I didn’t see a ton of movies in theaters this year. At the beginning of 2016 it seemed like there was at least one new release every weekend that I was interested in seeing. But as the reviews rolled out in the week leading up to most releases, my enthusiasm waned and I ended up choosing to do something else that weekend. I was surprised to find that the box office has actually fared a little better in 2016 than 2015, so maybe my apathy wasn’t shared by everyone.

Inside Out, Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios. 2015 was a year of widely anticipated movies and sequels. But whether it was the Hunger Games saga wrapping up, Mad Max getting a long-awaited sequel, or even Avengers: Age of Ultron, nothing could match the excitement and the hype for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And while some of the sequels were good (and some were even great), most of my favorite movies this year were originals.

“Steve Jobs”, Universal Pictures Steve Jobs has had a bit of a troubled history. Soon after releasing the universally acclaimed The Social Network, Sony clearly thought it had a good thing going and immediately hired Aaron Sorkin to write another movie about another mercurial Silicon Valley founder. The timing was right: Steve Jobs had never been more famous, had never been more prolific, and it seemed like the entire US population used at least one device that he invented.

“Bridge of Spies”, DreamWorks Studios I’ve had Bridge of Spies on my radar since late 2012. Shortly after watching Lincoln, I checked Steven Spielberg’s IMDb page to see what he was working on next, which listed as his next project was “Untitled Cold War Thriller”. I was sold immediately: any movie directed by Spielberg, particularly the historical movies he’s taken to doing these last few years, has a really good chance of being good, and the Cold War is one of my favorite periods of history.

Interstellar, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures Happy New Year! It’s now 2015, but before we get too far into the new year it’s worth looking back at 2014, which was another great year for movies. It was another year of sequels and sequels to the sequels (Expendables 3, The Hobbit Part 3, Transformers 4, Captain America: The Winter Soldier), but it was also a year showcasing directors at the top of their craft (Gone Girl’s David Fincher and Interstellar’s Christopher Nolan).

2013 was another great year for movies. We had the long-awaited sequel to the 2009 reboot of Star Trek, the beginning of Phase 2 of the Marvel universe, two movies featuring a terrorist attack on the White House, and seemingly at least 30 movies featuring a futuristic dystopian US government in which nothing is what it seems. I didn’t get to the theater to see every movie I wanted to see, but nevertheless, here are the best five movies I saw this year.

The Man of Steel vs. the US Army. There’s a taxes joke in here somewhere. The genius behind the Back to the Future trilogy wasn’t the nuanced way it dealt with time travel. It wasn’t the casting, it wasn’t the writing, it wasn’t even the music (although the music didn’t hurt, but that’s a topic for another blog post). The genius behind Back to the Future started with a simple idea: what would it be like to see your parents as they were in high school?

I finally saw Lincoln tonight. It’s been in theaters for more than two full months and I’ve wanted to see it since it came out, but work, the holidays and other movies kept coming up and I kept putting it off. But finally, tonight, I saw it, and it was worth the wait. And even though the movie is two months old and most people are done talking about it, I haven’t written in a while and it seems pretty relevant in this climate of political divide and identity crisis. Fair warning: I’ll be writing about a movie you may not have seen. While the plot isn’t much of a mystery, you might prefer to be surprised by the director’s and actors’ interpretations. If that describes you, read with caution.