One last look at what I watched last year. First, between holidays and travel, I squeezed in eleven films in December and got out to the theaters three times. Most of my home viewing was spent binging on old Japanese films streamed from the new service Filmstruck; it’s basically a smorgasbord for cinema fans. Scroll down further to see them.
Some readers may recall that before the start of last year I resolved to stop watching television shows (more or less) and watch movies, exclusively. According to Letterboxd, where I keep a film diary, that allowed me to watch 185 films last year, averaging about three and a half per week. Looking back, I’m extremely happy with that choice because I saw so much good cinema last year—movies I’d always wanted to see but never got around to, movies I didn’t know anything about before discovering for the first time, and movies that I already cherished but hadn’t been able to revisit for years. Of course, it did mean that I missed out on “Game of Thrones,” “Stranger Things” and “Westworld,” but I’d take “The Duke of Burgundy,” “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” and “The Handmaiden” over those any time.
Speaking of the latter, here is a quick rundown of the best films released in 2016 that I managed to see. Given how infrequently I get out to theaters, it’s hardly a comprehensive list, of course.
- “The Handmaiden”
- “Moonlight”
- “Love & Friendship”
- “Don’t Think Twice”
- “Arrival”
- “Green Room””
- “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
- “Southside with You”
- “Hail, Caesar!”
You can also see every 2016 movie that I saw last year and how I ranked them in this Letterboxd list. That site, which I’ve really come to adore in the past year, also compiles a year-end summary of patron members’ activity which offers more insight into how I spent my movie time in 2016; if you’re interested in that, have a look here. It includes this imposing graphic of all 185 of the movies I logged.
Whew. If you care to follow along, you can join me over at letterboxd.com.
For posterity’s sake, here is the complete rundown of all 185 films, along with the brief commentary I added for them as I blogged them here, month by month.
January
- “Sicario” Rewatched at home after seeing it in theaters last year.
- “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Really had a hard time finishing this one. Completely inessential.
- “The Double” I was skeptical at first because it seemed very arch, but it’s full of inventive stuff.
- “Diabolique” Superbly creepy.
- “Star Wars” My daughter can’t get enough; I’m over it.
- “The Grifters” Much sunnier and less gritty than I recall from seeing it twenty-some years ago, but still quite good.
- “Creed” So great in nearly every way.
- “L’Immortelle” Strange but bewitching artifact from the French New Wave.
- “Blue Ruin” Finally got to see this. Brutal.
- “Adua and Her Friends” Pulls off a neat trick at the end when you expect it to lose its nerve, but somehow it doesn’t.
- “The Empire Strikes Back” Holds up.
- “Mary Poppins” First time I’ve watched it since I was a kid.
- “The Law” Gina Lollobrigida, folks.
- “Avengers: Age of Ultron” It’s not as bad as some people say, at least until the interminable fight sequence at the end.
- “Frozen” Like, my twentieth time, and not by choice.
- “They Made Me a Fugitive” Tidy little British noir from 1947.
- “Two-Lane Blacktop” Lost, glamorous American youth on the road.
- “Bridge of Spies” Felt like something my high school history teacher would have assigned. Also, post-processed extensively to remarkably ugly effect.
- “The Picture of Dorian Gray” Terrific.
- “Murder by Decree” Sherlock Holmes with all the interesting parts taken out.
- “Slow West” A bit too twee, but solid.
- “Hunger” Amazing.
February
- “13 Tzameti” Insane.
- “The Keep” Finally got to watch this rare early Michael Mann movie, transferred from a terrible print, via Amazon. Pretty flimsy, but still has some vintage Mann elements.
- “Fruitvale Station” Excellent.
- “Lady Snowblood” Over the top Japanese revenge tale.
- “Chronicle” I was surprised by how smart this was.
- “The Unbelievable Truth” I’ve tried many times but Hal Hartley just doesn’t register with me.
- “Le Notti Bianche” Wonderful neo-realist fairy tale.
- “The Racket” Robert Mitchum in a pokey morality noir.
- “Deadpool” Beyond criticism.
- “The Wolf of Wall Street” A high water mark for Scorcese and DiCaprio.
- “Cars” Not the best Pixar outing, but nothing to be ashamed of either.
- “Ant-Man” Still might be my favorite of all Marvel’s films.
March
- “Inception” Re-watched, totally holds up.
- “Two Days, One Night” Truly superb.
- “Hail, Caesar!”
- “Barton Fink” Re-watched.
- “Bone Tomahawk” Disappointing.
- “Ride Lonesome” I’m getting into The Ranown Cycle; great stuff.
- “Carol” An exquisite masterpiece.
- “Big Trouble in Little China”
- “Punch-Drunk Love”
- “Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films”
- “All Things Must Pass”
- “Hello, My Name Is Doris” Very cute.
- “Zootopia”
- “The Big Short” A real misfire; a weak derivative of “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
- “Gravity” Re-watched.
- “Love & Mercy” Decent but very biopic-y.
- “Black Mass” Just awful.
- “Goodfellas” Re-watched; it’s still amazing. Great way to counter the bitter taste of the previous movie.
April
- “Comanche Station”
- “And Then There Were None”
- “Frank” Kinda hated this.
- “Ip Man”
- “Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance” Gorgeously deranged.
- “The Hidden Fortress” Finally!
- “Buchanan Rides Alone”
- “Che: Part One” Mesmerizing.
- “The Departed” Re-watched; superb.
- “Creed” Re-watched.
- “Che: Part Two” Heartbreaking.
- “Blood Simple” Magnificent.
- “The Duke of Burgundy” Well done but so weird.
- “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior” Really holds up.
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Re-watched.
May
- “The Guest” I knew nothing about this movie before watching it and was pleasantly surprised.
- “Mad Max”
- “Cars” Gotta say, I don’t hate this least loved of all the Pixar movies.
- “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial” First time since I was a kid. Sniff.
- “Captain America: Civil War”
- “High-Rise” It has a brilliant poster.
- “Desperate”
- “Decision at Sundown”
- “Lucy” I’d heard that it gets really bad at the end; it does.
- “Raising Arizona” Immortal.
- “The Dark Knight” Watched this again after several years; I was shocked by how much of it is really stiff and unconvincing, but its second half is still potent.
- “Love & Friendship”
June
- “Before Midnight” Somehow found myself re-watching this trilogy in reverse order.
- “Before Sunset” Very, very nearly perfect.
- “Before Sunrise” It’s hard for me to believe this is now a whole other era.
- “Paddington”
- “Batman Begins”
- “High and Low” A feast in every way.
- “Only Lovers Left Alive” I was kind of put off by its preoccupation with goth coolness, but it won me over in the end.
- “Pretty in Pink” Really another era.
- “Dial M for Murder” Hadn’t seen this since I was a teenager. So great.
- “Now You See Me” Why in the world I watched this again, I have no idea.
- “Jack Reacher” Believe it or not, this one gets better with repeated viewings.
July
- “This Is Spinal Tap” Still makes me laugh out loud.
- “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” I had no idea this John Huston classic was so uncompromising.
- “2001: A Space Odyssey”
- “The Dictator”
- “The Incredibles” The story holds up, but much of the CG does not.
- “Finding Dory” I cried a little.
- “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
- “Taxi Driver” It’s really remarkable how Scorsese’s work really stands up to the test of time.
- “Robocop” The original, which was meh.
- “The Magnificent Ambersons”
- “Psycho”
- “The Bourne Identity”
- “To Kill a Man”
- “Zero De Conduite” Catching up on Jean Vigo.
- “Little White Lies”
- “The Hateful Eight”
- “Star Trek Beyond” Not terrible, but it definitely didn’t leave me wanting more sequels.
- “L’Atalante”
- “Vice and Virtue”
- “The Big Lebowski”
- “The Secret Life of Pets”
August
- “Jason Bourne” I wrote about how disappointing this was already.
- “Valley Girl”
- “Jour De Fête”
- “The Bourne Ultimatum” Went back to the good stuff.
- “Don’t Think Twice” A little gem; the best new movie I watched all summer.
- “The Score” Revisited this and found it sturdy and a real pleasure.
- “Anomalisa” Like a really elaborate adaptation of a New Yorker short story.
- “Mon Oncle”
- “The Hustler” First time; I did not expect it to be so uncompromising.
- “Bad Seed” Watched this because it was Billy Wilder’s first directorial effort, but aside from that, pretty dismissable
- “Brooklyn”
- “Sixteen Candles”
- “M. Hulot’s Holiday”
- “The Awful Truth” One of the all time greatest films ever made.
- “The Lickerish Quartet”
- “Mr. Holmes”
- “Terminator Genisys” Arnold comes off surprisingly well, but in the end it’s an embarrassment for everyone else involved.
- “Hell or High Water” Everyone was raving about this film, but I found it to be pretty shallow.
- “Camille 2000” Nuts.
September
- “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” Exactly as bad as you’ve heard.
- “Wild Card” Totally serviceable B-movie
- “The Third Man”
- “Casino”
- “Southside with You”
- “Tangerine” Terrifically strong and impactful.
- “The Running Man”
- “Stagecoach” When that camera zooms in on John Wayne—total movie magic.
- “The Assassin” One of the most beautiful movies in recent memory.
- “Heat”
- “The Dark Knight Rises”
- “Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss” Bonkers.
- “Annie Hall”
- “Full Frontal”
- “Hitchcock/Truffaut”
- “The November Man” Hats off to Pierce Brosnan for not phoning it in, but a mess nevertheless
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Rewatching confirmed it for me: it sucks.
October
- “Prisoners” Kind of saw it as a warm up for director Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival.”
- “X-Men” I was shocked by how poorly the FX has aged, but the human core of it still works.
- “The General” I’d always heard good things about this one; it did not live up to the things I had heard.
- “13 Assassins” Bah.
- “Storks”
- “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” Huge letdown.
- “My Neighbor Totoro” Everyone loves it.
November
- “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” I heard this was great, but it’s rotten with self-congratulatory celebrities.
- “Moonlight” Essential.
- “Brute Force”
- “Sing Street” Genial as heck.
- “Margaret” Not really sure why this is considered a masterpiece.
- “Ghostbusters (2016)” Not the worst movie ever, but deserves condemnation for being a tremendous waste of a wonderful cast.
- “Arrival”
- “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”
- “Doctor Strange” A total whiff.
- “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” Turgid.
- “Incendies”
- “The Limey”
- “While the City Sleeps”
- “The Handmaiden” Watch. This. Movie.
- “Belle De Jour”
- “In the Mood for Love” So, so, so lovely.
- “Brief Encounter” Hopelessly romantic.
- “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” I re-watched the first one so I guess I’m re-watching all of these turkeys now.
- “An Unmarried Woman” Laudably feminist but also problematic throughout.
December
- “Moana” You know what? It’s a pretty good movie.
- “Enemy” Still creeped out by that last shot.
- “Branded to Kill”
- “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”
- “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” Way better than last year’s episode, as I wrote here.
- “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” I honestly regret re-watching these bloated misfires.
- “Playtime” Pure genius.
- “Yojimbo”
- “Sanjuro”
- “Seven Samurai”
- “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” So nice I saw it twice.