The Cinéaste's Progress from This List to That Which Is to Come (He Hopes)


Once upon a time, I used to play a coy, rather pointless game w/r/t my annual top ten list -- dramatically "unveiling" it sometime in January, as if most everybody who reads this site didn't already have a pretty good idea of what it was gonna look like. Instead, I now publicly revise the sucker as I go along, so that the whole affair becomes a suspenseful Journey Toward Aesthetic Nirvana. Or something.

Here, then, is what my list would look like if (god forbid) I were forced to make it today:


THE "PURE" LIST (2016 premiere)

01. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, Germany/Austria)
02. Manchester By The Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, USA)
03. Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie, France)
04. Tower (Keith Maitland, USA)
05. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello, France/Germany/Belgium)
06. Personal Affairs (Maha Haj, Israel/Palestine)
07. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, USA)
08. Author: The JT LeRoy Story (Jeff Feuerzeig, USA)
09. Indignation (James Schamus, USA) 10. 4 Days in France (Jérôme Reybaud, France)


THE "POLLS" LIST (2016 commercial release)

01. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, Germany/Austria)
02. Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
03. Manchester By The Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, USA)
04. Tower (Keith Maitland, USA)
05. The Witch: A New-England Folktale (Robert Eggers, USA/Canada)
06. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, USA)
07. Author: The JT LeRoy Story (Jeff Feuerzeig, USA)
08. Indignation (James Schamus, USA)
09. London Road (Rufus Norris, UK)
10. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater, USA)