Best Movie Scenes Of 2016 So Far

 

We’re not even halfway through and already 2016 is shaping up to be a decent rival to 2015. We’ve had another acclaimed Pixar film in Finding Dory, a Cloverfield sequel to out-do the original, a couple of critically-adored Disney pictures in Zootopia and The Jungle Book, and a Marvel movie that out-Avengered the last Avengers film.

All in all, it’s not been a bad year and we still have Rogue One and a new Bourne movie to come and so far, there have been plenty of memorable individual scenes in 201.  Here are ten of the best movie of 2016 so far

10) Eddie The Eagle

It’s easy to be cynical about generic ‘feel good’ movies, but it’s much harder to be cynical about something as genuinely heartfelt and funny as Eddie the Eagle. Dexter Fletcher’s unshakably sincere comedy biopic was one of the simplest pleasures in cinema this year, kept afloat even in its schmaltzier moments by its secret weapon: a salty, inescapably cool Hugh Jackman.
Eddie the Eagle is an innocent film about a hopelessly naive young man, but its single best scene is its most risque: the one in which Jackman’s frequently soused coach Bronson Peary teaches Taron Egerton’s Eddie how to ski jump, explaining that the key is moving his body as though he’s making love to Bo Derek. Jackman has never looked so ridiculous and, seemingly, he’s never had so much fun.

9) Tale Of Tales

There’s much to be admired about Matteo Garrone’s baroque fantasy Tale of Tales. For one, there are the inspired, blackly comic performances from a cast that includes Salma Hayek, Toby Jones and John C. Reilly. There’s also the design work and use of real locations, all of which are otherworldly and bizarre – like sets made for some movie set on an alien world.
Tale of Tales‘single greatest sequence highlights the film’s key strengths: As Reilly’s King of Longtrellis, decked out in some Jules Verne-esque scuba gear, descends into waters containing an ancient sea monster, we see that there is still very much a place in cinema for practical effects. Most of this battle scene is FX-free, with outstanding design work and Alexandre Desplat’s eerie score doing all the heavy lifting.

8) Everybody Wants Some!!

There’s nothing in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! that sums up the film’s bittersweet comic vibe quite as well as its telepathy scene. Well, ‘telepathy’ is a little strong: the jocks that make an attempt at a group mind-reading in Willoughby’s bedroom aren’t even so much as in the same ball park telepathically.
Like the film on the whole, the scene is about the hilarious interaction between the ensemble cast and the nostalgic atmosphere Linklater conjures up, as Pink Floyd’s melancholy rocker “Fearless” soundtracks the laidback, weed-infused shenanigans.

7) Deadpool

Could there have been a more perfect opening scene for Tim Miller’s Deadpool? Could the character and his story’s unusual tone have gotten a better introduction? It hardly seems likely. The opening credits for Deadpool have a car full of brawling bad guys careering through the air down a New York highway, in slo-mo, as Juice Newton’s Angel of the Morning plays on the soundtrack. It’s irony turned up to 11.
We see that each villain in the car has been dispatched by Ryan Reynolds’ titular antihero in various amusing ways – violently wedgied or burned with a car cigarette lighter. Even the credits themselves are cheekily subversive, and written from the perspective of Wade Wilson, listing Ryan Reynolds as “God’s perfect idiot” and director Miller as an overpaid tool.

6) 10 Cloverfield Lane

It’s testament to a director’s ability when he can create a sequel that’s superior to the original, on half the budget, despite having never made a feature before. 10 Cloverfield Lane is much smaller in scale than the original, but it beats Matt Reeves’ predecessor by being so excruciatingly tense from beginning to end.
The best part is when Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle, effectively held in captivity by John Goodman’s creepy paranoiac Howard, finally manages to escape the bunker she’s found herself trapped in. It’s a messy breakout, with Howard part-melted by a vat of acid and Michelle forced to crawl away through the air vents, all masterfully executed by first-time filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg.

5) Eye In The Sky

Give credit where credit’s due to director Gavin Hood for making a thriller as accomplished as Eye in the Sky – nerve-wracking even though we spend most of the film inside darkened rooms looking up at a computer screen. And, in one sequence in particular, for making the mundane task of buying bread into a nail-biting experience.
Towards the end of the drone warfare drama, in a bid to lure a young girl innocently selling bread away from a zone targeted for a strike, the military men and women back in England try and get Barkhad Abdi’s spy on the ground to buy all the girl’s remaining loaves before the missile hits. Cue people frantically doing all they can just to get a young saleswoman to pack up early for the day.

4) The Witch

Robert Eggers’ sublime New England horror The Witch retains a feeling of semi-realism whilst always merely teasing the supernatural. In its final scenes, with all but Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin slaughtered and family goat Black Phillip transformed into some kind of Satanic cowboy, Eggers’ movie tips over into full-on, operatic horror.
The Witch‘s final scene is arguably its finest. In that moment, the film enters a kind of dream state, as Thomasin enters the ominous forest neighboring her family’s farm to join a coven of witches. She joins them around a fire, before levitating up into the sky, cackling. It’s an out-there climax of surprising confidence from a first-time director.

3) The Jungle Book

Not many films in 2016 have felt like cinema in pure, distilled form quite like The Jungle Book. Probably very few thought Jon Favreau’s reboot would be much to write home about – after all, the film’s only one of so many blockbuster ‘re-imaginings’ being churned out these days. As it turns out, though, he movie is unexpectedly joyous, a burst of color and fluid action that occasionally breaks into song, as in its highlight moment. it’s a magic moment in a film full of them.

2) Captain America: Civil War

After the lackluster Age of Ultron, Marvel was clearly looking to get back on its feet right away and hit the ground running as it entered Phase Three. Captain America: Civil War was the Avengers movie Age of Ultron should have been: action-packed, imaginative and complete with lasting implications for the franchise on the whole. Anyone who felt the MCU was lagging after Ultron was surely re-energized by Civil War.
There are many great set-pieces within the movie that could warrant inclusion on a Best Of list but best of all is the Bucharest chase scene, as Cap and Bucky break out of Bucky’s cop-besieged apartment, before the close-quarters sequence opens up with a chase down a busy highway between Cap, Falcon, Bucky and Black Panther.

1) Hail Caesar!

Hail Caesar!, the Coen brothers’ comic mystery set in 1950s Hollywood, isn’t likely to be remembered as one of their all-time classics. Mostly it’s something of an oddity, a chance for the duo to take a crack at several genres at once, while throwing in all their famous friends for what seems like a good time had by all.
Save for one sequence, Hail Caesar! is throwaway – but what a sequence that is, a work of comic genius that’s expertly written and perfectly played by Ralph Fiennes and Alden Ehrenreich. As Ehrenreich’s clueless B-movie actor fails to come to grips with the period drama he’s been dropped into to lead, struggling with just the first line, Fiennes’ artiste director only becomes more and more exasperated. No one scene this year has been laugh-out-loud funnier.