From The Simpson’s predicted inauguration of President Donald Trump, the discovery of Russian tampering in the US general election, and the British vote on Brexit, to the unprecedented wildfires that wreaked havoc across the West Coast of the States and Canada, it is an honest assessment to adjudge the year 2017 to be a peculiarity, an anomaly perhaps that housed the calamitous and downright bizarre. However, 2017 was also a year the film industry flourished. The sheer quality of movie releases would make any cinephile buzz with excitement, so let’s take a look at why 2017 was such a tremendous year for movies…

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

10 Blade Runner 2049

     Warner Bros.

In Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic, Blade Runner 2049 darts 30 years into the future as Ryan Gosling assumes the role of Officer K who attempts to track down past Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) who has been missing for three decades. Between the amazing visuals and clever script, this is truly one of the best sequels in recent memory.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

9 The Square

     BAC Films

From the unique mind of Ruben Östlund comes The Square. After 2015’s Force Majeure, a ridiculously constructed piece of cinema that embraced its preposterousness in a brilliantly funny way, the Swedish director followed up his critical success with The Square, a Euro-satire that targets those of the art world with its unrelenting comedy, and subtle ridicule. Set in Östlund’s native Sweden, The Square documents the troubles experienced by an art curator, who finds himself struggling to organize a new, and particularly divisive art exhibit.

8 The Meyerowitz Stories

     Netflix

From the eccentric cinematic creator Noah Baumbach, The Meyerowitz Stories is another one of the director’s takes on a defective family dynamic. The Meyerowitz Stories details the estrangement of the Meyerowitz siblings: Matthew, Danny, and Jean, and their reunion at their father Harold’s art exhibition. In typical Baumbach fashion, this is a quirky, idiosyncratic piece of filmmaking that is peppered with humorous undertones, and touchingly poignant moments.

7 Good Time

     A24

In this atmospheric, breakneck haze, Robert Pattinson stars alongside Benny Safdie as two brothers, Connie (Pattinson) and Nick (Safdie). Connie recruits the help of his developmentally impaired brother Nick as they plot to rob a New York bank. Following the brother’s catastrophic heist, Nick finds himself locked up with no one, and his brother looking to free him. Directed by the Safdie Brothers, Good Time is an overwrought, frenetically unbridled picture, and their distinctive style that often depicts intense brutality provides their movies with this authentic feel of the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

6 The Florida Project

Set in the shadow of Disneyland Florida, The Florida Project is a kaleidoscopic portrayal of the two contrasting lives of a mother and daughter living at a motel. Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) a mischievous six-year-old girl has the time of her life, playing innocently with friends, and ignorant to the perils of the world she inhabits, her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite) while superficially keeping it together for her daughter is burdened with financial trouble and acute lack of prospects. It’s a movie that intertwines the purity of youth, with the sordidness of adulthood. Willem Dafoe stars as the humane and compassionate hotel manager and is simply astounding.

5 Dunkirk

In Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster, he takes us to the picturesque, sandy beaches of Northern France. Sounds idyllic. However, the town of Dunkirk, for all its mesmerizing natural beauty, played host to a rescue mission that saw almost half-a-million British and allied troops evacuated via sea. Nolan’s depiction of the true story captures the scale of the biggest rescue operation in military history from land, sea, and air. It is a screenplay that is fabulously shot on the incredibly rare IMAX 9802.

4 Lady Bird

Saoirse Ronan won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her rendition of Christine McPherson in Greta Gerwig’s lovable film Lady Bird. It chronicles the high-school escapades of Christine, a charismatic adolescent who is faced with personal, and educational issues. Navigating her cantankerous relationship with her mother, frosty friendship with her ex-best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein), and fledgling love life, all while contending with the demands of her studies and pressure to obtain a place at a highly-regarded New York college.

This is as quintessential Gerwig as it gets, the beauty of the narrative can be found in the refined detail of her characters, and the sharp-witted facetiousness of Christine “Lady Bird” herself.

3 Call Me By Your Name

     Sony Pictures Classics

The celebration of the LGBTQ+ community extends beyond just the world’s many pride festivals, with one of those celebrations in the world of film too. From God’s Own Country, and A Fantastic Woman to Moonlight, the production of LGBTQ+ movies has been prolific. Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name was one such film that received an awe-inspiring critical reception and is a story of forbidden love between teenager, Elio (Timothee Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), set against the backdrop of sunny Northern Italy during the Summer of 1983.

2 The Shape of Water

     Fox Searchlight Pictures

We’ve become accustomed to peculiar, mythical creatures featuring heavily in Guillermo Del Toro’s movies, from Fauno in Pan’s Labyrinth, to Vampires in Blade II, and The Shape of Water is unsurprisingly no different, featuring the mystical ‘Amphibian Man.’ The Best Picture winner tells the story of Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), a mute cleaner working at a strictly-classified government test center in Baltimore. While at the facility, Elisa discovers an amphibian man and befriends him. The US secret services plan on deploying the other/worldly humanoid in the Cold War, yet Elisa devices a plan to save her newfound companion. The Mexican director’s movie was a triumph with the Academy, nominated for 13 awards, and winning four of those Oscars.

1 Get Out

     Universal Pictures

Get Out is to Jordan Peele what IT is to author Stephen King: his flagship title. While ostensibly just a horror thriller, Get Out was a real political statement that managed to successfully merge several disparate genres to form this original cross-breed hybrid-doodle of a film if you will, though its many parts work harmoniously together instead of the internal dysfunction that gives most Labradoodles borderline personality disorders.

It is a tale of 21st-century love, between a Black man, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), and a white woman, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), who take a trip to meet Rose’s family at their suburban estate. Towing the conventional horror line, the initial tranquility is soon disturbed by a horrifying reality. Get Out unpacks racism (especially liberal racism) in a really clever yet simple way. The film exhibits all the classic racist tropes that a person of color has to contend with in a society designed by the white majority.