With the arrival of a new year, came the approaching closure of the film season. Here in the UK I’ve bullied my way through so many movies, and yet not nearly enough. My annual Film Honors would be rather droll had I not at least tried. And as far as my enjoyment has gone with movies this year, there was a lot of loving.
Women film-makers brought us disorder, relationship studies between man and woman, father and daughter, nuns giving birth, little wild horses, men behaving like children. Acting pedigree went behind the camera once more, and they built fences, made people safe by landing planes in water, or carrying soldiers out of harm’s way. Innovative film-makers emerged from under the shadow or lured us to the woods, trapped us on a train with the undead, or in a music venue room. They also took us back to the classical musical, to a galaxy far, far away, to the great Western. There were of course other people too, making a name for themselves in the year gone by. Like Jackie, or Daniel, and Olga, or Julieta. And who can forget little Kubo, or Victoria, literally given one shot.
What you won’t see here as I honor 2016 will be mentions of Certain Women, like Elle, Miss Sloane, there’ll be no Graduation, Sieranevada, Aquarius. No Personal Shopper, My Life as a Zucchini, The Eyes of My Mother, The Salesman, It’s Only The End Of The World. Deemed 2017 releases with the UK calendar (and I make the cut off around February). So, until next year.
So, 2016 Film Honors, let’s get right down to brass tacks. If you have not seen the longlists of 25 per category (40 for Motion Picture) as announced Sunday then take a look below for all 16 categories: