Best Movies of 2016

If pop culture is to be believed, 2016 was one of the worst years ever. Certain people we love died, certain people we loathed rose to power. Fortunately, if you’re into movies there was some solace in the world of film in 2016; by all accounts this was a great year for blockbusters and indies alike. And while film as a market continues on a turbulent, uncertain path with the devastation of the mid-budget film, Canada’s lack of enthusiasm for its own cinema and a sense of disproportionate representation on both sides of the camera, there were also major strides this year. They came in the forms of brilliant films and the surprising support of Netflix and (especially) Amazon who took gambles on independent film where no one else would. With a worthy adversary in TV drama and a lack of mainstream support, film has become the underdog but the fact remains that people will always make films and people will always be there to watch them, numbers be damned. That’s why I enjoy doing lists like these to highlight some special movies and why I like when others to do the same.

20Knight of Cups
dir. Terrence Malick / USA

Alright, fuck it. I’m doing it. I’ll put this fucking movie on the list. Being a fan of Malick in general is like being a proverbial film-snob punching bag and gets me dismissed real quick. Knight of Cups is incredibly uneven, inarguably problematic (I’ve never even sat through the entire thing front-to-back) but I found myself drawn to it again and again over the year. I realized how you watch this movie — in pieces, as a whole — it doesn’t matter. Few other movies had that impact on me last year. The film explores the mind of a depressed Hollywood writer through the prism of his many ill-fated relationships. It sees itself as an allegory for the Hymn of the Pearl: a story of a boy heir who succumbs to seduction and forgets his past and purpose. Malick composes this as a series of vignettes where Bale and other characters simply meander through interesting spaces. Malick’s use of “dream-speak” narration takes center stage replacing almost all dialogue, instead we have just hushed, intimate confessions. Some of these clicked with me, others passed right by, which is how it’s meant to be. They don’t provide answers, only questions or thoughts that connect with images shot fast and loose. The camera weaves freely, catching faces and movements while missing others like an improvised rehearsal. It feels like a collection of memories, good and bad; moments and fragments, all fleeting and dispersed, almost at random. Malick inventively “torpedoed” characters into scenes they weren’t written into, forcing actors to improvise with their presence, and were instructed to turn and avoid the camera to prevent classical composed images and make things feel unusual and intimate in a totally unique way. It’s wildly cinematic, using all the tools that make film independent of any other artform. Knight of Cups guided me through this year professionally. I turned to it time and time again when trying to figure out solutions in my own work — not necessarily because it had the answers but because it reminded me to keep looking for different solutions.

19Swiss Army Man
dir. Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert / USA

You may have heard this is the movie where Daniel Radcliffe is a farting corpse with a boner. It’s true. You may not have heard it’s a surprisingly insightful story on imagination, though. It’s a hard one to pick apart and talk about because it seems to be designed to be inconsistent and weird for its own sake, especially its perfect and infuriating ending that’s an epic fuck you to coherency. But that is exactly the charm and secret joy of Swiss Army Man. A movie that so brazenly waves its juvenile, weirdo flag is bound to be loathed with foaming-at-the-mouth fury. And that’s what the film is about: the alienating effect of being unapologetically weird. We call celebrities eccentric, but to everyone else it’s called mentally ill. Daniel Radcliffe washes ashore as a bloated corpe to which Paul Dano, shipwrecked and horrifically depressed, imbues him with a personality that may or may not be real. Radcliffe is like a baby, unaware of the social codes of the ‘real world’ so Dano spends the film explaining and teaching him what is and isn’t appropriate, struggling to justify the ‘why’. They begin acting out scenarios to help explain them and start investing in these hypothetical stories. It depicts imagination as wonderful yet dangerous. Imagination keeps Dano going, it is what fuels him and yet it is also what keeps him from other people. Imagination isn’t some unifying magical force that the world appreciates, it is, as the movie says, weird. Weird is a thing people don’t like because they don’t understand and just want you to stop. Just like Dano’s character, the movie presents itself for what it is and, I imagine, fully anticipates a large minority to balk, walk out, be disgusted, or worse: ignore it completely.

18 Doctor Strange
dir. Scott Derrickson / USA

Almost more fun than I’m willing to give it credit for. Sure, it fits the trademark Marvel origin story template, but when an origin is this compelling I have no qualms about it. There is a palpable satisfaction when the expected cues hit because the character is put through the ringer and truly feels like he’s earned his stripes, rather than being just handed his title. What I did not expect was a story about belief and rather than creating a simple black-white binary the movie finds hypocrisy in the good guys and sympathy in the bad ones. Stephen Strange, a master surgeon ruined by an accident and turned to Eastern philosophy when medicine fails, is told his arrogance is a weakness, but it actually proves to be one of his most important strengths. A combination of weaknesses and strengths define the character of a person, making them more interesting and nuanced. Doctor Strange understands and utilizes this, and becomes an unexpectedly great movie because of it. Even the all-wise “Ancient One”, who teaches Strange her mystic arts instead of healing him, fails to practice what she preaches, “stretching one moment into many” as she says, to avoid the inevitable. Everyone is a hypocrite or will fit their beliefs to justify their actions, rather than the other way around. As the Marvel brand matures, Strange and this year’s Captain America (also awesome) see this connected universe begin to address the consequences of blind justice or self-righteousness and the fallout of that. I didn’t expect anything more than cool explosions, so I’ll take it. As the Marvel money-train chugs on it’s trendy to dismiss these movies but I see no reason to. The passion in this movie is self-evident.

17 Green Room
dir. Jeremy Saulnier / USA

A blistering, intensely violent update on Assault on Precinct 13 with a backwoods, hillbilly Neo-Nazi setting. Saulnier’s last film, Blue Ruin, was vicious but this only ups the ante. Like that film, Green Room is incredibly efficient. The set-up is simple: a punk band playing a sketchy skinhead gig in rural Oregon accidentally witnesses a murder in the venue’s green room. Attempts to negotiate their way out of the situation go south real quick. It’s intense, capturing the anxiety of a bad situation getting much, much worse. Saulnier is great at avoiding sinking his movies into lengthy, expository monologues. The premise stays simple and focused and keeps its momentum. Information is on a need to know basis, and being stuck in a room in enemy territory makes that all the scarier. Unlike lesser genre pictures that build out and fetishize violence, Green Room gets bloody so suddenly you don’t get the chance to shield your eyes. It not only leaves the entire film feeling extremely tense, because who knows when the next shotgun blast will occur, but it makes the violence shocking and revolting. As it should be. It’s an insane pressure-cooker of a thriller.

16Mountains May Depart
dir. Jia Zhangke / China

Doing this year-end movie thing gets pretty exhausting at a certain point. Feels like a chore or obligation that I do in hopes of finding something unexpected. That’s the case with this film, an almost cliché Chinese export that somehow is greater than the sum of its parts in a way I’m not sure I can explain. Cliché because so many Chinese films that hit the Western market are obsessed with 20th century Chinese identity politics and their relationship with the West. Mountains May Depart follows the mould but is also a curious “be careful what you wish for” mutation. After a career of defying the censors and critiquing the follies of Chinese society, Zhangke might be wearily looking at the westernization of China with a tinge of regret. Like Moonlight and Certain Women, this is another triptych, but unlike those films who use the structure to point out the banality of time and place, this film blasts through decades revelling in the grandiosity of change. Indeed, China has changed dramatically from 1999, where the film begins, and probably will continue to do so into 2025 where it ends. The film is about a warm, sweet woman named Tao and her relationships, those that flourish and diminish. It’s a sweet character portrait, if incredibly blunt at times, and her loyalty to China acts as a tragic mirror to China as a whole. The film culminates in a very goofy, clumsy third act that threatens to undo the entire film and — it’s true — it kind of does. However, the epic, sweeping photography and the incredibly moving and masterful use of music are so powerful I can’t resist this movie, in spite of how my logical mind tells me to. As political rhetoric, Zhangke has and continues to be pretty puerile, but as an emotional filmmaker he is a master of the form. In an era where digital filmmaking trends dictate that we underplay big moments, Zhangke makes a moving case for traditions and their inherent, obvious power and virtue.

15Hell or High Water
dir. David Mackenzie / USA

All this was my ancestors’ land, then these folks took it, and it’s been taken from them. Except it ain’t no army doing it.

A look inside what the media likes to call “Trump’s America”. The disenfranchised, disconnected white people of the South. Looking at their towns from afar you might mistake them for cowboy film sets. Deteriorating, frozen in time. Hell or High Water depicts the struggles of not just a few men but of whole communities who live on the fringes of modern America. The setting grants the ability to create a modern-day Bonnie & Clyde scenario with two brothers robbing banks to secure their late mother’s oil-rich land. It’s an interesting revival of old Western clichés of land battling and bank robbing but with a surprising empathy for both the robbers and the police who act selfishly and pragmatically. The common enemy seems to be the banks who the communities feel are the ones robbing everyone. Right or wrong, this film captures a bitterness that corrodes over people and creates a seismic shift in ethics and values. A testament to the all-or-nothing resolve of the weak.

14Silence
dir. Martin Scorsese / International

A solemn, brutal, difficult film about the limits of religion and faith that absolutely tests your patience and endurance but offers sublime reward on the other end. Concerning Jesuit priests in 17th century Japan — not the most hospitable of places at the time — and their Mission to find a lost priest who’s been rumoured to have denounced the faith while also bringing Christianity to locals who worship in secrecy. The two young priests naively see glory in sacrifice and suffering, eagerly offering themselves to such a journey knowing its nobility. But the reality of human suffering and systemic oppression is much different than the romanticized language of religious texts, as they quickly discover. Filmed with signature Scorsese flash, evoking classic jidaigeki films with foggy rolling hills speckled with moss and stone which the Jesuits liken to Hell on Earth. Repetition is fundamental to the film, as it is fundamental to faith, which can feel relentless but that gives the film a staying power. Its revelations can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, too. One of my favourite qualities of a movie is allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions. You’d expect a deeply Catholic movie like this to preach, but it does so only if you are inclined to see it that way. It’s skeptical, critical and divine all at once. I found the devotion powerful, but also the arrogance of Christian faith, the hostility of Buddhism and the rigid doctrine of beliefs tragic individually and together. The movie ultimately asks if mortal men should (or are capable to) suffer Jesus’ Passion, which is an awfully arrogant, selfish imitation, isn’t it? And didn’t Jesus sacrifice himself for others? How does someone who dogmatically follows also lead by example? It’s a horrifying crisis of faith and humanity that is as miserable as it sounds, and all the more powerful for it.

13Moonlight
dir. Barry Jenkins / USA

In moonlight, black boys look blue.

So many coming-of-age stories are instantly rendered insignificant (or phony) by Moonlight, the story of a gay black man named Chiron at three important chapters of his life played by three different actors that shines a very brief and very focused light onto his experiences and character and yet comes away with a profound empathy for his struggles. You feel like you know him like a best friend, and yet one of Chiron’s defining aspects is his intensely introverted nature. He barely says a word. But through the actors’ body language and a structure that moves us through time at such a brisk pace we understand the level of confusion and suffering that Chiron endures in a way I haven’t seen before. The film communicates struggle and poverty in strictly visual means, at one point Chiron nonchalantly has a bath… with dish soap and stove-boiled water. These are the types of touches that articulate poverty not as a frantic crisis but as an assimilated way of life for people who have never had anything else. Going through what Chiron does would be difficult for anyone, let alone in his environment which is both incredibly hostile and dangerous, and yet the film is optimistic and finds kindness in unexpected people and places and depicts ghetto communities more tenderly — more Terrence Malick than CNN — where not much really happens, but the threat of something, anything is both terrifying and stimulating.

12Cameraperson
dir. Kirsten Johnson / USA

Jean-Luc Godard said, “cinema is not a reflection of reality, but the reality of that reflection.” In other words, cinema isn’t real. It doesn’t tell the truth. But in this curated version of reality it shows perspective and bias from whoever created it. The thing with documentary is that it is presented to us as though it documents truth and captures absolute reality. This is not the case. Every edit and piece of music editorializes or provides a perspective, even something as minute as when Johnson reaches past the lens in this film to pluck a stray piece of grass sitting in the frame. It’s a filmic butterfly effect: the filmmakers’ presence changes that place and the people it captures. Cameraperson, at face value, is nothing but feature-length outtakes Kirsten Johnson’s decades worth of work as a documentary cinematographer. It acts as a professional memoir turned personal where she collects moments on the job that in turn clearly left a deep mark on her, usually people sharing tragic stories often as a result of mass rape, genocide or systemic abuse. This is juxtaposed with Johnson’s own life in Manhattan with her happy family. Filmmakers come to desolate places to hear the stories, but can offer no direct solution or help and are free to leave when their subjects are not. But in showing what those films cut out, she reveals the filmmakers presence in each place she’s visited. Her footage is beautiful and moving and she exposes the degrees of artifice of her own work: one devastating montage invites you to admire a series of beautiful shots of nature and architecture before titles get laid in identifying each of them as execution sites in various regional conflicts around the world. Johnson uses her work as testimony to what she’s seen as well as how she captured it. What are the ethical boundaries when photographing the world? There is no truth in film, but this is about as close as it gets.

11 The Handmaiden
dir. Park Chan-wook / South Korea

A twisted psycho-sexual melodrama. Few films earn a moniker as ridiculous as that, but The Handmaiden is ridiculous, as well as all those other adjectives. Beginning as an unassuming costume drama, it quickly ramps up the lunacy which should be expected given ‘lunacy’ is a calling card of director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy). The story, adapted from a stuffier British story and transplanted to Japanese-occupied Korea begins simply enough, with a con-artist planting one of his pupils as a maid to a wealthy heir. Quickly, though, the plot folds back over itself with twist upon twist upon twist revealing new sides to each character and each scene. It shatters the artifice of class-etiquette by turning the aristocracy into a swamp of perverts. It’s a delicate balance to throw so much at the wall and expect so much of the viewer without a movie completely falling apart but this one manages. Granted, it’s tough, and confusing. But the way it makes you love, then loathe, then love again, certain characters just by replaying scenes and shaking up the shot order makes it satisfying when it all comes crashing down. This is a nasty movie.

10Weiner
dir. Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg / USA

Part man, part human grimace, Anthony Weiner is his own worst enemy. When asked why he’d let a film crew follow him around, considering his knack for poor choices, all he can do is shrug. Enter the portrait of an extreme narcissist. He is career politician that acts on instinct, something the American people clearly want, but his instinct drives him to sad, deplorable places. His wife, Huma Abedin, is seen on the fringes in a permanent seething rage whose hollow smiles say as much about the media’s priorities as hers. The couple’s domestic disputes blur into political ones. One epic confrontation plays out like a Sergio Leone standoff and is more tense than any thriller this year. And yet, Weiner turns the punchline into a person, with all the flaws and complications that real-life, living, breathing people have. Weiner’s escapades reveal an illuminating glimpse into the maelstrom that is American politics and then a dizzying race-to-the-bottom with the news media. Could there be a more perfectly timed release for a movie like this? When the American political system seems to have finally officially run off the rails, Weiner is an insightful, nauseating, and oftentimes absurdly hilarious look into how out of control its all become. What a wild world.

09Arrival
dir. Denis Villeneuve / USA

Science-fiction has and always will operate at its best when it uses all its glossy, spooky, adventurous alien experiences as a foil for the turmoil and politics of our modern world. Few genres, if any, are better at capturing a specific time, era and mood than the science fiction film. Similar to how The Day the Earth Stood Still captured the paranoia (and condemnation of that paranoia) of nuclear war in the 1950s through extraterrestrials, Arrival is also really about modern politics — isolationism in particular — and our anxiety about militaristic priority over rational science and study. In a knee-jerk, fast-paced world Arrival pleads for thoughtful cooperation. And like the aforementioned classic, Arrival‘s sci-fi elements are shrouded in mystery and yet don’t truly matter. The movie nails bureaucratic meddling with Amy Adams’ steady linguistics expert constantly reiterating the value and process of her work, step-by-step, to itchy-trigger-finger generals. The story gets trickier as it goes along but manages to be one of the rare cases of structural gimmickry creating a more powerful, more human, more emotional story than one told plainly. Like all great sci-fi, it focuses on the humans first and the extreme emotional turmoil this event brings to a person’s life. Could you imagine how overwhelming it would be to be one of the first to step into the unknown of an alien vessel would be? Arrival captures the anxiety, fear of the unknown as well as brutal banality and exhaustion of high-stress work while keeping its human face. Oh, it’s also got one absolutely terrifying score.

08Certain Women
dir. Kelly Reichardt / USA

Kelly Reichardt’s casually connected triptych is probably the purest distillation of her work and themes of her long and satisfying career. While her films usually take the perspective of women within larger groups, none are as directly about the mundane exhaustions of womanhood as this. Three stories featuring three of the best American actresses we’ve got: Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Kirsten Stewart, each find themselves in moments of no astounding drama (aside from Dern’s reluctant heroism), but are confronted with issues that could be solved, if only the other party would hear what they have to say. These stories all feel incredibly natural, almost to the point that of being nauseatingly inconsequential. But the stories aren’t really about trivial inconveniences, they’re about communicating, longings to be heard, to be respected, and the selfish intent or self-interest that conflict feeds both positively and negatively. Self-editing, Reichardt’s cutting is measured and confident. I love this style. She lets shots keep rolling after the scene has concluded and the effect creates a quiet comfort; the solace of silence.

07 Embrace of the Serpent
dir. Ciro Guerra / Columbia, Venezuela, Argentina

A refreshing take on race relations and the distance the damages of war can travel. Split into a twin narratives of two real-life explorers in the Amazon, first in 1909 then 1940 the structure twists expectations about the “white explorer” cliche of plundering and deception. Much of the story is built around the natives’ distrust of the white men and constant negotiating and debating on the merits and value of helping them. Breaking its narrative down the middle gives it an obvious advantage of showing contrast and outcomes of Plot A in Plot B and these work because the film roots the actions of A in a rare sense of righteousness and well-meaning. Upon return, the nightmarish remnants of the first expedition reveal the unpredictable consequences of action — a more immediate butterfly effect. While the explorers divide and dictate the structure of the film, it’s one native, the last of his tribe, that is the constant between them. He is a character whose behaviour and instinct is driven by experience, more so than philosophy: despite the plundering by Europeans in the Amazon due to the rubber boom he is more open and friendly than ever. His character is an amazing insight into how we trust each other and the devastation of betrayal that leads to the cycles of violence and indoctrination of one people versus another. The story culminates in a mesmerizing, unexpected climax that is oddly reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey of all things. This film doesn’t stand on a soapbox but instead takes the more complicated approach of challenging the idea of trust and belief. Circumstances change, environments change, but people generally stay the same.

06Everybody Wants Some!!
dir. Richard Linklater / USA

As an spiritual sequel to Linklater’s own Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! has a lot of the same pleasures and different challenges. For one, it’s less immediately fun than Dazed. That movie was about spending time with close-knit friends and cross-over cliques on their last day of high-school; it’s immediately cozy. This is about that first day of college, full of expectation and eagerness with a group of strangers quickly and awkwardly trying to form friendships. That’s more distant. But it allows EWS to capture something new and universal: that exciting, scary new phase of life. Linklater’s writing and general worldview are so filled with genuine, disarming compassion that he is able to even turn a cast of irritating bros with one-track minds into lovable characters. The ‘story’ sees them generally banter and float from party to party, clique to clique. Dazed’s high school setting forced cliques to mingle, or at least acknowledge each other. College is different, you come in surrounded by people with similar majors and interests. You have to make an effort to reach out to others and to new experiences, a risk that is a dramatic undercurrent throughout the film. As these jocks ‘change costumes’ for each appearance Jake wonders if they aren’t just a bunch of phonies. Between bong hits Linklater lays down his usual existential musings; these kids are at the point where they are facing diverse groups, more equal peers and are challenged to identify with themselves, their friends and their values. Linklater has always been phenomenal with subtly capturing emotional growth while seeming simple and fun. EWS gives you the opportunity to evaluate your own preconceptions and attitudes towards what you initially see (and initially are) as archetypes. That’s some powerful shit, bro!

05Mustang
dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven / Turkey

This was largely considered a 2015 film but it only came to Toronto in January 2016 so because of my own stupid rules I included it here. I couldn’t let a movie this good slip through the cracks.

This is a profoundly moving story about five sisters seeking freedom in the modern world from the oppression of their regressive home in rural Turkey. Despite being normal teenagers, the girls are such a source of shame for the extremely conservative community they are gated into their home and slowly married off individually. This community is driven by moral guidelines as arbitrary as the girls’ impulsiveness — neither group think logically about how they feel, they simply act out on impulse and the conditioning of their culture. The story episodically weaves each girl’s story into a larger one of their shared lives together. It effortlessly adapts to the demands of each story to be thrilling, touching, hilarious, and sad. I love a film that follows digressions and Mustang makes a story out of them because it’s the type of film that knows digressions are what makes life life. It’s a beautiful movie and the type that reminds me what I take for granted and how deeply intrenched backwards philosophies can be. This movie hit such a raw nerve in Turkey that Ergüven was basically run out of the country. That’s power.

04 45 Years
dir. Andrew Haigh / UK

Another holdover from 2015 that came to Canada this year. A masterclass in film direction: every shot with intention and every scene with meaning. It’s a spooky, subtle movie about a couple, preparing for their 45th anniversary when news of an old lover opens an old, dormant rift in their relationship. The film takes Charlotte Rampling’s perspective as the wife who becomes increasingly shut out by her husband causing her to become increasingly suspicious of his feelings. It’s a paranoid romance that leans a critical eye on sentimentality. The relationship quietly unspools as Rampling suspects she isn’t his soulmate, but a replacement for someone else. It’s not nearly as cynical as it sounds and has a refreshing candor for the growing-old-together trope of happy endings.

03The Witch
dir. Robert Eggers / USA, Canada

Most faith-based horror films act mockingly towards faith, imaging belief itself to be a person’s ultimate undoing. So, what happens when the demons are real? The Witch resembles a world like The Exorcist where The Devil is real but comes from a world much like ours: chaotic and random. Order, logic, routine and practice can not save you from the dangers within it. A father, so devout in his fundamentalist readings of the Bible that his own Christian commune banishes him, sending his family into a bitter, desperate survival off the land. Their all-encompassing paranoia of sin and punishment create a vicious circle where every action is suspect, every accusation an attack. The Witch asks how far it can push its viewers — in both taste and comprehension. It does the unthinkable (if you’re a financier, I suppose) and uses Old English ripped from writings of the period to make an accurate, if almost incomprehensible, impression of the time. The result is challenging, but massively engrossing and rewarding. As the film continues, most of the horror is a result of the pressure-cooker situation happening within the family, acting as a sort of New England version of The Thing — we know the monster is real, but where, or who, is it?

02American Honey
dir. Andrea Arnold / USA, UK

It’s become a bit of a cliche for indie movies to ignore screenplay 101 rules of act structures and to simply end not on a point but whenever they feel like it. American Honey fits that mould, as it should. It’s the story of backwater America and its lost disciples: chain-smoking teens whose faces could never grace a magazine, so they sell them instead. This ragtag family tour the country selling crumby magazine subscriptions to wealthy white folk in a transparent pyramid scheme they all buy into, as well as suffer from mutually. A road trip movie that epitomizes the “it’s about the journey, not the destination” rhetoric because these kids have no destination, no home. Pumped up from the inspiring wisdom of rap music and American ideology of ‘get money’ these shortsighted kids hustle as a lifestyle, making that their defining, unifying trait. Star, the fierce 18-year-old played by non-actor Sasha Lane, is mesmerizing as a lost kid striving to find any sort of confidence. When Star awkwardly protests God, “Fuck God. God’s a cunt!”, it’s not a cheesy proclamation by the film, it’s a cringeworthy moment of truth from a teen finding every opportunity to wrestle for control and find a rush. More a collection of scenes that range from routine to bizarre, American Honey is like the most depressing tour of America that makes an awfully good argument for the nation as a third-world dead end. But what saves it from feeling like a dour slog is the cast of genuine and affecting cast who would be insufferable in real life but quickly win you over with their oddball senses of optimism, discipline and tribal celebration.

01Paterson
dir. Jim Jarmusch / USA

So sober and furious and stubbornly ready to burst into flame.

A portrait of an introvert. A very gentle, introspective film that is sort of the optimist’s version of Inside Llewyn Davis. Paterson, a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey is a quiet, pleasant guy with zero ambitions. In his off moments he writes poetry with such passion and dedication his girlfriend pleads for him to publish it, to which is he is indifferent. The film is about his routine, people-watching, and his process of taking a moment and forming a story around it. It’s one of those classic examples of giving a little and getting a lot where Paterson’s personality is so withdrawn that I’ve had multiple conversations with people seeing him in a variety of ways: sincere, phony, humble, condescending. It reflects that way you meet people and start to judge and draw conclusions about them. Our brains fill in the spaces when the spaces aren’t provided for. For the people who want plot and thrills, Paterson is the other end of the spectrum. This is a patient, loving character study about the nurturing quality of art, the give and take of relationships, the value of community, and something about waterfalls. It’s a movie that constantly threatens to turn into a story and thankfully never does. Instead, it’s like the best Linklater film Linklater never made, a mundane routine that invites reflection and the anticipation of checking in with characters we get to know and the minor events in their lives. All through a character with a complex relationship with his craft. Paterson is New Jersey’s secret Buddha, a character of pure virtue and discipline in a blue-collar way, and to watch him is its own sort of zen.

Notes:

• Seems that this wasn’t an especially strong year in international film. I try my best to stay aware of the best imports each year but it’s always a challenge and 99% of movies from other countries go unnoticed. But this year there were more foreign disappointments, few high-profile films and a general sense of great American productions this year.
• It seems there were fewer surprises this year. My list looked a lot like a lot of other lists I’ve been reading. Maybe I just didn’t branch out enough.
• A few movies I wanted to see but couldn’t find/get in time for this: The Love Witch, Project Avalanche, The Birth of a Nation, It’s Only the End of the World, Kate Plays Christine, The Fits, One More Time With Feeling, Sleeping Giant. They all look interesting.
• Even though I did an exhaustive 20 movies, a few other great movies to note: Captain America: Civil War, Elle, Manchester By The Sea, The Jungle Book, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (that was the funniest movie of the year, easily).
• I found that this year I am more inclined to praise a movie that worked for me in pieces, even if it doesn’t come together as a whole, than in previous years. Some of these movies have some pretty major flaws, like the third act of Mountains May Depart, however when moments in there are great enough I’ll let it slide. I’ve grown soft, I guess.
• The worst movie of the year was easily Suicide Squad. A fucking disaster. I avoid bad movies but sometimes a trainwreck is a spectacle I can’t help but draw myself towards. I knew what this movie was going in, and holy fuck, it delivered.
• The best older movie I saw for the first time this year were Close-Up (1990), River of Grass (1994) and Onibaba (1964). Close-Up is one of the most compassionate portraits of a person ever and is probably the best summation of what makes film so important anyone has ever recorded. We lost the director, Abbas Kiarostami, this year which is a great loss.
• Next year’s (probably) best film I have already seen at TIFF, it’s an Iranian film called The Salesman. It’s absolutely incredible.
• I’m finding it harder and harder every year to come back and do this whole thing. Hopefully you enjoyed, might reel it back next year.