The ones we thought we would like
Let’s start by the movies that we thought we would like but didn’t. Every year, Hollywood announces a few movies that we get excited for, but some of them always end up having a rating close to 6 on Imdb. This year’s big winner in this category was... Assassin’s Creed. Undoubtedly one of the flicks that generated the most buzz, not even a stellar cast - Academy-award nominee Michael Fassbender and Academy-award winners Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons - could be its saving grace. It’s currently scoring 6.4/10 on Imdb and 31 on Metacritic. Yikes!Alas, the silver medal in this category goes to another action/adventure/fantasy movie: Suicide Squad. The premise of a secret government agency recruiting some of the most dangerous super-villains sounds good enough, but the plot has been classified as “lazy” and “predictable”. It stars Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie. Score: 6.4/10 (Imdb) and 40 (Metacritic).
The bronze medal departs from action movies and moves into noir territory - or at least, what attempted to be noir. The Girl on the Train, based on the New York Times best-selling book, starred English-darling Emily Blunt as a divorced alcoholic who gets caught up in a missing person’s case. Blunt’s performance as an unreliable narrator is surprisingly convincing and has even earned her a BAFTA nomination, but the story unfolds poorly. Overall, it scored 6.6/10 (Imdb) and 48/100 (Metacritic).
Comedies were also a big source of disappointment this year - and just when we needed them the most. Why Him? and Keeping Up with the Joneses, for which we had high hopes, rank 6.6 and 5.8 respectively.
Other movies in this category include The Accountant, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Collateral Beauty and Live By the Night. Of these, Collateral Beauty has taken the hardest blow. With an ensemble cast comprised of household names like Will Smith, Kate Winslet, Dame Helen Mirren or Keira Knightley, it’s currently scoring 23/100 on Metacritic.
Ready for the award season
After talking about the ones we didn’t like, we move on to those movies that have dazzled both the public and the industry alike. They were born ready for the award season, and you can start betting on your favorite!
La La La Land is one of the must-see movies of 2016. And it has received ravishing reviews as well, scoring 7 Golden Globes already. The plot is simple - a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) falls for an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) - and it unfolds effortlessly. It’s a marvellous tribute to the Hollywood of another era, one of movies with fewer special effects and more screwball comedies. And like The Artist a few years ago, which produced much of the same nostalgia, it may sweep the Oscars. It currently scores 8.7/100 (Imdb) and 93/100 (Metacritic).
Arrival is possibly the best sci-fi movie of the whole year. It
Manchester by the Sea is another strong contender for this year’s award season. Directed and written by Kenneth Lonergan, it’s anchored on strong performances by Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams as an uncle who takes care of his teenage nephew and his estranged wife. It already secured 93 wins and 195 nominations (!), a rating of 8.4/10 (Imdb) and 96/100 (Metacritic).
And thankfully, there’s a strong chance the Oscars won’t be #sowhite this year. Fences, directed by none other than Denzel Washington and written by the late August Wilson, brings a working-class African-American family in the 1950s to the big screen. Washington plays the main role and Viola Davis gives an amazing supporting actress performance that already won her a Golden Globe.
Hidden Figures is another movie capturing the lives of African-Americans. Set in the 1960s, it’s based on the true story of three African-American women (played by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe) who provided NASA with important data that ultimately allowed the U.S. to complete its first space missions.
Also within the 50 best movies of 2016, you should keep an eye out for Lion, Hell or High Water and Moonlight.
Spin-Offs, Sequels and Remakes
“Everything Old Is New Again”, or so the song goes. And perhaps, no other year proved the motto as true as 2016. It was a year plagued with spin-offs and sequels (and there are more announced for 2017, even on TV) - but are they really making cinema great again?
Star Wars is possibly the most successful franchise in movie history. Besides, with the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII scheduled for next year and the death of the original (and irreplaceable) princess Leia Carrie Fisher, it’s has certainly been on everyone’s mind. It’s therefore unsurprising that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story made more money than anyone else in the popular movies of 2016. The story is set immediately after the events of the original 1977 film and stars Felicity Jones in the main role. Score: 8.1/10 (Imdb) and 65 (Metacritic).Underworld also brought a new installment to light this year: Underworld: Blood Wars is the fifth of the series. And if one wonders why they are still making them, here it is, drawing people to a movie theater near you. But it was universally panned, scoring 6.4/10 (on Imdb) and a meager 22/100 on Metacritic.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a spin-off of the Harry Potter series. Set 17 years before Harry arrives in Hogwarts, it stars none of the series main characters and received a mild reception. It scored just 7.7/10 on Imdb and 66 on Metacritic.
Deadpool was the eighth installment of the X-Men series and was the ninth highest grossing movie of the past year. It’s also the highest grossing R-rated film in History: it achieved an impressive 783$ million revenue at the box office against a 58$ million budget.
Other spin-offs and sequels released this year include Captain America: Civil War, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Inferno (the third installment of the Da Vinci series) and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. There was room for a remake too, The Magnificent Seven, originally shot in the 1960s.
The Blockbusters
And of course, we couldn’t forget about this year’s blockbusters:
Passengers more than doubled its budget at the box office. Moreover, it had a storyline of a true blockbuster: a spacecraft travelling to a distant colony has a malfunction, and two of its passengers (Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt) are awakened 90 years early. It’s not a bad movie, and yet one that doesn’t add anything new to the genre. Score: 7.1/10 (imdb) and 41 /100 (Metacritic).
Deepwater Horizon was another movie designed to be a blockbuster, but its box office sales barely covered the budget. It’s an epic disaster film of American proportions about an oil drilling on behalf of BP gone wrong. As of now, it has 7.2/10 (Imdb) and 76/100 (Metacritic).
Speaking of epic, The Great Wall, a Chinese-American production, had a 150$ million budget. It’s one of the most talked about movies of the year, despite not having premiered in the US yet. The available scores on Imdb (6.3/10), Rotten Tomatoes (44%) and Metacritic (48/100), however, are rather disappointing.
Not For the Faint of Heart
We’ve already covered quite a few thrillers, adventure and action films. But there are others, which won’t be up for major nominations and didn’t spark much anticipation, that still provided us with a few good bursts of adrenaline.
The most noteworthy of them all is the psychological thriller Split, which came out of the Fantastic Fest Film Festival in September and still awaits a mainstream release in a few countries. James McAvoy plays a kidnapper with 24 different personalities against Anya Taylor-Joy and Haley Lu Richardson as his victims. Score: 7.6/10 and 76/100 (Metacritic).
In an unusual theological thriller, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese takes us to Japan, where two priests attempt to locate their mentor and propagate Catholicism in the process. Silence scored 7.6/100 (Imdb) and 79/100 (Metacritic).
Other popular films of the genre include the The Autopsy of Jane Doe and The Girl with All the Gifts, both reviewed in 6.9/10 on Imdb, Collide and Max Steel.
Animation films are crowd-pleasers. And 2016 was no exception. Sing is set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, where an optimistic Koala (Matthew McConaughey) hopes to save his theater with a singing competition. Reese Witherspoon and Seth MacFarlane also star. Score: 7.3/10 (Imdb) and 59/100 (Metacritic).
Moana follows suit. It’s set in Ancient Polynesia, where Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) tries to fix things after a terrible curse. It’s ranked 8.0/10 on Imdb and 81/100 on Metacritic.
Other movies in this category that received a great deal of attention were Trolls, The Secret Life of Pets, Zootopia and The Sausage Party.
Other well-ranked fantasy films include A Monster Calls, the emotional story of a boy coping with the death of his mother with the help of a magical tree, and The Jungle Book. The new adaptation of the famous book stars the likes of Bill Murray and Ben Kingsley.
History Buffs: Lookout!
Besides Hidden Figures, which might be up for some strong awards, there are other three historical movies that we could not ignore in 2016. Hacksaw Ridge finally saw the light of day after 14 years in development hell. Directed by Mel Gibson and set during WWII, it tells the story of the first soldier who won the Medal of Honor without firing a single shot. It’s a successful comeback for Gibson and already one of his highest ranked movies (8.5/10 on Imdb 71/100 on Metacritic).
Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood, is another historical drama recounting the key minutes and wise decision-making of Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) before he landed on the Hudson River and saved all his passengers and crew.
Snowden managed to be less controversial that its namesake and inspiration Edward Snowden (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt), who’s still seen as a true American hero by some and the worst of traitors by others. It scored 7.4/10 (Imdb) and 58/100 (Metacritic).
Honorable Mentions
Possibly, the best documentary of the year is Dangal. The Indian film about former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat’s glory at the Commonwealth Games. It has an impressive 9.1/10 on IMDB!
The most well-rounded comedy was The Edge of Seventeen, with 7.9/10 (Imdb) and 77/100 (Metacritic).
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