Top executives of the Dallas and North Texas Film Festivals have announced their selections for the Top Ten Films of 2016. I was thrilled to see they also picked my #1 film, Damien Chazelle’s LA LA LAND, as their top choice. This musical valentine to Los Angeles is contemporary but also a joyous return to those glorious old movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,
Barry Jenkins’ MOONLIGHT and Park Chan-wook’s THE HANDMAIDEN were their picks for the second and third place spots among films released in 2016.
James Faust (Dallas International Film Festival), Bart Weiss (Dallas Video Fest), and Justina Walford (Women Texas Film Festival) announced the list of films. The trio were special guests on a television broadcast with WFAA Channel 8’s Marcus Moore Dec. 27.
The top 10 films were chosen by executive directors, artistic directors, programmers, and programming consultants of Dallas and North Texas-based film festivals. They included Faust, Weiss, and Walford, along with Barak Epstein and Jason Reimer (Oak Cliff Film Festival), Amy Yoon (Asian Film Festival of Dallas), Lee Papert (DIFF), and John Wildman (WTxFF).
Dallas and North Texas film festivals’ Top 10 Films of 2016 are: 1. LA LA LAND (DIR: Damien Chazelle); 2. MOONLIGHT (DIR: Barry Jenkins); 3. THE HANDMAIDEN (DIR: Park Chan-wook); 4. TOWER (DIR: Keith Maitland) 5. HELL OR HIGHWATER (DIR: David Mackenzie); 6. DEADPOOL (DIR: Tim Miller); 7. SING STREET (DIR: John Carney); 8. THE LOBSTER (DIR: Yorgos Lanthinmos); 9. THE WITCH (DIR: Robert Eggers); 10. TWO TRAINS RUNNIN’ (DIR: Samuel D. Pollard), GREEN ROOM (DIR: Jeremy Saulnier); and GIRL ASLEEP (DIR: Rosemary Myers).
Other films cited by the film festival group included Natalie Portman’s A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS; Marci Wrona’s DEMON; Denzel Washington’s FENCES; Ben Wheatley’s HIGH-RISE; Karyn Kusama’s THE INVITATION; Ferne Pearlstein’s THE LAST LAUGH; Anna Billar’s THE LOVE WITCH; Jeff Nichols’s LOVING; Tom Ford’s NOCTURNAL ANIMALS; Hong-jin Na’s THE WAILING; and Elizabeth Wood’s WHITE GIRL.
