11 Favorite Films from 2017

2017 was a remarkably solid year for film. This was the first year that I really dove into the world of film festivals, catching almost 20 films at the 2017 Seattle International Film Festival –an exhilarating month of film. Netflix also surprised me this past year – releasing several fantastic films from auteurs who wouldn’t have been able to secure funding for their projects from traditional studios. And a few of the smaller distributors were able to get some truly remarkable films into theaters.

And now for my standard disclaimer: As a cinephile and film enthusiast who has to fit my film-going into a life that includes full-time work and maintaining a healthy relationship with my spouse, I miss so many incredible movies each year. So, in compiling my yearly list of favorite films, I’ve taken to only including the 2017 releases that I actually watched during 2017. While this means that my list is missing a few masterpieces that I finally caught during my yearly Oscar run, namely Phantom Thread and The Florida Project, it does mean that my list hopefully includes a few other films that may have otherwise slipped through the cracks.

11. Colossal
Who would have thought that director Nacho Vigalondo’s comic homage to giant monster movies would end up being one of my favorite films of the year? Colossal is a surprisingly thoughtful look at the consequences of addiction – especially the collateral damage and havoc that addiction can wreak on our friends, family, and even strangers. As the monster movie rolls on, Vigalondo also begins exploring toxic masculinity and abuse, as well as the ways this can become entangled with the struggle of addiction and recovery. Both Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis give fantastic performances, and Vigalondo proves to be a masterful visual storyteller, able to transform every step onto an empty children’s playground into a terrifying act of carnage and devastation.

10. My Life as a Zucchini
While My Life as a Zucchini had a very limited release in 2016 that allowed it to qualify for the 2017 Oscars, it was released in a handful of other cities (like Seattle) a few weeks after the Oscars. I had been intrigued, but was completely unprepared by how beautiful, deeply sad, and profoundly hopeful this animated feature was. A film about children stuck in cycles of poverty, orphanages, and foster care, My Life as a Zucchini doesn’t sugarcoat its narrative for children, but instead shows the bleak realities of this system while simultaneously showing the joys and possibilities of real escape.

I-Daniel-Blake-2 — *I, Daniel Blake* | Sundance Selects

9. I, Daniel Blake
Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is a warm, generous, and blisteringly angry film about the consequences of conservative policy on Britain’s poor and disenfranchised. It’s the story of a widowed carpenter who is unable to work due to a heart condition and his attempts to navigate the layers of bureaucracy that have been added to the UK benefits system. The characters are beautifully portrayed, the relationships deeply felt, and the filmmaker’s thorough research lends every frame the weight of authenticity. While it isn’t a perfect film, the urgency of its message makes it feel extremely relevant – especially when conservative politicians in our own country are attempting to enact many of the same policies designed to target the poor and struggling.

The Meyerowitz Stories — *The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected)* | Netflix

8. The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected)
Noah Baumbach is one of the greatest modern chroniclers of familial dysfunction working in American cinema today. His latest, The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected), shows the ways in which three adult children have been shaped by their self-absorbed father – a frustrated artist who, in his twilight years, bitterly complains about not receiving the recognition he believes he deserved. Baumbach’s film is brutally honest, cautiously optimistic, and extremely moving. The cast is stellar – especially Adam Sandler, who once again shows that, in the right role and with the right director, he can give a magnificent, beautiful, and emotionally rich performance.

7. The Salesman
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning follow-up to A Separation is a taut, heartbreaking film about the fissures and cracks that slowly grow within a marriage. Emad is a teacher who, along with his wife Rana, is starring in a performance of Death of a Salesman. They’ve temporarily moved out of their apartment due to a construction accident and soon discover that their new home was previously occupied by a woman with some unsavory acquaintances. When Rana is attacked while alone in the home, Emad becomes obsessed with finding her assailant and punishing him, despite Rana’s protestations. His quest for vengeance and inability to support Rana in the trauma of her assault begins to strain their marriage. As the tension builds and the fissures grow, we’re left wondering if those cracks can ever be repaired.

6. Lady Macbeth
Theatre director William Oldroyd’s feature film debut is a stunning adaptation of Nikolai Leskov’s novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, adapted by Alice Birch. Relocating the story’s action to the Scottish Highlands, the film is dark and uncompromising, filled with incredible performances and beautifully composed images that perfectly match the film’s cold and bleak narrative. Katherine has been sold into marriage with an abusive, absent husband, and finds solace in an affair with a young, brash farmhand. While the film is a harsh exploration on the oppression of women, it also shows the ways in which oppressed individuals can go on to perpetuate that oppression on others.

5. The Unknown Girl
The Dardenne Brothers are masters of socially conscious cinema – telling compelling and moving stories of contemporary Belgian life that also explore the inequities of their society. Their latest film, The Unknown Girl, follows Jenny, a young doctor working in a free clinic who is racked with guilt when she discovers that a woman she turned away after clinic hours was found murdered. She embarks on a journey to find out who killed this unknown girl, while moving into the clinic to ensure that no one else is turned away. Like all of the Dardenne Brothers’ films that I’ve seen, there is a deceptive simplicity to their camerawork and a naturalism to the performances that calls back to the great masterpieces of Italian neorealism. The Unknown Girl is another moving and captivating entry into an impressive filmography that I’m eager to continue exploring.

4. Toni Erdmann
Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann is simultaneously one of the funniest and one of the most awkward films I’ve seen in many years. Winfried is a divorced, retired school teacher who attempts to reconnect with his daughter, Ines, after the death of his beloved dog. Ines is living abroad, a mid-level oil executive working round the clock to secure a lucrative deal for her corporation, and Winfried spontaneously decides to surprise her at work. When she doesn’t have time for him, he uses a set of false teeth and a cheap wig to become “Toni Erdmann” and insinuates himself into Ines’s circle of friends and business associates. The result is a hilarious series of vignettes and misadventures that challenge Ines’s corporate worldview and lead to an oddly moving and deeply emotional resolution.

3. The Shape of Water
Winner of the 2018 Oscar for Best Picture, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water stands alongside the best of the Mexican director’s dark fantasias. An homage to classic monster movies, del Toro once again shows his deep empathy – his horrific monsters are often very human while his human antagonists behave monstrously. The dark, fairy tale mood is sustained through del Toro’s lush imagery and composer Alexandre Desplat’s luminous score. While on the surface it seems more like a piece of romantic nostalgia than an urgent and vibrant work for today, the film’s heroes are a loose assemblage of individuals deemed “other” by the straight, white, Protestant man (and society in general) whose cruelty and prejudices set the narrative in motion, making The Shape of Water a captivating fable for today.

2. Okja
Bong Joon Ho has become one of those directors whose projects I eagerly await, and Okja, his most recent feature, has only cemented my admiration. As with The Host and Snowpiercer, Okja contains his blend of dark comedy, exaggerated character, and social commentary, all wrapped in a thrilling adventure that takes some unexpected and harrowing turns. It’s the story of a young girl named Mija and her friendship with Okja, a genetically engineered creature designed to help eliminate world hunger. When the corporation that created Okja wants the creature back, Mija takes enormous risks to save her friend from being slaughtered in the corporation’s factory farm. Satirizing both corporate greed and fanatical activism, Okja is by turns a beautiful and profoundly disturbing film in which there are no easy answers to our increasingly global challenges.

1. Get Out| Good Time| Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (tie)
I know it’s cheating, but this is my list of favorites from 2017, so I get to make the rules. There were three films that challenged and moved me equally last year, three films that made me reckon with my own bias, my own assumption, and my own privilege, three films that reminded me how powerful film can be – no matter the genre.

Jordan Peele’s Get Out was the surprise hit of 2017 – an exploration of the deeply embedded racism of white liberalism wrapped up in the trappings of a socially conscious horror film. It’s a masterfully constructed thriller – the creepy atmosphere gets under your skin and the plot twists are beautifully orchestrated – and its societal critique is sharply observed. I cringed while watching some of my own behaviors reflected back at me by the film’s white characters, seeing the discomfort and pain I must inevitably cause to friends and acquaintances of color. The best horror films hold a mirror up to society and Get Out does this brilliantly while also providing a cathartic triumph for its African American hero.

Good Time was my first exposure to the work of Josh and Benny Safdie, whose films I have begun to treasure over this last year. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it stars Robert Pattinson – Good Time shows Pattinson’s tremendous depth and skill as a performer in a grimy crime thriller about a would-be bank robber trying to look after his intellectually disabled brother. He only manages to escape the consequence of his ineptitude due to his privileges as a white male. The women and persons of color who cross his path aren’t as fortunate. With a mix of recognizable movie stars and nonprofessional actors, the Safdie’s almost documentary-style is never shattered by unnecessary visual flourishes. The Safdie’s plunk us down into their character’s hard-scrabble world and don’t let us out until the credits end and we’re given the briefest glimpse of what a genuine escape might actually look like.

Three Billboards 01 — *Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri* | Fox Searchlight Pictures

I’ve loved the work of Martin McDonagh since I first saw a production of The Pillowman in Seattle several years ago. When I learned that he had teamed up with Francis McDormand, Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson for his latest film, I was beyond excited. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is the work of a mature artist, exploring themes of violence and revenge with nuance and subtlety. Instead of relying on the flashy visuals of his earlier films, he shows more restraint and leans more heavily on his razor-sharp dialogue and the strength of his cast. An exploration of the toxicity of anger, the film becomes more and more uncomfortable as it unfolds, challenging our belief in righteous indignation and illuminating the dark and treacherous road our rage can lead us down if we aren’t careful.

Honorable Mentions

2017 was a great year for film – so great that there was no way I could fit all of my favorites into an top eleven – expanded as it was. Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is a haunting masterpiece of tone and style that explores desire, objectification, and the suffocating restraints of society. Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is a superbly crafted action film that is edited to perfection, another of his tales about men learning to grow up and set aside childish things. The Big Sick is one of the most charming and honest romantic comedies I’ve seen in recent years – bonus points for it being based on a true story. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry is an entrancing, magical biopic filled with some of the most beautiful imagery I’ve seen on film. I do love my comic book movies, and this year featured some really great entries:Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 took the comedy of its predecessor and injected some surprising emotion into the mix; Logan may have been one of the darkest superhero films made in recent years, but it also was one of the most deeply satisfying cinematic experiences a comic book film has offered; Spider-Man: Homecoming was a delightful reboot of a character that has been rebooted more times than necessary; Thor: Ragnarok showed that a true auteur (Taika Waititi) can make a Marvel film hit all of the obligatory beats while still maintaining their vision and individuality; and, in spite of the ponderousness of most D.C. comic book adaptations, Wonder Woman was a delightful and empowering step towards a more inclusive blockbuster. It Comes at Night was an outstanding horror film, capturing dread and a sustained terror, more at the ruthlessness of human nature than any outside force. In Manifesto, Cate Blanchett gives a tour de force performance (or rather, performances) through a series of captivating monologues in which she uses the writings of artists and philosophers to interrogate the role of art in society. Bertrand Tavernier’s My Journey Through French Cinema is a three-hour love letter to some of the greatest directors to step behind a camera – and it added a significant number of titles to my watchlist! Finally, any doubts I may have had about Kristen Stewart’s abilities as an actor have been put to rest by Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper, an eerie and captivating thriller about identity, obsession, and loss.

5 Least Favorite Films of 2017

I managed to avoid most of the cinematic train wrecks of 2017, so my list of least favorite films contains a few obscure entries. Hopefully, this will help you steer clear if you happen to come across them while you scroll through Netflix and your other streaming services late at night.

5. Moka
Moka is the story of a grieving mother who attempts to track down the driver who killer her son in a hit-and-run. It should have been a taut thriller that explores a complicated ethical dilemma, starring two legendary actresses of French cinema. Instead, it’s an inert and messy bit of melodrama that never seems to find its footing.

The Brand New Testament | Music Box Films

4. The Brand New Testament
The concept is intriguing: God is a misanthrope who enjoys tormenting humanity, while his daughter escapes to try and bring free will back to the world like her brother JC. The Brand New Testament could have been a sharp religious satire, but instead it’s a lifeless and shallow comedy that’s only interested in blithe platitudes and sophomoric philosophy.

3. Land of Mine
Set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Land of Mine concerns a group of young German prisoners of war who are forced to remove land mines placed along the Danish coastline. There are some genuine moments of tension and terror, but the plotting and character beats are so bland and predetermined that every moment feels false and unmotivated.

2. The Little Hours
Another religious satire with plenty of potential, The Little Hours is one of the least humorous films I’ve seen starring some of the funniest actors working today. Ostensibly a reworking of a section from The Decameron, the movie feels more like a group of theatre kids desperately trying to show everyone how edgy and rebellious they are. It’s sloppy, unfocused, and – worst of all for a comedy – boring.

The Exception

My least favorite film of 2017 was the World War II thrillerThe Exception, about the romance between a Jewish spy and a German soldier in the home of the exiled Kaiser. It desperately wants to be an “important” movie but is plagued by lifeless performances, incompetent plot twists, a smug seriousness, and a happy ending that feels more forced than honest.