Top Ten Movies Of 2016
By Bill Wine
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It's the end of the year, which means it's time to glance back and acknowledge 2016's best movie-going experiences.
What follows is one critic's countdown of the year's most stirring, superlative, stimulating, or satisfying movies, in ascending order and as voted upon by the entire membership of the Academy of Me, Myself, and I.
Here are the Top Ten Movies of 2016:
10. The Birth of a Nation – Off-screen occurrences rendered this powerfully mournful drama controversial, but there's no denying the quality of star-producer-director-and-co-writer Nate Parker's take on systemic racism, an inspiring biodrama about slavery, bravery, and faith.
9. Captain Fantastic – Viggo Mortensen stars in writer-director Matt Ross's thought-provoking and original drama about family and parenting as an eccentric father raising his six kids way off the grid – in a forest in the Pacific Northwest – where they live an unplugged lifestyle.
8. 13th – Director Ava DuVernay's riveting, eloquent, and eye-opening documentary is a comprehensive historical look at the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, but with a contemporary resonance that gives it an unassailable urgency despite its measured approach.
7. The Jungle Book – This reimagining of the Rudyard Kipling classic from director Jon Favreau employs a staggering succession of jungle-animal illusions that do justice to the source material in an enormously entertaining fantasy for children of all ages that offers a lot more than the bare necessities.
6. Moonlight –Writer-director Barry Jenkins gets exemplary work from his African-American ensemble cast in this poignant and insightful examination of identity, masculinity, and connection in an intimate, nuanced character study that progresses over two decades.
5. The Handmaiden – A tricky, sophisticated thriller, gorgeously shot, from South Korean director Chan Wook-park, that's divided into three parts with a story about con artistry that's told from multiple points of view, all of them suspenseful, erotic, and mesmeriazing.
4. Zootopia – How much more of a wallop could this instant classic possibly pack? All it is is a whip-smart, hysterically funny, vibrantly colorful, amazingly relevant animated feature, as well as a murder mystery that also serves as a comedic thriller about prejudice and melting-pot open-mindedness.
3. Manchester by the Sea – In giving us one of the most heart-wrenching movies ever made, writer-director Kenneth Lonergan concocts a melancholy masterpiece about a family tragedy in New England, featuring a deeply felt performance by Casey Affleck as a broken man that is one for the ages.
2. Arrival – Aliens land on Earth in this tense, bracing science fiction drama knockout from director Denis Villeneuve that is somehow simultaneously brilliantly cerebral and deeply emotional. This superbly crafted thriller is highlighted by a consummate, career-best lead performance by Amy Adams as a resourceful linguistics professor and mother in mourning, and is ambitiously and satisfyingly aimed at a thinking and feeling audience.
1. La La Land – The year's very best film is a toe-tapping tribute to old-fashioned Hollywood musicals, a love letter to Los Angeles, and a slice of contemporary life all in one, a miraculously romantic musical dramedy from writer-director Damien Chazelle with marvelous leads Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling doing their own singing, dancing, and bantering their little hearts out. This is a monumentally entertaining work of art that hits all the right notes, gets all the right shots, and takes all the right steps.
Now bring on 2017!
