Maybe it’s time to let the old ways of this almost-finished decade die, yeah? But it wouldn’t be complete without our deep dive into the best soundtracks and scores of the 2010s. It’s admittedly somewhat weird and difficult to do. Scores and soundtracks are different beasts; one original musical written for a film that gives it its emotional shape—often the secret MVP of a movie—and the other more of a mixtape, but when well-curated and used next to picture, can be just as deadly and help craft what we know as the visual and aural transcendence that’s known as cinema when it’s at its best.

Continue reading The Best Soundtracks & Scores Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

Look, making a Best of Decade list is an impossibility. As the 2010s come to a close, we’ve been agonizing over this (long-delayed) list for half a year now and even had to take a break and put it away this summer when things got too contentious and overwhelming. And then there’s the notion of resonance and what really lasts and is released too late (Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is phenomenal, for example, but it’s not even released yet, and it’s just going to have to sit this one out).

Continue reading The 100 Best Films Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

While it only earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay, “20th Century Women” boasts so many riches — from its direction to its performances and more — it could deservedly have earned more Oscar love. But regardless, the picture is a treasure, and today we have copies of the film for some lucky readers.

READ MORE: Mike Mills’ ’20th Century Women’ Is Impressive, Moving & Heartbreaking [Review]

Directed by Mike Mills (“Beginners“) and starring Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann, and Billy Crudup, the film is set in 1979 Santa Barbara, and follows Dorothea (Bening), a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie (Zumann), at a time brimming with cultural change.

Continue reading Contest: Win ’20th Century Women’ On Blu-ray at The Playlist.

In film commentary circles outside of those dedicated to the arcane craft of awards prognosis and coverage, like our own Awards Campaign, it is pretty much standard to disdain the Oscars. We might discuss them, dissect them and analyze them for the sociological trends they mark (or run counter to), but lurking at the end of most such sentences, like a terms-and-conditions asterisk, is an implicit but it’s the Oscars, so¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  It’s become such an instinctive attitude that it’s very possible half of us don’t even realize why we’re doing it anymore — the Oscars Eyeroll is as involuntary a reflex as recoiling from fire or punching a Nazi.

Continue reading How The Oscars Fail Movies at The Playlist.

People get excited about Oscar nominations day in part to see how their favorite films or actors do with the Academy. But we also get to see, after months of prognostication, precursors and predictions, what curveballs are thrown by voters, which sure bets end up missing out, and which seeming no-hopers suddenly become Oscar nominees.

The 2017 batch, revealed this morning by some awkward pre-shot interview clips and the voice of a “Westworld” murderbot, delivered on both fronts.

Continue reading The Snubs & Surprises Of The 2017 Oscar Nominations at The Playlist.

Ok, we’re done looking back on 2016, but if you have an appetite for more and or missed it, here’s all our Best Of 2016 coverage.

OK, I know, I know. We’re waaaaaay past the sell by date on Top 10 lists, I’m all too painfully aware. My tombstone will read, “Life got in the way,” and life is, again, the reason I’m woefully (embarrassingly?) behind.

Continue reading The Best Movies Of 2016: Rodrigo Perez’s Picks at The Playlist.

I don’t think I’m the only person to have wondered about the usefulness of watching, discussing and writing about film — or any art — when it feels like outside the theater, the sky is falling. Great chunks of catastrophe are raining down from the heavens and I’m pondering crucial issues like the mythology of the “Transformers” cinematic universe and whether there’s any way to use the phrase mise-en-scene without sounding pretentious.

Continue reading Jessica Kiang’s Top 20 Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

The force is with Disney. The studio chalked up a staggering $7 billion at the box office across 2016, and heading into the New Year, they show no signs of slowing down as audiences continue to flock to their movies.

For the third straight week, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” has topped the box office, hauling in $49.5 million across New Year’s weekend. The film is now at $790 million worldwide, and breaking the billion dollar barrier is looking more and more likely with each passing day.

Continue reading ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ Remains Unbeatable Heading Into 2017 [Box Office] at The Playlist.

For a variety of reasons, 2016 marked my personal record for the most new films I’ve seen in any given year, which is simultaneously a triumph and a problem. More movies equals more choice, and I’m nothing if not terrible at making decisions. But the following 10 films (and runners-up, because again, I’m terrible at making decisions) are the ones I loved most this year, edging out the titles I found worthy of respect, but not affection (like the ambitious Martin Scorsese opus “Silence“).

Continue reading Kimber Myers’ Top 10 Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Every year when I do this, I try to find a theme among the films that stuck with me for the year. Sometimes it’s women directors or the American Dream or the triumph of the human spirit. I find that those themes run through this list as well, from Mike Mills’ “20th Century Women” to Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey” to Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson.” But as I was writing this, a theme revealed itself to me, a theme of “this movie shouldn’t work but it does,” encompassing, yes “Paterson” as well as “Toni Erdmann,” and “Camerperson.” Each one of these films feels like a small miracle, that it was even made, that it emerged so singularly formed.

Continue reading Katie Walsh’s Top 10 Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Dorothea Fields is a 50-something woman trying to raise her teenage son Jamie by herself in 1979 Santa Barbara, California. It’s a pivotal point in history. The economy is crap, Jimmy Carter is probably the right president at the wrong time, and a rebellious punk-rock attitude is festering among the young. Seeing her son slowly turn away — like all adolescents do — Dorothea takes the dramatic step of enlisting the help of her boarder, Abbie, and Jamie’s slightly older best friend, Julie, to help raise him.

Continue reading Mike Mills’ ’20th Century Women’ Is Impressive, Moving & Heartbreaking [Review] at The Playlist.

I promised my editors that I’d ease off on the ‘2016 was awful’ intros to our year-end features. That said, fuck 2016, right in the eye. It’s been a crappy twelve months personally and politically (though happily not professionally), and for the first six months or so, cinematically too.

But fortunately, the movies came through, and the late summer and fall pulled things back to, if not a classic year of film, at least one with a variety and diversity of great movies of every kind.

Continue reading Oli Lyttelton’s Top 15 Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Howard Hawks once defined a good movie as one with “three good scenes and no bad ones.” Whether or not you think he’s right — and he’s not massively wrong — it’s often the moments that make the movies for us, and there’s no better way to make a moment memorable than with some music.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2016

From the chorus lines of Busby Berkeley and “The Sound Of Silence” in “The Graduate” to Chuck Berry in “Pulp Fiction” and “Where Is My Mind” in “Fight Club,” movies and cinema are intrinsically linked together, with songs made indelible by scenes in films, and scenes made by indelible songs.

Continue reading The 25 Best Movie Music Moments Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Have you been struggling to type out that script? The one you’ve sat on for the past few months/years or so? Trying to figure out how to make it work? Hell, do you need some help getting it started in the first place? If you want to look for the best of the best of the year, look no further than below. Compiled for the consideration of Oscar voters everywhere, you have the chance to download and read more than 40 of the most acclaimed, sought-after screenplays of the past year.

Continue reading Download Over 40 Oscar-Contending Screenplays: ‘Silence,’ ‘Moonlight,’ ’20th Century Women’ ‘Arrival’ & More at The Playlist.

As we slowly and eagerly await the end of a year that history will squint back on forever, we can take some solace in knowing that it hasn’t been completely devoid of good things. And if you’ve been following our marathon year-end coverage from the beginning of December, which course you have been, you know of what we speak. Today we finally zero in on the element that best illuminates the unassailable power of the silver screen — cinematography.

Continue reading The Best Cinematography Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Those of us who call it home can kind of take it for granted, but it’s an honor and a pleasure to be part of a collective effort like The Playlist, and that’s never made more abundantly clear than when we compile our official annual Best Films ranking. As in recent years, we’ve collated our rankings of films from a wide sample of individual top ten lists (this year, 20 of our contributors submitted lists for consideration), and once again we could not be prouder of the results, or more convinced of how well they represent the blog’s eclectic, broadminded and passionate cinematic taste.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

It’s been something of a mixed year for movies in some ways — a fairly sparse first half of the year, including the worst blockbuster season in living memory, followed by an absolutely rammed fall season that, even more than most, has seen a wealth of pleasures in movie theaters. But one thing for sure is that it’s been a really great year for music and the movies (and yes, .)

READ MORE: 11-Minute Video Essay Listens To The Power Of A Film’s Score

Perhaps appropriately for a year where a musical looks to be the Oscar front-runner, we’ve had all kinds of wonderful scores and soundtracks, from a young composer turning the biopic on its head to an instantly iconic Netflix synthpop score, from a blast of original hip-hop from a little-seen indie to some unusually convincing comedy songs from some ex-SNLers.

Continue reading The 30 Best Film Scores & Soundtracks Of 2016 at The Playlist.

The past few weeks have seen countless critics guilds and other organizations start handing out their honors for the best of 2016, but now it’s time for the big guns of the awards season with the Golden Globes nominations.

Continuing to ride high, Damien Chazelle‘s “La La Land” danced into the lead this morning with 7 nominations in the film category. Every year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association likes to throw a few curveballs, and they did just here with Jonah Hill getting a nod for “War Dogs.” Meanwhile, “Deadpool” sneaked into the Best Picture Comedy Or Musical category.

Continue reading ‘La La Land’ Leads 2017 Golden Globes Nominations at The Playlist.

You might have been acquainted with the work of Mike Mills in 1998. His design for the beguiling cover of Air‘s Moon Safari was a perfect union of French pop minimalism and California chic that showcased the duo’s downtempo electronic music with distinction. Almost twenty years later, Mills’ contributions to popular culture and film has been significant. As a filmmaker, graphic designer, and artist, Mills holds true to his aesthetic in all that he does.

Continue reading Annette Bening & Mike Mills Talk Making ’20th Century Women,’ Humphrey Bogart, And More At 92nd Street Y at The Playlist.

We have a love/hate relationship with movie trailers (don’t even get Kevin started on teaser trailers), that is, we love to talk about how much we hate them. But they’re an unavoidable fact of the business, and while we try not to feed the beast of pre-trailer teasers and trailer release date hype, we can’t ignore that our trailer posts are among the best performing parts of our news coverage – we might dislike them in general, you might dislike them in general, but apparently most of us watch them.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movie Trailers Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Good gravy, Marie! It’s gonna be an awfully busy final month of 2016 at the movies. Not that we should be surprised, as this time of year is often overstuffed as studios make their final play for awards season hopefuls as the Oscars draw near.

Do keep in mind that several of the entries in this month’s loaded final list are debuting in limited release, and won’t go wide until across the country until January.

Continue reading 15 Films To See In December at The Playlist.

The nominees for the 2017 Independent Spirit Awards will be announced at 10 AM tomorrow morning by Edgar Ramirez and Jenny Slate. Certainly prestigious on an industry level, the Spirits are the first real minor marketing win if your film can earn a Best Feature and other subsequent nominations. The problem is they are always the hardest to predict.

Golden Globes? The HFPA have loose lips and word gets around about what they like and what they don’t.

Continue reading Shot In The Dark: 2017 Independent Spirit Awards Nomination Predictions at The Playlist.

While it’s nothing new that our lives and personalities are shaped by the times around us, sometimes being truly objective about how you’ve been affected by cultural, social and political forces comes with a bit of distance. And that’s just one of the themes that Mike Mills explores in his upcoming “20th Century Women.”

“For this film and my last one a little bit, I’m really interested in how our emotional lives are sort of historical and influenced by the prevailing winds of whatever time we’re in, so the 1979, all the contents therein is kind of the 5th Beatle of the movie in a way,” he explained this month at the New York Film Festival.

Continue reading Welcome To 1979 With New Trailer For Mike Mills’ ’20th Century Women’ With Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, Elle Fanning, More at The Playlist.

The Four Quadrant podcast is always going to be a mix of talent (such as Andrea Arnold) and some industry voices that you really need to pay attention to.  This week is an example of the latter as my good friend and New York Magazine and Vulture Sr. Editor Kyle Buchanan joins the program.  If you haven’t read any of Kyle’s long form commentary or interviews you’re truly missing out.

Continue reading 4 Quadrant Podcast Ep 4: Best Picture, ‘20th Century Women’ with Kyle Buchanan at The Playlist.

“Beginners” director Mike Mills‘ latest feature “20th Century Women” recently debuted at the New York Film Festival to great critical reception (read our review here). The film, which is set in Santa Barbara in 1979 — with the location practically a character in the film itself — acts as an extremely intimate portrait of generational values and changing times. A veritable ensemble piece, it stars Annette Bening and relative newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann as a mother and son with a strained relationship, Billy Crudup as an in-house carpenter, Greta Gerwig as a punk-photographer boarder, and Elle Fanning as a platonic friend of the son and frequenter of the central, perpetually half-finished house.

Continue reading Mike Mills Encourages You To Make Movies About Your Mom & Explores Emotional Landscapes In ‘20th Century Women’ [NYFF] at The Playlist.