The best (relatively new) films I watched in 2016

This might be my own personal anti-Oscar list, as the best films that I watched in 2016 are, with maybe one or two exceptions, unlikely to turn up on any list for major award nominations (some of the "new" films I saw in 2016 were of course released in 2015 or earlier). So here are the 10 best relatively new films I watched in 2016 - five English-language films, five world-language films:

English-language films:

The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer's sequel to his great documentary The Act of Killing; an Indonesian optometrist sets off to interview those who killed his older brother.

Love & Friendship. If you read the source book - Jane Austen's Lady Susan - you'll wonder how anyone could adapt this material (an epistolary novel) into a movie, but Whit Stillman does so brilliantly.

Manchester by the Sea. This Kenneth Lonergan film will be on many awards lists, and deservedly, as it's a smart, understated, and often moving study of a troubled personality in a time of personal crisis.

OJ: Made in America. Another documentary on the list, a terrific examination from ESPN on the rise and fall of a great American athlete and public figure, making excellent use of a vast range of archival footage.

Youth. Paolo Sorrentino's examination of love and fame, a darker, older English-language follow-up to his Italian-language masterpiece, The Great Beauty.

World-language films:

Aferim!, a Romanian film modeled closely on American Westerns, with a harrowing conclusion.

Jafar Panahi's Taxi, a terrific and brave film about life in contemporary Tehran.

Mustang. This film from Turkey is a disturbing indictment of the sexist, repressive culture that still exists throughout the world, and not only in the Third World.

Timbuktu. A truly scary film about how radical Islamic forces can sweep into a village a seize control.

A War. Tobias Lindholm's terrific film about a Danish platoon engaged in peacekeeping in a remote part of Afghanistan; a great follow-up to his previous film, A Hijacking

And some honorable mentions: 45 Years (a fine British film about an aging couple and their endangered love), Love & Mercy (Brian Wilson biopic), and The Story of the Weeping Camel (an unusual documentary about Mongolian villagers who face a crisis when one of their camels rejects its young).

Next post will be on the best classic movies I watched in 2016. Stay tuned.