As it inevitably always does, midnight struck and the new year began. Now we find ourselves steadily moving through January and the cinematic world is looking back to the year of 2017’s best offerings. The Golden Globes have already come and gone, the different Guild Awards are being bestowed and we now await the BAFTA ceremony and then the Academy Award nominations at the end of the month.

With this being the season I thought it an appropriate time to look back and reveal my Top 10 films of the year. This isn’t me saying that these are the best of the year because art and entertainment are subjective but it is me saying that these are my favourite films of the year.

I would like it to be noted that I obviously haven’t seen every film released in 2017 and most notably I have yet to see The Phantom Thread, Lady Bird, Molly’s Game, The Shape of Water and The Post all of which I could see potentially breaking into my Top 10.

With that said, let’s get underway:

NUMBER 10

FREE FIRE

Some sites and databases may cite Free Fire as being released in the year 2016 due to it’s inital screening at the Toronto International Film Festival but it didn’t get it’s wide release until 2017 so I’m accepting it here.

From Ben Wheatley (High Rise) who is, for this writers money, the most unique, interesting and exciting voices to come out of British cinema in years. His off-kilter dark sense of humour, penchant for absurdity and just great technical craft all come together in Free Fire to deliver something that is like if the final showdown of a Tarantino film was the entire film. I mean that as a compliment but also want to make it clear that this isnt’t an indication that it is any less of a well crafted narrative as a whole or that he has aped someone elses style and delivered a passing facsimilie of that.

He hasn’t.

Free Fire boasts an ecclectic cast and a simple enough premise. In the 1970’s two IRA members (Cillian Murphy and Wheatley’s frequent collaborator Michael Smiley) meet in a warehouse in Boston to buy some weapons from a somewhat manic and bizarre arms dealer (Sharlto Copley) with Armie Hammer and Brie Larson (both on top dry form) as their repective go betweens, through a strange turn of events and clashing personalities  they all inadvertently end up in a shootout trying in the most colourful, hilarious and zany way.

It is such a fun and well orchestrated film set in a single location that never becomes stale, that revels in it’s own ridiculousness and with it’s talented cast, confident tone and well handled directing never once loses you.

NUMBER 09

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED)

I, like I imagine the rest of you, sighed and rolled my eyes at the news of Adam Sandler’s NETFLIX project deal and when the first of said releases came out, the abhorrent The Ridiculous 6 that was promptly buried by the online streaming service it seemed that our pre-emptive disdain was warranted.

THEN out of nowhere Sandler goes and suckerpunch(drunk love)’s us and stars in a quiet, human and charming meditation on fathers, sons and daughters, art, fame, family and worth from the writer and director of The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach.

For anyone who has seen those previous two films then you more than likely know what to expect from The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) and that’s what you get. A well written, human and at times frustrating look at grown up children (played brilliantly by Sandler, Ben Stiller and Elizabeth Marvel) seeking emotional restitution between their own fractured relationships stemming from an estranged upbringing and that of their difficult to manage, sometimes insensitive father (Dustin Hoffman). 

It perhaps doesn’t break new mould for Baumbach but that’s also to say he knows how to deliver this sort of film with enough humour, stillness, tragedy and insight to make it something quietly special — which is exaclty what he does.

NUMBER 08

THE BIG SICK

Rom-Com is not  a dirty term, so when I refer to The Big Sick as one do not mistake that as a pejorative.

The Big Sick is a romantic comedy in the way (500) Days of Summer is or When Harry Met Sally in that they are less love stories as they are, a story about love. The Big Sick tells the true story of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his now wife Emily Gordon (here played by Zoe Kazan) and how they meet, fall in love, split up due to Kumail’s family arranging  a marriage for him in Pakistani tradition, Emily falls into a coma and Kumail gets to know his future in-laws in the wake of this.

You know that same story that Hollywood keeps churning out.

In being about this, The Big Sick  is more realistically and almost crudely romantic as any recent offerings from the genre — it is an interesting look at interracial relationships and cross-cultural norms and it is a relationship film that exists in the 21st century with all the sensibilities therein all of which give it a freshness and an identity that sets it apart from every holiday themed Hallmark Channel romantic comedy schlock that gets churned out.

It is also more comedic than any offering from the genre, which is to be expected coming from Nunjiani and Gordon,  Emily once said on a The Hollywood Reporter roundtable when the marketing team called The Big Sick a rom-com she was surprised that a film with a girl in a coma and a 9/11 joke would be placed under that banner.

But it is and  both we and the genre are all the better for it.

NUMBER 07

WONDER WOMAN

I cannot wax superlatives enough about Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, the superhero blockbuster that was originally estimated to end it’s domestic run around the $200 million mark but nevertheless persisted to double that, rounding in at $412,563,408 becoming the highest grossing film of the US summer as well as shattering numerous records when it comes to female driven and lead films.

Wonder Woman became a cultural phenomona and a zeitgeist film, it is the saving grace of the DCEU and for this writer; the best comic book movie of the year and one of my favourite superhero films of all time.

In a climate of dour and divisive DC fare like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and sometimes detrimentally glib offerings from the MCU ala Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, Patty Jenkins delivers in Wonder Woman a truly inspiring superhero film, and the most earnestly heroic one we’ve seen since perhaps Raimi’s Spider-Man.

Wonder Woman so perfectly nails a blend of heroism and inspiration that surpasses anything else in this subgenre, it is filled with spectacle and heart. The film carries itself with a classic adventure spirit  wrapped in an endearing earnestness that I had been crying out for in a superhero film.

There are minor third act quibbles but as a whole, as an experience and now: as a movement.  Patty Jenkins and her crew, Gal Gadot and her supporting cast delivered an uplifting and affecting superhero experience that stayed with me long after I left the movie theatre and one that will surely stand the test of time.

NUMBER 06

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

Rian Johnson’s follow up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been more than a little divisive to say the least but I absolutely adore it. It is, in my opinion, the most tightly structured, visually striking and thematically complex & interesting Star Wars films we’ve ever gotten.

It masterfully and deftly takes a bold left turn from where we all thought the road that JJ set us on was going and in doing so delivered a maturity, a greyer mysticism, a uniqueness and a subtlety to the franchise.

The Last Jedi confronts the mythologizing of Luke Skywalker (by both ourselves and the films universe) and deconstructs that, shows him as a human being and then again rebuilds his legend. It examines, explores and shows the growth of hope in a way that Rogue One only wished it could and it gives all of our main players from the original films and The Force Awakens a character arc and progression. (Yes even Finn, I can’t believe people don’t get what his story and The Canto Bight subplot was in aid of) it is a film about regret, purpose, responsibility and apathy and perspective in war. It’s a meditation on the balance of light & darkness and it is about moving on and moving forward in more ways than one.

Which is what this film does for Star Wars, as Kylo Ren aptly says in the film “Let the past die” and Rian Johnson has. The past is dead and what’s past is prologue to a very exciting an unknown Episode IX.

Also, even more impressively with all that said — even in all of it’s difference it still manages to be Star Wars, it echoes enough but evolves as it needed to.

NUMBER 05

DUNKIRK

Christopher Nolan is one of our most consistent and best directors working today and in Dunkirk he delivers a positively unrelenting and visceral tryptic of the retreat of Dunkirk and tells a story of victory through survival.

It’s probably Christopher Nolan’s best technically made film everything he achieves in-camera is staggering, his narrative layered non-linearly and his ecclectic and talented cast are given very little to say but the nevetheless convey so much.

The film is shot beautifully by Hoyte van Hoytema and along with Nolan’s direction, editor Lee Smith and longtime Nolan collaborating composer Hans Zimmer all build and sustain an evergrowing tension and dread in a way that no other war film has previous, there is no downtime from catharsis in this film not even with the civilian sailors.

Despite this even in its tense and uncompromising narrative Dunkirk finds what so many critique Chris Nolan’s other works of lacking – a real heart.  I am not prone to flights of patriotic fancy but Dunkirk made me somewhat proud that I happen to be from the same isle as those that undertook this endeavour — even if I weren’t it’s a testament to the strength of humanity and a sense of duty and what’s right that I would like to think we all still have.

Dunkirk is a truly stirring and masterfully crafted snapshot of an important part of the second world war and one that carries with it the message that regardless of time period or national barriers, in the darkest of hours; hope is a weapon, survival is victory and home will always come for you.

NUMBER 04

GET OUT

While there has been a very strange subset of people on the interwebs who claim that Get Out isn’t a horror film, I am not so entitled to presume to gatekeep an entire genre nor am I closed minded enough not to allow a genre an expansive nuance. Get Out is a horror film, and it’s a social thriller and it’s a documentary.

It’s also a film that came out in February and to still be on everybody’s lips and in Top 10 discussions is no small feat.

I don’t want to touch on any narrative points with Get Out because so much of it is in the discovery of it, so this will be a short entry but let me say that especially for a first time director the film has such a clear and confient voice and tone.

Jordan Peele gets from his cast some truly phenomonal nuanced and unnerving performances, it is incredibly smart and subversive, it is chilling and funny and cathartic. It is about race in such a unique way that never becomes cliche or trite but is thought provoking and at time uncomfortably close to life while also being high concept.

It is a genuine masterpiece that transcends any genre you might classify it as and I think will become a touchstone film that will be spoken about and written about for decades.

NUMBER 03

BLADE RUNNER 2049

If you’d have told me a few years ago that there would be a new Blade Runner film and not only would I be alright with that but that it would be in my Top 5 of the year I would have laughed you out of my office.

Denis Vileneuve achieved the impossible, he managed to create a narrative and an evolution of a world that we have all known and revered and written about ad infinitum and it delivered. Not just as a sequel to that world which it does so supremely; the art direction and production design of Blade Runner 2049 is truly something to behold but to touch upon and continue narrative threads from the original film but to do so deftly enough that you don’t tread on too many of the possibilities but also satisfy is nothing short of remarkable.

It is also rather astonishing that the best parts of Blade Runner 2049 aren’t just those that connect to the original, far from it. This film is an evolution of what came before, in its design and score and themes.  You see echoes – this is film is a sequel after all – but it is also perhaps not unsurprisingly for those that have seen Vileneuve’ Enemy or Arrival a film that will be written about and unpacked for years to come.

You can’t accuse this film of being surface level, even our new protagonist K is an entire worth of essays in and of himself to unpack. He’s positively dripping with Kafka trappings (his name even being K and then latter Joe, an obvious homage to Josef K from The Trial despite what Mark Millar thinks it means)

I almost don’t want to say too much about Blade Runner 2049 for fear that this will become a post solely about that and I also want this list to be accessible to people who haven’t seen the films on this list.

Let me simply state that Blade Runner 2049 is an unprecedented achievement in filmmaking, world building and existential Philip K Dick narrative it is a film that stands next to the original film in a way that we all wished and is a viewing experience that you cannot miss.

NUMBER 02

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri comes from the distinctive mind of Martin McDonagh and tells the story of a grieving and angry mother (Frances McDormand) who after her daughter is tragically raped and murdered but no perpetrator found erects three inflammatory billboards on the road to and from her town questioning Chief of Police, Sherriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) as to why.

What then follows is a hilarious and harrowing film, McDonagh’s signature style of blending disparate tones coming together the best it ever has. It takes a bravery to attempt to take this subject matter and allow it to be filled with both coarseness and grace and it takes deftness and skill to actually achieve that. McDonagh does, in no small part down to the phenomenal casting. McDormand reminds everyone why we love her, Sam Rockwell somehow makes an angry, vile racist of a man sympathetic and endearing toward the end and Woody Harrelson who I’ve never thought of as an actor who can channel homely and earthly truth and beauty does so here.

You are truly swept along in the complex and conflicting catharsis of this film and this woman and this town. Redemption and resolution are found here, as they are in life, in the strangest of places. What’s more in the harshness and ugly reality of life and people Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri finds beauty and hope.

NUMBER 01

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Of all the world building, high concept genre fare cinema provided us in the year 2017 there is perhaps no film that transports you the way Call Me By Your Name does. For its 2 hour 21 minute runtime you live in Northern Italy. You are held in its sun-kissed embrace. You luxuriate amongst its vineyards. You fall in love between the walls of its picturesque villas.

Every frame and moment of this film is like a beautiful and bittersweet half-forgotten memory of youth. It is a film about discovery, love, heartbreak and understanding which is as far as I will go with any real specificity.

What I will say is that Timothée Chalamet is an absolute revelation in the film, the range of emotions and life he experiences in this film, for which he is in almost every frame is staggering. He is an absolute tour-de-force and what with his supporting role in other awards darling this year LadyBird Chalamet has one hell of a career ahead of him.

The other shining light in the film is the incomparable Michael Stuhlbarg who (as I have stated many times) I deem one of the most underrated actors of our age and he delivers a monologue at the end of the film which is one of the most beautiful pieces of acting and writing I have witnessed in years.

Now I’m being purposefully oblique about plot and any real specifics because as I do with all my Number 1 ranks, I want you to just go out and experience it with as little knowledge or preconceived notions going in. Do your heart a favour, go and see Call Me By Your Name – my favourite film of 2017.