With Labor Day just around the corner, the 2016 summer season is officially coming to close, and movie fans the world over can be heard breathing a sigh of relief. This summer's movie line-up was "not great", to put it mildly, or "one of the worst in recent memory" to put it a bit more accurately. Littered with ill-wrought sequels, unwanted reboots, and generally widespread, uninspired fare, it's been a particularly grueling and disappointing few months.

But it hasn't been all bad! It's been a particularly fantastic season for horror -- to the point that the genre makes up 1/5 of the list below, which is pretty remarkable. It's also been a triumphant few months for Disney (Alice Through the Looking Glass, aside) who has consistently turned out quality tentpole films, even if some of them didn't quite break out at the box office (they're still standing at the top of the 2016 box office, so they'll be fine). And of course, in between the major studio offerings, there were plenty of independent and low-budget releases that were quietly excellent amidst the sound and fury of sequelitis. So, let's wash the horrible summer season taste out of our mouths and head into the fall on a positive note by looking back on a few of the movies that did it right.

Star Trek Beyond

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Image via Paramount Pictures

After the catastrophe that was True Detective Season 2, the announcement that Justin Lin would take over the Star Trek franchise from J.J. Abrams was not even remotely the news I wanted to hear. Lin has a long record of technical competency and strong performances, but the writing in his movies was consistently rigid and often stank of pre-digested idealism. And that’s exactly why Star Trek Beyond felt so exhilarating as an entertainment, so surprisingly inventive and full of splashes of character detail that never feel familiar or mechanical. Here, the crew of the Enterprise, led by the intrepid Captain James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), faces off against Kroll (Idris Elba), a vengeful alien who feeds on the living and whose face constantly mutates. There’s more plot than necessary that ties this all back to the positives and negatives of Starfleet and the aching life of an officer, even a brilliant one, but the cast sells the nonsense with impressive finesse. Lin also lends physical rigorousness to the action and paces the film with a masterful swiftness. More than all of this, however, is the feeling of this cast and this world feeling fully formed, capable of mounting any number of future sequels and find plenty of space for storytelling nuances, ones that can either revitalize or expand. -- Chris Cabin

Swiss Army Man

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Image via A24

There has never been, nor will there ever be, a movie quite like Swiss Army Man. The film quickly assumed the reductive moniker of the “Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie” as the Harry Potter actor indeed plays a flatulent corpse, but Swiss Army Man is so much more than that. Paul Dano plays a man stranded on an island, about to commit suicide when Radcliffe’s corpse washes ashore. He proceeds to discover the corpse’s flatulence issue, uses that to his advantage (as a motor), and rides it across the ocean to another piece of land. Over the course of the film, Radcliffe’s character slowly begins to come “alive” as it’s up to Dano to teach this new buddy of his what life is and why it’s worth living. This is a tremendously profound piece of storytelling from directors Daniels, with a wholly and truly unique structure and narrative, which is not something you can say very often. The performances are magnificent, the direction is inspired, and even the original music is refreshingly different. Swiss Army Man is weird, it’s moving, and it’s one of the best films of the year. – Adam Chitwood

The Conjuring 2

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Image via Warner Bros.

James Wan is a verifiable modern auteur of the horror genre. He's consistently directed original, well-crafted -- not to mention trend-setting and sequel-spawning -- horror films, and 2013's The Conjuring was arguably his finest work to date. This year, he returned to the helm for The Conjuring 2, which picked up with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson's paranormal investigators Ed and Lorrain Warren. While the film never quite lives up to the mastery of its predecessor, The Conjuring 2 smartly hones in on the Warrens, making their deep love for each other, and their unwavering belief that god brought them together to fight evil, the crux of the narrative. Then it pits the duo against the greatest battle of their lives in the form of the notorious Enfield Haunting, a controversial real-life possession case wherein the young Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe) scared the shit out of her family, floating in the air and speaking in demonic voices. Enter the Warrens, who come up against the cost of their regular dances with the forces of the devil. With Farmiga and Wilson in the leads, The Conjuring 2 becomes an emotionally invested drama, and with Wan behind the camera, it becomes a stylish treat that can be downright chilling.    --Haleigh Foutch

The BFG

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Image via Disney

As Adam Chitwood pointed out earlier this summer, Steven Spielberg has churned out so many great films that audiences seem less interested in his yearly installment skillfully crafted cinema that he bestows upon us. Shame on us! The BFG, under any other director’s name, would be considered one of the most joyous, delightful and imaginative films of the summer.

We seem to expect masterpieces only from Spielberg and The BFG may not be that, but it certainly has a world that’s every bit as imaginative and fun as Hayao Miyazaki. That world is an island where giants live, and where the diminutive (for a giant) BFG (Mark Rylance, in a whizpopper of a performance), takes a young girl (Rose Barnhill) from an orphanage to help him snatch dreams from an upside down pond—and she helps him stick up for himself against the bigger, nastier giants on the island. It might not be one of the 10 best films of one of the greatest filmmakers, but that’s a giant order, instead it’s the best adaptation of one of the most beloved children’s authors, Roald Dahl. And that certainly counts for something grand. ~ Brian Formo

Pete's Dragon

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Image via Disney

Disney is on a roll so far with its live-action adaptations of previous animated classics, and filmmaker David Lowery’s empathetic Pete’s Dragon keeps the trend going. This updated version of the “boy and his dragon” story bears little resemblance to the previous adaptation, which makes it all the more effective. Lowery—the director behind the dark Western drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints—manages to craft an incredibly emotional, stirring tale of belonging and family that is as inspired as it is thrilling. The film manages to be extraordinarily sweet and heartfelt without coming off as either cynical or cloying, with the young Oakes Fegley shining with a swell (and real) child performance and Bryce Dallas Howard proving to deliver one of the best performances of her career. Visually this thing soars as Lowery refuses to go for the obvious camera placement or move, opting instead to keep the POV on the young Pete while realizing the dragon Elliott in a way that’s both slightly cartoony but nonetheless “real”-looking. Again, this is a fantasy family film that is wholly devoid of cynicism or “biting wit”, instead hanging its hat on genuine emotion and warmth while at the same time managing to avoid saccharine or trite sentiments. That’s an incredibly tough balance to manage, but Lowery shines and the film is all the better for it. – Adam Chitwood

 

Hell or High Water

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Image via CBS Films/Lionsgate

While many distributors didn’t receive a return on trying to make 2016 a year-long Oscar season, the thoughtful and extremely well-acted neo-Western Hell or High Water has found success in the tried and true August arena, when adults are ready to return to the multiplexes to watch a movie without the kids. And it definitely deserves to dust itself off as an Oscar contender in many fields. Chris Pine and Ben Foster star as bank-robbing brothers and Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham as the Texas Rangers on their tail, but the film, from Starred Up’s director David Mackenzie and Sircario’s screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, has a lot more than thrills on its mind (though there are many thrills). Particularly, Sheridan and Mackenzie are interested in the history of the southwestern land as its past from one tribe to the next. And how it now it belongs to corporate banks.

Hell or High Water might be the most contemplative Western since No Country for Old Men and certainly one that represents the post-Recession west with immense nuance. ~ Brian Formo

Lights Out

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Image via Warner Bros.

Lights Out (and director David F. Sandberg) has managed to turn $5 million into a box office smash that actually happens to be good. Sandberg, who initially conceived the film’s central scare years ago in a viral short of the same name, makes great use of the basic premise by transforming it into a full-fledged mythology that, in tandem with a few scarily convincing practical effects, easily supports its feature length. While not a perfect film (Lights Out flirts with The Babadook greatness before falling short in its third act), it does offer some of the year’s most efficient scares  – the proof’s in the “sleeping with the lights on” pudding.  -- Aubrey Page

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

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Image via The Orchard

As a filmmaker, Taika Waititi has gotten better and better with each film (a fact that bodes particularly well for the ever-more-intruiging Thor: Ragnarok), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople is his most mature, beautiful, and downright charming movie yet. Starring international treasure Sam Niell and tremendous young breakout Julian Dennison, Hunt for the Wilderpeople follows the mismatched duo on a delightful adventure through the New Zealand wilderness after a series of mishaps puts them on the lam from authorities. Waititi won over audiences world-wide with the vampire showcase What We Do in the Shadows, which was a showcase for his idiosyncratic and command of genre, but Wilderpeople is much more in line with his intimate award-winning drama Boy, showcasing his equally impressive command of heart-felt human relationships. Don't get me wrong, it's still funny as hell, you just might catch yourelf unexpectedly crying mid-laugh. --Haleigh Foutch

The Shallows

Image via Sony

The Shallows has received faint praise for “being better than it should’ve been” and “proving that Blake Lively is an actress”—but in previous summers of box office yore we’d probably call it the best summer movie because it’s fun and it’s very summer-y. The Shallows is more that a surfer (Lively) stuck on a rock while a great white shark circles. The colors are bright (aqua water, yellow bikini, burnt sand). The energy is high. And the tension is fraught.

Director Jaume Collett-Serra wisely keeps every scene at the beach, using distance and the passage of time to great effect. A horror-director-cum-thriller-auteur his color pallet of surface joy darkens in the ocean, for a carefree summer day can quickly fade to black forever. -- Brian Formo

Indignation

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Image via Roadside Attractions

As both the screenwriter for many Ang Lee films and head of Focus Features for more than a decade, James Schamus has been one of the most successful filmmakers who’d never directed a film. Indignation is his first and it greatly benefits from his writer-ly approach. As a synopsis it’s an adaptation of a Philip Roth book set at a 1950’s Midwestern liberal arts college where a Jewish college student (an excellent Logan Lerman) is bewildered by the upfront and unapologetic sexuality of a Gentile co-ed (an excellent Sarah Gadon). But at its heart, Indignation is a study of how a focus on language can lead to hurt and harm by the interpretation of the receiver, how situations can escalate from the focus on single words. Schamus allows many lengthy discussions to slowly build to defensive arguments and our patience is rewarded with great performances and academic truths. -- Brian Formo

Cafe Society

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Image via Lionsgate

Look, it’s not like I don’t get it. Woody Allen is not, under any circumstances, a role model and his films as of recent have effectively motioned toward the fact that he knows that all too well and is totally okay with it. Irrational Man, Allen’s previous, hugely undervalued comedic drama, dealt directly with the flimsy rhythms of moralism and the importance of luck, both good and bad. There’s a stirring indifference to the simple moralism that drives so many forgettable, familiar narratives and most storytelling courses. And that same indifference feels all the more potent in Café Society, even if its script doesn’t confront death as strongly as Irrational Man did.

The story of young go-getter Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg), who goes to Hollywood to learn about the business under producer Phil Stern (Steve Carrell), his uncle, is similarly zapped of all sentimentality. Bobby does well under Phil and begins a romance with Phil’s assistant (and secret lover) Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), but it all ends quite crushingly for Bobby, who returns to New York to help his hoodlum brother (Corey Stoll) run a night club fueled by murder and thievery. I won’t ruin what goes on after but it’s important to note that Allen narrates the whole tale with mild enthusiasm.

The director speaks the names of Hollywood icons and famed hot spots like my brother-in-law talks about the townies that he was once friendly with and the bars that served as the setting for great nights he can’t remember. There is no longer the wonder at old Hollywood’s prestige and “grace,” only the wisdom of a great, philosophically alert, and deeply troubled artist who knows the room and has no more illusions about his work. And yet, the film is one of his most gorgeous and most wholly satisfying works to date, an unsentimental vision of life as a high-stakes hustler who can only hide his deepest scars and biggest sins for so long. -- Chris Cabin

Captain America: Civil War

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Image via Marvel Studios

The folks at Marvel are some of the best in the biz at making crowd-pleasing blockbusters, and Captain America: Civil War is one of their finest works yet. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo took on the tremendous challenge of translating the epic, fan-favorite 'Civil War' comic-book arc into a single film, re-teaming with Captain America: The Winter Soldier screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely for the daunting task. In the end, they pulled off a pretty incredible feat, making room for nearly every player to have a moment to shine, introducing two new headliners in the form of Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther and Tom Holland's Spider-Man, and somehow still keeping focus as a Captain America movie. As ever, Chris Evans excels in the role of Steve Rogers, who we find morally compromised for the first time, but Civil War has the smarts to give Iron Man equal footing, and Robert Downey Jr. gives his most vulnerable Tony Stark performance to date. Civil War also boasts one of the cinematic MCU's few standout villains in Daniel Bruhl's Baron Zemo, who rises above the mass of forgettable apocalyptic big bads. Considering everything Civil War had to pull off, it's a logistical triumph, but it's also just a damn good time at the cinema that delivers one of the year's best action set-pieces in the much-touted tarmac battle without forgetting to deliver equally satisfying dramatic action. -- Haleigh Foutch

Kubo and the Two Strings

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Image via LAIKA/Universal

It’s hard to adequately sing the praises of Kubo and the Two Strings without exhausting yourself. Easily LAIKA’s best since the exquisite Coraline, Kubo is a children’s film with a wholly adult heart – easily folding breathtaking animation (and a few kid-friendly jokes) into eloquent commentary on grief and growing up. It’s a damn shame the film hasn’t managed to smash any box office barriers, but there’s no question here – Kubo and the Two Strings is the summer film we needed to close out the season on a high note. -- Aubrey Page

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

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Image via Universal Pictures

Summer movie seasons like this one are the price we pay when we let movies like Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping disappear into box office squalor. Possibly the funniest comedy of the year, and unequivocally one of the best music mockumentaries of all time, Popstar is so much more than a basic Bieber spoof thanks to the minds of its creators -- Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, better known as the viral sensation and former SNL music trio, The Lonely Island. A skewering and characteristically absurd satire of the music industry and all its ridiculous excesses, Popstar puts The Lonely Island's incredibly specific skillset to perfect use with insanely catchy songs, go-for-broke silliness, and a deconstructionist bent. On top of being just plain excellent and oh-my-god-my-stomach-hurts-so-bad-from-laughing funny, Popstar also came with a whole new The Lonely Island album, packed with songs that didn't make it into the film. Basically it's a gift within a gift, and it deserves a whole lot more love than what it was shown at the box office. -- Haleigh Foutch

Don't Breathe

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Image via Sony

It’s been clear Fede Alvarez would be a star ever since Panic Attack – the sci-fi short that nabbed him the Evil Dead remake gig – but it’s with Don’t Breathe that the newbie director has officially made a name for himself as a horror auteur in the making. Making fantastic use of his young cast (especially Jane Levy, the Suburgatory alum who’s proving to be every inch our ideal 21st-century scream queen), Don’t Breathe is a modern grindhouse movie with a dark-minded comic edge that delights in testing the boundaries of the genre. Flirting with horror conventions before gleefully subverting them, Alvarez has made a film that’s as vicious as it promised to be – and that’s a very good thing indeed. -- Aubrey Page

Ghostbusters

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Image via Sony Pictures

Who could have predicted that a Ghostbusters remake would become the most controversial movie of the summer season? Which is pretty bananas, because it's ultimately a harmless, well-made, and mostly just entertaining movie. While Ghostbusters isn't quite the homerun I hoped for when the movie announced (partially because it spent too much time paying tribute to the original), it's still a vibrant, action-packed good time with a pair of fabulous feature film breakout from SNL standous Leslie Jones and Kate Mckinnon (who essentially walks away with the movie). I just straight-up dig Ghostbusters as a light-hearted piece of big budget fun, but it also offered up some pretty inspiring moments for me personally. Reluctant though I may be to bring up the landmine of gender issues attached to Ghostbusters, they've become almost inseparable at this point and I'll be honest, it means a lot to me to see a group of female scientists who aren't all dolled up and paired with a love interest. It means a lot to see a queer icon like Kate McKinnon getting a hero moment, busting the shit out of ghosts in a scene-stealing action bit. It means a lot to see a filmmaker like Paul Feig continue to fight for better, more diverse female roles. -- Haleigh Foutch

The Nice Guys

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Image via Misty Mountains

In a just world, The Nice Guys would be one of the biggest hits of the summer movie season. Filmmaker Shane Black’s noir-tinged buddy comedy is a rollicking good time, and refreshing to boot. In the vein of Black’s previous directorial efforts Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, The Nice Guys is constantly subverting expectations. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen based on the buddy comedy formula, Black pulls the rug right out from under you to hilarious results. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe make for a tremendous comedic pairing, with Gosling’s cowardly private detective clashing perfectly with Crowe’s “man of few words” enforcer type. And of course Black’s knack for casting and directing young performers shines once again, as Angourie Rice—playing Gosling’s daughter—nearly steals the show as a precocious preteen looking to get in on some of that P.I. action. In a sea of explosions and doomsday-centric blockbusters, The Nice Guys hinges everything on character and story, and it soars. It’s a refreshingly original piece of entertainment, and it’s a shame so many missed out on enjoying this thing in theaters. – Adam Chitwood

Don't Think Twice

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Image via The Film Arcade

We’ve known for a while that Mike Birbiglia was special. Since he first appeared on This American Life with his deadpan, one-man show (which would later become a similarly charming film), Birbiglia has become a comedy everyman, known for his affability and comic timing in film and television series like Trainwreck and Orange is the New Black. But Don’t Think Twice, Birbiglia’s second directorial outing, is proof that he is here to stay. Starring high-profile comic personalities like Community’s Gillian Jacobs and Key & Peele’s Keegan Michael-Key alongside improv veterans like Tami Sagher and Chris Gethard, Don’t Think Twice is a necessary, occasionally depressing, and honest look at what actually happens when you follow your dreams. Heart wrenching, smartly written, and most importantly very funny, Don’t Think Twice is the summer’s must-see movie for creatives of any age. ---Aubrey Page

Zero Days

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Alex Gibney has touched on several subjects over his career, from Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal (The Armstrong Lie) to the psychology of unrelenting sports fandom (Catching Hell). He’s also covered Steve Jobs, Scientology’s inner workings, James Brown, WikiLeaks, and Eliot Spitzer’s sex scandal, and in each instance, one could feel a reflection of the director in what he was investigating. In the case of Zero Days, his staggeringly dense study of the Stuxnet malware, his focus is on the illusion of safety, how quickly your best intentions can summon your worst nightmares. Gibney’s view of the ramifications of such an uncontrollable program is lean and detailed without ever feeling clinical.

One can feel Gibney’s disbelief, paranoia, and cynicism throbbing between each cut, running consistently under every dubious or devastatingly honest answer he gets. His anger is at a governmental system that would act so stupidly in an attempt to keep Iran from making nukes while simultaneously refusing to let go of our own nuclear weapons, but that’s barely half the story. Military intelligence and national defense are America’s speciality but the faceless internet is a realm where the playing field is borderline even between many countries. In attempting to create an incident with no perpetrator, an attack with no fingerprints and no faults, governments of developed nations handed over tremendous weapons of incalculable power to unstable countries that they are incapable of controlling. Underneath the heady hash of secretive government speak, current events, and technical know-how, the question at the heart of Zero Days is what dangers may arise from an age where identities are harder than ever to suss out, as much in international espionage as in the modern movie business.  -- Chris Cabin

The Fits

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Image via Oscilloscope Laboratories

At a Cincinnati gymnasium, young Toni boxes with her beloved older brother, an amateur fighter and burgeoning ladies man. Then, one day, she gets a glimpse at the local dance troupe, known as The Lionesses, practicing in an adjacent basketball court. Suddenly, the hunger for power over her body is consumed as much by dance’s grace and fury as it is by boxing’s blunt, exacting, and unrelenting force. That’s where Anna Rose Holmer’s beguiling The Fits begins, like a feel-good sports drama, but Holmer weaves in some brilliant, insidious stylistic elements that give this 72-minute wonder its own unique groove. Each shot resonates with the motion of bodies, whether synchronized or fumbling, and the exquisitely framed images are aflutter with action, more so when members of The Lionesses begin experiencing the titular seizures right after Toni joins up.

Edited together in unpredictable yet impactful choreography, the film itself works like an experimental dance piece with a strong, strange narrative backbone. The discovery of a distinctly feminine athleticism leads Toni, played by newcomer Royalty Hightower, to discover the strength of her body and her own self. Holmer sees both the eloquent artistry and the painful work that goes into these performances. One of the last sequences of this masterwork is a dance routine where one is easily hypnotized by the poise of these young women, but you can also here the gasps of exhaustion and effort gasping out of their mouths with militaristic precision. -- Chris Cabin