2016 - 40 Favorites

I changed the rules for myself and included a few favorites that have played film festivals throughout the year, but have yet to be released in the U.S. I figured that not everyone reading this list necessarily lives in the United States, so the U.S. release date criteria might be a little arbitrary. Plus, the list is just for a silly blog that I never update, and I felt funny including so many films that were inferior to, say, I OLGA, HEPNAROVA. These were the 40 films that made the strongest impression on me in 2016. In alphabetical order:

AUTHOR: THE JT LEROY STORY (Jeff Feuerzeig)

CAMERAPERSON (Kirsten Johnson)

CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER (Brady Corbet)

COSMOS (Andrzej Żuławski)

DE PALMA (Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow)

DESPITE THE NIGHT (Philippe Grandrieux)

DO NOT RESIST (Craig Atkinson) 

ELLE (Paul Verhoeven)

THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN (Kelly Fremon Craig)

EVOLUTION (Lucile Hadžihalilović)

THE EYES OF MY MOTHER (Nicolas Pesce)

THE HANDMAIDEN(Park Chan-wook)

HAPPY HOUR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi )

I OLGA, HEPNAROVA (Tomás Weinreb and Petr Kazda)

THE ILLINOIS PARABLES (Deborah Stratman)

KAILI BLUES (Gan Bi)

THE LAUNDRYMAN (Chung Lee)

THE LOBSTER (Yorgos Lanthimos)

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (Whit Stillman)

THE LOVE WITCH (Anna Biller)

THE LURE (Agnieszka Smoczynska)

MY GOLDEN DAYS (Arnaud Desplechin)

NEON BULL (Gabriel Mascaro)

THE NEON DEMON (Nicolas Winding Refn)

NO HOME MOVIE (Chantal Akerman)

OJ: MADE IN AMERICA (Ezra Edelman)

THE OTHER SIDE (Roberto Minervini)

A QUIET PASSION (Terrence Davies)

PERSONAL SHOPPER (Olivier Assayas)

PETER AND THE FARM (Tony Stone)

RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN (Hong Sang-soo)

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE TRUE STORY OF THE PROCESS CHURCH OF THE 

FINAL JUDGEMENT (Neil Edwards)

TALE OF TALES (Matteo Garrone)

THINGS TO COME (Mia Hansen-Løve)

TONI ERDMANN (Maren Ade)

TOO LATE (Dennis Hauck)

VIKTORIA (Maya Vitkova)

WEINER (Elyse Steinberg‎ and ‎Josh Kriegman)

YOURSELF AND YOURS (Hong Sang-soo)