Films (2016)
So here’s my 2016 cinema year in review. As per usual, films included are those with a 2016 release date in Portugal, ordered by that very same date, and with my very personal ratings added at the very end. In retrospective, it was a pretty awesome year, with 21 films (out of the 60 I saw) that I regard as unmissable, and another 24 which were totally worth the price of admission. It was also the year of "Arrival", which is still pervading my thoughts and gets my award for film of the year (with “The Lobster” trailing right behind). Special appreciation goes, as always, to Medeia Filmes and their cinemas (Monumental and Nimas), where I saw most of these films, and also to a recently discovered haven, near home: Atlântida-Cine. Looking forward to a great 2017!
***** Unmissable
**** Totally worth it
*** Enjoyable (but hardly memorable)
** Not terrible (but mostly a waste of time)
* Avoid like the plague (I did)
The Big Short (Adam McKay) *****
Brooklyn (John Crowley) ***
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson) *****
Jogo de Damas (Patrícia Sequeira) ****
The Revenant (Alejandro Iñárritu) *****
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy) *****
Carol (Todd Haynes) *****
The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino) *****
Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven) *****
Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick) ****
Much Loved (Nabil Ayouch) ****
When Marnie Was There / Omoide no Mânî (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) ***
My Golden Days / Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse (Arnaud Desplechin) ****
Son of Saul / Saul Fia (László Nemes) *****
Lady in the Van (Nicholas Hytner) ***
Hail, Caesar! (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) ***
In the Shadow of Women / L’ombre des femmes (Philippe Garrel) ****
10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg) *****
A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino) ****
The Wait / L’attesa (Piero Messina) *****
Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater) **
Cemetery of Splendour / Rak ti Khon Kaen (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) ***
The Measure of a Man / La loi du marché (Stéphane Brizé) ****
The VVitch - A New-England Folktale (Robert Eggers) *****
Louder than Bombs (Joachim Trier) ****
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos) *****
The New Girlfriend / Une nouvelle amie (François Ozon) **
Time Out of Mind (Oren Moverman) ****
The Club / El Club (Pablo Larraín) *****
Things to Come / L’avenir (Mia Hansen-Løve) *****
The Academy of Muses / La academia de las musas (José Luis Guerín) ****
Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman) ***
The Fire / El Incendio (Juan Schnitman) ****
Sweet Bean / An (Naomi Kawase) ****
Experimenter (Michael Almereyda) ****
The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn) *****
Rams / Hrútar (Grímur Hákonarson) *****
Tomorrow / Demain (Cyril Dion, Mélanie Laurent) *****
The Commune / Kollektivet (Thomas Vinterberg) ****
Sully (Clint Eastwood) ****
Kubo and the Two Strings (Travis Knight) ****
Don't Breathe (Fede Alvarez) ***
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (Ron Howard) ****
Snowden (Oliver Stone) ***
Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar) *****
Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross) ****
Deepwater Horizon (Peter Berg) ***
The Daughter (Simon Stone) ***
The Wave / Bølgen (Roar Uthaug) ***
Café Society (Woody Allen) ***
Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier) ****
Arrival (Denis Villeneuve) *****
Elle (Paul Verhoeven) ****
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (Werner Herzog) ***
Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford) *****
Lion (Garth Davis) *****
Rogue One (Gareth Edwards) ****
I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach) *****
The Salesman / Forushande (Asghar Farhadi) ****
Never Ever / À jamais (Benoît Jacquot) ***