{"id":14633,"date":"2017-01-01T12:50:27","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T17:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/?p=14633"},"modified":"2025-12-05T22:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:39:13","slug":"top-10-of-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/2017\/01\/top-10-of-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 of 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

*Click on the ‘Lists & Logs’ tab to see lists from previous years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This list will be updated each time I see a film from 2016 (world premiere\/imdb date) that is better than at least one of the films already on the list.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)<\/li>\n
  2. Ossuary (Nathaniel Dorsky)<\/li>\n
  3. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)<\/li>\n
  4. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)<\/li>\n
  5. Elle (Paul Verhoeven)<\/li>\n
  6. Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont)<\/li>\n
  7. The Dreamed Path (Angela Schanelec)<\/li>\n
  8. Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-soo)<\/li>\n
  9. The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra)<\/li>\n
  10. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Polls Top 10<\/span><\/strong> (eligible titles appear\/will appear here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Knight of Cups (2015, Terrence Malick)<\/li>\n
    2. Toni Erdmann (2016, Maren Ade)<\/li>\n
    3. Cemetery of Splendour (2015, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)<\/li>\n
    4. Certain Women (2016, Kelly Reichardt)<\/li>\n
    5. Elle (2016, Paul Verhoeven)<\/li>\n
    6. The Treasure (2015, Corneliu Porumboiu)<\/li>\n
    7. Paterson (2016, Jim Jarmusch)<\/li>\n
    8. Everybody Wants Some!! (2016, Richard Linklater)<\/li>\n
    9. Cameraperson (2016, Kirsten Johnson)<\/li>\n
    10. Henry Gamble\u2019s Birthday Party (2015, Stephen Cone)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      My Top 10 Discoveries During 2016<\/span><\/strong> (for first-time viewings of films made before 2000)<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Possession (1981, Andrzej Zulawski)<\/li>\n
      2. Landscape Suicide (1987, James Benning)<\/li>\n
      3. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)<\/li>\n
      4. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)<\/li>\n
      5. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock)<\/li>\n
      6. The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)<\/li>\n
      7. The Quadrille (1950, Jacques Rivette)<\/li>\n
      8. In a Year of 13 Moons (1978, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)<\/li>\n
      9. Nostos: The Return (1990, Franco Piavoli)<\/li>\n
      10. Satan’s Brew (1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Other 2016 films I\u2019ve seen<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

          \n
        • Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson) \u2013 6.9<\/li>\n
        • Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) \u2013 6.9<\/li>\n
        • A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies) \u2013 6.9<\/li>\n
        • O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman) \u2013 6.8<\/li>\n
        • Four Days in France (J\u00e9r\u00f4me Reybaud) \u2013 6.7<\/li>\n
        • Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) \u2013 6.6<\/li>\n
        • Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie) – 6.6<\/li>\n
        • La La Land (Damien Chazelle) \u2013 6.6<\/li>\n
        • Little Men (Ira Sachs) – 6.6<\/li>\n
        • A Dragon Arrives! (Mani Haghighi) – 6.5<\/li>\n
        • Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan) \u2013 6.5<\/li>\n
        • Safari (Ulrich Seidl) \u2013 6.5<\/li>\n
        • The Human Surge (Eduardo Williams) \u2013 6.5<\/li>\n
        • Aquarius (Kleber Mendon\u00e7a Filho) \u2013 6.5<\/li>\n
        • Weiner (Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg) \u2013 6.5<\/li>\n
        • measuring change (James Benning) \u2013 6.5<\/li>\n
        • Kate Plays Christine (Robert Greene) – 6.5<\/li>\n
        • Beyond the Mountains and Hills (Eran Kolirin) – 6.5<\/li>\n
        • K\u00e9kszak\u00e1ll\u00fa (Gast\u00f3n Solnicki) \u2013 6.4<\/li>\n
        • Mister Universo (Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel) \u2013 6.4<\/li>\n
        • The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi) \u2013 6.4<\/li>\n
        • Wiener-Dog (Todd Solondz) – 6.3<\/li>\n
        • Short Stay (Ted Fendt) – 6.3<\/li>\n
        • Tower (Keith Maitland) – 6.3<\/li>\n
        • Homo sapiens (Nikolaus Geyrhalter) \u2013 6.3<\/li>\n
        • Being 17 (Andr\u00e9 T\u00e9chin\u00e9) – 6.2<\/li>\n
        • Salt and Fire (Werner Herzog) \u2013 6.2<\/li>\n
        • All the Cities of the North (Dane Komljen) \u2013 6.2<\/li>\n
        • Risk (Laura Poitras) \u2013 6.2<\/li>\n
        • The Challenge (Yuri Ancarani) – 6.2<\/li>\n
        • The Eyes of My Mother (Nicolas Pesce) – 6.2<\/li>\n
        • The Park (Damien Manivel) \u2013 6.1<\/li>\n
        • Stranger in Paradise (Guido Hendrikx) \u2013 6.1<\/li>\n
        • Starless Dreams (Mehrdad Oskouei) – 6.1<\/li>\n
        • The Lost City of Z (James Gray) – 6.1<\/li>\n
        • One More Time with Feeling (Andrew Dominik) \u2013 6.1<\/li>\n
        • Three (Johnnie To) – 6.1<\/li>\n
        • Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas) \u2013 6.1<\/li>\n
        • The Road Movie (Dmitrii Kalashnikov) – 6.1<\/li>\n
        • Hermia & Helena (Mat\u00edas Pi\u00f1eiro) \u2013 6.1<\/li>\n
        • Things to Come (Mia Hansen-L\u00f8ve) – 6.0<\/li>\n
        • Happy Times Will Come Soon (Alessandro Comodin) – 6.0<\/li>\n
        • Arrival (Denis Villeneuve) \u2013 6.0<\/li>\n
        • (re)ASSIGNMENT (Walter Hill) \u2013 6.0<\/li>\n
        • Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids (Jonathan Demme) \u2013 6.0<\/li>\n
        • Crosscurrent (Yang Chao) \u2013 6.0<\/li>\n
        • Christine (Antonio Campos) – 6.0<\/li>\n
        • The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli M\u00e4ki (Juho Kuosmanen) \u2013 6.0<\/li>\n
        • Billy Lynn\u2019s Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee) \u2013 5.9<\/li>\n
        • Mimosas (Oliver Laxe) \u2013 5.9<\/li>\n
        • I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) \u2013 5.9<\/li>\n
        • The Rehearsal (Alison Maclean) \u2013 5.9<\/li>\n
        • The Wounded Angel (Emir Baigazin) \u2013 5.9<\/li>\n
        • Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu) \u2013 5.8<\/li>\n
        • A Decent Woman (Lukas Valenta Rinner) \u2013 5.8<\/li>\n
        • Into the Inferno (Werner Herzog) \u2013 5.8<\/li>\n
        • I Had Nowhere to Go (Douglas Gordon) \u2013 5.8<\/li>\n
        • Operation Avalanche (Matt Johnson) \u2013 5.8<\/li>\n
        • Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi) \u2013 5.8<\/li>\n
        • Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • Much Ado About Nothing (Alejandro Fern\u00e1ndez Almendras) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • David Lynch: The Art Life (Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, & Olivia Neergaard-Holm) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • Raw (Julia Ducournau) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • Welcome (Zhu Rikun) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (Werner Herzog) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • Dog Eat Dog (Paul Schrader) \u2013 5.7<\/li>\n
        • Morris from America (Chad Hartigan) \u2013 5.6<\/li>\n
        • Harmonium (K\u00f4ji Fukada) \u2013 5.6<\/li>\n
        • Havarie (Philip Scheffner) \u2013 5.6<\/li>\n
        • Indignation (James Schamus) \u2013 5.5<\/li>\n
        • Daguerrotype (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) \u2013 5.5<\/li>\n
        • I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach) \u2013 5.5<\/li>\n
        • Le Cancre (Paul Vecchiali) \u2013 5.5<\/li>\n
        • The Love Witch (Anna Biller) \u2013 5.5<\/li>\n
        • My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (Dash Shaw) \u2013 5.5<\/li>\n
        • Caf\u00e9 Society (Woody Allen) \u2013 5.4<\/li>\n
        • The End (Guillaume Nicloux) \u2013 5.4<\/li>\n
        • Rat Film (Theo Anthony) \u2013 5.4<\/li>\n
        • Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie) \u2013 5.4<\/li>\n
        • Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa) \u2013 5.4<\/li>\n
        • The Son of Joseph (Eug\u00e8ne Green) \u2013 5.3<\/li>\n
        • Sweet Dreams (Marco Bellocchio) \u2013 5.3<\/li>\n
        • Boris Without B\u00e9atrice (Denis C\u00f4t\u00e9) \u2013 5.3<\/li>\n
        • The Land of the Enlightened (Pieter-Jan De Pue) \u2013 5.3<\/li>\n
        • Searchers (Zacharias Kunuk) \u2013 5.3<\/li>\n
        • Two Lottery Tickets (Paul Negoescu) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • Tempestad (Tatiana Huezo) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • Of Shadows (Yi Cui) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez (Wim Wenders) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • Author: The JT Leroy Story (Jeff Feuerzeig) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • The Red Turtle (Mich\u00e4el Dudok de Wit) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • Tallulah (Si\u00e2n Heder) \u2013 5.2<\/li>\n
        • Split (M. Night Shyamalan) \u2013 5.1\/li><\/li>\n
        • The Ornithologist (Jo\u00e3o Pedro Rodrigues) \u2013 5.1<\/li>\n
        • Wolf and Sheep (Shahrbanoo Sadat) \u2013 5.1<\/li>\n
        • Hail, Caesar! (Joel & Ethan Coen) \u2013 5.1<\/li>\n
        • Jackie (Pable Larra\u00edn) \u2013 5.1<\/li>\n
        • Graduation (Christian Mungiu) \u2013 5.1<\/li>\n
        • Julieta (Pedro Almod\u00f3var) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Lav Diaz) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • The Nice Guys (Shane Black) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • The Untamed (Amat Escalante) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • Diamond Island (Davy Chou) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • Tales of Two Who Dreamt (Andrea Bussmann & Nicol\u00e1s Pereda) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • Sing Street (John Carney) \u2013 5.0<\/li>\n
        • Midnight Special (Jeff Nichols) \u2013 4.9<\/li>\n
        • Moonlight (Barry Jenkins) \u2013 4.9<\/li>\n
        • Silence (Martin Scorsese) \u2013 4.9<\/li>\n
        • Complete Unknown (Joshua Marston) \u2013 4.9<\/li>\n
        • By the Time It Gets Dark (Anocha Suwichakornpong) \u2013 4.9<\/li>\n
        • Pete\u2019s Dragon (David Lowery) \u2013 4.8<\/li>\n
        • Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (Terrence Malick) \u2013 4.8<\/li>\n
        • The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook) \u2013 4.8<\/li>\n
        • Life After Life (Zhang Hanyi) \u2013 4.8<\/li>\n
        • Ta\u2019ang (Wang Bing) \u2013 4.8<\/li>\n
        • Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (Steve James) \u2013 4.8<\/li>\n
        • The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn) \u2013 4.7<\/li>\n
        • Eldorado XXI (Salom\u00e9 Lamas) \u2013 4.7<\/li>\n
        • Contemporary Color (Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross) \u2013 4.7<\/li>\n
        • Everything Else (Natalia Almada) \u2013 4.7<\/li>\n
        • My Life as a Courgette (Claude Barras) \u2013 4.7<\/li>\n
        • Saint Amour (Beno\u00eet Del\u00e9pine & Gustave Kervern) \u2013 4.7<\/li>\n
        • Free Fire (Ben Wheatley) \u2013 4.6<\/li>\n
        • Tickled (David Farrier & Dylan Reeve) \u2013 4.6<\/li>\n
        • The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman\u2019s Portrait Photography (Errol Morris) \u2013 4.6<\/li>\n
        • Blue Dress (Igor Minaev) \u2013 4.6<\/li>\n
        • Ember (Zeki Demirkubuz) \u2013 4.5<\/li>\n
        • The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis (Francisco M\u00e1rquez & Andrea Testa) \u2013 4.5<\/li>\n
        • In Bed with Victoria (Justine Triet) \u2013 4.5<\/li>\n
        • Illegitimate (Adrian Sitaru) \u2013 4.5<\/li>\n
        • City of Jade (Midi Z) \u2013 4.5<\/li>\n
        • Exile (Rithy Panh) \u2013 4.4<\/li>\n
        • 13th (Ava DuVernay) \u2013 4.4<\/li>\n
        • Neruda (Pablo Larra\u00edn) \u2013 4.4<\/li>\n
        • United States of Love (Tomasz Wasilewski) \u2013 4.3<\/li>\n
        • Una (Benedict Andrews) \u2013 4.3<\/li>\n
        • Lily Lane (Bence Fliegauf) \u2013 4.3<\/li>\n
        • Little Sister (Zach Clark) \u2013 4.2<\/li>\n
        • Geographies (Chaghig Arzoumanian) \u2013 4.2<\/li>\n
        • Letters from War (Ivo M. Ferreira) \u2013 4.2<\/li>\n
        • 31 (Rob Zombie) \u2013 4.2<\/li>\n
        • American Honey (Andrea Arnold) \u2013 4.1<\/li>\n
        • The Dreamed Ones (Ruth Beckermann) \u2013 4.1<\/li>\n
        • Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison) \u2013 4.1<\/li>\n
        • The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz) \u2013 4.1<\/li>\n
        • Icaros: A Vision (Leonor Caraballo & Matteo Norzi) \u2013 4.0<\/li>\n
        • Dark Night (Tim Sutton) \u2013 4.0<\/li>\n
        • The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker) \u2013 3.9<\/li>\n
        • From the Diary of a Wedding Photographer (Nadav Lapid) \u2013 3.9<\/li>\n
        • Loving (Jeff Nichols) \u2013 3.9<\/li>\n
        • The Illinois Parables (Deborah Stratman) \u2013 3.8<\/li>\n
        • Ghostbusters (Paul Feig) \u2013 3.8<\/li>\n
        • Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi) \u2013 3.8<\/li>\n
        • Morgan (Luke Scott) \u2013 3.6\/li><\/li>\n
        • From the Land of the Moon (Nicole Garcia) \u2013 3.6<\/li>\n
        • Depth Two (Ognjen Glavoni\u0107) \u2013 3.6<\/li>\n
        • Still Night, Still Light (Sophie Goyette) \u2013 3.6<\/li>\n
        • Dogs (Bogdan Mirica) \u2013 3.5<\/li>\n
        • Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo) \u2013 3.5<\/li>\n
        • Ma\u2019 Rosa (Brillante Mendoza) \u2013 3.4<\/li>\n
        • Voyage of Time: Life\u2019s Journey (Terrence Malick) \u2013 3.3<\/li>\n
        • [pewen]araucaria (Carlos V\u00e1squez M\u00e9ndez) \u2013 3.3<\/li>\n
        • The Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour) \u2013 3.2<\/li>\n
        • The Transfiguration (Michael O\u2019Shea) \u2013 3.1<\/li>\n
        • It\u2019s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan) \u2013 2.9<\/li>\n
        • Soy Nero (Rafi Pitts) \u2013 2.9<\/li>\n
        • Imponderable (Tony Oursler) \u2013 2.8<\/li>\n
        • Message from the King (Fabrice du Welz) \u2013 2.3<\/li>\n
        • The Last Face (Sean Penn) \u2013 2.2<\/li>\n
        • Fantastic (Offer Egozy) \u2013 1.3<\/li>\n
        • Katie Says Goodbye (Wayne Roberts) \u2013 1.0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          *Click on the ‘Lists & Logs’ tab to see lists from previous years. This list will be updated each time I see a film from 2016 (world premiere\/imdb date) that is better than at least one of the films already on the list. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello) Ossuary (Nathaniel Dorsky) Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade) Certain Women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14633"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25626,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14633\/revisions\/25626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}