The 25 best films of 2016

We’ve decid­ed to break from tra­di­tion with this year’s Top 20 by adding five more titles to the list, part­ly because we couldn’t decide which ones to cut but main­ly because we just want­ed to spread the love. As ever, this defin­i­tive sci­en­tif­ic* rank­ing includes only new films that received a the­atri­cal release in either the UK or US at any point dur­ing this cal­en­dar year. How many have you seen? Share your per­son­al list with us @LWLies

What we said: ​“The BFG’s great­est strength is its sim­plic­i­ty. This is a film built for chil­dren that delights with fan­tas­ti­cal details while gen­tly push­ing a heart­felt mes­sage about the pow­er of dreams. It isn’t a total fan­ta­sy. There is a big friend­ly giant blow­ing dreams into people’s heads.”

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What we said: ​“High-Rise also stands on its own as a macabre mythol­o­gi­sa­tion of the lib­er­tine excess­es to be found in both the human heart and the free mar­ket – of any era. Watch­ing it is like see­ing a mul­ti-sto­ried clas­sic rich­ly unrav­el­ling before, dur­ing and after its prop­er time.”

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What we said: ​“The Coens give us scene after scene of tran­scen­dent screen craft, whether it’s Chan­ning Tatum exe­cut­ing an era-per­fect sailor-themed dance num­ber in the apoc­ryphal MGM-like musi­cal, Swingin’ Dinghy, Ehrenreich’s Hobie Doyle prac­tic­ing his las­so skills in the street, or Clooney inton­ing a floor­board-rat­tling speech for the cli­mac­tic reel of Hail, Caesar!”

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What we said: ​“Rosi films a refugee cat­a­logu­ing the abus­es he’s endured in the form of a rous­ing prayer-chant, and it’s a scene which suc­cinct­ly cap­tures the hor­ri­fy­ing con­text of the so-called ​“migrant cri­sis” while crit­i­cis­ing the mis-direct­ed indig­na­tion of the west.”

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What we said: ​“It would be remiss to reject The Neon Demon as a work of emp­ty provo­ca­tion. Because as you start to digest the vis­cer­al images stream­ing forth from Refn’s sub­con­scious onto the screen, whether you’re aroused or repulsed (and these respons­es are by no means mutu­al­ly exclu­sive), there’s nev­er the sense that he is out pure­ly to sat­is­fy his own impulses.”

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What we said: ​“It’s often said that his­to­ry is writ­ten by the vic­tors, but in Rogue One, tri­umph and tragedy are sep­a­rat­ed by the slimmest mar­gins. As we scram­ble our way across mul­ti­ple star sys­tems, nav­i­gat­ing a scrap­py, slow-burn plot that builds towards a tru­ly awe­some third act show­down, even the most mun­dane details, such as a glitch­ing holo­gram or a jammed space­ship door, are imbued with arm­rest-grip­ping gravity.”

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What we said: ​“Not by any means for the faint of heart, Cos­mos is nonethe­less a jud­der­ing cloud­burst of pure visu­al and aur­al ener­gy, a rare instance of deep intel­lec­tu­al enquiry buoyed by unex­pect­ed jolts of puls­ing emotion.”

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What we said: ​“Watch­ing Anom­al­isa is like watch­ing a mind try­ing to escape its own tedious cor­ri­dors, search­ing for the sweet release of a mean­ing­ful voice next door.”

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What we said: ​“Greene’s humane form of inside-out doc­u­men­tary isn’t just inter­est­ed in tech­ni­cal ques­tions about the medi­um – it offers a whis­pered reminder that we’re all out there on our own, and per­haps we should try and embrace that.”

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What we said: ​“The Holo­caust movie as a genre is about rec­on­cil­ing the per­son­al with the his­tor­i­cal, seek­ing under­stand­ing by pro­ject­ing small sto­ries against the wider sociopo­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tive. In eschew­ing this approach, Nemes is able to locate the har­row­ing essence of the Holo­caust – the degra­da­tion and destruc­tion of human beings.”

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What we said: ​“A charm­ing, sur­pris­ing and whol­ly orig­i­nal movie which polite­ly asks view­ers to be mind­ful of the movies they’re watch­ing and the ​“facts” they’re blind­ly accepting.”

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What we said: ​“Those of us who watch No Home Movie now will see a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent film to those who saw it before she passed away. It feels like a fit­ting final state­ment from a film­mak­er who always poured her­self into her work and shared so much of her life and expe­ri­ence with us. ”

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What we said: ​“The mag­ic of Hansen-Løve’s cin­e­ma is that she doesn’t so much tell sto­ries as she care­ful­ly col­lates details and under­stands how they are able to enhance one anoth­er when placed togeth­er. A scene in which Nathalie’s hus­band admits to his extra-mar­i­tal han­ky panky is entire­ly stripped of melo­dra­ma. Sav­age blows are dealt with a feath­erlight sense of diplo­ma­cy. It would almost be fun­ny if it weren’t so sad.”

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What we said: ​“Not since 2000’s Bam­boo­zled has Lee zeroed in on the root cause of a deep-seat­ed social prob­lem with such raw focus. Cru­cial­ly his lat­est satir­i­cal polemic, which could best be described as a hip hop musi­cal with a social­ly-con­scious beat, doesn’t force the issue either. And while gun cul­ture and gang vio­lence are often tak­en as unique­ly Amer­i­can con­cerns, the film’s scope is ulti­mate­ly much broad­er than its title suggests.”

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What we said: ​“The lev­el of pre­ci­sion is even more mind-bog­gling con­sid­er­ing that the direc­tor shot near­ly 500,000 feet of 35mm film for this 90-minute work. Still, the taut­ness of The Assas­sin doesn’t come off as the achieve­ment of clever edit­ing alone; there are dozens of moments of lan­guorous, low-angled shots, such as one fol­low­ing the move­ments of torch-car­ry­ing palace ser­vants that slow­ly drifts down­ward towards some well water and lands on an omi­nous effigy.”

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What we said: ​“Much cel­lu­loid has been expend­ed on the sub­ject of liv­ing with addic­tion, but this is a rare case of a work in which addic­tion is a con­text rather than a sub­ject. It’s not try­ing to act as an exposé of a social sub-stra­tum or even a behav­iour­al study – it just offers a bit time in the com­pa­ny of real, frag­ile, uncom­mu­nica­tive, self-destruc­tive peo­ple who are trapped between worlds.”

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What we said: ​“Mid­night Spe­cial is a spec­tac­u­lar reminder that the best films are able to stim­u­late our imag­i­na­tion while leav­ing room for a lit­tle intro­spec­tion. The ques­tion that pro­vokes the most telling response comes cour­tesy of Adam Driver’s sym­pa­thet­ic gov­ern­ment stooge: is this kid a weapon or a saviour?”

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What we said: ​“Like the phan­tom croc­o­dile at the begin­ning of Gomes’ 2012 mas­ter­piece, Tabu, this is a sad and melan­cholic film, though it is not a maudlin one. Its con­tent oscil­lates between the absurd and the arcane, focus­ing as much on minor-scale rebel­lion as it does on the bit­ter­sweet dec­i­ma­tion of a rich cul­tur­al heritage.”

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What we said: ​“Con­sid­er­ing the two terms of his pres­i­den­cy sit neat­ly between the week of the ​‘Mir­a­cle’ and the film’s release, it’s hard not to see the film in its com­pact form as a cor­rec­tive to the bloat­ed tent­pole Hol­ly­wood prod­uct that’s sad­ly defined Oba­ma-era Amer­i­can cinema.”

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What we said: ​“Stillman’s work has often favoured build­ing up char­ac­ters and wrap­ping a loose-weave nar­ra­tive around their eccen­tric tra­vails, though Love & Friend­ship is plot­ted to intri­cate per­fec­tion, with stag­ing, chore­og­ra­phy, tim­ing and geog­ra­phy all para­mount to the sub­tle mechan­ics of the comedy.”

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What we said: ​“A game of sec­ond-guess­ing Ter­rence Malick’s the­mat­ic motives is an exer­cise in pure-brewed futil­i­ty. That’s not to say Knight of Cups isn’t an inclu­sive film – it is just that. It wants you to build the­o­ries, engi­neer con­spir­a­cies, link togeth­er frag­ments of infor­ma­tion as a way to deci­pher Rick’s vague but poignant predicament.”

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What we said: ​“Driver’s per­for­mance cements his sta­tus as an actor whose phys­i­cal com­mand match­es his abil­i­ty to tele­graph inner life. It’s a cliché́ to say that the great­est actors make the small­est actions mag­net­ic, but it’s true of Dri­ver who makes the non-demon­stra­tive act of lis­ten­ing feel like it means the world.”

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What we said: ​“With the help of screen­writer Jacques Toule­monde Vidal, Guer­ra crafts a rich the­mat­ic alle­go­ry on the effects of colo­nial­ism. It takes the form of a ser­pen­tine dance through time, sound­ing a series of echoes beyond the imme­di­ate hor­rors borne of its Con­ra­di­an heart of dark­ness. And hor­rors there are plen­ty, not least in scenes at an orphan­age pop­u­lat­ed by sadis­tic mis­sion­ar­ies and a Colonel Kurtz-like dem­a­gogue in each respec­tive timeframe. ”

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What we said: ​“If movies had cheeks, this one would be imprint­ed with a ver­i­ta­ble roadmap of wind­ing, mas­cara-caked tear stains. Pedro Almodóvar’s Juli­eta is a hot red swoon. Its lips pursed, its face unread­able until the dev­as­tat­ing yet rev­e­la­to­ry clos­ing frames, it soft­ly veers between a hand-select­ed inven­to­ry of themes and emo­tions, han­dling each with the utmost of care and caution.”

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What we said: ​“This is also a film that con­founds expec­ta­tion, bril­liant­ly chal­leng­ing the cliché that schol­ar­ly life is gov­erned by a rigid cul­tur­al caste sys­tem. Indeed, it prac­tices what it preach­es, show­ing how easy it is for punks to mix with jocks, jocks with thes­ps, fresh­men with seniors, and every­one with a self-impor­tant, gog­gle-eyed din­gus named Jay Niles (Jus­ton Street). Life, it seems, is one big cir­cle-pit of nos­tal­gic bon­homie. Polit­i­cal antag­o­nism is just a state of mind. This film is a flower in the gun bar­rel of con­ser­v­a­tive big­otry and arro­gance. It’s about the sim­ple joy of mak­ing connections.”

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What are your favourite films of 2016? Share your per­son­al top rank­ing with us @LWLies