15 Best Films Of 2016 (So Far)

It doesn't feel that long ago since we were still riding the wave of Star Wars hype and Leonardo NoOscaro memes were still relevant, but we're now almost halfway through 2016, having seen some of the year's most anticipated films and a whole host of hidden gems. So, as is traditional, it's time to take a look back over the past six-or-so months and see what's the best we've seen.

Based on what's currently playing in multiplexes it'd be easy to write 2016 off as a disappointment. Oh, there's been some major successes (as we'll see), but so many of the high profile films from the big summer season - X-Men: The Last Stand 2, Alice Goes Time Travelling, Warcraft: The Non-Starter - turned out to be as bad as they looked (I was very excited for the former though) and MIA at the box office.

Take a look back over the full scope of the year, however, and it's really a different story. There's been a wealth of great movies, far more than can fit into one list - High-Rise, Love And Friendship, Eye In The Sky and The Conjuring 2 all missed out - but here's the choice fifteen.

As always with these "Best Of" lists, I'm going off the UK releases, so there's a couple of films here that were released last year in the US and elsewhere, but didn't make the British Isles until 2016 (mainly those Oscar-y types).

What is 10 Cloverfield Lane? For the two months from when "Cloverfield 2" was first unveiled through to its incredibly close release (it was shot under the working title Valencia), that was the biggest question in movie fandom.

It's a marketing campaign on a par with the genius of the original, once again letting fan obsession lead the hype rather than constant poster reveals, and personifying everything good about J.J. Abrams' mystery box. In the end, the talking point connection is entirely thematic - although some easter eggs muddy the water, the real purpose of the name is marketing - but that doesn't really hurt the film. Having the Cloverfield link gives the film an extra layer, altering how you first view it and opening massive franchise potential up - just you wait for God Particle to become Cloverfield Station.

Even if this had remained Valencia though, it would have still placed on this list. Dan Trachtenberg’s made a tense, claustrophobic thriller driven by its stars that delights in shifting expectations. Things get a bit perplexing in the final few minutes when the real nature of the threat is all revealed, but even then the tonal inconsistencies fit with the bigger picture.

For more on 10 Cloverfield Lane, check out What The Ending Really Means?.