The American Film Institute has finally weighed in with its annual list of year’s best in film and television. As they usually do, the list is unranked (that part’s left to you). It might not be the ten films and TV shows that show up at all the upcoming award shows but it’s a list that walks the middle ground between high-art and mass appeal.
On the movie front, AFI went populist and include a few crowd-pleasers as well as some of the usual suspects from other Year’s Best lists that have come in.
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Room
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Straight Outta Compton
For those keeping score, Disney gets three movies on the list (Bridge Of Spies, Inside Out, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) while only three of the films would be categorized as indies (Carol, Room, Spotlight).
Some notable films that got left off include the well-regarded The Revenant, Joy, Steve Jobs, The Danish Girl and Brooklyn.
On the TV side, there was a big shakeup compared to last year.
The Americans
Better Call Saul
Black-ish
Empire
Fargo
Game of Thrones
Homeland
Master Of None
Mr. Robot
UnReal
Only three of those shows, FX’s The Americans and Fargo and HBO’s Game Of Thrones, were on the list last year.
The list includes a bunch of brand-new shows, including AMC’s Better Call Saul, Fox’s Empire, USA’s Mr. Robot, Lifetime’s UnReal and Netflix’s Master Of None. Meanwhile, Homeland is the rare show that was on the list, didn’t make the cut for two years, and has returned following a strong season.
[Deadline]