The Top 10 Movies of 2017

2017 was a divisive and difficult year for many, and that’s not even getting into the debate over the best film of the year.

There’s no clear front-runner for Best Picture at the Oscars. There’s a feud brewing between Netflix and the movie studios. And many iconic industry professionals—Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, to name just the tip of the skeezy, toxic iceberg—are being shown the door thanks to the "silence breakers" who have bravely exposed the sexual harassment and abuse that runs rampant in Hollywood.

The world of film is in disarray, perhaps for the best.

But, if there’s anything we can agree on in 2017, it's this: The Snowman shouldn’t have been released.

With that said, here are my Top 10 Movies of 2017, with 25 runners up, because I just can’t help myself.

Runners Up (In Alphabetical Order):

Ali's Wedding, Baby Driver, The Beguiled, Blade Runner 2049, Coco, Colossal, Dunkirk, Faces Places, A Ghost Story, Good Time, It, Jasper Jones, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, The Lego Batman Movie, Logan Lucky, The Meyerowitz Stories: New and Selected, Raw, Win It All.

Didn’t See Them In Time for 2016’s List, But They’re Great:

Fences, Hello My Name is Doris, I Am Not Your Negro, Moonlight, The Salesman, Toni Erdmann.

It Would Have Been My #2 Film of 2017, Except It Doesn’t Come Out in Australia Until Feb 2018:

Lady Bird. (Seriously, that thing is amazing.)

10. Wonder Woman/Thor: Ragnarok/Logan

We usually save a space in the Top 10 for whichever superhero flick wasn’t totally tedious. In 2017, three of the genre’s best ever entries fought for placement, like the intergalactic crossover comic of our dreams. Logan proves comic book movies can jerk tears, convey despair and hold grand cinematic aspirations while still having some fun. Thor: Ragnarok allowed for some much-needed weirdness and looseness—courtesy of director Taika Waititi—within the narrow confines of the Marvel template. And Wonder Woman backed-up its diversity play by reminding us it wasn’t just female superheroes missing from the landscape, but tales of empathy and compassion too. More like these, please.

9. Call Me by Your Name

If there’s a trend in this list, it’s ‘memorable endings’; from the stunning final shots of Logan and The Florida Project to the dizzy-making climax of The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Extremely mild spoilers ahead, Call Me by Your Name just shows breakout star Timothée Chalamet staring into a fireplace while Sufjan Stevens’ soundtrack contribution “Visions of Gideon” plays over the top. I was transfixed. Luca Guadagigno’s films are transporting, and uncannily tangible, and I felt like I was right beside him. Armie Hammer—who plays Chalamet’s older, formative lover—and Michael Stuhlbarg—as his academic father—are excellent as well, but they’re not the ones acting opposite a fireplace. (In cinemas Boxing Day.) Read the full review.

8. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Okay, it's only been out (*checks watch*) 12 hours! But Rian Johnson's captivating, visually striking and weirdly funny Star Wars sequel really is that good. Not that I have to tell you. You've already seen it. After all, it's already been out for 12 hours. Read the full review.

7. John Wick Chapter 2

Balletic. Operatic. Kill-tastic. In a fair world, John Wick would be given peace and left alone to retire from the hitman game. However, this is not a fair world. Deliver us ten sequels immediately. Read the full review.

6. The Disaster Artist

I still can’t believe this is a thing, let alone a good thing. Maybe when the shock wears off, I’ll rethink my love for The Disaster Artist (James Franco’s gonzo attempt to replicate the making-of modern cinema’s best-worst-movie The Room). Until then, I’ll stick with my memory of the sold-out screening that was consistently punctuated by laughter, cheers and ‘awws’, from an audience of The Room fans who were otherwise only used to doing those things ironically. Read the full review.

5. The Florida Project

The Florida Project follows the reckless, under-supervised child residents of a decrepit apartment complex that sits just beyond the gates of Disney World. Their parents struggle to pay the rent, while the motel’s manager (Willem Dafoe) just tries to keep the place—and its people—from falling apart. There’s not much more to the plot than that, though that doesn’t quite convey the film’s magic, or its stunning, delirious ending. This Tweet puts it into words better than I ever could:

(In cinemas 21 December.) Read the full review.

4. The Killing of a Sacred Deer

There’s ‘effed-up’ and there’s ‘seriously effed-up’ and then there’s whatever gets Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos off. His latest, TKOASD, opens on a sliced-open chest, mid-surgery, and only gets more disturbing, unpleasant and revealing from there. By the end, we’re shown an absurdly violent game of ‘duck duck goose’, and I couldn’t stop laughing, even as I recoiled in horror. Was that the desired effect? The only thing Lanthimos' pictures elucidate are my own tastes, which are terrifyingly in sync with his. Read the full review.

3. The Big Sick

There are a lot of American movies on this list (I swear, I did like a number of foreign and Australian flicks—check the honourable mentions!) but cinema’s not the only way American culture permeates our lives. The spectre of Donald Trump and his many misadventures coloured the entire globe in 2017, and not pleasantly. So, The Big Sick was an especially welcome reprieve from the United States: A diverse and deeply personal romantic comedy; one I was happy to live inside of for 124 minutes. Kumail and Emily, is there room in the house for one more? Read the full review.

2. Brigsby Bear

The sweet and unexpectedly affecting Brigsby Bear earns second place on this list for its open-heartedness. It’s about a kidnappee (Kyle Mooney) who re-enters the world as an adult, following a childhood spent underground. His only comfort down there was a fake TV show, produced by his captors, called Brigsby Bear, which he decides to adapt into a feature film with his new/real family. Quirky? A bit. It’s also a powerful depiction of trauma and survival; a reminder that you are everything that’s happened to you, good or bad. In Brigsby Bear, a cuddly bear-suit is a symbol of abuse, a security blankie, and something to repurpose as a monument to freedom. That’s fuzzy stuff. Read the full review.

1. Get Out

We called it in June, and six months later, Get Out remains 2017’s best movie: a brutal and stunning horror-comedy with a watertight screenplay, brilliant performances and disorienting style. It's also 2017’s most ‘2017’ movie. Did any other feature better capture our global sense of unease, or our understanding that something was not quite right? A full year of Donald Trump's presidency later—not to mention the recent and righteous ferocity of the #MeToo movement—Get Out feels like the truest tonal approximation of what it was like to live through 2017. The point director Jordan Peele seemed to be making in his feature debut was, for many in the world, this feeling was nothing new. Now, we're all in Sunken Place together, looking for a way out. Read the full review.

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Photo: Student Edge Illustration