After a truly terrible start to the season, the NFL appears to have woken up from its ratings nightmare.

Before the end of the election, the average viewership for NFL games had declined 13% year-over-year, according to Macquarie analyst Tim Nollen. And for much of the season, every single one of the NFL’s primetime offerings (Sunday, Monday, and Thursday Night Football) was down double-digits.

People floated a lot of theories as to why, from cord-cutting to injuries to Colin Kaepernick. But the party line at the NFL was that the decline had to do with "unprecedented interest in the presidential election."

And it turns out, the league might have been largely right all along.

A new report from Tim Nollen at Macquarie shows that the NFL ratings freefall has largely dissipated post-election. The sky, perhaps, is not falling after all.

"After falling sharply earlier in the season, average NFL viewership remains down, but much less so since the election," Nollen wrote in a note distributed Friday. "Average viewership has been -2% YoY for the six weeks of post-election games, and ratings have been -3.9%. This is much better than prior to the election, when average game viewership was -13.2%. Earlier day games remain a bright spot as the average audience has been +4.7% for the mid-afternoon Sunday timeslots, and primetime Sunday night games have swung from -19.4% to +5.9% since the election."

Here's a chart of the state of NFL viewership before the election:

And after:

"It's an encouraging rebound," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN earlier this month. "I think it proves that the election was certainly a factor."

The quality of the games has also had an effect, Nollen wrote. "Teams with playoff potential and high-fantasy value, like the Cowboys and Patriots, have led the ratings recovery: Average viewership for these two teams’ games, for example, has been +20.2% and +8.1% YoY, respectively, for match-ups after November 8 that aired in the same timeslot."

But Goodell thinks there are also structural things the NFL can do to boost viewership. “We want to take as much what we call dead time, non-action, out of the game, so that we can make the game more exciting,” Goodell said in November, according to The Times. How? One of the big ideas to improve that Goodell put forth was decreasing the number of ads and changing up the way they appear.

That could be vital to the continued TV dominance of the NFL, since the league does face competition other than the election.

"With a visible improvement in viewership without competition from election coverage, we think it’s clear the ongoing primetime declines are due at least in part to competition from other options, from Netflix/Amazon/Hulu to catch-up viewing of VOD and other content," Nollen wrote.

SEE ALSO: NFL execs are considering cutting back the number of ads in games — as ratings tank

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Carrie Fisher is in stable condition following a medical emergency Friday, her brother told the Associated Press.

The actress suffered a heart attack while on a plane traveling from London to Los Angeles, TMZ reported.

The United flight landed after noon local time, and Fisher was rushed by paramedics to a nearby hospital.

The emergency occurred 15 minutes before the plane landed at LAX, according to TMZ.

Her brother Todd Fisher said she's now "out of emergency," but told the AP he couldn't discuss details of the episode.

United staff and passengers attempted to revive Fisher before EMTs arrived, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Fisher, 60, is known best for playing Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" franchise.

Fisher's reps did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

SEE ALSO: The 22 most exciting new shows of 2017 you have to see

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NOW WATCH: Marvel just dropped the first full trailer for 'Guardians of the Galaxy 2' — and it looks amazing

Some Christmas songs come on the radio and fill you with warm holiday spirit.

Others turn you into the Grinch — on a Monday.

Radio giant iHeartRadio, which controls over 850 radio stations, pulled us some data on the tunes people loved and hated during the holiday season. 

Responses to these songs certainly vary person-by-person, but we were curious to find out what broad patterns emerge. 

How could iHeartRadio figure it out? With the rise of the smartphone and devices other than traditional radio, the company has the ability to learn a bit more about how you're responding to music. If you listen to iHeartRadio's programming through an app, you have the ability to give a song a "thumbs up," similar to what you can do on Pandora, or a "thumbs down."

By looking at which ones people were giving either a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to, we can get a rough idea of which songs people liked hearing on the radio, and which they would rather not. iHeartRadio put together two lists for us: the best and the worst. (Note: some Christmas songs are associated with multiple artists, which is why the artist is not listed).

No surprise that Mariah Carey ruled the day. She not only had a song in the top 5 list for most thumbs up, with "All I Want For Christmas is You," but also saw that track take the No. 1 spot in the number of times it was added to playlists.

Here are the two lists:

The Nice List — Top 5 "Thumbs Up" Songs:

• "Winter Wonderland"
• "Sleigh Ride"
• "Let it Snow"
• "All I Want For Christmas is You" (Mariah Carey)
• "It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

The Naughty list — Top 5 "Thumbs Down" Songs (excluding those on the first list):

• "Happy Xmas War is Over" (John Lennon)
• "Do They Know Its Christmas?" (Band Aid)
• "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"
• "Do You Hear What I Hear?"
• "The Christmas Song"

iHeartRadio also found that women tended to listen more to Christmas music than mean, at 69%/31%.

SEE ALSO: Here’s what US music listeners voted for in 2016 — the favorite radio songs of the year state-by-state

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NOW WATCH: The best way to sleep on a flight — according to a posture expert

Cable channels speed up and modify the reruns they air. The increased speed can result in two more minutes of advertising per show.

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The suburban Brooklyn neighborhood of Dyker Heights is a quiet and friendly area year-round – that is, until the holidays start. That's when the neighborhood is flooded with thousands of Christmas-light peepers anxious to see the area's famed displays. Countless homes in the neighborhood take part, putting up dazzling and awe-inspiring feats of festivity, and likely producing similarly awe-inspiring electric bills.

I took a trip to Dyker Heights to see the hyped "Dyker Lights" for myself. Keep scrolling to see some lights that would make Clark Griswold die from envy.

SEE ALSO: This New York City restaurant spends more than $60,000 a year getting ready for Christmas — take a look inside

Dyker Heights is a good half-hour drive from downtown Manhattan, and about an hour away on the subway. Luckily, there are Dyker Lights tour buses that will take you there hassle-free — for a price.

You can see most of the best displays between 11th and 13th Avenues around 81st through 86th Streets.

Some of the homes put up stately, elegant arrangements.

Sometimes finding the right movie online can be a drag, but we scoured through Netflix to find the 7 best holiday movies for you to stream this Christmas.

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Business Insider's US Editor-In-Chief, Alyson Shontell, sat down with LeBron James as he reveals what he eats on game days. 

Unlike the thousands of calories swimmer Michael Phelps eats to train, LeBron James sticks to a pretty healthy diet.

"Before competition for me would be like a chicken breast and maybe a little pasta. The carbs help because you're going out and playing a lot of minutes," James told Business Insider. "But a salad and some veggies will have me perfectly fine. And before the game I might have a protein shake and some fruit, and I'll be ready to go. But as far as pies or pizza and sandwiches and french fries — I can't. I'll wait for that after the game. I can't do that before the game."

As for his workout schedule, James says he works out about 5 days a week in the off-season and 7 days per week when basketball starts back up.

James likes to mix up the way he exercises and throws in a few classes on top of traditional gym workouts.

"My workout regimen is pretty much five times a week, every day. And it varies," James told Business Insider. "Sometimes I stay at home and work out. Sometimes I'll go to an actual class. I've been to, like, VersaClimber classes, or spinning classes. I do pilates as well. So, it kind of varies depending on how I'm feeling. 

"During the season, we're playing basketball every single day, and we're working on our bodies every day. So I don't get the opportunity to do the classes as much because we're doing a lot of traveling. But my workout regimen is pretty consistent then as well. It's mostly seven days a week during the season because we play games on the weekend."

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It's a whole new year, and with it comes a whole new set of comic book-inspired movies to get hyped about. Get ready for baby Groot, young Spider-Man, old man Wolverine, and many more to hit the big screen in the months ahead. Here's a quick look at what you can expect and when each film is set to release.

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Warning: Spoilers below if you haven’t seen the movie.

It can get really annoying when a trailer is nothing like the actual movie. And though the big issue with “Passengers” is the story-altering decision one of its main characters makes that is completely ignored in the trailer (learn more about that), there’s also another question after comparing trailer to movie:

What the heck happened to Andy Garcia?

“Passengers” is set on luxury star ship that’s blazing a path from Earth to a colony planet 120 years away. Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) wake up too early from their hibernation chambers (for very different reasons) and are alone on the ship with 90 years left in the voyage. With everyone still asleep, including the crew, Jim and Aurora enjoy each other’s company until they are interrupted by a malfunction on the ship that they have to fix on their own or everyone on board will die.

The movie ends with Jim and Aurora fixing the ship and living out their days on it together. The captain, played by Garcia, wakes to find what the two had been doing with their time on it, creating a home for themselves full of gardens, plants, and other reminders of Earth that were locked away in the ship's storage.

Garcia’s surprised expression of what he finds on the ship, which is shown in the film's trailers and TV spots, is literally the only shot of him in the entire movie.

Here it is:

So how does an Oscar-nominated actor only get one shot in a big budget movie? Turns out there were numerous endings filmed.

“The ending of the film is the thing that we adjusted most not just during this production but all the years leading up to it,” Jon Spaihts, the “Passengers” screenwriter who had been working on the film for close to 10 years, told Business Insider. “Sticking this ending was one of the trickiest parts of the film. There was a version where we wondered around the aftermath of their lives a little bit longer and the viewpoint character who took us on that walk was the captain of the ship. So there's a version of that ending where you actually spend a few minutes with that guy silently looking at all the signs of how their lives played out. That's not what ended up on screen, what we have now is an extraordinary highbrow cameo.”

Guess what we learned here is regardless of the amount of screen time, if you have a recognizable actor in your movie, you place them in the trailer.

We just hope Garcia didn’t grow that long beard specifically for this role.

“Passengers” is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

SEE ALSO: How this scene-stealing character from "Rogue One" was created

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NOW WATCH: Here are all the major clues in 'Westworld' that hint to the identity of the 'Man in Black'

The first-ever “Star Wars” standalone movie, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” has finally hit theaters, so it's time to analyze the heck out of it. That includes everything from catching all the references to past movies, TV series, and novels in the franchise to delving into the footage we saw in the trailers but didn’t end up in the finished film. 

Then there’s the characters themselves.

There are a lot of  brand new ones, like the movie’s lead Jyn Erso (played by Felicity Jones), while others have been brought back through the magic of CGI (and footage not used in “Star Wars: A New Hope”).

Here we analyze and rank all the characters from best to worst.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead

SEE ALSO: All the "Star Wars" movies, ranked from worst to best

30. Senators Vaspar, Jebel, Pamlo

When these three members of the Imperial Senate catch wind that the Empire has constructed the planet-destroying Death Star, they are the loudest voices in the room that the rebels should run and hide. Thankfully, Jyn and her Rogue One mates have other plans.

29. General Dodonna

More prominent in "Star Wars: A New Hope," Dodonna mostly stays in the background in this movie, but it's another piece of detail director Gareth Edwards uses to link this movie to the original "Star Wars." 

28. Saw Gerrera

There's obviously more to Saw Gerrera than what we see in the finished movie (note Forest Whitaker's bald head in some trailers and his character having hair in the movie), but judging on the few scenes with him in the final cut there wasn't much to take in. Frankly, his portion of the movie is where the movie drags.

There are a lot of '80s pop culture references in the Netflix original series "Stranger Things," but there's one subtle Easter egg in particular which could explain some of the show's mysteries. It's sparked a popular fan theory about the main character that seems to make perfect sense, at least in the fantastical reality in which the show is set. There's more to "Eleven" than you might think.

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Many stars of China’s entertainment industry have also become serious investors.

Late last year, He Jiong set off a wave when he joined Alibaba Music. Later, Chinese rock legend Zheng Jun would join Taihe Rye Music.

This year, investment firm Star VC has become a model for this trend.

To an Internet finance company, the star power these celebrities bring is even more valuable than their funds.

Having a devoted following and appealing to the "economy of fandom" corresponds strongly with brand demand in the internet age.

Unfortunately for some companies, the effect of having a famous star running an Internet company has already lost some of its freshness.

When it was reported this year that Li Xiang would become chair of Qihoo 360, announcer Liu Yuxi would join LeSports, and Hong Tao would be the executive producer of karaoke app Changba, there wasn’t much excitement.

The public gradually becomes numb to the news.

More importantly, investment fever has been cooling throughout 2016, and capital cooling is on its way. Celebrity investors have yet to show that they possess superior resilience to make it through more challenging periods. 

Former partners splitting up

In its early days, Internet venture capital firm Star VC sought out China’s most innovative companies, declaring they would not just be shareholders — they would give the company an attractive persona.

Star VC was founded by Ren Quan, Huang Xiaoming, and Li Bingbing. Each founder owned 30%.

"At the beginning we discussed splitting it three ways" Ren Quan once told a reporter. "We decided it would be better if all three of us had to agree on every decision. Otherwise why do it at all?"

This equity structure gives an impression of collective decision making, which can make professional investment firms nervous. The fear is that there might not be anyone to take responsibility when faced with real-world risk.

This was equally difficult for their investors group. Because every investment decision is made after considering the balance, costs of communication are several times higher than most funds'.

Handu, an internet fashion brand, was the first company Star VC invested in. Handu was releasing 30,000 new products a year, more than global industry leader Zara.

In 2015 they only took in $181 million, $4.7 million in profit.

An executive at one company receiving investment from Star VC told Tencent Tech that because Star VC's partners come from the entertainment industry, they mainly co-invest with others.

Sources show that Star VC's investments in billion-dollar tech unicorns like Qihoo 360 and Xiaokaxiu were mostly small co-investments in the middle stages of funding.

In August 2014 Star VC made only a small co-investment in Miaopai’s $50 million round C financing lead by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. By November 2015, Miaopai was a unicorn valued at $1 billion.

Star VC’s relationship with this unicorn — and others it's invested in — is not very significant.

Regulators get involved

Stars are also using their resources to found companies as entrepreneurs, then selling them when the opportunity arises.

For film and TV companies, actors' compensation is an ever-rising cost. However, by buying the actor's shell company, this cost becomes income and everyone makes a shiny profit.

When the listed value goes up, the shares can be sold to retail investors focusing on film and TV in second-tier markets.

In the view of CEC Capital founder Wang Ran, film and TV companies buying shell companies from their stars is a "brilliant act of substitution."

Both the artist and the director's investment is transformed into profit.

According to Wang Ran, this additional income can almost all be turned into profit, which is then multiplied several times by the capital market's price/earnings ratio before being sold to another investor or an A-stock company.

"Through this process, the artist sells all or part of their shares," Wang Ran said. "Having finished raising the shares' value, the artist takes an early return on investment."

On May 6th of this year, when LeTV announced it was buying Le Vision Pictures, the company also bought out Le Vision Pictures' 44 investors.

Among those investors were Chinese celebrities Zhang Yimou, Guo Jingming, Sun Honglei, Huang Xiaoming, and Sun Li.

The net worth of these celebrities doubled, and many received net profits many times their initial investment.

In 2016, however, this highly profitable form of investment ran into problems with regulators.

The failed acquisition of the company Wuxi Aimeishen Movie & Culture was a sign that the model famous actors used to reap huge profits in capital markets was cooling down. A commission stopped the acquisition because the investors' issuance of shares to purchase assets was not approved. 

This story originally appeared on QQ.com. Translated by Tyler Olson.

SEE ALSO: LinkedIn's billionaire founder Reid Hoffman explains the difference between China and Silicon Valley

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NOW WATCH: Time-lapse videos of China show how overcrowded it's become over the years

It's really hard to be funny. It's even harder to be funny and get paid for it. But the cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Bob Mankoff, has made a living making people laugh for decades. He says there are two main topics that are always funny and here's why.

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Singer George Michael has died at age 53, his publicist announced on Sunday.

The British performer "passed away peacefully at home" in Goring-on-Thames, England, the publicist said in a statement.

Michael died of heart failure, according to his longtime manager Michael Lippman. Police denied any suspicious circumstances, the BBC reported.

"It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother, and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period," a statement from Michael's publicist said.

"The family would ask that their privacy be respected at this difficult and emotional time. There will be no further comment at this stage," the statement continued.

Michael, born in 1963 as Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, gained fame in the early 1980s as one half of the pop group Wham!, before launching a multi-platinum solo career that earned him two Grammy awards.

In his solo work, which veered toward R&B, Michael found his own kind of massive success, including the hits "Faith" and "Freedom '90." He sold more than a hundred million records throughout his career, and became one of Britain's biggest musical superstars of the 1980s and 1990s.

SEE ALSO: 'A talented and gentle soul': Celebrities react to George Michael's death

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NOW WATCH: 10 details you may have missed on the season finale of 'Westworld'

Celebrities around the world are taking to social media to mourn the loss of George Michael, who died at 53 on Sunday.

Perhaps none of the tributes were more touching than that of Elton John, who called Michael "a beloved friend - the kindest, most generous soul and a brilliant artist." The two singers scored a number 1 hit together in 1991 with a live cover of John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me."

Another touching tribute came from Andrew Ridgeley, Michael's former bandmate in the pop group Wham! The pair saw success in the 1980s with singles like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," "Last Christmas," and "Club Tropicana."

Read more of the tributes below:

SEE ALSO: Singer George Michael is dead at 53

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NOW WATCH: Marvel just dropped the first full trailer for 'Guardians of the Galaxy 2' — and it looks amazing

For voice actor Stephen Stanton, the opportunity to play Admiral Raddus in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” was like many of the roles he takes on: shrouded in secrets so deep he didn’t really know the character he was playing until he got the job.

Stanton is a veteran in the entertainment business who has done everything from voicing the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in the “Star Wars Rebels” TV show to legendary film critic Roger Ebert for the 2014 documentary “Life Itself.” And in his experience, the bigger the project, the less information you’re given to create a voice to get the job. That’s exactly what happened when his agent called him in August to audition for a “secret project.”

“There was no mention of Disney or Lucasfilm, I didn’t know what studio was involved,” Stanton told Business Insider. “I wasn’t even told it was for a feature film.”

What Stanton was told was to come up with a few versions of a voice that would be a cross between Winston Churchill and General George S. Patton and that the character was a military leader. That’s it.

So Stanton went online and listened to a few speeches given by Churchill and Patton for a reference point and then created a voice he describes as “a mashup” of the two iconic military men. He then sent to his agent multiple versions of the voice delivering lines of dialogue for a character named “Admiral Haggis" in the script he was given.

Days after doing the audition, Stanton got the call that he get the role for the upcoming "Star Wars" movie “Rogue One.”

Whether Admiral Haggis was just the name Lucasfilm put on the dummy version of the script used to audition talent or if that was the character name at one point of production is unknown. But in the finished version, the Mon Calamari character would be named Admiral Raddus, the leader of the Rebel Alliance during the Battle of Scarif at the conclusion of “Rogue One.”

Though Stanton has been working on “Star Wars” projects for years, either for the cartoon TV shows or video games, voicing a character on one of the franchise’s feature films was the equivalent of a baseball player being called up to the major leagues (he’s seen the movie three times since its been out in theaters).

But he was still unaware of many aspects of the character going into the recording — like what Raddus looked like.

The two-day recording session happened on the ADR stages on the Disney lot in Burbank a few days after getting the role. It was there, while the sound editor was preparing the recording, that Stanton got his first glimpse at Raddus as rough footage appeared on the screen in front of him.

Stanton’s task was to synch the voice he created for Raddus with the lip movements already filmed on the soundstage in London by actor Paul Kasey, who was inside the Raddus suit, and a team of puppeteers who moved Raddus’ lips during filming.

“It’s just like doing a voice match, because I have to record to picture,” said Stanton. “So the scenes are done up to a certain point, not all the effects were in place yet, I was looking at a lot of things that were green screen and partially finished sequences. But they would show me the scene and then they would show me a little bit ahead of it so I knew the context of what it is that I was trying to record.”

While looking at the footage on screen, the production team in London were on speaker phone giving Stanton direction. Stanton said Tony Gilroy, who headed the film’s reshoots, and executive producer John Knoll, were among those on the call. He wasn’t sure if director Gareth Edwards was present.

“They would guide my performance as I was working on the timing, trying to make sure what I said matched what was shot on the stage,” said Stanton, who during the recordings had two microphones in front of him and one taped to his chest so the sound editor had numerous recording options. “I’m making it match and they would tell me to try this emotion or that emotion.”

Once Stanton got some knowledge about Raddus, he became instantly aware of his species' significance in the "Star Wars" saga.

The Mon Calamari in “Return of the Jedi,” Admiral Ackbar, became a sensation by the time internet memes came around with his now-legendary “It’s a trap!” line from the movie (he also appears in “The Force Awakens”). And audiences have quickly taken to Raddus (who is a different color than Ackbar because Raddus is from the polar region of their home world Mon Cala), particularly because of his different style.

“Ackbar in ‘Return of the Jedi’ is more of a skeptic, he wasn’t sure they could pull it off, Raddus is aggressive, he’s a bulldog,” said Stanton.

In "Rogue One," Raddus implores that the rebels fight the Empire once they get word that it's building the Death Star. Then, when Jyn Erso and her Rogue One team leave the rebel base to steal the plans from the Death Star, Raddus quickly leads a squad to assist.

“It's always surprising to me what audiences will react to,” said Stanton about watching the Raddus scenes with an audience. “It’s often a small line that you think is a throwaway and the fans go crazy for it. Raddus’ last line really gets people in the heart.”

If you’re hoping for more Admiral Raddus in outtakes/deleted scenes that might show up on the “Rogue One” Blu-ray, don’t get your hopes up. Stanton said pretty much what he recorded is in the finished film.

But he’s not ruling out Raddus showing up in another “Star Wars” movie.

“I don’t know” if he’s dead, he said. “I know as much as the audience knows, and Lucasfilm knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat about your character.”

A voice actor's job varies on every job, but often their involvement is insulated from the entire scope of the project. That's one of Stanton's favorite aspects of his profession, the fact he gets to see the finished version with fresh eyes.

“I wasn't aware how the whole thing fit together so when I finally saw it, yeah, I was aware of the emotions that I brought to the scenes I was in, but I didn't know what happened up to and after that,” said Stanton about "Rogue One." “I’m rooting for Raddus and what will happen, like everyone else, and that’s a thrilling feeling.” 

“Rouge One” is currently playing in theaters.

SEE ALSO: REVIEW: "Rogue One" is the most original modern "Star Wars" movie — and one of the most thrilling

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NOW WATCH: Watch the explosive new trailer for the latest 'Planet of the Apes' film

While most people associate the Playboy Mansion with scantily clad playmates and sex-fueled debauchery, it served as the childhood home for Hugh Hefner's sons. 

Now 25, Hefner's youngest son, Cooper, recounts his childhood spent in what many consider to be a sort of adult fantasyland. For Cooper, it was quite the opposite: a child's wonderland fueled by Indiana Jones-inspired adventures in the Grotto, a zoo full of exotic animals, and epic games of hide-and-seek played in the mansion's private forest of redwood trees.

Cooper shared his experiences growing up inside the mansion, and invited Business Insider along on a private tour of the grounds.

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Most of us imagine dinosaurs as the huge, towering prehistoric beings that once walked the Earth. But it turns out that dinosaurs were actually a wide range of sizes— and some of them weren't much larger than a turkey. Here's how big all the dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park" are relative to an average human man. 

Monica Manalo contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.  Graphics by Skye Gould.  Research by Jessica Orwig.

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2016 was a horrible year for countless reasons, but one of the few positives was going to the movies. Rotten Tomatoes reports a record number of Certified Fresh movies released in 2016, and Disney’s $7 billion global take at the box office set a new industry record.

So needless to say, there were a lot of great titles in the running for my 10 best this year.

It was hard, but here they are — the films that confirmed why I love going to the movies so much (plus a couple that I felt needed to be mentioned).

SEE ALSO: The 5 biggest winners and losers at the box office in 2016

10. “Jackie”

This haunting look at Jacqueline Kennedy in the aftermath of the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, is a beautifully constructed retelling of the end of Camelot and the realization that the First Lady is far from the timid person she was portrayed as by the press. Natalie Portman delivers one of the best performances of her career, playing Jackie with a precision that lifts the movie to another level. 

9. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”

The first standalone “Star Wars” movie was hyped to have a more mature “Dirty Dozen”-like feel and it was just that. “Rogue One” has an originality that gives you a sense of finality when you get to the end. There’s still a lot of reminders that you are inside the confines of the “Star Wars” universe, whether it be characters that show up or locations where scenes take place, but the high stakes of the movie brings an excitement that can be lost at times when watching the main franchise films. 

8. “Moonlight”

Told over three chapters in the life of a young man living in Miami, Barry Jenkins’ beautifully touching portrait of the complexities of life is a movie you have to experience if you are a film lover. The direction, acting, camera work, and score are all at a high level, while the storytelling is some of the most powerful you’ll see all year. 

A lot of people die on "Game of Thrones," and keeping these deaths a secret to viewers is no easy task. We stopped by HBO's Season 6 promotional event in New York and spoke with Ellie Kendrick, who plays Meera Reed on the show. She talked about what it's like keeping major events in the plot to herself for months at a time, and what it's like not knowing whether or not your character might soon meet her demise.

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