Here you go:Originally Posted by chrisrenrut
The most remarkable part of a mostly unremarkable movie year is that fine films continue to get made in spite of structural changes (like shunting independent features online) and the increasing popularity of quality TV. My choice of the year’s best film seemed to choose itself by simultaneously saluting and enhancing the movie medium. I’m talking about Damien Chazelle ’s “La La Land,” the sort of movie you either love or love.
Here are my other choices, in alphabetical order:
American Honey:
Andrea Arnold ’s sprawling road movie follows a teenage wanderer, Star ( Sasha Lane ), as she goes with the flow of a surrogate family—mostly runaways—who crisscross the Bible Belt in an old van selling magazine subscriptions as part of a pyramid scam they understand dimly if at all. Star is a chronically hopeful heroine, and the film serves as vivid video Instagrams of an America where rich and poor alike are generally good-hearted, irony-free and blandly besotted by pop culture.
Hell or High Water:
It’s a western automatically, since it takes place in West Texas and focuses on two brothers who rob small-town banks. More than that, though, David Mackenzie ’s feature, written by Taylor Sheridan, is the very model of a modern film that transcends the limits of its genre. Chris Pine and Ben Foster are superb as the brothers, while Jeff Bridges transcends a supporting role as a foxy old Texas Ranger coming up on retirement.
Loving:
Radical approaches to filmmaking come in many guises. The startling thing about this film, based on a landmark civil-rights case, is its calmness. The writer-director, Jeff Nichols, doesn’t raise anyone’s voice in dramatizing how the state of Virginia, in 1958, cited anti-miscegenation laws in refusing to recognize the marriage of an interracial couple named Loving—they’re played by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga —and how, almost a decade later, the Supreme Court struck down the decision, ending all race-based restrictions on marriage in the U.S.
Manchester by the Sea:
Kenneth Lonergan ’s third feature is a drama of surpassing beauty, and Casey Affleck ’s portrayal of its hero is stripped-back perfection—understated, unaffected, yet stunning in depth and resonance. Lee Chandler works as a janitor near Boston, living alone in self-imposed emotional quarantine. His life opens up somewhat when his brother dies and leaves him in charge of his 16-year-old nephew, but Lee achieves only as much resolution—the film’s crucial point—as the steely grip of his past will allow.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-films-of-2016-from-all-over-cinemas-map-1481814001
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