NEW LISTS FOR THE WEEK ENDING 12/18!

hello, my name is Doris

As the end of the year looms (please end!), more and more critics' lists are released into the wild. Many are captured and studied to see what they are made of. Most have similar components (Moonlight, Toni Erdmann). Some are missing parts that every other list has. Some are made up of components that no other list has. Very rarely are two the same. Let's dissect these lists I've discovered.

Rogerebert.com polled its critics and editors and came up with this list to consider. They run a great site over there, so if you're a film fan you should check it out. Most of last week's top 10 make and appearance here. Love & Friendship, which will definitely be in my personal top 10, is mentioned and I like that. I also like that the site's review of La La Land is so glowing, which reminds me that I need to update my letterboxd diary.

1. Moonlight (10)
2. Paterson (9)
3. La La Land (8)
4. Manchester By the Sea (7)
5. Elle (6)
6. Toni Erdmann (5)
7. 13th (4)
8. Cameraperson (3)
9. Love & Friendship (2)
10.I, Daniel Blake (1)

Good old Newsweek published their list on Thursday. It's wildly different than any of the other lists that I've come across this year so far. Four titles that no other organization has mentioned are given notice here. Only two of last week's top finishers are in this list, but they liked Hello, My Name Is Doris and I did, too.

1. Allied (10)
2. Arrival (9)
3. Captain Fantastic (8)
4. Christine (7)
5. Edge of Seventeen (6)
6. Hail! Caesar (5)
7. Hell or High Water (4)
8. Hello, My Name Is Doris (3)
9. Jackie (2)
10. Julieta (1)

Ty Burr of The Boston Globe handed his list in last week and The Fits gets its first mention as one of the best of 2016. I didn't get to see it when it played here in Austin, but I've heard great things. More points for Moonlight!

1. Moonlight (10)
2. Paterson (9)
3. Manchester By the Sea (8)
4. OJ: Made in America (7)
5. Jackie (6)
6. The Fits (5)
7. La La Land (4)
8. The Handmaiden (3)
9. I Am Not Your Negro (2)
10. Cameraperson (1)

Lastly, the Los Angeles Times critics released their picks over the weekend. Of the three critics the paper employs, only two will be polled here. The lead critic, Kenneth Turan, put out a top 10 list with 16 titles that made no sense. I've chosen not to include it here. It's insane. His associates' lists are as follows. More points for Moonlight!

Mark Olson

1. Moonlight (10)
2. The Lobster (9)
3. Silence (8)
4. Certain Women (7)
5. Things to Come (6)
6. Manchester By the Sea (5)
7. Elle (4)
8. Christine (3)
9. OJ: Made in America (2)
10. 20th Century Women (1)

Justin Chang

1. Silence (10)
2. Moonlight (9)
3. Toni Erdmann (8)
4. OJ: Made in America (7)
5. Everybody Wants Some!! (6)
6. My Golden Days (5)
7. Paterson (4)
8. I Am Not Your Negro (3)
9. Manchester By the Sea (2)
10. Certain Women (1)

So let's see where everything besides Moonlight lands when we add it all up for the end of the week. Some things have moved around and the top contender put even more distance between itself and the rest of the competition. Mad Max: Fury Road did the same thing last year and stayed on top the whole way through. Toni Erdmann jumps from fifth to second and Hell or High Water drops a few.

WEEK ENDING 12/19

Moonlight (130 total points)
Toni Erdmann (70)
Manchester By the Sea (67)
La La Land (64)
OJ: Made in America (58)
Elle (38)
Paterson (38)
Arrival (36)
Hell or High Water (31)
I Am Not Your Negro (25)

MOONLIGHT LEFT OFF ANOTHER LIST!

Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter joins the minority of critics leaving Moonlight out of their top 10s. Owen Glieberman over at Variety has been the only other US critic seen by this poll to leave Barry Jenkins' picture out the top picks. McCarthy is also the first to mention Silence, Martin Scorsese's upcoming epic. Here are his rankings:

1. OJ: Made in America
2. La La Land
3. 13th
4. Toni Erdmann
5. I Am Not Your Negro
6. Elle
7. Manchester By the Sea
8. The Handmaiden
9. Silence
10. Hell or High Water

Meanwhile, over at Vogue, their critic has published an unranked list of 10 best for 2016. Since it is unranked, that means that each title recieves two points each. The only new contender to arrive with this list would be Mike Mills' 20th Century Women. The list is as follows:

Moonlight
Toni Erdmann
OJ: Made in America
20th Century Women
La La Land
The Handmaiden
I Am Not Your Negro
A Bigger Splash
Arrival
Aquarius

MORE BEST OF 2016 LISTS SURFACE! SOME FROM EUROPE!

Starting late this year means that I missed the debuts of some lists, two from highly respected European publications. They're down below. The lists keep coming, too. Film Comment and The Playlist (my favorite film site) have given us their lists this week. Most of the current favorites appear, with one rolling a turkey by topping three of the lists. Let's see how it breaks down.

Let's get the well-respected, willfully obscure, very French Cahiers Du Cinema list out of the way first. It's the first list I've seen this year that totally leaves out Moonlight, but that may be due to international release dates (which is why Carol, last year's runner-up, is on this list). It's also the first list to have titles that I've never heard of before now and upon further research, it turns out some are comedies! Vive le France.

1. Toni Erdmann (10)
2. Elle (9)
3. The Neon Demon (8)
4. Aquarius (7)
5. Ma Loute (6)
6. Julieta (5)
7. Staying Vertical (4)
8. La Loi De La Jungle (3)
9. Carol (-)
10. Le Bois Dont Les Reves Sont Fait (1)

Sight and Sound, the film publication of the British Film Institute, dropped their list this week. No big surprises here, but with two of her movies here, it does provide more evidence that Isabelle Huppert is possibly the world's greatest actress and if you've seen The Piano Teacher, you already knew that. More points for both Erdmann and Moonlight.

1. Toni Erdmann (10)
2. Moonlight (9)
3. Elle(8)
4. Certain Women (7)
5. American Honey (6)
6. I, Daniel Blake (5)
7. Manchester By the Sea (4)
8. Things to Come (3)
9. Paterson (2)
10. The Death of Louis XIV (1)

Published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Film Comment is an excellent magazine. I should subscribe. Their list also gives weight to the Huppert theory. They also love Chantal Akerman. They weren't crazy about La La Land. Also, how did I miss Certain Women? More points for Erdmann and Moonlight!

1. Toni Erdmann (10)
2. Moonlight (9)
3. Elle (8)
4. Cemetary of Splendor (7)
5. Certain Women (6)
6. Paterson (5)
7. Manchester By the Sea (4)
8. Aquarius (3)
9. Things to Come (2)
10. No Home Movie (1)

Finally, The Playlist gave us their year-end best of list yesterday. It's my favorite film website and I think they've had a pretty good year. Their festival coverage is pretty much exhaustive and they are pretty even-handed when it comes to their criticism. The fact that they include four of my favorite movies of the year so far makes me feel smart. Nice to see The Lobster mentioned. More points for Erdmann and Moonlight!

1. Moonlight (10)
2. Arrival (9)
3. Paterson (8)
4. La La Land (7)
5. The Lobster (6)
6. Jackie (5)
7. Manchester By the Sea (4)
8. Green Room (3)
9. The Handmaiden (2)
10. Toni Erdmann (1)

Toni Erdmann gained some serious points this round, but the Moonlight juggernaut continues to dominate the polls. We'll see if any more lists come out this week to shake things up.

A LATE START TO A GREAT RACE FOR NUMBER ONE BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR

Hello again, friends!
I am back again to compile and poll each cinematic awards and top-10 list I can find. You can check out how I do it here and here. One change in awarding points this year: films that win Best Picture awards like, say, the IFP Gotham Awards, are awarded 5 points for that win. That's the only change. So let's get to it!

Sorry for being late, but I wasn't ready for the onslaught that the first two weeks in December brought us! So many critics' associations, awards ceremonies, and publications had their favorites lined up early and ready to show the world. Jeez, I remember when I could sit in on advance critics' screenings...so great. Anyhoo, since there are so many, I can't go through and post each one individually. Just hooking up links for trailers for each movie mentioned would take about 5 million minutes! However, here are links for each of the lists and awards that figured into this week's poll:

American Film Institute
IFP Gotham Awards
LA Film Critics' Assn.
NY Film Critics' Circle
National Board of Review
Slate
Variety (Glieberman, DeBruge)
New York Times (Dargis, Scott, Holden)
The New Yorker
US Weekly

Let's see how things are shaking out so far...

1. Moonlight (69)
2. La La Land (34)
3. Manchester by the Sea (32)
4. OJ: Made in America (30)
5. Hell or High Water
Toni Erdmann (26)
7. Sully (17)
8. Arrival (16)
9. American Honey (13)
10. Little Sister (10)

As anyone who pays attention to this sort of thing expected, Moonlight is this year's frontrunner to be the Number One Best Movie of the Year. It's an amazing film and the critics all want to marry it. It's doing good business, as well. One thing, though, it's still a long shot for winning the Oscar for Best Picture. This week's runner-up, La La Land, is being held up as a lock for Best Picture. It hasn't opened here yet so I cannot personally vouch for it. All signs point to me loving it. Probably the biggest surprise entry into the race is OJ: Made in America. The documentary has made it into a top five spot on four lists this week. Will it have the legs that the Juice had in his youth? In the last spot is Little Sister, but don't expect it to hang in there long as it was only mentioned once: a #1 vote by that nerd at the New Yorker. And, lastly today, I would encourage you to go out and see some of these movies while you can! By the end of the week, I will have seen seven on this week's list!