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In between, viewers this year were treated to surprisingly high-toned popcorn movies (Logan, War for the Planet of the Apes); old-fashioned action adventures (Lost City of Z); searingly topical dramas (Detroit); small-canvas, thought-provoking indies (Colossal, Marjorie Prime); and crowd-pleasers that didn’t sacrifice content on the altar of rousing entertainment (Battle of the Sexes, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, I, Tonya).
Any of those films could easily have ended up on my 2017 top-10 list. As could have such documentaries as Step, The Departure, Jim & Andy and Dolores, and such standout performances as Sam Elliott in The Hero, Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project or Tiffany Haddish in Girls Trip — which, as a movie I paid to see with a big, boisterous audience, turned out to be my favorite moviegoing experience of the year, hands down.
Those honorables duly mentioned, here are the movies that made the final 10 (and change).
Dee Rees’ adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s novel possesses the sprawl, scope, texture and detail of fine literature, and the ambition and technical chops of such classics as The Best Years of Our Lives and The Grapes of Wrath. A big, quintessentially American movie full of exquisitely composed shots and indelible performances, this is the kind of movie “they” don’t make anymore, until she does.
The indie actress Greta Gerwig made her solo writing-directing debut with this sharply observed coming-of-age story about a teenager trying to break free of her family and home town; it’s easy to forget how difficult it is to make humor and drama look so spontaneous and effortless. Gerwig never puts a foot wrong telling a story that’s bothintimate and epic.
Meryl Streep channels Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham in a story that’s ostensibly about the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers but really depicts the transformation of a tentative, self-doubting daughter-and-wife coming into her own as a business leader and journalist. Directed with characteristic brio by Steven Spielberg and enriched by a superb cast that includes Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, this is a movie about press freedom, accountability and feminism that has clearly found its moment.
The comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, wrote this delightful romantic comedy, largely inspired by their own unconventional love story.
Directed by Michael Showalter with a deft touch, this beguiling ode to family and filial devotion (and rebellion) recalls James L. Brooks in its tonal values, which toggle gracefully between hilarious and deeply touching.
Jordan Peele made his writing-directing debut with this brilliant horror-satire, which worked on a dizzying number of levels, being genuinely funny, scary, thoughtful, provocative and politically resonant, often all at the same time. Conceived and realized with equal amounts of audacity and assurance, this was the first great movie of 2017.
Luca Guadagnino’s deliciously languid evocation of first love, set in a fabulous villa in Italy in the 1980s, drips with atmosphere, erotic attraction and excruciating good taste: It might all be too-too precious were it not for the well-judged performances of its leading actors, Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet, and an unforgettable supporting turn from Michael Stuhlbarg, whose final speech sends the entire enterprise aloft on a cloud of almost superhuman compassion. Bravi.
French New Waver Agnès Varda proves she’s the OG with this magnificent documentary, in which she and the street artist JR ramble through French towns photographing everyday people and pasting their enormous portraits in public spaces. The film celebrates the uncelebrated, lending them a monumentality that might be fleeting but still holds meaning: It’s an ecstatic example of art-making at its most humanistic and profoundly engaged.
Filmmaker Bill Morrison, who often works with rare archival footage, delved into a store of long-lost films abandoned in the Yukon for 80 years to create an essay film whose silvery images suggest a medium that is both fragile and remarkably durable; volatile but also timeless. Woven throughout the haunting visuals is a timely meditation on cinema, capitalism and the wages of Manifest Destiny.
David Lowery’s strange little movie starts out as a love story, gives way to suspense and finally blossoms into an enigmatic and highly expressive evocation of time, place, collective memory and history, given extra aesthetic ballast by a squared-off frame reminiscent of family photo albums. Plus, Rooney Mara eats a pie. So there’s that.
The World War II evacuation at Dunkirk definitely had a moment this past year, as the subject of not just one but three outstanding movies. Taken together, the immersive spectacle of Dunkirk, Gary Oldman’s crafty portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour and the humor, winsome romance and tragic loss of Their Finest form a fascinating and moving triptych on an event perfectly timed to stir memories of inspiring political leadership and the quiet heroism of civilians.