The Top Ten Films of 2016

1

THE WITCH
(Robert Eggers, USA)

"Its masterful blending of the sacred and the blasphemous makes it not just a great horror film, but perhaps the first true horror masterpiece of the new century."

2
JACKIE
(Pablo Larrain, USA)

"In a post-fact world, Jackie speaks to the power of American myth-making, and like its subject, it's a bold, beautiful, mysterious, and altogether obfuscating work of art."

3

O.J. MADE IN AMERICA
(Ezra Edelman, USA)

"This is an American tragedy writ large, an engrossing, maddening portrait of our country that holds an uncomfortable mirror up for us to examine our own national flaws."

4

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT
(Ciro Guerra, Colombia)

"An often transcendent work of art, a haunting elegy for a forgotten way of life, and a requiem for its secrets that now reside only with the dead, reaching a spiritual crescendo that recalls “2001: A Space Odyssey’s” journey "beyond the infinite.""

5
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

(Travis Knight, USA)

"It is a celebration of a beautifully flawed world, of hope, family, and that which unites us, as well as a repudiation of negativity, division, and fear."

6

LA LA LAND

(Damien Chazelle, USA)

"There's a beating, aching heart at the core of La La Land so full of yearning and hope and sheer unadulterated zest for life that it becomes the perfect antidote to the year that was 2016."

7

THINGS TO COME

(Mia Hansen-Løve, France)

"A film of beautiful moments, adding up to a disarmingly devastating, and yet surprisingly hopeful, whole."

8
PATERSON
(Jim Jarmusch, USA)

"Jarmusch finds great power in the idea of the blank page, and in the life-changing power of words, and he does so in the most subtle and deeply beautiful ways."

9
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS
(Tom Ford, USA)

"The film's mix of high and low brow, obscenity and elegance, create something nearly transcendent - a stylish portrait of the heart-wrenching pain of love gone wrong and human desire for vengeance."

10
TONI ERDMANN
(Maren Ade, Germany)

"It's a strange and original charmer, and one is almost never quite sure what to make of it, but it congeals into such a lovely and poetic piece of work that it demands to be revisited just to enjoy the lyrical way in which Ade ties all its seemingly ridiculous elements together. Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying, and in 2016 of all years, never have we needed to hear that more."

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