Five of the Year’s Best Films — That You Can Stream on Netflix Right Now

For professional film critics, you’ll notice, the year in film tends to conclude prematurely. Those “Best Of” lists you see popping up everywhere around now have often been tallied, decided and finalized by mid-November — and in the web’s ever-harried race for clicks and page views, that date seems to be receding further all the time. (The Voice‘s own film poll closed on December 11.) Among the more regrettable consequences of this is an illusion of gatekeeping. The impulse to declare and broadcast an opinion of a film as far in advance of its release as possible has, I suspect, created a sense that the only films of the year worth talking about those are available exclusively to critics. (I admit and apologize for my own indulgence in this practice.)

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