To close out the year, we're taking a look back at some of our favorite movies of 2016. Check out what's in theaters now in our Film section, and go here for movie times!
Genre movies are like geology: There are long stretches of gradual, creeping change, and then there are unexpected interruptions that shake everything up. These outliers are the things we remember. When it comes to science-fiction, they’re Shelley and Verne and Wells, Asimov and Bradbury and Le Guin. A Trip to the Moon, Metropolis, Blade Runner, 2001, Close Encounters, Children of Men.
In the bright light of something shiny and new, it’s easy to declare that thing an outlier: To smile and point and proclaim that here, at last, is a thing that makes everything that follows a little bit different. But unlike a natural catastrophe, art usually takes a little more time to assess, to figure out, to weigh its importance. One has to wait until the dust has settled, until the shine has dulled, until the Magic 8-Ball floats up an answer that isn’t REPLY HAZY, TRY AGAIN.
I saw Arrival Monday night, which means it’s undoubtedly just a bit too soon to declare it a science-fiction classic. Given that we’re finally (finally, finally) coming to the end of 2016, though, it’s probably fair to declare it this: One of the bright points, and one of the greatest movies, of this horrible, awful year. It’s also likely the best film yet from Denis Villeneuve, the director behind the excellent Sicario and Prisoners—and who, with Arrival, offers something entirely different.