| Title |
Year |
Rating |
Rank |
Review |
| Zero Dark Thirty | 2012 | 95 | 1 | - I'm not sure this story could be told better in 100 attempts. People will come and watch for its historical and personal importance, but they'll leave satisfied solely off of Kathryn Bigelow's vision. |
| Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | 2016 | 92 | 2 | - This is perhaps the farthest a Star Wars film has ventured away from the norm, but it can still hold its own with the others. |
| Hidden Figures | 2016 | 91 | 3 | - Taraji P. Henson and Janelle Monae are nothing short of terrific while Octavia Spencer brings another solid performance. |
| Erin Brockovich | 2000 | 90 | 4 | - Every once in a while a movie comes a long with a character so expertly crafted that the story around her is guaranteed to succeed. Erin Brockovich is one of those characters. |
| Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The | 2013 | 90 | 4 | - Despite Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence, who are great, the real stars of this one are the people of Panem. 'Catching Fire' has the critical role of illustrating how the third book's revolt comes about, and this film does it so, so well. It does ITS job better than the first one did. |
| Sicario | 2015 | 90 | 4 | - A 'Traffic' for the 'Call of Duty' generation. |
| Spy | 2015 | 90 | 4 | - I find it hard to believe we'll see a funnier movie this year. |
| Help, The | 2011 | 89 | 8 | - Who turns in the best performance? Chastain? Stone? Davis? The debate could go on for hours. That's just how strong the performance of this cast is. |
| Jackie | 2016 | 89 | 8 | - Natalie Portman is nothing short of sensational. |
| Room | 2015 | 89 | 8 | - Both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time for the duration. |
| The Edge of Seventeen | 2016 | 89 | 8 | - Probably the best feel-good movie I've seen this year. |
| Gravity | 2013 | 88 | 12 | - Gravity's biggest strength is how dynamic it is. It can be both very small and very large at the same time, and that's as cool as any of the visuals. |
| Hunger Games, The | 2012 | 88 | 12 | (full review) - Staying relatively true to the novel was the only key to success Hunger Games needed. |
| Trainwreck | 2015 | 88 | 12 | - It's refreshing when a comedy is so much more than cheap laughter. |
| Aliens | 1986 | 87 | 15 | - From its scope to its imagination to its just overall sense of purpose, James Cameron's sequel is SO much better than Ridley Scott's first installment. |
| Silence of the Lambs, The | 1991 | 87 | 15 | - It's rare that a thriller is, at the same time, both genuinely creepy and compelling. Ultimately, that's what makes The Silence of the Lambs special. |
| Winters Bone | 2010 | 85 | 17 | - The no-fills film is as rustic as the Ozark backwoods it takes place in. Even with simplicity, the film has the ability to draw you in as if it were the most complex of thrillers. |
| Bridesmaids | 2011 | 84 | 18 | - In learn 'Bridesmaids', we learn Wiig can act beyond just a caricature in a five-minute sketch and Jon Hamm can be funny. And suddenly, doors to all sorts of multiverses are magically opened! |
| Brooklyn | 2015 | 84 | 18 | - A pretty beautiful romantic drama. |
| Hours, The | 2002 | 84 | 18 | - You could probably watch this film a dozen times and still not pick up on every parrallel interwoven between the three stories. |
| How to Be Single | 2016 | 84 | 18 | - Not only is it wonderfully funny, but it's whip smart, absolutely has the pulse of the modern generation, with progressively-driven characters that don't feel as though the film is standing on a soap box. |
| Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, The | 2014 | 83 | 22 | - It's just about as solid as the first two, but I would be remissed if I did not admit this third installment is a step backwards (albeit a small one) from the first two. |
| Kill Bill vol 2 | 2004 | 83 | 22 | - These 'Kill Bill' movies are so wildly unique the only workable comparison is to each other. In that regard, this sequel is marginally better. |
| Monster | 2003 | 82 | 24 | - 'Monster' lives in the underbelly of American society. As close as you may ever come to empathizing with a serial killer. |
| Precious | 2009 | 82 | 24 | - I can't recall one single movie that places the viewer so deeply into a toxic environment as 'Precious' does. But it needs to, to point out to us how the ending is a happy one. |
| Scream | 1996 | 82 | 24 | - The no-frills teens slasher knows what its about and doesn't deviate from a solid concept. It's a low-risk, moderate-reward plan that leads to glass-ceiling success. |
| Whiskey Tango Foxtrot | 2016 | 82 | 24 | - Definitely a different take on the usual war flick. |
| Kill Bill vol 1 | 2003 | 81 | 28 | - It's very design, it's architecture if you will, is to become a cult classic. And it succeeds, obviously. |
| Scream 2 | 1997 | 81 | 28 | - The second installment steers the franchise into a surreal |
| To Do List, The | 2013 | 81 | 28 | - It's not a coming-of-age tale but rather a coming-of-SEXUAL-age tale. It's 'The Way Way Back' (also of this year) meets 'The 40 Year-Old Virgin'. |
| Arrival | 2016 | 80 | 31 | - It's a good, not great, film. And beware of rave reviews. Those buying wholeheartedly in 'Arrival' are giving it credit for being smarter than it really is. |
| Ghostbusters | 2016 | 80 | 31 | - A solid reincarnation of a beloved franchise. |
| Suffragette | 2015 | 80 | 31 | - You'd think a story about women fighting to earn their right to vote would be uplifting, but 'Suffragette' is decidedly dark. |
| Sisters | 2015 | 79 | 34 | - I equate it sort of to The Beatles' 'Let It Be'. It's good, sure, but we've had so much better from these stars in the past. |
| V for Vendetta | 2005 | 78 | 35 | - Is it a superhero movie? I suppose so. Either way, it's one of the coolest in the genre! Reminds us there were filmmakers taking down hypothetical totalitarian government ever before Katniss Everdeen came along. |
| Wild | 2014 | 78 | 35 | - It's a story of finding one's self, of wiping the slate clean, and constantly being paranoid that your about to be sexually assaulted in a wilderness filled with men. |
| 10 Cloverfield Lane | 2016 | 77 | 37 | - Inside the fallout shelter lay a wonderfully thrilling story. Psychological in a cabin fever sort of way, clostrophobic as three virtual strangers are forced into confinement with one another, and eerily twisted like a Hitchcock great. Then she pops the lid, runs from aliens, and everything we go through suddenly feels a bit more silly. |
| Carrie (1976) | 1976 | 77 | 37 | - The first half is almost a teen drama. It's in the second half of 'Carrie' that you really get your money's worth. |
| Juno | 2007 | 76 | 39 | - It's obvious concepts aside, 'Juno' is enjoyable. |
| Julie And Julia | 2009 | 74 | 40 | - Without spoiling anything for future viewers, the movie strings you along for two hours without tying up perhaps the most important loose end. |
| Black Swan | 2010 | 73 | 41 | - Sort of plays like a choppy music video, rife with innuendo and insinuations. It's rather easy to delve into the mind of a crazy person and call it art. |
| Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, The | 2015 | 73 | 41 | - Easily the weakest of the quadrilogy. It is impossible not to notice the franchise's steady decline since Francis Lawrence took over. |
| Fargo | 1996 | 70 | 43 | - The Coen brothers' 'Fargo' is an enigma: not funny enough to be a real comedy, not serious enough to be a decent drama, and nowhere close to neatly fitting into any other genre. |
| Maleficent | 2014 | 70 | 43 | - As long as Disney is rewriting it's own tales, how about changing the whole Mufasa getting trampled to death and scarring every child for life thing? |
| The Bronze | 2015 | 70 | 43 | - It is, at once, a sports comedy and a satire about live in middle America. But it's all just only 'chuckle funny'. No real, genuine laughs here. |
| The Shallows | 2016 | 70 | 43 | - For every moment where 'The Shallows' comes off as a smart, true-to-form survivalist tale there's another moment where it reaches for the incredulous. |
| All About My Mother | 1999 | 69 | 47 | - Truly peculiar, in both good and bad ways. |
| Carrie (2013) | 2013 | 69 | 47 | - An unnecessary remake. It's not even that the original is better, it's that the reboot offers absolutely nothing new. The remake of 'Psycho' instantly comes to mind. |
| 10 Things I Hate About You | 1999 | 65 | 49 | - A rather watchable chick flick. |
| Heat, The | 2013 | 64 | 50 | - Katie Dippold's flawed script that wants to be something of a feminist's wet dream as much as an action comedy is only saved by the comedy genius that is Melissa McCarthy. |
| SALT | 2010 | 64 | 50 | - A seemingly great premise is ruined by horribly flawed execution and one stupid, eye-rolling ending |
| In a World... | 2013 | 61 | 52 | - Mildly funny, mildly entertaining. |
| Alien | 1979 | 60 | 53 | - Even if you can forgive the first half of the movie essentially being build-up, the pace is just brutally tedious. No me gusta for a sci-fi horror flick. |
| Mulholland Drive | 2001 | 60 | 53 | - David Lynch's headlong dive into the troubled (understatement!) mind of a young starlet is wholly intoxicating. Not the fun-night-out-with-friends kind of intoxicating, though. The I'm-sick-make-this-night-stop kind. |
| Bad Moms | 2016 | 57 | 55 | - Ironically, in trying to tear down the stereotypes of what makes a good mom, it judges plenty. |
| Pitch Perfect | 2012 | 52 | 56 | - Aca-meh |
| Pitch Perfect 2 | 2015 | 52 | 56 | - It's just more of the same, really. |
| Alien 3 | 1992 | 48 | 58 | - Such a letdown compared to Scott's and Cameron's films. Fincher does virtually nothing different and fails to keep your attention to boot. |
| Under the Skin | 2014 | 31 | 59 | - Bizarre. Just utterly bizarre. |
