Still Stressed about Movie Rankings

Recently, in an effort to produce a somewhat accurate top 10 list for 2016’s best movies, I’ve been trying to catch up and see some of the most acclaimed of the year. I follow a procedure after I finish a movie: I strike it from my ‘to watch’ to list, I read all the reviews I’ve saved beforehand from critics I like, and I add it to my 2016 ranking, which I assemble as I go throughout the year.

I’ve found recently, though, that making rankings isn’t that easy. When I left the theater after watching Moonlight, I felt like I was in a daze, like I couldn’t just go about my day as usual. I knew that it was one of the best movies of the year, and when I got home, I added it as #4. It just couldn’t match the pure ecstasy that I got from watching Sing Street, the hilarious absurdity mixed with tragedy of Swiss Army Man, or the nonstop laughs mixed with deep emotion of Don’t Think Twice.

And yet, in the weeks since I saw Moonlight, I’ve thought about it more than I thought about any of those other movies in the aftermath of watching them. While I used to have a strict rule about keeping my rankings in their original order, I’ve now made an amendment and allowed myself to tinker with them. Moonlight is now #1.

And while Captain America: Civil War used to be in my top 10—I gave it the four-star ranking on Rotten Tomatoes, which means I loved it—I’ve moved it below movies like Southside with You and Kubo and the Two Strings, neither of which I said I ‘loved’ originally. In retrospect, Civil War isn’t that radically different from any other Marvel movie, and the more of these superhero movies there are, the higher the bar is set for me in expecting something ‘different.’ There are a lot of internal character contradictions in Civil War, as Film Crit Hulk explained, and in general the movie was just kind of a solid action movie for me, fun while I was watching but ultimately forgettable. I’d rather re-watch the original Avengers, or maybe just cherry-pick the airport scene from Civil War.

I’ve also had trouble figuring out how to rank movies based on what actual emotional reactions they provoke in me. Watching Manchester by the Sea was certainly an emotional experience, and I entered the same sort of trance I had when I watched Moonlight, but because the movie is pretty unsentimental for long stretches, I didn’t have any one moment as emotionally overwhelming as the scene of Hailee Steinfeld crying in The Edge of Seventeen. (Keep in mind that this may just be because watching a teenager express her deepest insecurities still feels very relatable to me.) How do I compare Manchester by the Sea and The Edge of Seventeen in my rankings, when the former ‘feels’ like it should be higher but the latter does so many specific things that I love? Does loving unabashedly happy endings and teenage romance justify keeping Sing Street, or should I place it below something audacious like Krisha?

Then, today, I watched Arrival. The first three quarters or so of Arrival I really liked, but more for its intelligent ideas and amazing direction than for how deep it cut emotionally. I kept thinking, ‘This is brilliant,’ but I never thought ‘This is emotionally destroying me.’ Then the last 20 minutes or so happened, and I found myself swept up in everything, brought nearly to tears every time I even thought about the implications the ending made. I didn’t quite cry, because I’m emotionally stunted, but I felt my face contorting into that ugly face that people make when they cry.

So where do I place a movie that I generally really liked, but which didn’t really enrapture me until its ending, which is probably the best ending of the year for me? How does that compare to something like The Edge of Seventeen or Manchester by the Sea, both of which completely held my attention throughout?

The answer, of course, is that there’s no answer. I realize that this is the same issue I already wrote about last year, when I struggled with justifying putting movies like Trainwreck, Spy, and Kingsman: The Secret Service higher in my rankings than Carol or Spotlight. And I’m still vexed by the same issue, and I’m sure I’ll continue to experience this every year that I remain stubbornly dedicated to creating movie rankings.