Six Months Down, “Get Out” Is Still 2017’s Best Film

Around this time of year, I do what I always do, which is look over the tally of movies I’ve watched to pick out a Top 10.

(“Yes, I keep a detailed record of everything I watch, new or old,” he said to the sound of a nation collectively swiping left.)

Immediately, I disqualify the great films from 2016 that we in Australia, very cruelly, had to wait until 2017 to see. So, goodbye Moonlight, Fences, Raw, Toni Erdmann, The Salesman, and Hello, My Name Is Doris.

Then, I chop the films that were basically unwatchable and wish I could have scrubbed from my retinas. A Few Less Men, Smurfs: The Lost Village, Alien: Covenant, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and The Mummy, we hardly knew ye.

And then I delete the dozens that were just fine, and which make up the grand majority of releases.

After that, I’m usually left with my Top 10. Except this year, I was left with, like, six films.

That is not a good number of films to have left!

I toyed with including a few three-and-a-half-star movies in my Top 10, but when I started having to defend Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Kong: Skull Island with more passion than in my original reviews, it just rang false. And seeing Rough Night climb to #8 on my list only reinforced what a rough year it’s been at the cinema.

Don’t lose hope. The quality often picks up in the later months, as the blockbuster season (the American summer) fizzles out to make way for the prestige, awards-ready pictures. Also, once the local festivals wrap up, the awesome arthouse flicks—including docos and foreign features—are eventually unleashed into national theatres. Salvation is coming.

Nonetheless, I’ve decided to abandon a half-way list this year.

Still, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some great pictures, performances or sequences to come from the first six months of 2017.

The Lego Batman Movie was an infectious delight. Wonder Woman utterly decimated her fellow DC stablemates. Jasper Jones was an impressive, gothic Australian mystery. And Anne Hathaway’s final facial expression in monster-movie Colossal was worth the price of admission alone (no, seriously).

Then, there was John Wick Chapter 2, a balletic murder opera that masterfully improved upon the original. And there was also Logan, the year’s biggest surprise: the first legitimately great X-Men movie. (Its predecessor, The Wolverine, was previously the first good X-Men movie. The others are all hot garbage. No. Warm garbage. Warm, wet garbage that somehow keeps convincing Jennifer Lawrence its worthy of her time.)

None of them, however, have managed to match Get Out, the satirical thriller from Jordan Peele that is one of the year’s biggest box office hits, a consensus critical success story, an early Oscar favourite, a reliable GIF-generator, a zeitgeist-capturing comment on racism today and the only film I can recall that inspired two full theatres of largely white audiences to actively root against (and cheer for the death of) white people. (I saw it twice.)

Get Out, the tale of a black man who meets his white girlfriend’s family and becomes ensnared in a literal nightmare, is the marriage of a watertight screenplay with a gifted director, a talented cast and a moment in time. When you watch something that hums on literally every level, you’re reminded why you love cinema.

As I wrote in my review: "Jordan Peele’s Get Out plucks a raw nerve with skill and style. Strange, funny and confronting, it’s the horror satire of our age."

I’m yet to see 10 individually great films in 2017, but I did see Get Out twice, so I may as well count it both times. I'm giving it positions #1 and #2 on the imaginary Top 10 I did not write. Here's hoping it has more company by December.

Share your favourite films of the year (so far) below.

Photo: Student Edge Illustration / Roadshow / Warner Bros / Universal / Transmission