2016 was a good year for film!

So the Oscars start in a few hours and we decided to come up with a list of our faves! Low-key we feel it's not right to make this list yet considering we haven't seen movies like Lion, 20th Century women and Fences. Also, the three of us had to compromise because we couldn't list out all our favorites. Generally, 2016 was a good year for film.
Let's get into it... quickly...

12) NEON DEMON-

You either really hate this movie or appreciate it. There's no in between as this movie obviously has no mass appeal. It's a very experimental film and even though not all of us agreed it should be on this list we admit that it is daring and it perfectly shows Nicolas Refn's devotion to style and surrealism.


11) THE INVITATION-

The invitation was a good thriller with a very good performance from Logan Marshall-Green. The writing was really good and the cliffhanger at the end was amazing. It was one of our early faves of the year so it deserves a spot.



10) THE WITNESS-

The Witness premiered in 2015 at the New York Film Festival but was widely released in 2016 so it still counts :). This documentary leaves the viewer with so much empathy especially in the final scene when the last experiment was conducted. It also unravels the different ways the average person perceives fear (which we absolutely loved). The Witness will definitely keep you thinking.




9) LOVING- 
We all loved Loving! (sorry we had to do it). It was really beautiful and touching. Ruth Negga was the star of this emotional drama. We love how Jeff Nichols sticks to his plot-driven with a heavy emotional core film pattern.

(Nocturnal Animals would have been 9 but some people disagreed)

8) SWISS ARMY MAN-
The weirdest movie ever. However we appreciated it for what it was. It was quirky, funny and sad and we all learnt a thing or two about friendship. The Chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano was amazing and of course the dialogue was filled with dry humor but that's our thing anyway. P.s all our friends hated it but that's ok lol.


7) ARRIVAL-
We have been rooting for Dennis Villenueve since Enemy and Prisoners. He is so unique and we always end up feeling a bit smarter after watching any of  his films. It's so cute how he tries to simplify his films, according to Amy Adams he described Arrival as a 'a story a mother tells to her child'. No Dennis, it was multi-layered. He has captured us again with this well put together film on human relations through language. It’s the most 'realistic' Sci-fi we have seen.

6) MOONLIGHT- 

Where do we even begin? Barry Jenkins left us wide mouthed with this beauty. Moonlight easily had the best cinematography this year and a story so daring that we can only wonder what next Barry has in store. Also we loved how classical music was used in the movie, the juxtaposition of it all was just lit.

5) MANCHESTER BY THE SEA- 

There’s nothing better than a well-acted simple family drama that draws you in. Manchester by the sea is an amazing drama and whilst everyone is praising Casey Affleck, the phenomenal Lucas Hedges should not be forgotten. Let’s just say one of us cried during the house fire scene…

4) THE WITCH- 

This movie was a stand out and it's sad to see it went under radar during awards season. Perfect writing, beautiful cinematography and a striking dialogue. This is the definition of bone-chilling-art-house horror.

3) THE LOBSTER-

Once again a fascinating dark comedy with a surprisingly strong performance from Colin Farrel. Words can't even begin to describe what we felt about The Lobster. It was simply amazing and ridiculous at the same time. The narration throughout the movie made it the funniest movie of the year in our opinion. 

2) JACKIE-
Natalie Portman's acting range is crazy, and it will be very disappointing if she does not win the oscar, even worse if she loses it to Emma Stone. Everything to love about this art house biopic is in the review we posted earlier. Honestly. Truly.







1) SILENCE-

Martin Scorcese came back with this beautiful, intriguing, thematic masterpiece. It's like nothing he has ever done and it's evident he took his time. We definitely will not be forgetting about Silence, this profound story of religion, idolization and history accompanied by the amazing performance from Andrew Garfield was our favorite this season. The scene where Andrew's character had to react to the  'step on me' instruction was so intense and striking it easily became one of our best movie scenes. We surprisingly all agreed this deserved a best directing Oscar nomination. And we have no words to the few critics who said it was 'punishingly long'. 




Honorable mentions:
Nocturnal Animals, The Shallows, Don't Breathe, Hell or High Water, Cafe Society. These movies were great but we wanted to stick to 12.