2016

The order and the categorization of the movies are very arbitrary. There aren't any linear value systems to judge what's most beautiful so putting all these different movies in one hierarchical order is very much an injustice to them all. Moreover, I saw most of the movies only once and in many cases it's the first time I see that specific director's work so I might be making a lot of hasty judgements. This isn't meant to be a list of the best movies made in 2016, but a list of the new films that are still in the festival circuit or in theatres that I've seen in 2016. I'd like to think of it as a diary of sorts, which is partly why I rarely go back and change my lists for previous years, even if I feel I was completely wrong about it at the time, nor do I add movies to my previous lists. I keep the movies I was involved with out of the list. The movies I don't like are also out of the list. So, here it is, the new movies I liked in 2016:


Sublime
Eniaios (Cycles IX, X, and XI) / Gregory Markopoulos
The Assassin (刺客聶隱娘) / Hou Hsiao Hsien (even though it was also on my 2015 list, I saw it four times more, all on the big screen, in 2016 so it's definitely an essential part of my cinema experience this year.)
Ta'ang / Wang Bing
Cemetery of Splendour / Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Great
Bitter Money / Wang Bing 
Sieranevada / Cristi Puiu
No Home Movie / Chantal Akerman

Very Good
In Jackson Heights / Frederick Wiseman
La Fille Inconnue / Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Kaili Blues / Gan Bi
La mort de Louis XIV / Albert Serra
Viejo calavera / Kiro Russo
Solo, Solitude (Istirahatlah kata-kata) / Anggi Noen Yosep
Queen of Earth / Alex Ross Perry
American Honey / Andrea Arnold

Good
Visita ou Memórias e Confissões (Visit or Memories and Confessions) / Manoel de Oliveira
Boris sans Béatrice (Boris without Béatrice) / Denis Côté
Mimosas / Oliver Laxe
Life After Life / Hanyi Zhang
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World / Werner Herzog
88:88 / Isiah Medina
The Burglar / Hagar Ben-Asher

Worth seeing
El Club / Pablo Larrain


Memorable screenings of older films
From the Notebook of... / Robert Beavers (Wonderful 35mm copy)
Hospital / Frederick Wiseman (so so 35mm restoration)
L'argent / Bresson (Good DCP restoration)
Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 / Kazuo Hara (Terrible Bluray copy)
Tekerleme (Tongue Twister) / Merlin Solakhan (Terrible Bluray copy)

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