1. Personal Shopper (dir. Olivier Assayas)
I watched Personal Shopper in April. I left the theater thinking I'd seen a really good movie. The next day I woke up realizing that I'd seen a great movie. Fast-forward a month and I had my favorite of the year firmly in place and on-track to become an all-time favorite. Olivier Assayas's ethereal ghost-story set in the Paris world of high-fashion subtly pulled at my sleeve at gnawed at my ankles for months following my first time watching. Part supernatural drama, part horror, and part spiritual journey, the movie pulses with dread and balances its elements more expertly than anything else in Assayas's filmography. The story of Maureen (Kristen Stewart) seeking a return to her hope and faith following the tragic loss of her twin brother is a story of absent men, a stylish discovery of sexuality, and a call-to-faith mirroring the Old Testament story of Samuel. This movie leaves me speechless after each rewatch and I've avoided writing about it in any way (so pardon any lack of elegance here). For me, the tightrope act of fitting the thrillingly competitive storylines, heartfelt monologues about loss, complex allegories of faith, and Assayas's tendency for meta-filmmaking make Personal Shopper not only the most continuously rich film of 2017, but one of the most persevering and enjoyable as well. 2. The Florida Project (dir. Sean Baker) When Bobby, the manager of the Magic Castle Motel situated in the brutal shadow of the Happiest Place on Earth, snaps his fingers, the lights come on. They don't turn on because Bobby (Willem Dafoe) is some supernatural figure but rather because of the love reciprocated by him towards the motel and its tenants. The Florida Project, anchored by its outstanding performances and best-of-the-year cinematography, sprinkles in the daily devastations of Orlando's "Hidden Homeless," while focusing primarily on the pure magic and joy felt by a child unencumbered by her surroundings. At only six-years-old Brooklynn Prince gives the most moving and joyous performance of the year. 3. Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig) It's reductive to refer to Gerwig's remarkable debut as 2017's Boyhood, but I felt too many of the same emotions watching Lady Bird as I do when I watch Boyhood (although it's much funnier). Gerwig manages to craft an entry into the teenage canon so unique and deeply felt that it never even fell on the deaf ears that would dismiss it as a teen film (like what happened to last year's The Edge of Seventeen). For me, Saoirse Ronan has now given two of the best performances of the 21st Century (see Brooklyn). 4. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan) In my initial reaction to Dunkirk I said, "It could be a museum installation, in that you could walk in randomly at any moment and be immediately engrossed." Nolan's extensive experiment on both the brutal anonymity of war and the pure joy found in hope has resonated with me ever since seeing it last summer. In many ways, Dunkirk is as much "The Movie of 2017" as Get Out and Wonder Woman. 5. After the Storm (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda) Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda has made a handful of great humanist films throughout his career that has been marked by exercises in realism juxtaposed with forays into the surreal and the absurd. His truest masterpiece Still Walking (2008) is only challenged though by one of his latest works: After The Storm. This film follows a writer turned makeshift private eye who wants nothing more than to connect with his estranged wife and child. Despite the grace and elegance Koreeda employs behind the camera and in the screenplay, his lead actor Hiroshi Abe is the true wonder of the movie. As Ryota, Abe plays infantile middle-aged man in the most equally empathetic and pathetic ways imaginable. Koreeda is so good at painting with Abe's face that the indelibly graceful moments of the movie never seem cheap or undeserved for Ryota, they are pure, wanted, and utterly beautiful. After The Storm is now streaming on Amazon Prime. 6. Wonderstruck (dir. Todd Haynes) Studios unapologetically buried Todd Haynes captivating new film Wonderstruck and for that reason, the vast majority of people missed not only the best children's movie of 2017, but also the most sincere and emotionally walloping movie I watched this year. Too often dismissed as contrived or childlike, most critics have overlooked the truly experimental heart of Haynes's film. Wonderstruck follows two parallel stories: one is of a young, deaf girl in the 1920s and follows the style of a silent film, and the other is of a young, grieving boy in the 1970s. Both kids mount escape plans to go to New York to learn more about themselves. The movie climaxes with an incredible storytelling experiment revolving around miniatures. The visual experience overpowers the aural and Wonderstruck left me on the ground in an under-appreciative theater. 7. The Shape of Water (dir. Guillermo Del Toro) Brimming with romance, The Shape of Water pairs all too well with The Big Sick. Both films delve into the struggle to not let go of loved ones. The Shape of Water fits particularly well into our current political climate, and often Del Toro and Vanessa Taylor balance competing storylines that reveal most, if not all, his characters to be essentially human. The film features a lovingly crafted and awards-worthy performance by Sally Hawkins. 8. The Big Sick (dir. Michael Showalter) I've recommended this to more people than any movie ever. Delightful, heartbreaking, and completely overwhelming. 9. Call Me By Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino) Call Me By Your Name isn't 2017's best love story, but is the most lavishly told. Based on André Aciman's queer-canon 2007 novel, Call Me By Your Name is the story of a brilliant older teenager (Timothee Chalamet) falling in love with the family's guest graduate student (Armie Hammer) in the luscious 1980s Italian country-side. Guadagnino shoots every scene with vivid, sensual colors that would suck any audience into the beautiful, passionate story. While the script veers away from the less-savory, more-explicit moments of the book more often than it should, the story revels in an incredible vulnerability supported by Chalamet's and Hammer's often chaotic, but defiantly complicated performances. Despite only being in a handful of scenes though, Michael Stuhlbarg (Chalamet's father), delivers one of the performances of the year, displaying a gentleness and graceful masculinity that is so counteractive to many of the events we've witnessed in 2017. Everyone is loving, few people are spiteful, and Call Me By Your Name is in many ways the movie 2017 needed. 10. My Happy Family (dir. Nana & Simon) A film more under-the-radar than most on this list, My Happy Family is arguably the most accessible. Netflix buried this gem among their new releases and pushed other movies instead. But this poignant Georgian drama pushes complex societal boundaries. The film follows Manana (Ia Shugliashvili), a 52-year-old woman who lives in a three-generational home with her parents, her husband, her children, and their spouses. She shocks everyone when she suddenly decides to move out on her own leaving everyone, including her husband behind. My Happy Family delights in moments of solitude that range from Manana eating pie alone in her one-bedroom apartment to grocery shopping and figuring out what differentiates dill from other herbs. A soft-spoken but beautifully imagined movie, My Happy Family spares no family member from scrutiny while also allowing all to be complex and sympathetic. Now streaming on Netflix. Honorable Mentions: A Ghost Story, A Quiet Passion, Alien: Covenant, Baby Driver, The Beguiled, Columbus, Faces Places, Girls Trip, Molly's Game, Mudbound, Okja, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and XXX: Return of Xander Cage
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1. Hail, Caesar! (dir. the Coen Brothers)
2. Manchester By The Sea (dir. Kenneth Lonergan) 3. Silence (dir. Martin Scorsese) 4. Paterson (dir. Jim Jarmusch) 5. The Salesman (dir. Asghar Farhadi) 6. Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins) 7. The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig) 8. La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle) 9. Certain Women (dir. Kelly Reichardt) 10. Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids (Jonathan Demme) Honorable Mentions: Hunt For the Wilderpeople, Midnight Special, The Fits, Our Little Sister, Things To Come, Deepwater Horizon, Lemonade, Don't Think Twice, and The Shallows 1. Brooklyn (dir. John Crowley)
2. Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller) 3. Diary of A Teenage Girl (dir. Marielle Heller) 4. Taxi Tehran (dir. Jafar Panahi) 5. About Elly (dir. Asghar Farhadi) 6. Anomalisa (dir. Charlie Kaufman) 7. Mistress America (dir. Noah Baumbach) 8. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (dir. Christopher McQuarrie) 9. Mustang (dir. Denize Gamze Ergüven) 10. Inside Out (dir. Pete Doctor) Honorable Mentions: The Big Short, Spotlight, The End of the Tour, Love & Mercy, and Chi-raq 1. Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)
2. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle) 3. Foxcatcher (dir. Bennett Miller) 4. Inherent Vice (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) 5. Locke (dir. Steven Knight) 6. Selma (dir. Ava Duvernay) 7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson) 8. Ida (dir. Pawel Pawlikowski) 9. Blue Ruin (dir. Jeremy Saulnier) 10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Matt Reeves) Honorable Mentions: Life Itself, Mr. Turner, A Most Violent Year, Gone Girl, and Only Lovers Left Alive *I'm taking this directly from my list I made in 2014. Some of my opinions have shifted, but I wanted to leave it as is. |
Top Ten ListsBrief Top Ten Lists from the past several years. Feel free to comment with your favorite films from these years! |