Why “Best of” Lists Suck
And are utterly necessary
This year, it’s was much harder than normal to motivate myself to write a “Best Movies of 2017!” wrap-up list.
Some of this malaise comes from a lack of self-confidence. Although my post from last year was relatively well-read, I have to wonder — does anyone care about my opinion on this stuff? It’s one thing when a friend asks me what’s good in theaters right now. It’s another to subject them to my unsolicited list of what’s hot and what’s not.
For what it’s worth, I do read my friends’ lists. It’s mostly to validate my own opinions or pick up a few recommendations. The latter reason is an honest one. The former, however, gets me a little worried. At best, I get pleasure that my friends and I think exactly alike…which is a little depressing. Or I get pleasure that our opinions are different and we can engage in an argument over it. By yelling at my friend (“Wrong! mother! is not a good movie!”), I can symbolically take on everyone that disagrees with me. What a great, petty way to engage in artistic discourse, amiright?
Ultimately, I’m struck that the practice doesn’t has both so little utility and a bare-faced selfishness at its core. As I’ll describe later, though, the justification is an odd reflection of those very problems.
I did end up writing a list, but bear with me while I detail a few more ways this tradition doesn’t work as intended. The next flaw is an obvious one — life doesn’t magically run along the arbitrary borders of January 1 to December 31.
It’s happened to me too many times that I watch a brilliant film from the prior year in January right AFTER I create my list. In 2014 (already a fantastic year for movies) I missed the opportunity to see A Most Violent Year. It would have ruined my ordering had I seen it. But I watched it a week or so into 2015, so I couldn’t place on my existing, published list nor on the list I was already creating for the new year.
Or what about festival films that technically premiere in one year and are wide released in the next? I saw the brilliant mystery film The Limehouse Golem at TIFF in 2016. It was eventually released in September of 2017. I chose not to include it on my 2016 list and now it occupies a strange spot in my 2017 honorable mentions even though it doesn’t mentally fit with my conception of 2017 as a “year in cinema.”
If these sound like the most eye-roll, first world problems, you’re right! There’s no real stakes here. It’s not like the film industry needs a silly list to define good films. Even if I had the gravitas of Roger Ebert, the film world would not need my approval to make the art. Screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, cinematographers, etc. are the ones that define each age of popular art with the work that they make. Journalists can shape public perception — I won’t deny that publications influence consumer choices and help smaller movies find an audience — but the Best of list is the end result of a fulfilling year, not the start of an artistic life-cycle. It’s a good way to catch our breath and take stock of what we like, not define it outright.
Which brings us closer to why Best of Lists aren’t so bad and why I’ll play the game. At its most pure and wholesome, a best of list is a time capsule. Three or four years from now, I’ll be able to look back and see what movies I claimed to love. I’ll be able to read what I thought about them in the moment, when it was so important that I articulate my thoughts for my friends/potential haters.
The obvious, navel-gazing exercise is silly today, but is much more pleasing when reviewed in hindsight. Only by being to perversely self-important can I hope to preserve an honest piece of myself that will last into the years beyond. As tedious and flawed as it will be (where does The Limehouse Golem belong?), I’ll grit my teeth this year. In five years, I’ll be able to laugh at it, and laughter is a precious thing.
