The Best Movies of 2016!

It's never easy putting together any sort of Top 10 or "Best of" list, especially when it comes to movies. I'm not even really sure that most "Best of" lists are really comprised of the best movies, rather they end up being more of a "Movies we liked the best this year" type of thing, or at best, a mixture of both.

The best movies of any year will be expertly crafted, and they’ll entertain us. They’ll scare us, or they’ll make us laugh. Maybe they'll disgust us. Maybe they'll make us think. Maybe they'll even make us feel something.

Once in a while, if we’re really lucky, they’ll do all of those things and more.

2016 gave us a lot of good movies. It gave us a fair amount of great movies too, which made putting this list together way tougher than I thought it would be.

*Be sure to click through to read our full reviews of each movie, for a more in-depth look into why we made the choices that we made.

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE

The last Horror flick that we watched in 2016 also happened to be one of the best.

Director André Øvredal switched gears for his 2nd film, trading Norwegian trolls (review HERE) for supernatural thrills, and the result was a truly chilling story about two guys trapped in an underground morgue... with something else. Brian Cox is the man, and he and Emile Hirsch make for a perfect on-screen duo. The naked chick on the slab was pretty compelling too.

This is a well-crafted and genuinely scary movie, and we loved the twist at the end.

*Review coming soon.

THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER

"The Blackcoat's Daughter is as much about loss as it is anything else, and the way that it handles the subject is superb. The movie twists and turns around its three main characters (who are all related in some obscure way) in quiet fashion, and brings them all together in the end in pretty shocking, and dare we say fresh, way."

The Blackcoat's Daughter was delayed twice in 2016, and then finally pushed back to an unknown release date in 2017 is beyond us, because it's one of the best movie-watching experiences that we had all year, and it would have been a perfect Halloween Season flick. 

The way that the movie's plot twisted and turned through such a quiet, bleak atmosphere just grabbed us and thrilled us in all the right ways. Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka were fantastic (and suitably creepy) as the main characters, and Satan was terrifying as usual.

Yes, Satan is in this.

DON'T BREATHE

"Don't Breathe may not be "the best Horror movie of the last decade" like some critics would have you believe, but it is a really good one, and it's definitely one of the best of 2016."

Yeah, I know. Everyone and their mother has this movie on their best of 2016 list, so why for the love of God is it here on ours? Well, all over-hype and hyperbole aside, Don't Breathe is a really great movie that deserves to be here in our Top 10. That's why. It was made in our backyard (not literally), it was tight, intense, and it had Jane Levy in it, and she's always a bonus for us.

HUSH

"Hush is exactly what a Home Invasion Thriller should be; tight, intense, bloody, and devoid of too many cliches and tropes that would kill the vibe. Not that it's perfect, or isn't familiar in some ways, but it's executed so well that we didn't care about it's lesser points."

This little Netflix gem arrived quietly, blew us away, and is still probably an under-the-radar movie for most people. If you're looking through Netflix for something to watch and see hush scroll across the screen, you might think "there's another generic Horror flick", because Netflix is rife with those.

Hush is not generic at all though. It's a hidden gem. 

THE MONSTER

"The Monster is a great monster movie that boasts two great performances from its leading ladies; and it's also a somber, melancholy, morose movie, which bummed us the hell out."

Aside from being a really solid monster movie, it was the emotional weight of The Monster that made it such a great watch, and one of our most profound movie-watching experiences of 2016. Zoe Kazan did something special with her performance here, as did Bryan Bertino with the script and his apt directing.

This movie is a special one to us, and not one that we'll soon forget.

TRAIN TO BUSAN

Another movie that seems to be landing on many a Top 10 List for 2016, Train to Busan is a kick-ass little S.Korean zombie flick that might be a bit sappy with some of its sentiment (not a lot of happy endings in this one), but delivers a ton of awesome action, most of which comes while its characters are trapped within the confines of a speeding train.

Sang Hwa was one of the coolest characters of 2016. When you see the movie, you'll understand why.

*Review coming soon.

VIRAL

"More of a character study and sisterly relationship drama (at least in its latter half) than it was an all-out Horror flick, Viral was a solid Infection movie that allowed us to feel the ravages of a deadly pandemic on a smaller, more intimate scale."

There probably aren't many critics out there who will have Viral near any of their Best of Lists, but it's a movie that I just can't shake, so critics be damned, here it is on ours! Plus, I really like to have one or two smaller movies on the list each year, because really, movies like The Witch and Green Room have got enough positive press, so let's give some love to some smaller flicks that did it right too.

Anywho...

This was a really well-made movie that I liked way more the 2nd time I sat through it, and even though it doesn't have a ton of balls-to-the-walls Horror action throughout, it hit all the right buttons for me, even if everyone else here at THC though ti was just "alright."

THE WAVE

"The Wave is easily one  of the best disaster movies that we've ever seen. It's exciting, intense, earnest, and its characters felt real. It's an extremely well-constructed movie that Hollywood could really learn a lesson (or ten) from when it comes to how to do a "big" movie in a very small, effective way."

Another one of those "little movies" that we wanted to show some love to, The Wave is a great flick from top to bottom, and maybe the best disaster movie that we've ever seen. It's on Netflix now, waiting for the world at large to experience, and they should.

The movies in this Honorable Mention section are among the best that we saw in 2016, and many of them could have easily been in any Top 10 list, including ours. In fact, some of them were originally in our Top 10 list, but ended up here for one reason or another.

The point is that lists are not definitive, and just because something doesn’t finish Top 10, doesn’t mean that it didn’t deserve to. Placement can be subjective, and does not necessarily speak to overall quality. As long as they're good, who really cares where a movie lands in the rankings, you know?

However you look at it, the movies below are all worthy contenders for best of the year, each in their own way. 

*Be sure to click the pics to read our full reviews of each movie, for a more in-depth look into our choices.