The Best Movies

Last weekend, the list of the year’s best movies that I write with our chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, was published. Judging by the traffic it’s of interest to a lot of people.

As I note in the introduction to my list, it’s been one of those more eclectic years, with no obvious winners. These years are a lot more fun for those of us who are paid to pay attention to the upcoming interminable awards season, but also for list-making. Manohla and I have exactly one overlapping film, which means 19 total made it onto our combined list. And both of us really liked a lot of the movies on the other’s list.

I have heard people say it was a “bad” year for movies, which is utterly untrue. There were dozens of terrific movies this year. But often they weren’t the ones being pushed at you by giant corporations, which means you might have to do like we did in the pre-algorithm days and read some reviews and seek out movies that you may like, or may not, and then talk about them with other people. (This, also, is good.)

Anyhow, you can read the list at the website or, eventually, in the paper. I also posted my runners-up to social media! And then you should go watch some movies.