Best Movies of 2016

My theater-going was as pathetic as it's ever been in 2016. I can only think of one movie I saw that wasn't a comic book adaptation or Star War. Luckily though, a lot of great looking movies were available for rental or streaming before I had to put this together. There's still plenty of stuff that released late in the year I need to see, but this is a darn good selection of movies.

Best of 2016

10. Rogue One


Gareth Edwards seems to be a divisive director; opinions were split on Godzilla, and they're similarly all over the place on the first Star Wars spin-off. I liked it quite a bit though. Beyond the frequent unnecessary callbacks and cameos of characters and bits from earlier movies and obvious seams from what seems like quite a lot of rewriting and reshooting, it's a well-made sci-fi war movie that takes the series in a different direction. It's designed to fit into a small gap in the story, to answer a question that didn't really need answering. There's so many things that could have been handled differently, and it's easy to question if the movie should even exist. But hell if I didn't like the characters and feel for their plight. It's interesting and daring and goes places you would never expect a billion dollar franchise to go. I felt strongly about it in a way that I didn't about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was slickly entertaining but just missing a little something.

9. Hail, Caesar!


It seems like this will come to be known as a minor film in the Coen brothers canon, but for the most part even their mild successes are really good movies. It's easy to watch it and come away wondering whether it really had a point, but I think what the plot lacks in aim it makes up for in how it gets to the conclusion. It's the Coens' homage to and satire of golden age Hollywood, and it's packed with great performances by an amazing cast of both Coen veterans and newcomers, with several hilarious scenes that belong in any discussion of the brothers' comic brilliance. It also has an interesting central question about the value of doing what you love balanced against the value of getting paid fairly for your work. Also, the new Han Solo is in it.

8. The Nice Guys


It seems crazy to me that this is only the third movie Shane Black has had the opportunity to direct. He wrote several action movies in the late 80s and early 90s that helped revitalize the buddy cop genre, and since then has only made two excellent crime/action movies starring Robert Downey Jr. and this. Luckily he has a few more projects on the horizon. The Nice Guys is the ultimate homage to L.A. crime fiction, taking place in the smog-and-porn fueled 1970s and pitting its two main characters in a wonderfully mundane life-or-death struggle against the auto industry and federal bureaucracy. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are both outstanding, the script is tight, clever, and funny, and the action is smartly low-key and punchy. They really don't make them like this anymore.

7. Sing Street


I didn't see this until the day before I'm posting this, and I'm glad I did, because it's nice to have something so happy breaking up the general misery of this list. Sing Street is about a teenage boy in 1980s Dublin who goes to a new Catholic school and starts a band to impress a girl. Some of the characters seemed kind of thinly drawn, but the primary relationships between the boy and the girl and between him and his older brother are handled extremely well and drive the whole story. It's funny and sweet while not ignoring some of the hardships that come with being a teenager, and not being sure who you are, and not being able to fix the things that the grownups around you have broken. Also, the original songs are generally really good and the editing and direction of the musical sequences is really clever.

6. Swiss Army Man


Paul Dano, having been trapped on a desert island for weeks, is about to hang himself. Daniel Radcliffe washes up on the beach. Thrilled by the chance for human contact, Dano rushes over and examines him, but he appears to be dead. The corpse farts. It continues farting, with increasing intensity. It won't stop. With a stroke of inspiration, Dano pushes Radcliffe's body into the water and mounts him. The farting propels them forward in the water, and Dano smiles with joy as he rides Radcliffe like a jet ski off into the sea as triumphant music swells. So begins one of the most charming and unusual movies I've ever seen. Its tangible weirdness and humor help sell a story that at its core questions why we don't speak honestly about the simple, stupid things that make us all the same.

5. The Invitation


The Invitation is a classic sort of thriller that maintains a high level of tension throughout, though we don't know if anything's really going on until the final act. It's largely about grief and how people find different ways to deal with it. The main character goes to a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife and her new husband, a wife he lost after their son's death pulled them apart. Going back to the house they shared and seeing her, and not understanding how she is able to process her grief in a way that seems foreign to him, helps sell his suspicions, and keeps the ambiguity going until it finally breaks and you see what it's really all about. I was already enjoying the movie a lot, but the final scene elevates it even higher. I don't want to oversell it, but I think it's honestly one of the best endings to a movie of all time.

4. The Witch


It seems crazy that this is anyone's first film. A bit less crazy when Robert Eggers worked in theater before making this, but still he has such a command of images and sound and how they work together. It's like he was born to do it. The Witch is a colonial horror story about a family that moves to an isolated spot in New England after a disagreement with their church (how hardcore do you have to be to be kicked out by the Puritans?) and finds themselves terrorized by supernatural forces living in the woods. The movie is extremely dedicated to its period setting, with natural lighting, severe accents, and archaic dialogue straight out of primary sources. Fans of more explosive horror movies might not find it to their liking, but it does an incredible job of building dread and terror out of small gestures and quiet moments that just aren't quite right. And the movie doesn't shy away from the real shit; if you're afraid that it's just psychological horror where nothing really happens, rest assured: the title isn't lying.

3. Captain America: Civil War


Yeah, guess what, I liked a Marvel movie. What can I say though? The studio knows how to do big budget crowd-pleasers better than anyone else. If you're interested in story, I think it has a lot to say about the importance of accountability versus the value of being able to get things done in a complex modern society. The fact that I was witness to or participated in several real world conversations where people disagreed vehemently on that central topic tells me they did a good job. And they justify having characters who've known each other for years become divided enough to come to blows without the whole thing falling apart. On a more surface level, Marvel's casting continues to be excellent, the movie's funny when it wants to be, and the action is top notch. I'm impressed with how the Russo brothers can balance the violence with the other stuff, and how they can have so much variety within the fights themselves. The tense apartment/stairwell scuffle where Cap's desperate to prevent Bucky and a squad of riot police from killing each other is very different from the airport brawl, which is the most direct expression of comic books at their indulgent and entertaining best ever committed to screen. I'm confident the next Avengers movie is in good hands.

2. Green Room


Between this and Blue Ruin, which I also saw last year and loved, I think Jeremy Saulnier knows how to use violence for shock and impact without diluting its value or meaning better than almost anyone. Green Room is about a punk rock band that gets trapped in the green room of a neo-Nazi club after accidentally witnessing a crime, and that sounds like it could be really cheesy, but it's fucking brutal. It works because of the great economy and attention to detail on display. Every character has a purpose, every knife or bullet or cell phone is important, every death hurts or is a triumph. At times it's hard to watch, but it's also hard to look away in case you miss something. There are several great recognizable actors in the cast, but thankfully their fully on board with what the movie is and just do their jobs instead of being distractions. It's one of the decade's great horror films.

1. Hell or High Water


David Mackenzie has made several movies in the past, but I haven't seen any and don't know much about him. That just made it more fun when I watched this and loved just about every minute of it. Chris Pine and Ben Foster are a pair of mismatched bank robbers, targeting a specific chain in rural Texas and working towards some specific goal. Jeff Bridges is the Texas Ranger in charge of the investigation and who is, of course, very close to retirement. The three performances are great, Bridges' in particular, and the movie's a blast to watch, frequently laugh-out-loud funny and featuring several solid, tense robbery/chase scenes. At the same time, the movie has a lot on its mind, particularly the slow wasting away of small town America as the country becomes more corporatized and wealth is redistributed from the many to the few. It's never very blatant about it, but this is the backbone that makes the whole story work and makes every enjoyable movie moment seem more real and important. This is a problem we'll be dealing with for a long time, probably for the rest of my life. I expect there's only going to be more movies like this.

Delayed Entry

This is the best movie that wasn't released in 2016 but I didn't see until then.

Close-Up

I had a bunch of really good candidates for this, so I decided to highlight the one that it's least likely anyone reading has seen. Close-Up is from Iran, and is a very strange production that combines authentic footage of a real fraud trial with narrative scenes recreating the story, starring the actual people involved with the case. The result is a hybrid of documentary and traditional film, and the layers get even deeper with the fraud involving a man impersonating a well-known Iranian filmmaker. Pulling apart the truths from the lies is fascinating, and it's always interesting to look at movies made in parts of the world you're less familiar with, and see how they're often very different from and very similar to your own at the same time.

Best Movies of 2014

I know this was a really good year for movies because there's several I know I need to see that I haven't yet, and a flawed but very interesting Christopher Nolan film still didn't make the cut. It was a good year for both huge blockbusters and smaller auteur movies, and when both of those happen there's a lot to enjoy.

Best of 2014

10. Godzilla


People complain that the human characters in this movie are boring, and that there's not enough action. To the first complaint, I'd say that I enjoyed watching a big disaster movie where the people actually acted like people, working together with what little information they had to take on an unfathomable threat, and that it's perfectly in keeping with Kaiju tradition for the people to be less interesting than the monsters. To the second, I'd only ask if YOU SAW THAT FUCKING SCENE AT THE END? HOLY SHIT.

9. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes


After Tim Burton's remake seemed like it buried the Apes franchise, it was a surprise when Rise of the Planet of the Apes turned out to be a good, well-considered new take on the concept. That meant the poorly-titled Dawn came with more expectations, but I thought it met them pretty solidly. The human characters are a bit eh, which is a bummer when the whole movie is about how both sides of a war have their good and bad points. But the ape scenes in this movie are so good that they made up for it. Andy Serkis and the rest of his mo-cap friends do a tremendous job bringing the developing ape society to life, and Matt Reeves did great work balancing the quieter moments with some tense action. Actually looking forward to the third movie in a reboot of a decades-old campy sci-fi series.

8. Locke


Locke features Tom Hardy driving a car down the highway in England at night and talking with people on the phone. And almost nothing else. It's a premise that sounds like they're using a highly limited scope to cleverly disguise a dramatic life-or-death story, and the events of the movie do have a profound effect on Ivan Locke's life, but really he's just talking to family members and coworkers as he's trying to explain why he will be missing for the next day or so. It sounds mundane, but the smart script and Hardy's tremendous performance (showing off a great new Tom Hardy voice) make it completely gripping from start to finish. It doesn't sound like it will work, but it absolutely does.

7. The Raid 2


While the first Raid movie was a very tight and narrowly focused beat-'em-up, The Raid 2 is something different. It's half balls-to-the-wall hardcore martial arts action like the original, and half epic Asian crime film. It doesn't completely work, because it's just not the most intriguing or original crime movie. It's still great though, because my god does this crew know how to make an action movie. The fights are as brutal as the first time, and probably a step or two beyond that. They sort of step up in intensity and quality over the course of the story, constantly topping what came before when you thought they couldn't. There's just no one else who makes martial arts movies this good. Any fan of this kind of movie has to get on the Raid bandwagon.

6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier


I'm addicted to comic books. I have a whole shelf full of Marvel trades, and I want a whole lot more. What got me hooked is Captain America, specifically Ed Brubaker's run that began with the Winter Soldier arc, so seeing it get adapted to film so successfully was a total joy. The conspiracy thriller storyline they came up wasn't quite as compelling as they wanted it to be, but I was okay with it, because it was peppered with the best action scenes a super hero movie has ever had. Nick Fury's resourcefulness, Black Widow's grace and skill, Cap's surprising speed, power, and fierceness, they're all captured perfectly in battles that help define who they are and push the story forward. It's sort of an Avengers 1.5, and helps with what Marvel is building toward with cinema's most exciting "shared universe". It also gets some credit for kicking off a big change in Agents of SHIELD that turned it into a mostly entertaining show in the back half of its first season.

5. Gone Girl


I have some problems with this movie. Because even if the story and the creators themselves aren't misogynist, it's very easy for certain kinds of people to take the wrong message from its story. I can't truly hold that against the movie though, which just wants to be a totally bonkers and surprising thriller and succeeds at that completely. The cast is terrific, especially Rosamund Pike and Tyler Perry, and if David Fincher (director), Jeff Cronenwerth (DOP), Kirk Baxter (editor), Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross (composers) want to make movies together for the rest of their lives, I won't complain. I also really love it when a movie can make you unsure of it as it begins and then turn that around into a positive element successfully. This one stuck with me.

4. The Lego Movie


I was unsure of The Lego Movie early on, but it slowly earned my trust until I was completely in love with it for the entire second half or so. Not only is it a very funny and thrilling family adventure movie, it also has tons to say about everything from the importance of being yourself to why we tell stories in the first place. It's a bit odd for a movie based on a building toy that comes with specific instructions to have a message about why you shouldn't conform to everything that's expected of you, but as a wise man once told me, you shouldn't get caught up in relativism. I'm not convinced that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are capable of making something that isn't awesome.

3. The Grand Budapest Hotel


Wes Anderson's latest precious art project is one that actually justifies his specific style by putting it up against some real darkness, in this case a sort of fictionalized account of the period leading up to World War II. It felt like he had a lot more to say this time than he usually does, and it all comes across while still being as charming and interesting on the surface level as he always is. It's worth pointing out how good Ralph Fiennes is, because good lord is he a tremendous actor and is this the point when I truly started to realize it. There's tons of his favorite actors all through the movie doing great work, but Fiennes definitely steals the show. You usually don't say that about the lead, but it fits here.

2. Under the Skin


If you collected a random audience and had them watch all of the movies on this list, I'm more than confident this would be the most hated. It's strange, it never explains itself, it doesn't really conform to any expectations of what movies should be. But I was enthralled the entire time. Without explaining too much, it's about a woman who's not what she appears, and lures men to her apartment for unknown purposes. I can't explain much more than that because I honestly don't know much more than that. But it's unique, it's beautifully shot, it's disturbing and occasionally terrifying, and I couldn't take my eyes off it. And it's not affected; all of the obfuscation and strangeness ties directly into the nature of the main character directly. It's small filmmaking at its best.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy


The finest Marvel Studios movie to date features characters most people have never heard of, flying around, making shady deals, and getting in laser gun battles on the other side of the universe. And people say all super hero movies are the same. There's a couple minor characters people may remember from an earlier film, but Guardians is mostly content to stick to new faces and concepts, as its central and titular gang of misfits crack jokes, have growing pains, and eventually work together to try to bring a little good to a galaxy that hasn't given them much in return. The set designs, makeup, and visual effects create a believable and exciting setting, the cast does a great job bringing their unusual characters to life, and the script is stuffed with great laughs and the occasional genuinely touching moment. I'm gushing a bit, but I think Guardians is one of the best summer popcorn movies in years, and the best space opera since the original Star Wars movies. Two of the best new movie characters this year were a talking raccoon and tree. Come on.

Delayed Entry

This is the best movie that wasn't released in 2014 but I didn't see until then.

Inside Llewyn Davis

I wrote last year that I regretted not seeing this, and I wasn't surprised when I did end up loving it. It's not the Coen brothers at their funniest, but it has its share of amusements, and also a great story about a man still struggling to figure out his life after certain events have left him grasping for something to hold on to. Oscar Isaac is wonderful as Llewyn, and the script and direction show the Coens still at the top of their game of creating uniquely wonderful films.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Sometimes you see a movie that makes you forget what the point of the medium is. Are people actually trying to tell stories? Or do they only ever get made to make money. It's probably somewhere in the middle for everything, and of course certain films have more artistic purpose to them than others. At first, this whole Marvel project leading up to next year's The Avengers was exciting, and it didn't interfere much with the movies themselves. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were pretty much regular super hero movies, which happened to include a scene teasing the eventual conclusion of the undertaking. Last year with Iron Man 2 though, the Avengers subplot grew visibly, leading some to think the movie was overstuffed and aimless (I still liked it). And this year with Thor and now Captain America, we're actually seeing hints of what the plot might actually be about, as the project threatens to wipe out any individual accomplishments of the other movies by themselves. Captain America's whole plot was probably adversely affected by The Avengers, as they had to turn Steve Rogers into a superhuman, get him through the war, and then have him wake up in the modern day within two hours. When all is said and done, will this whole thing actually be looked back on as a major triumph of long-term genre filmmaking? Or is just a way to make a lot of money, as you hype up a big event film and then hook people into buying tickets for a bunch of other movies in the lead up to it?

The real question though, is whether people care. I don't think I do. I think most people today are content to have their summer action movies be loud and colorful, and as far as that kind of movie goes, Captain America is more than adequate. It's not perfect, but I enjoyed myself while I was watching it about as much as most big action movies I've seen, assuming we aren't talking about ones with actual inspiration and creative intent behind them. And that's totally fine. Joe Johnston hasn't had the most distinguished career, but he knows what he's doing, and he manages to shoot this film with a nice traditional style and keep the action mostly coherent without an over-reliance on special effects (though things like Chris Evans' face on a scrawny body or him running with super speed sometimes definitely look silly). Evans is totally adequate as Rogers, both as a nobody and as a hero. The problem here is that Evans' best asset is that he's charming, and his character isn't really allowed to be. He's awkward and duty-driven and righteous. I still think he's likable enough to hang a movie on though, especially when the supporting cast is as helpful as this one.

As always, Hugo Weaving does an excellent job in a genre role, playing the villainous Red Skull with a solid German accent and a real menage. Tommy Lee Jones' character is sort of a standard gruff military leader, but he's Tommy Lee Jones and the part works out really well. I especially liked his interrogation scene. A couple TV actors who have done solid work there get a bit of big screen time here, including Hayley Atwell, who's a good romantic foil for Evans and has a look that fits in with the image of beauty for the period, and Sebastian Stan who brings life to Bucky Barnes in an enjoyable way. Stanley Tucci is a lot of fun in a few brief scenes as the inventor of the super serum, and I just loved the image of Neal McDonough with a big mustache and a shotgun as Dum Dum Dugan. Put it all together and you have a nice, brisk World War II movie, which happens to feature a legendary cube of immeasurable power, anachronistically powerful technology, and a guy running around with the world's best shield.

The biggest issue I had with the film is that the structure of the story feels wrong. It's not a huge deal because it's just a popcorn flick and most of the individual scenes hold together well, but it's definitely noticeable. Not every story has to adhere to the standard three act structure, of course, but if they don't the structure they use instead should be clear. The problem with Captain America is that it still seems like a three act movie, it just forgot the second one. It takes a long time for Steve Rogers to become the man we know. First he has to be given a chance to join the military, then he has to be selected for the super serum test, then he has to prove he can be a soldier with it, and then he has to establish a goal for the rest of the film. Meanwhile, we're also setting up the Red Skull and what his goal is to win the war. This is all stuff that the film tries to stuff into what should be the first act, and it takes over an hour. By the time it's all done, the script seems to realize there isn't time to tell a proper story, so they stuff a lot of implied action into a slick but unsatisfying montage, and then proceed quickly to the proper third act. It's just sort of sloppy.

I think if less time was spent between Steve getting his powers and proving his worth as a soldier, things would have been smoother. There's this whole section where he's being used for propaganda which is amusing on its own, but drags down the pace of the story in retrospect. It wouldn't have taken that much to fix the whole thing, which makes the problem kind of irritating, but like I said, being as the film only really exists to pump people up for The Avengers and sell tickets, it's not a major one. I just wonder what a Captain America movie that existed only for itself would have been like, because I think there's plenty of potential for one. I'm curious if all the planned post-Avengers sequels will be allowed to do their own thing, or if they'll just be serving to build up a sequel to The Avengers itself.