The Best Films of 2017

A shitty year with some excellent movies.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

McDonagh’s radical sympathy creates his film’s best scenes, while undercutting any kind of coherent thesis.

With a rounded-edged Academy ratio and a muted, earthy palette, A Ghost Story creates a reflective sense of time passed and passing.

This is a fun film, a film that carries you along with it and puts a smile on your face as often as it tugs on your heartstrings.

Jumanji’s fictional, fantastical setting lets the film really spread its wings in terms of silly action. It just needed to be funnier.

Call Me By Your Name is less a love story than a cinema of sensation: the tenderness of touch, the sheen of sweat, the cool calm of water.

A Quiet Passion – a biopic of Emily Dickinson – is a charming and sharp-edged film possessing undeniable artistry.

It’s no huge surprise that Andy Serkis’ directorial debut would be such a transparent pitch for awards recognition.

Only the Brave does the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots justice by judiciously downplaying their greatness.

We soon realise this is not another period drama about an unhappy wife learning to copy with country life.