshackle shared house, party, chase girls, smoke weed and play ball.  It's atmospheric and meandering, rather than heavily plotted, but it captures the mood and spirit of the times damn near perfectly (as I can well attest, having been a college senior myself at that time). To my great shame, I have never seen Linklater's Dazed and Confused, so I can't make an intelligent comparison to his well-loved high school comedy.  But I greatly enjoyed this one on its own terms.

14. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)

When I first saw The Lobster in the theater, I was so overwhelmed by its bleakness and cruelty that I almost wished I'd never seen it.  But I couldn't get it out of my head. I've since watched it two more times via home streaming; the smaller screen (and access to a fast-forward button for one particular sequence of animal abuse) made the bleakness more bearable and enhanced the subtle brilliance of the deadpan, jet-black humor.  In this oddball dystopian tale, single people are rounded up and taken to a remote hotel where they have 45 days to find a mate or else be turned into a animal of their choosing. If you (like me) are a single person, you'll especially appreciate how Lanthimos finds the absurdities in society's disapproving take on the unattached and cranks them to a lunatic nth degree.

13. Allied (Robert Zemeckis)

A superbly crafted World War II romantic thriller that feels old-fashioned in all the right ways. It channels Casablanca and a little of Alfred Hitchcock, yet never feels entirely derivative.  The less you know about the plot and its twists going in, the better; it sweeps you up and away into its narrative with classic storytelling and gorgeous cinematography.  Rush to see this while you can still find it on a big screen. It's glowing, glamorous opening scenes set in wartime Casablanca won't be nearly as dazzling on your TV.

12. Little Sister (Zach Clark)

A bittersweet comedy of family heartache and healing with a few surprises.  A badly burn-scarred Iraqi war veteran returns home; his sister (a former Goth teenager turned Catholic nun) comes to visit and helps to bring him back to life.  Set in 2008 against the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, the film's political themes are underdeveloped, but its unsentimental depiction of family quirks and conflicts is perfectly tuned. I especially liked that the young sister's religious devotion was depicted respectfully and without comment. As in his 2013 film, White Reindeer (which also made my "year's best" list), writer/director Zach Clark skillfully blends genuinely moving moments of human connection into the most outrageous scenes.

11. Hail Caesar! (Joel and Ethan Coen)

The Coen's love letter to early '50s studio filmmaking takes scattershot aim at a whole lot of targets (Communists, musicals, Biblical epics, studio meddling in the morals and private lives of its contracted actors) and culminates in a heartfelt, if barbed, appreciation of the magic that comes from it all.  Alden Ehrenreich steals the film as the young cowboy actor being uneasily shoehorned into a sophisticated comedy. An extended sequence of him on a date with an up-and-coming actress is a particularly sweet digression from the hi-jinks.

10. 13th (Ava DuVernay)

DuVernay's powerful, damning documentary examines a little-remembered qualifying clause in the 13th amendment and how it's been used to keep institutional racism alive.  She lays out a carefully assembled, multi-faceted case. (Hell, she even gets Newt Gingrich to make some of her points on camera.) An important film for anyone to see - and a particularly enlightening one for anyone who doesn't fully understand or believe in white privilege.

9.  Little Men (Ira Sachs)

Writer/director Ira Sachs continues to make intensely moving personal drama about New Yorkers at the mercy of their city's ever less affordable real estate market. (See also his 2014 film Love is Strange.) The close friendship between two  boys - one is a dressmaker's son, the other is the son of the dressmaker's landlord - is severely tested when the dressmaker's rent is raised higher than she can possibly afford.  It's gentle and sad, and not a single character is portrayed in black-and-white terms. Sachs, the most generous and sensitive of filmmakers, shows us neither villains nor tragic heroes - only flawed, decent humans struggling to make the best of a bad situation. Heartbreaking and sweet in just the right proportions, with the tiniest bit of satire just to keep things from sinking into bathos.

8.  Sing Street (John Carney)

No one captures the infectious joy of making music quite like John Carney (who previously brought us Once and Begin Again). In his best film yet, Carney focuses on aspiring young musicians in mid-1980's Ireland who write songs inspired by Duran Duran and meet after school to play and shoot videos.  It's a feel-good film with a healthy, leavening dose of reality, effectively capturing the excitement of a cultural moment as well as the economic desperation that led many young people to leave Ireland for England. There's a nicely played romance in the mix and, of course, lots of very enjoyable music.

7.  Krisha (Trey Edward Shults)

The story template is familiar: a long-absent recovering addict returns to the family fold for Thanksgiving, where's she's handled with everything from kid-gloves kindness to indifference to outright hostility.  What distinguishes this film is its uncanny way of putting us inside Krisha's head as she navigates a minefield of family conflict with ever-increasing anxiety.  Director Trey Edward Shults cast his real aunt Krisha in the title role, and himself and his relatives as her family members; they bring an unsettling naturalism to the proceedings.

6.  A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino)

Like Guadagnino's previous film, I am Love, this is a decadent and sumptuous watch. It verges on being travel magazine porn with scenes of characters languishing around a pool and savoring freshly made cheeses and freshly stirred daquiris in an exotic island setting. I'm not immune to the charms of ogling beautiful people enjoying beautiful things; I'd watch this over and over just to see Ralph Fiennes' exuberant dance to the Stones' "Emotional Rescue"  on a lazy, sunny afternoon. But Guadagnino adds subtle layers to his remake of the equally decadent French film La Piscine by setting it on Panetelleria Island - off the coast of Sicily and within sight of Tunisia, smack in the path of refugees heading toward Europe.  Those refugees play a minor role around the edges of the gorgeous, privileged life depicted here, but their desperation casts a shadow over the beautiful people's story as it edges towards tragedy. As you would expect, Tilda Swinton - playing a rock star whose recent throat surgery has rendered her speechless - gives a stunning performance, even without words.


5. Sully (Clint Eastwood)

A no-fuss depiction of heroic action, with Tom Hanks rather brilliantly portraying Captain "Sully" Sullerson as a man who simply did what needed to be done in the moment. The highly fictionalized drama that Eastwood makes out of the investigations follwing the celebrated "Miracle on the Hudson," sometimes seems a bit forced.  But his minute-by-minute recreation of the crash and subsequent rescue is a breathtaking piece of cinema, the kind which literally keeps you on the edge of your seat even though you know how it's going to come out.

4. OJ: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)

This has the unusual distinction of making both this list and the number 2 spot on my "Best Binge Watches of 2016," since it was also shown on television.  As I said on that other list, it's "a masterful, nearly 8-hour documentary that exhaustively examines race and celebrity in America through the prism of O. J. Simpson's rise and fall. Simpson's story plays like Greek tragedy. Director Ezra Edelman shapes a mountain of material and interviews into riveting drama, the television equivalent of a great book that you can't bring yourself to put down.  Interestingly enough, this five-part TV series has landed on most critics list of the year's 10 best films, and is short-listed for the Best Documentary Oscar.  And deservedly so. I'm going to predict, here and now, that it will win that award."


3. Jackie (Pablo Larrain)

Among the many things this film does to brilliant effect is to capture the fragmented mental state of a woman struggling to process her own trauma while taking care of business for her family and her country.  That's not to trivialize the horror or the historical impact of JFK's assassination itself, because Jackie certainly makes those things clear; in fact, it concurrently captures the fragmented and frightened state of the entire nation with equal brilliance. Natalie Portman's canny, finely calibrated performance gets at both the steeliness and the vulnerability beneath the First Lady's flawlessly composed patrician exterior. Larrain approaches a frequently depicted historical event from a fresh and original perspective and gives it renewed relevancy. (Some passages in which Mrs. Kennedy ponders the nature of truth and whether it is contained in the written words of a news story feels all too relevant to our current times.)That's no small achievement.

And then ... we skip to first place, which is a TIE, because... don't make me choose...

1. TIE - Moonlight (Barry Jenkins) and La La Land (Damien Chazelle)

Two very different films: both are equally masterful, and both seem like the films we most needed in the tumultuous, contentious year just past.

Moonlight is a beautiful, poetic, emotionally shattering coming-of-age drama of a young, gay, black man growing up in the projects of South Florida.  It's a linear narrative, but one that communicates most powerfully through images and wordless sequences (the motion of water beneath and around the boy as he learns to swim, the sensation of his free hand digging into beach sand as he embraces and kisses another boy for the first time.)  These scenes have an intimacy and emotional resonance that nearly breaks your heart.

There's a welcome subtlety and an unforced impact to the revelations in Moonlight, particularly when its young protagonist realizes that the neighborhood man who's become a badly needed father figure to him is also the dealer supplying his crack-addled mother.  The moment is heart-stopping, yet we're left to let the process the significance of that for ourselves.

Given our current political climate, it's no stretch to worry that stories like Moonlight might be suppressed in the near future, but that's not the only reason to celebrate it. It is a stunning cinematic achievement in its own right - and would be so at any time.

La La Land is a bit of an escape, yet I would argue it is no less emotionally resonant and no less needed.  The recent backlash against its heralding as the second coming of the Hollywood musical was both predictable and misguided.  Make no mistake, La La Land makes many conscious references to the great musicals of the Vincent Minelli/Stanley Donen heyday, but let's not kid ourselves - that heyday is never truly coming back. It was a product of its own time, one that this film looks back on with admiration and longing but was never going to fully re-create. Besides, La La Land owes as much, if not more, to the bittersweet and modest charms of Jacques Demy's Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort as to the MGM masterworks.

I never minded that the song-and-dance talents of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were serviceable, but hardly dazzling; that's entirely in keeping with the Demy influence. (Although, truth be told, I did wish that someone had coached Stone on the proper technique for belting before she recorded her eleventh hour solo number. There's a bit more involved than just yelling the lyrics.)

Damien Chazelle infuses La La Land with a spectacular visual beauty that underscores its themes of yearnings for love, for times and art forms that are passing away, for success and artistic fulfillment. That the film builds to a bittersweet climax in no way dashes the hopefulness that drives its narrative.  And hope is something badly needed now.