The Best of 2017

A ludicrous claim has been making the rounds lately, one that says 2017 has been a bad year for movies.  Attendance may be down, movie theaters may be closer to extinction than they've ever been, but the quality of movies?  I'd argue 2017 has been one of the most fulfilling years in a long, long time.

In the six years since I started this blog, 2017 is the first year I haven't felt I had to struggle to come up with a list of 10 really great films for my year-end list -- and the first that I couldn't think of 10 truly awful films to come up with a "10 worst" list.

Oh, there were some clunkers, all right.  mother! wins the award for the most pretentiously artistic and wildly ill-conceived big-budget, studio-backed "thrillers" of recent years.  Even when the film's symbolism is explained, it neither makes sense nor proves compelling.

Most overrated films of the year?  Certainly It, a CG-laden "horror" film that lacked suspense and cheated by not telling a complete story, instead blowing its final moments to announce a sequel; and Dunkirk, a formidable technical achievement with almost no narrative pull.  Blade Runner 2049 was the year's most lugubrious sludge, a slow-moving, lackluster sequel to a slow-moving, lackluster original.  Oh, and there were Alien: Covenant and Life, both bad sci-fi by any standards.

Yet countering that handful of bad movies was a bumper-crop of truly fantastic ones. Other 2017 releases that deserve to be sought out for various reasons but didn't quite make the cut:

• Battle of the Sexes
• Berlin Syndrome
• Phantom Thread
• Lady Bird
• The Shape of Water

I wasn't quite as on-board the Wonder Woman bandwagon as others -- but if you're still of the super-hero movie mindset, there were far, far worse options this year.  "Franchise fatigue" is settling in, but
look beyond the cookie-cutter mentality of the big studios and you'll find some wonderful stuff.

Contrary to that cynical conventional wisdom, 2017 was a terrific year, and gave us some films I think are going to stand the test of time -- some in surprising ways.  So, here's my list of my 10 favorite films of 2017, starting with No. 10 and leading to my No. 1 choice, a film that will hardly surprise anyone who reads this blog regularly -- and by itself justifies anything else that happened in cinema in 2017.

  #10  
  The Greatest Showman  

In one of its most rousing moments, The Greatest Showman presents sideshow "freaks" singing an anthem of redemption and self-acceptance: "I'm not scared to be seen / I make no apologies / This is me." And that's the way director Michael Gracey's movie presents itself, too: It's going to be criticized as too populist, too silly, too pretty, too colorful, too sugary, too sentimental, too everything -- so it embraces all of those values, and wonderfully.  The Greatest Showman is meant to be entertaining, and that it is, in spades.  You won't remember a single song, you may not even recall why you were moved and inspired in the first place, but unless you're soulless, you will be moved, inspired and entertained, even if you're rolling your eyes all the while. The Greatest Showman shuts out the rest of the world and makes you forget it for a couple of hours -- and that's a singular achievement for any film.

  #9 
  The Killing of a Sacred Deer  

I'd like to pretend I never saw The Killing of a Sacred Deer, but I can't -- it got under my skin, it bothered me and angered me and disoriented me like few movies have.  It's a thoroughly unpleasant film, perverse and upsetting, but told with incredible style and a commitment to its warped ideas that is impressive. A modern updating of the violent themes of classic Greek tragedies, in which the gods or the universe or both conspire against mere mortals, who are driven to insane lengths to protect themselves from such fury, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a puzzle.  It's not a film I liked, but it's a film so filled with daring originality and passionate commitment from everyone involved that it's impossible to forget.  Look, you might actually be better off not seeing it at all -- but if you do, you'll understand why it deserves mention in a roundup of the year's most noteworthy movies.

  #8  
  Darkest Hour  

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk got cinephiles all hot and bothered with its technically superior but narratively slack retelling of one of the defining events of World War II for Britain.  Darkest Hour is a vastly better movie because it tells more or less the same story in a way that invites compassion, perspective, understanding and human-level drama.  Gary Oldman plays Winston Churchill in this well-crafted and shockingly coherent (q.v. Dunkirk) historical biography that concentrates on the month between Churchill's appointment as prime minister and the evacuation of Dunkirk.  By concentrating on Churchill and his motives, Darkest Hour illuminates British resolve and the importance of democracy and thoughtful leadership. Darkest Hour may not meant have been intended as a direct commentary on the political mess America is in at the moment, but it functions that way nonetheless, and its ability to put both individual battles and the era itself into perspective lend it a weight and meaning that turn it into a wonderful moviegoing experience.

  #7  
  Get Out  

It's easy to classify Get Out as a horror film and to see it as a well-crafted thriller, which it is -- but it's a far richer, more rewarding, more shocking experience to learn more about what writer-director Jordan Peele is burying beneath the surface. Don't be embarrassed if you can't sort it all out on your own, it's a labyrinth of symbolism and double-meaning, diving deep into America's long and storied legacy of racism. Google it. Work it over and over in your head. Talk about it. And be amazed at how deep Peele is digging into territory most films wouldn't dare touch. And then marvel at the fact that it's all put together in the guise of a contemporary horror-thriller.  The easiest way to define it would be that it's a psychologically complex, horror-tinged update of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but what that film considered shocking 50 years ago is where this film starts.  Get Out is filled with meaning but hugely enjoyable on its surface-level terms, too.

  #6  
  Baby Driver  

If every movie were as effortlessly enjoyable as Baby Driver, Hollywood wouldn't be worried about its future. Part heist thriller, part romance, part coming-of-age-story, part ... musical?  In fact, Baby Driver is propelled by the beat of the music its protagonist plays in his omnipresent ear buds.  Baby is played by Ansel Elgort as a fast-driving savant, a kid who understands the nuances of the big-time burglaries he help pulls off, and comprehends way more than his crime bosses would ever suspect. Director Edgar Wright is giddy with the possibility of modern cinema, and uses every trick in the book to deliver a film that's a triple-threat a genuinely thrilling thriller, a truly funny comedy, and a tune-filled musical bursting with inventiveness.

  #5  
  Wind River  

An unfair and devastating piece of collateral damage in the (totally justified) war against Harvey Weinstein, Wind River moved from being a serious awards contender to being a film no one wants to talk about because of its producer -- and that's a serious shame.  This is a thriller whose intensity and filmmaking prowess rival the accomplishments of Best Picture winner The Silence of the Lambs, a film with which Wind River can be compared favorably.  Elizabeth Olsen is an FBI agent assigned to investigate the death of a young woman on a vast, frigid Native American reservation.  Teaming up with a local U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent (Jeremy Renner), they've got nothing but blank white space to explore, both literally and figuratively.  But against that snowy background, a violent, camouflaged truth slowly comes into view, leading to a brutal, shocking conclusion that writer-director Taylor Sheridan stages with vigor.  Wind River also has a lot to say about the treatment of Native Americans, both on a racial basis and as policy.  It never hits you over the head with its observations, but you're blindsided and clobbered anyway, because the movie is so damned good.

  #4  
  The Post  

Movies like The Terminal and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may have left his admirers worried, but fear not: Steven Spielberg has lost none of his power as a filmmaker.  The Post is one of his best works, a movie that tells a compelling story with the visual style and flair that are Spielberg trademarks.  How the Pentagon Papers were leaked and published, and what they meant both to global politics and to journalism, may not sound like the basis for a great film -- but The Post is a great film nonetheless, bearing no sign of being a standard by-the-numbers retelling of a pivotal moment in American history, but finding urgency, relevancy and even suspense by focusing on the struggle between Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) and her editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks). As if we needed any more proof of her status as the greatest of our living actors, Streep turns in yet another dazzling performance, playing Graham as hesitant, doubtful and lacking in confidence -- but Spielberg exhibits none of those traits in this unmissable movie.

  #3  
  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  

We live in a world of violence and anger, and it eats at our souls -- though people are kind and wonderful and compassionate, so where does that leave us?  That's the inherent conundrum that Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, explores.  This is a film of magnificent humanity, but it's also got a mean streak, a chip on its shoulder about the way people can be, and in that it's as complex and beautiful as the people whose lives it explores. Frances McDormand stars as the mother of a girl who was raped and murdered in a particularly violent way, and she's bound and determined to get to the bottom of it all.  She's convinced the police chief of her small town -- played with a wonderful droll wit by Woody Harrelson -- isn't doing enough, and she lashes out by buying ad space on the billboards of the title.  Her goal is to soothe her own anguish, but her action has consequences, and as it explores the way anger and sadness lead only to more unhappiness, director Martin McDonaugh careens wildly and effortlessly from deep compassion to absurd hilarity, sometimes in the same scene.  Three Billboards  navigates these tonal shifts spectacularly well, spinning a murder-mystery that's also deeply moving and more than a little troubling.  Three Billboards doesn't shy away at being angry its own characters, even while it offers compassion and absolution for their all-too-human mistakes.

  #2  
  The Florida Project  

Poverty and homelessness are odd subjects for a movie as uplifting and beautiful as The Florida Project, which (like Three Billboards) is simultaneously distressed by and infinitely forgiving of the lives it explores.  The most vital of those lives belongs to Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a 6-year-old girl who lives in a seedy motel within fireworks-viewing distance of Walt Disney World.  Moonee and her best friends Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Dicky (Aiden Malik) mostly spend their days wandering aimlessly, trying to avoid -- but sometimes terrorizing -- the motel's manager (Willem Dafoe).  Director Sean Baker, who wrote the film with Chris Bergoch, seems to treat all of it as loosely as an open-verse poem to the resilience of childhood, but eventually a story becomes clear as Moonee's mother (Bria Vinaite), barely more than a teenager herself, tries to keep her tiny family afloat by whatever means necessary.  Every shot of The Florida Project is a stunning beauty, but none more than a scene in which Moonee and Jancey sit on a massive tree and make an observation about life that's so simple and profound it's one of the year's real jaw-dropping moments.  The final minutes of this meandering, lovely film have proven divisive, but I thought found them a perfect ending to a near-perfect little movie about dreams, destitution and deliverance.

  #1  
  Call Me By Your Name  

A memory piece, a swooning romance, a love letter to Italy, a meditation on loss -- Call Me By Your Name is much more than just a story of two men who fall in love.  It's an essential and vital piece of gay cinema, yes, but it's also a milestone in romantic cinema, one of the rare films that takes sexuality and sensuality seriously and that understands the complexity of human emotion.  Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is a 17-year-old son of intellectual, international parents who, deep in the summer of 1983, discovers that he's a sexual being -- and an emotional one, too. It happens when he meets American doctoral student Oliver (Armie Hammer), who is spending six weeks assisting Elio's professor father (Michael Stuhlbarg), who's both older and more breathtakingly handsome than Elio. The first half of director Luca Guadagnino's adaptation Call Me By Your Name (written for the screen by 89-year-old James Ivory) is about the half-glances and hidden body language that defined not only gay love in a closeted world, but are the hallmarks of first love.  The second half of the film is about the exquisite beauty and heartache of giving yourself fully to someone and being seen for who you are.  The penultimate scene, in which Elio's father (Michael Schulbarg) shares his understanding of life, love and loss is what moves many viewers deeply and -- apart from the age difference between the leading mean -- that generates the most discussion.  Deservedly so.  It's a spectacularly touching scene (likewise the remarkable final shot). But the most beautiful moment to me is a moonlit conversation between Elio and Oliver in which they marvel at how they found each other. We should likewise marvel that we've found this luminous, eloquent and passionate film.