Movies · Reviews

If It’s December, It’s Time for a Year-in-Review Video

By  · Published on December 2nd, 2016

From The VVitch to Silence and every awesome film in-between.

Somehow it’s already December, and that means it’s time to start looking back at the year behind us before moving into the year ahead. In 2016 we’ve seen groundbreaking talents emerge in films like Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, bright prospects like La La Land’s Damien Chazelle, American Honey’s Andrea Arnold, and Midnight Special and Loving’s Jeff Nichols grow brighter, respected veterans like Martin Scorsese (Silence) working at the top of their game, animated triumphs (Kubo and the Two Strings, Finding Dory, Zootopia) and foreign conquests (Elle, Toni Erdmann), amazing performances (too many to list), deft direction (ditto) and stories that have changed us as people and a society at large (is “tritto” a word?).

It’s been, quite frankly, a stellar year at the movies, so much so in fact that it can be quite the arduous chore trying to remember just all the great stuff that’s been released. But remembering is for suckers and elephants; this is the 21st century and we got videos for that.

Case in point, the very first best-of video of the year, edited by Clark Zhu, who has taken tidbits from the trailers of the year’s best films and compiled them into an eight-minute retrospective that will thoroughly refresh your memory as to all the cinematic accomplishments to which we’ve been witness over the last 12 months. It’s also going to have you rushing to wherever you stream, rent, or purchase movies to stock up on some titles that might have flown under your radar, and given all the outstanding independent films released this year, that could be a lot. But don’t fret, it’s only the 2nd of December so you’ve still got plenty of time to catch up before 2017 starts trying to one-up 2016. Happy viewing.

Novelist, Screenwriter, Video Essayist