Top 20 THinc Movie Posts Of the Year

Top 20 THinc Movie Posts Of the Year

Last year was a good year for THinc. We (I) had tons and tons of fun with you all and have just had a blast watching this place explode around here. Between last year and this year I’ve had upwards of 200% growth. Kinda crazy really. But let’s be clear – I write these posts because I enjoy it. I enjoy getting to know you guys. I enjoy talking to you all about our favorite movies. (Books? Not so much – you guys don’t read about books much. Trust me I’ve tried.) And it used to be that I would engage with absolutely everyone that commented out here. And if you’ve watched the comments sections on any of the recent posts I’ve made you’ll know that I jump in occasionally, but I can’t stay on top of all the comments that come in. I mean, just RIGHT NOW there are like 20 comments that I haven’t even read, let alone responded to. It’s nuts. And even today I try and respond a couple times a week and still that isn’t nearly enough. But that’s all fine and good because you guys do it for me.

So with the craziness of the year in mind, I figured I’d do a best of list for the year. And to create the list it is not… LET ME REPEAT, this is not a best movies of 2016 list. This is a THinc. Best Movies List… as defined purely by the number of visitors that come viewed these posts. I may still try and do a best movies of the year list. But my dance card is already full through the end of the year. So it will have to be early January if I do one of those. For now, this will have to suffice. I do think this list will be a great way for you to find movies that you may not be familiar with. And heck, that is the best thing I can do for you. I think so, so much, that I’ve created a poster PDF checklist for you to download and check off as you go! Click the image to the right and download away. So yeah, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

#20 – Victoria A 120 minute movie, completely done in one take? And a bank heist movie to boot? Impossible! Oh Contrare! Victoria has done just that. And oh how this isn’t a gimmick – but an immersive movie making choice. Official Synopsis: A young Spanish woman who has newly moved to Berlin finds her flirtation with a local guy turn potentially deadly as their night out with his friends reveals a dangerous secret.

#19 – Predestination Predestination isn’t just a time travel masterpiece, it’s also the Mobius strip… that ate the Mobius strip. Think about that for a second… think about it. Yeah. Never mind. Just watch it. Official Synopsis: For his final assignment, a top temporal agent must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time. The chase turns into a unique, surprising and mind-bending exploration of love, fate, identity and time travel taboos.

#18 – The Last Days In The Desert The Last Days In the Desert is a quiet movie that discusses the 40 days of Jesus in the Desert. If you love amazing cinematography maybe you’ll dig it. It made me think… some? Official Synopsis: An imagined chapter from Jesus’ forty days of fasting and praying in the desert. On his way out of the wilderness, Jesus struggles with the Devil over the fate of a family in crisis.

#17 – They Look Like People Indie films turn on all the lights in my head. All of them. Small relationships, small conversations, that are real and authentic. Add to that the premise of one of these friends seeing demons in the eyes of his friends and you have a winner. Official Synopsis: Suspecting that people around him are turning into evil creatures, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself.

#16 – Approaching the Unknown To pull off enough story to carry 100 minutes in a closed room means you are a talented story teller in the extreme. And chatting with Stuart Hazeldine only confirmed this for me. Official Synopsis: The final eight candidates for a highly desirable corporate job are locked together in an exam room and given a test with one question. It seems simple yet confusing that soon, tensions begin to unravel.

#15 – The Knight of Cups The Knight of Cups is one of those esoteric movies that you either adore or despise. Either or. I happened to enjoy it mainly because of it’s allegoric story telling style. But maybe that’s just me? Official Synopsis: A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

#14 – The Exam To pull off enough story to carry 100 minutes in a closed room means you are a talented story teller in the extreme. And chatting with Stuart Hazeldine only confirmed this for me. Official Synopsis: The final eight candidates for a highly desirable corporate job are locked together in an exam room and given a test with one question. It seems simple yet confusing that soon, tensions begin to unravel.

#13 – 10 Cloverfield Lane Cloverfield was such a huge movie and only because it wasn’t a stand alone. 10 Cloverfield was the first. Next, God Particle! Official Synopsis: After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack.

#12 – Morgan I have just decided that the world needs more AI movies. Good AI movies. Bad AI movies. We just need piles more AI movies. Morgan happens to be an awesome AI movie that everyone should see. Official Synopsis: A corporate risk-management consultant must decide whether or not to terminate an artificially created humanoid being.

#11 – The Invitation I was lucky enough to be able to chat with the screen writer of The Invitation and talk through the idea, the script and a ton of other fun stuff. Really love talking to all these fantastic people. Great movie by the way. Official Synopsis: In an alternate reality, children learn how lucky they will be (their “frequency”), knowledge which shapes their destiny. The unluckiest boy must parse the mysteries of free will in order to pursue his forbidden love of the luckiest girl.

#10 – Frequencies I love using my blog as an excuse to introduce myself to cool creatives. Totally abuse that. I had a great conversation with Owen Pugh that helped create this great post. (If I do say so myself.) Official Synopsis: In an alternate reality, children learn how lucky they will be (their “frequency”), knowledge which shapes their destiny. The unluckiest boy must parse the mysteries of free will in order to pursue his forbidden love of the luckiest girl.

#9 – Black Mirror I had planned to do every single Black Mirror in the latest Netflix run, but so many of them were so iffy I balked. But the couple that I did do, did really well. Love me some Black Mirror. Official Synopsis: In near-future London, police detective Karin Parke (Kelly McDonald) and her tech-savvy sidekick Blue (Faye Marsay) investigate a string of mysterious deaths with a sinister link to social media.

#8 – The Survivalist The Survivalist was a dark indie flick that really caught me off guard with just how intense and insightful it was. Vague and confusing movies do well here, and The Survivalist? It wasn’t short on either. Official Synopsis: In a time of starvation, a survivalist lives off a small plot of land hidden deep in forest. When two women seeking food and shelter discover his farm, he finds his existence threatened.

#7 – The Lobster Woah, I assumed my mostly panning review of The Lobster would have been a throw away post at best. But you really wanted more about this movie than I even wanted to discuss! It was complicated, that’s for sure. Official Synopsis: In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods.

#6 – The Circle Which of you brilliant Thinc.ers recommended The Circle to me first? Pancake? Erin? I totally can’t remember. You guys are always recommending movies to me and I’m sorry that I can’t follow up on more of them. But dang was this one fantastic. Official Synopsis: Held captive and faced with their imminent executions, fifty strangers are forced to choose the one person among them who deserves to live.

#5 – Westworld This past year (quite recently actually) I have started taking on TV Shows because they have really been blowing the doors off of the movie world of late. And man was Westworld to get your THinc. on. Official Synopsis: A series inspired by the 1973 film of the same title written by Michael Crichton about a futuristic theme park populated by artificial beings.

#4 – ARQ This is such a fantastic movie with a tight script that is contained within a single house – throw in a looping time travel backstory and you have a really good idea why this movie was number four on this list. Official Synopsis: Trapped in a lab and stuck in a time loop, a disoriented couple fends off masked raiders while harboring a new energy source that could save humanity.

#3 – Midnight Special What the heck happened to this movie in the last week? Did they start showing it on TV? Redbox? Something? Cause this amazing movie charged up the rankings all of a sudden. And what a great movie this was. Official Synopsis: A father and son go on the run, pursued by the government and a cult drawn to the child’s special powers.

#2 – Arrival The Arrival just came out a couple weeks ago? A month at the most, and yet it exploded all the way to the number two read post of the year? Yeah, if the year end was in January it would have overtaken it for sure. What a great movie. Official Synopsis: A linguist is recruited by the military to assist in translating alien communications.

#1 – Synchronicity Oh this wasn’t even a competition. Synchronicity blew the doors off of every other post I did this year. And what a great movie it was. Official Synopsis: A physicist who invents a time machine must travel back to the past to uncover the truth about his creation and the woman who is trying to steal it.

So there you go! The top 20 movies of Taylor Holmes Inc. for the year. There were over a million hits on these posts alone this past year. So someone somewhere got a kick out of them. They definitely are a bunch of great movies that you’d do well to work your way through. I enjoyed them anyway.