Recently, I was asked the question that many people who hear that I'm an aspiring filmmaker tend to ask me: "What are some of your favorite films?" And many are surprised when I respond with relatively recent films that, you could say, haven't stood the test of time as well as bona fide classics like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark or Back to the Future. But here's the truth: I'm 19 years old (will be 20 next month) and the great films that have come out in my lifetime, the films have spoken to me and to the world that I grew up in and to the world that I make my way in as an adult, are the films that ultimately stayed with me and grew me as a filmmaker and film-lover more than other, older "classic" films. And while I wouldn't take the leap to say that many of the films on my top 10 from 2016 will end up on my all-time favorites list (with the exception of a couple), these are all great films that, on some level, spoke to me and to the world that I make my way in as an adult. So, without further ado, here are my top 10 favorite films from 2016 from 10 to 1:
(NOTE OF CLARIFICATION: I have not yet seen Fences, Lion, or Hell or High Water, but intend to do so very soon...)
10. Moonlight -- I know there's probably a few of you out there right now saying that this is too low, and I was definitely surprised when I was ordering this list and Moonlight, of all films, ended up at only #10. But this is absolutely one of the most remarkable achievements of the year in terms of pure storytelling and telling an incredibly personal tale amidst a background of poverty and suffering and prejudice. In an unusual way, it reminded me of Boyhood set against a world similar to that in the HBO drama The Wire with the same kind of personal, emotional storytelling I loved so much in Fruitvale Station from a few years back. The three young men who played the lead role blend perfectly together as the same person in three different decades, and Mahershala Ali is absolutely deserving of all of the Oscar buzz you're hearing about right now. Naomie Harris and Janelle Monae also give a good amount of heft to their (albeit slightly underwritten) roles as Chiron's mother and Juan's girlfriend, respectively. So while I do think this might rise up on my list with repeated viewings (I've only seen it once, when it first came out in Chicago back in November), it's staying at #10 on my list, if only to show just how many great films there were this past year.
9. Hidden Figures -- One of the most unabashed crowd-pleasers of recent years, this film tells a beautiful and remarkable true story of three women of color who overcame the odds to become mathematicians at NASA. Janelle Monae proves herself once again to be an actress of remarkable talent in an amazingly well-written role that fits her style and sensibilities perfectly, and Octavia Spencer earns her second Oscar nomination for her understated performance as well. Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Costner, and Jim Parsons (yes, Sheldon from Big Bang Theory) kill in all of their roles as well (this won Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards last night for a reason). I recently read a column in the Chicago Tribune that said every student in the 3rd-12th grade should be required to see this movie. I couldn't agree more.
8. Loving -- Set around the same time period as Hidden Figures, Loving tells a story of two people fighting for the right to be married in the most un-Oscar-baity way imagineable. Writer-director Jeff Nichols (one of the best indie filmmakers of the past 16 years, whose films include such overlooked masterpieces as Take Shelter, Mud, and this year's Midnight Special, which just missed my top 10) takes this painful but important civil-rights story and lets it speak for itself in a beautifully understated voice. Rather than having big self-important speeches and montages of the civil-rights battles of the time, Nichols shines his spotlight solely on Richard and Mildred Loving and their love for each other and how they just want to be able to live their lives as husband and wife with their children. Ruth Negga's performance as the sensitive but strong Mildred is one of the most beautiful performances of the year and stands toe-to-toe with all the amazing female performances in Hidden Figures. Edgarton also shines as the simple-minded Richard and he reminded me of why I fell in love with him as an actor in the first place (back in 2011 when he co-starred in Warrior with Tom Hardy). And Nichols' muse, Michael Shannon, kills in his all-too-brief cameo as a photographer for Life magazine. Jeff Nichols is a true American treasure and this film proves once again how amazing and wonderful his sensibility is. It's not quite the heartwarming feel-good civil-rights drama that Hidden Figures is, but it's still a necessary film that should absolutely be sought out.
7. The Edge of Seventeen -- Anybody who knows me knows that I am a sucker for coming-of-age movies. Films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Boyhood and last year's period piece coming-of-age story Brooklyn are all films that moved me and spoke to my own experiences in different ways. Kelly Fremon Craig's remarkable debut feature can stand toe-to-toe with any of these films as a beautiful, heartwarming, and unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story about a depressed, socially anxious high school junior (played in a profoundly real performance by Hailee Steinfeld, in her best role since 2010's True Grit) whose social life spirals out of control when her best friend begins dating her older brother. Woody Harrelson steals every one of his too-few scenes as Steinfeld's history teacher, and Kyra Sedgwick nails her role as the emotionally unstable mother. But what ultimately makes this film so special is that it succeeds where so many movies about high school fail, and that it places the viewer in that mindset that everything that happens in high school will determine the rest of your life while having the maturity to know just how histrionic all that "drama" really is in retrospect.
6. Nuts! -- An all-too-overlooked and forgotten documentary masterpiece from earlier this year that you can read all my thoughts on here, this movie lives up to its title in the best possible way, telling a story that has to be seen to be believed. That's all I will say, as the best way to watch this movie is knowing absolutely nothing about it (that's exactly how I saw it, anyway). It's available to watch on Amazon Prime now, and it absolutely needs to be seen.
5. Life, Animated -- One of the most emotional movie-watching experiences I've had in a theatre this year, this documentary about autism and the magic of movies is the best documentary of 2016 in my opinion (I still haven't watched all of OJ: Made in America yet) and you can read all of my thoughts on it here. Put simply: as someone with an autism spectrum disorder (Asperger's, to be specific) and as someone who grew up watching and loving Disney animated films, this movie spoke to me on so many personal levels, and I am so thankful the Oscar Documentary voters didn't forget about it when making nominations. This, like Nuts!, is currently available on Amazon Prime, and should be required viewing for every single human being who is a child, has a child, or has ever been a child.
4. Manchester By The Sea -- I have to say, this is one movie this year that, while deserving every inch of praise that's been heaped upon it, is being talked about in a way that's not helping people to go see it. Because of the fact that it's about a depressed man suffering from PTSD who is forced to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy's father dies, the word "depressing" has become attached to this movie in a way that I don't believe it deserves to. Yes, there are absolutely parts of this film that are heartbreaking and that will hit viewers hard who have ever had to deal with the loss of people who are close to them, but what I ultimately took from this movie is, strangely enough, hope. It's a film about persevering through all the crap that life throws at you and about being able to break down your walls in order to do what is right in times of tragedy and suffering. And the way that writer/director Kenneth Lonergan (whose past films include other indie dramas such as You Can Count on Me and Margaret) writes this movie and films this movie is so intimate that it literally feels like you're watching scenes from real life. He adds just the right amount of levity/comic relief so it doesn't get too bogged down and still feels realistic. And this is further elevated by absolutely brilliant performances from Casey Affleck (who deserves his all-but-guaranteed Best Actor Oscar) and Lucas Hedges as well as Michelle Williams, whose one heartbreaking scene is the reason she's nominated for Best Supporting Actress this year. Reminding me in the best way possible of my other favorite indie dramas of the last 10 years like Grace is Gone and Fruitvale Station, Manchester by the Sea is a film that grabbed a hold of me when I first saw it back in December and has never let go since. And regardless of what you might be hearing from others, this is not a film of depression. This is a film of hope.
3. Sing Street -- Yet another criminally overlooked film that came out earlier this year and was then forgotten about. While not quite on the same emotional level as Moonlight or Manchester by the Sea, this is still one of the most joyous cinematic experiences I've had in many years. A relatively simple coming-of-age story (yes, another coming-of-age movie, I know) about a fifteen-year-old boy who meets a girl and tells her that he's in a band (which results in him then having to actually form a band), writer/director John Carney (of Once and Begin Again) packs every inch of this movie with heart and energy and joy and great music, as well as successfully putting the viewer in the mind of this boy so that you're on the same emotional wavelength as him throughout. You can read the rest of my many thoughts about this film here, but it is on Netflix right now and should absolutely be watched by everyone who loves fun and joy and, yes, great music.
2. A Monster Calls -- And now we go from a criminally overlooked film from earlier this year to a criminally overlooked film from this awards season. While A Monster Calls was ignored by both the Oscars and moviegoers as a whole (to date, it has grossed $41 million on a $43 million dollar budget, and less than 10% of that gross was from the U.S.), this is still the most emotional experience I had in a theatre watching a movie from 2016. Yet another coming-of-age movie on my list, this tells the story of a 12-year-old boy with a terminally-ill mother who has nightly visions of a tree monster coming to visit him and telling him parables to help him cope with this tragic episode in his life. While this is a family film in the sense that it has a CGI tree monster (brilliantly voiced by Liam Neeson) and parables that are told via sequences of beautiful animation, this is a challenging family film in the style of Where the Wild Things Are and Inside Out in the sense that it doesn't treat children as dumb or fragile, it's not afraid to tackle hard questions that any child who has ever had to deal with death has had to face, and it's also not afraid to answer them honestly and in a way that respects the intelligence of its audience. Felicity Jones and Sigourney Weaver both give stellar performances as the main character's mother and grandmother (respectively), and newcomer Lewis MacDougall (whose only previous credit was 2015's Pan) gives a heartbreaking performance as the main character Conor, perfectly channeling the sadness and anger that every 12-year-old faces at one point or another. I teared up a good four times during the running time of this movie, and I teared up again right after I saw it when I received news of a very close person in my life being diagnosed with breast cancer (she's doing okay now, thank God). I really hope people come to discover this movie on HBO or Netflix or any other streaming platform (or DVD/Blu-ray, if that's still what you do), because this is one of most powerful films about grief and dealing with death that I have ever seen, but, like Manchester by the Sea, it's ultimately a movie about hope and moving forward. So...yes, please do whatever you can to see this.
And...1. La La Land -- Those who are a part of my circle of family/close friends know that I have not been able to stop talking about this film since I first saw it on Christmas Day, and I will not stop talking about it until every single person on the planet has experienced this beautiful, joyous masterpiece of filmmaking. I love freaking everything about this movie, all the way down from the opening musical number, which immediately threw me into its fantastical world, to the wonderfully committed performances of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, who I love even more now after this film. While yes, I know the plot itself isn't particularly exciting, the whole point of this film is that Sebastian and Mia (Gosling and Stone's characters) are both incredibly passionate people. They're dreamers and they want to do whatever they have to do to follow their dreams. As someone who's been passionate about filmmaking and storytelling since I was seven-years-old, and is currently spending thousands of dollars to go to DePaul University film school just so I can follow my dream of writing and directing indie films, I can absolutely relate to the mindset of these two people. Writer/director Damien Chazelle perfectly understands this and made this film for people who feel like this, as also evidenced by the amount of passion and love he put into every freaking inch of this screenplay and production. The first thing I said after walking out of this film the first time (and second time) was, "This is a love letter to everything that I love." And it's true. It's a film about the beauty and importance of storytelling, it's a film about love, it's a film about being a dreamer in a cynical you-need-to-make-money world, but it's also a film about reality, about the fact that not everything always gets wrapped up in a nice neat bow. And while I know that that's not something that everybody likes to hear in movies...well, that's the truth, and the truth ain't always pretty. All of the musical numbers in this film are brilliant, and while I know that Gosling and Stone aren't professionally-trained singers/dancers, they still do a fine job (particularly Stone, who belts out one particular number beautifully). This film deserves every single Oscar it is nominated for, and it deserves to be remembered years from now as one of the greatest films of the 21st century, a film of beauty, love, hope, passion, and dreams. This is a perfect, brilliant, joyous, moving, and poignant movie on every single level. "Here's to the ones who dream...foolish as they may seem..."
And, for anyone who's curious, here's ten films that just missed the cut for my top 10 (the ones that are hyperlinked are ones I reviewed over the summer):
Arrival
Silence
Hacksaw Ridge
Kubo and the Two Strings
Midnight Special
The Nice Guys
Love & Friendship
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (just for the last 40 minutes)
