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04.27.17: This list is now final. While I may in the future see additional films that were released in the awards year of 2016, no more films will be added to this list. (I may add links to reviews of films listed here.)

This ranking includes only new theatrical releases viewed for the awards year of 2016 (for eligibility for the Academy Awards and the Ofcs and Awfj awards); some films released in the UK without Us releases (and so ineligible for those awards this year) may also be included, for my own bookkeeping purposes. Links go to my review. Numbers after each entry are Date First Viewed/NYC Release Date/London Release Date; year is 2016 unless otherwise noted.

worth paying multiplex prices for

[5 stars]

Arrival (10.10/11.11/11.10)

La La Land (10.07/12.09/01.13.17)

A Monster Calls (10.06/12.23/01.01.17)

The Lobster (07.16.15/05.13/10.16.15)

Zootropolis (aka Zootopia) (02.22/03.04/03.25)

A Bigger Splash (10.08.15/05.04/02.12)

Miss Sloane (11.20/11.25/05.12.17)

London Road (06.03.15/09.09/06.12.15)

The Girl with All the Gifts (07.26/02.24.17/09.23)

I, Daniel Blake...

“Arrival,” “Rogue One,” and “Hacksaw Ridge” each received three Mpse sound editing nominations (Dialogue/Adr, Effects/Foley, and Music) in the race for the 64th Golden Reel Awards (held February 19th at the Westin Bonaventure).

While the Oscars singled out Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi thriller, which boasts unique animal sounds and music as well as Mel Gibson’s powerful Okinawa World War II battles, they overlooked Gareth Edwards’ “Star Wars” standalone.

Right behind these three films with two nominations each were Marvel’s “Deadpool” (Dialogue/Adr, Effects/Foley) and “Doctor Strange” (Effects/Folley, Music), plus Disney’s “Moana” (Animation, Musical).

“La La Land” scored a Musical nomination, as did “Forest Foster Jenkins,” “Sing Street,” and DreamWorks’ animated “Trolls.”

Other animated contenders included Oscar nominees from Disney (“Zootopia”) Laika (“Kubo and the Two Strings”) and Studio Ghibli (“The Red Turtle”), plus Pixar’s “Finding Dory” and Netflix’s “The Little Prince.

A simple listing, duplicated from the homepage, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Daily Digest emails (sign up here).

new dvd+vod Us/Can Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Don’t Breathe Fire Song Hell or High Water Kubo and the Two Strings War Dogs Mechanic: Resurrection I’m planning to watch… Indignation Morris from America Spaghettiman new dvd+vod UK Before the Flood Ghostbusters Little Men Zoom I’m planning to watch… Keanu Things to Come

recent releases Us/Can Bad Moms Before the Flood Blood Father Captain Fantastic The Divide Ghostbusters The Great Gilly Hopkins Into the Inferno Michael Moore in TrumpLand Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates Miss Sharon Jones! The Purge: Election Year Sausage Party Sherpa Star Trek Beyond 13th Time to Choose Under the Shadow Anthropoid Cafe Society Microbe & Gasoline...

A veritable flood of mysterious, majestic extraterrestrial and terrestrial imagery strung together by a less compelling spoken-word narrative, intrepid filmmaker Jean-Christophe Jeauffre’s survival doc Passage To Mars is sure to inspire a few wide-eyed youngsters to pursue the exciting field of space exploration and offers an improbable story of endurance and problem-solving to those with a particular interest in Nasa and their planet-hopping endeavors. There isn’t enough emotional attachment or narrative thrust, however, to keep audiences with only marginal knowledge or interest in scientific pursuits immersed and engaged.

To prepare for a future Mars expedition, Nasa sent a team of engineers, survivalists, and documentarians (Jeauffre was one of them) to test-drive a prototype Humvee called the Hmp Okarian across 2,000 miles of frozen ground and sea that is the Northern Passage, eventually arriving at Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island in the world. Via journal entries, we experience the...

World Without Sun, Jacques Cousteau’s classic portrait of life in a submarine lab with half a dozen paperback-reading, chain-smoking Frenchmen, ends with a scene in which Cousteau’s saucer-shaped submersible briefly surfaces in an air pocket in an undersea cavern. It’s a strange and inspiring coda, but also blatantly staged (though so is almost everything in World Without Sun) and could never pass muster in our age of interchangeable educational nature documentaries. But lest one think that Cousteau’s light-on-facts approach was easier (“As soon as you are specific, the poetry disappears,” he said at that film’s premiere), there are bad imitations to prove otherwise. If nothing else, Jean-Christophe Jeauffre’s insipid Passage To Mars instills a greater appreciation for the classic movies that clearly inspired it.

Admittedly, Cousteau and other nature documentary pioneers like Jean Painlevé and Hans Hass had it a little easier, because they...