The end of a year is a time when film critics reflect on the best and the worst films of the year. Here are my top and bottom five picks for philosophers in 2016, listed alphabetically. Even the worst weren’t awful; they just weren’t my favorites. And I must admit what film critics often don’t: there are a lot of films I didn’t see, and I expect many of them were very good and some were worth missing. I’m the type who likes suspense, so I’ve tried to write these reviews on the assumption that it would be bad to give the endings away. Sometimes that’s meant I’ve had to say less about he philosophy than I might have if I’d reflected on the significance of how the film ended up—and for that I apologize.

The Best

Arrivalis a story of what it means to see the future and the past, how love and relationships matter even if they are evanescent, how failures to communicate are both easy and perilous, and how communication can be achieved through kindness. It stars Amy Adams as the linguist Louise Banks in a performance that has critics raving, and Jeremy Renner as the skeptical physicist Ian Donnelly. It’s directed by Denis Villeneuve, a science fiction fan making his first science fiction movie. (His next will beBlade Runner 2049.) It’s based on the short story, “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, with some global tension thrown in. Against this background, Banks comes to understand the blob-speech and world view of the peaceful heptopods, seven-tentacled squid-like creatures who appear in ovoid ships from outer space. Who would have thought theSapir-Whorf hypothesis你所说的语言构成了你的世界观，会在一部流行电影中扮演核心角色吗?但我确实有一个疑问:班克斯是如何解读七足动物的语言的，在电影中始终没有说清楚。

Land of Mine.Directed by Martin Zandvliet,Land of Minepremiered in Denmark in 2015, screened at a variety of film festivals (including Sundance, where I saw it) in 2016, and is in the running for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2017 Oscars. It is based on a devastating and little known piece of history: the Germans, believing that the Allied invasion of the continent would come through Denmark, buried over two million mines along the Danish coast; the Danes, after the war, used young German prisoners of war to remove the mines. Putting the prisoners thus in danger was a clear violation of international law; reports are that about 150 died and several hundred more were seriously injured by mine explosions. The Germans were twice victimized: enlisted at young ages by the Nazis who had no one else to send to war, and then used by the Danes to clear their lands. The scenes of the Danish coast are harrowingly beautiful. Roland Møller as Carl Leopold Rasmussen, the sergeant in charge of the mine removal, is a model of moral complexity.

Manchester by the Sea.Casey Affleck is Lee Chandler, a handyman living alone in a basement in Boston. When his brother dies of heart failure, suddenly but not surprisingly, Chandler is expected to become the guardian of his nephew. It’s difficult to describe the film without giving away the plot; all I’ll say is that Chandler constantly battles horrific memories out of loyalty to his brother. Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, the film is a probing exploration of moral failures and moral responsibility against a background of economic stagnation.

Moonlightis written and directed by Barry Jenkins and based on the playIn Moonlight Black Boys Look Blueby Tarell Alvin McCraney. It tells the story of Chiron at three life stages: a small and bullied young boy nicknamed “Little,” a teenager recognizing that he is gay, and an adult who has become a buff drug dealer. Chiron’s coming of age in a Miami housing project is threatened by his crack-addicted mother and wisely looked after for a time by the drug dealer he later comes to reflect. Beautifully acted by all three Chirons (Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevonte Rhodes), the film’s central character speaks little but says a great deal. I’m told that the portrayal of Chiron’s mother’s life with drugs is utterly and depressingly accurate. The film reflects multiple facets of identities: how they are created and shift, how they are destructive and affirming, how they are undermined and undermining, and how they may ultimately prove ironic.

Swiss Army Manfeatures three Dans: Daniel Radcliffe as its star and Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert as its directors. For good measure, there’s also Paul Dano as its co-star. This isn’t all that’s unique about the film; Radcliffe plays a farting corpse who saves the life of Hank, a stranded sad-sack who has difficulty communicating with others and negotiating the world. Multi-faceted and functional, he is truly a Swiss set of tools. A philosophically intriguing of the film is what it makes of our physical bodies as things. Some critics have viewed the film as nothing more than potty humor—and it is that—but a compelling aspect of its humor is what it makes of what bodies can—or cannot—be.

The Worst

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Themis the adventures of Newt Scamander in New York City in 1926. Harry Potter fans will know of Scamander as the author of the Hogwarts textbook of the same name. The movie has impressive special effects, especially ones using mirrors to change worlds, and is sure to make a lot of money both itself and in sequels and spinoffs such as games. It perhaps raises questions about cultural differences between witches in the US and the UK. It is also very sympathetic to animals and has a happy ending. It could have been philosophically interesting about the differences between worlds (check out philosophy talk onWhat Might Have Been), but it wasn’t, at least for me.

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World是维尔纳·赫尔佐格(Werner Herzog)的一部夸大其词的纪录片，讲述了科技据称是如何威胁我们的人性的。它的开头很有希望，有一些关于互联网早期的精彩镜头，以及一开始为了开放和中立而做出的设计选择。但之后它就变成了赫尔佐格的文章关于现代性的所有错误，赫尔佐格说了很多。视频中有各种各样的片段，从悲剧性事件的电影如何在互联网上被侵入重播，到智能机器人可能带来的危险。Far better to have focused on the implications of how the Internet was conceived and has developed rather than morphing into aneoHeideggerian critique of technology.

The Lobster.Lots of people loved this at Sundance and it is quirky and dystopian, which should count for something. The world is divided between those who are coupled and live in the City and those who are alone who apparently lack worth as individuals. The newly uncoupled are taken to a Hotel where they must find a partner within 45 days or be turned into an animal and banished to the dark Woods. Residents of the Hotel regularly search the Woods for escapees. Hotel residents also cheat to try to find mates so that they can resume life in the City. Director Yorgos Lanthimos won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2015.The Lobstertakes the need for coupling to a level never considered by Jane Austin. It presents a world that is either black or white, without a hint of moral subtlety even at the end.

Loving.I really wanted to like this movie, because it tells such an important story. Mildred and Richard Loving were married in the District of Columbia in 1958 after Mildred became pregnant with Richard’s child. After they returned home to Caroline County in rural Virginia, they were arrested for being married, because Mildred was black and Richard was white and miscegenation was a crime in Virginia. Their case was ultimately heard by the US Supreme Court and becameLoving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the century and a precursor toObergefell v. Hodges. (Mildred Loving’s last public statement before she died in 2008 was an expression of support for same-sex marriage.) In the movie, Mildred (Ruth Negga) is limpid-eyed and beautiful and Richard (Joel Edgerton) is suitably earnest and taciturn. Caroline County provides lovely scenery and David Jensen is predictably mean-spirited and racist as the judge who convicts them. But frankly the movie is often earnest without capturing as well as it should how change is wrought by a coalition of good people. Maybe that’s the point; ordinary people change history and telling their stories matters. And maybe it’s the lawyer in me, but it might have been nice to have more about how pervasive anti-miscegenation laws were (40 states had them) and how segregation affected so many aspects of life in Virginia and elsewhere in the US. AfterBrown v. Board of Education与弗吉尼亚州卡洛琳仅隔几个县的爱德华王子县，在1959年关闭了学校，而不是整合它们。我在马里兰州的蒙哥马利县(Montgomery County)长大，这个位于华盛顿郊区的富裕地区在1961年成为马里兰州第一个全面整合学校的县。洛文斯夫妇居住的卡洛琳县的中心点镇实际上是个异类;it had been, according to Richard Staples in a 2008 opinion piece in theNew York Times, “a visibly mixed-race community since the 19^th世纪…一个秘密但矛盾地公开的种族主义的家园，“奴隶和他们的主人的后代”。

Silenceis director Martin Scorsese’s re-enactment of the history of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Japan in the effort to drive Christianity underground. It is long, bloody, and crucifying. It is being praised by critics for the grandeur of its expression of faith, survival and disillusionment. I found it long on cruelty and short on depth about cultural and religious differences.

The Most Controversial

The Birth of a Nation(redux).这部讲述纳特·特纳和他领导的奴隶起义的影片在圣丹斯电影节上赢得了观众奖和美国戏剧竞赛评审团大奖的起立鼓掌。这部电影的导演、联合制片人兼主演内特·帕克(Nate Parker)花了数年的时间来筹集制作这部电影的资金。据报道，这部电影以1750万美元的价格卖给了福克斯探照灯(Fox Searchlight)，但到目前为止，它的总收入远远低于这个数字。这部电影遇到了很多麻烦，其中最重要的是2002年帕克和联合编剧让·塞莱斯廷在宾夕法尼亚州立大学读书时被判强奸罪名无罪。这部电影对历史的描述也有问题;特纳的妻子被残忍地强奸，这被描述为他激进化的核心，却从未发生过。Nor is much else of the movie historically accurate, as historian Leslie Alexander carefully details in her review forThe Nation.Turner was motivated by his belief that slavery was against the word of God, and the rebellion did not take place as it is portrayed. Alexander also criticizes the movie for the passivity with which it depicts black women. Still, there was a reason why Sundance audiences loved the film, and not just because they are all bleeding-heart, politically-correct white liberals. Slavery was a moral horror, the originalBirth of a Nationreplicated the immorality despite its renown as a movie, and Parker made the movie with passion and conviction. Would that there were more film makers with such passion for social justice, no matter their personal flaws and the flaws of their films. If you can’t findBirth of a Nation, because it has failed so badly at the box office, do at least read Colson Whitehead’s superb novelThe Underground Railroadand try to find12 Years a Slaveon Netflix. And reflect on the insights of the 1950s’ new literary criticism that detached works from their authors and think about whether historical fiction can be rejected for inaccuracy. And observe why African Americans turn out to be the target of vitriolic criticism when they try to change things such as the shape of US health care.

And a Film from the Past

We just watched Antonioni’sBlow Up在新年的周末。自从1966年这部电影上映后，我就再没看过了。书中有披头士乐队(Beatles)时代伦敦的精彩场景，没有球的网球(很容易错过)，还有一个关于感知和现实的神秘问题。