The Best Of 2016

2016 may be ill-suited to fond recollections, but the annual Film Comment Top 20 list does have plenty of good cheer to go around. This year's poll was conducted a bit differently, with a sharpened focus on Film Comment's contributors in order to better capture the magazine's voice. Even though the results will inevitably be skewed by factors like regional specificity and the availability of advance screenings for late-season films under consideration, polls aren't about securing an airtight appraisal of a year; they're about starting a critical discussion, which can just as much concern what was omitted as what was included. In this episode of The Film Comment Podcast, Digital Editor Violet Lucca takes stock of the results along with Nicolas Rapold, the magazine's Editor, and Michael Koresky, Director of Editorial and Creative Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The conversation also covers films that didn't quite make the cut, what films the polls helped bring to light, and, of course, the best diner scenes in 2016 (no need to unwrap the silverware when you use your napkin).