The 10 Best Movies of 2016

                                The 10 Best Movies of 2016

1. 'Moonlight'

"What is there to say about Barry Jenkins’s luminous poem of a film that hasn’t already been said?... It’s a wonder of a film, heaven-sent. But it is also real and tangible, something of potent texture and feeling that demystifies and enlightens."

                                                                    

2. 'La La Land'

"Damien Chazelle, just 31, unexpectedly resuscitated [musicals] a moribund genre by relocating its potential for grace, beauty and romance and setting it in a Los Angeles that once again looks like a city of dreams."

                                                                

3. 'Hell Or High Water'

"Director David Mackenzie’s gritty crime caper does 'No Country for Old Men' one better, putting its unforgiving acts in an economic context."

                                                          

4. 'Jackie' 

"Pablo Larraín’s portrait of Jackie Kennedy’s attempt to wrestle control of chaos following her husband’s assassination is equal parts psychological thriller and historical investigation. Anchored by Natalie Portman in a career-best turn, the movie’s atmospheric construction pierces the nature of public life and political machinations."

               

5. 'Toni Erdmann'

"Few people settle in for a three-hour German comedy about an uptight woman and her farty father expecting a masterpiece. Yet that’s what Maren Ade’s extraordinary, genre-bending revolution of a movie is."

6. 'Manchester By The Sea'

"A story so beautifully lived-in that it feels like a shock to emerge from the theater into the “real” world, Kenneth Lonergan’s deceptively low-key drama unfurls in a way movies are rarely allowed to anymore—slowly, patiently, and with infinite care."

7. 'OJ: Made In America'

"[Director Ezra] Edelman's fascinating film is an epic achievement that startles (or infuriates) you every five minutes. I could have watched another 18 hours." 

  

8. 'The Lobster'

"Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos' 'The Lobster' is one of the strangest movies in recent memory  —and one of the most hilariously (and surprisingly profound) ones as well... that rare thing in today's cinema an unqualified original."

9. 'Arrival'

"Villeneuve, like Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan, understands how to create not just a visually stunning film but an enigmatic tone that envelops you in the world. Some viewers may find 'Arrival' a touch ostentatious, but what good film doesn’t get a bit pretentious sometimes?" 

10. 'Loving'

"It’s sort of amazing, how delicately writer/director [Jeff] Nichols sidesteps all the clichés of the based-on-a-true-story prestige drama to dramatize the union and subsequent legal battles of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose eventual hearing before the Supreme Court would end the criminalization of interracial marriage."