Let’s take a look at the best movies of 2017 so far. We have looked far and wide, traveled to the multiplex, to the art-house and back again and here is mxdwn’s current picks for the best films so to have arrived on screens this year. Included are some of 2017’s biggest spectacles as well as more modest and personal gems. We will be updating this page every so often to reflect the best and brightest films of the year. Be sure to check back in to see where we stand. And without further ado, and presented in alphabetical order, here are the current cinematic treasures of 2017.
BABY DRIVER
Check out our review.
Edgar Wright’s film about a baby-faced getaway driver is a coolly sleek, involving and entertaining thrill ride from start to finish. Action-packed sequences and a killer soundtrack serve as background for a contained performance by star Ansel Elgort, a deadpan Kevin Spacey, a sweet Lily James, and an unhinged Jamie Foxx. Like a good wedding, the film marries crackling violent shootout sequences with an age-old love story of boy meets girl. With tight editing, the film weaves together something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.
– Karen Earnest
THE BIG SICK
Check out our review.
In an age when the majority of romantic comedies feel even more formulaic than the bulk of superhero films, The Big Sick surprises by pulling double duty, serving as both a refreshingly honest, genuinely funny entry in the genre and transcending the genre itself. Part of the honesty comes from the authenticity of the story, which star and stand-up comedian Kumail Nanjiani wrote with his wife, Emily V. Gordon, based on their real-life relationship. The movie follows Nanjiani’s leading man as he falls for Emily, played by Zoe Kazan, only to be blindsided when she contracts a mysterious illness and falls into a coma, leaving him to awkwardly get to know her parents as they oversee her recovery. Further complicating matters is the cultural divide between Emily and Kumail, whose Pakistani Muslim family is trying to arrange a marriage for him. This doesn’t sound like a recipe for comedy, but the movie has an extraordinary ability to handle heavy topics with an easygoing sense of comedic grace. Nanjiani and Kazan are able to nail the moments of sweet sincerity mixed into their bubbly banter, and Holly Hunter and Ray Romano turn in delicately nuanced performances as Emily’s protective parents. It’s hard not to become absorbed in the culturally relevant and surprisingly emotional tapestry that the film weaves, and humorous appearances by other comics such as Bo Burnham and Aidy Bryant offer an appropriately light touch to a disarmingly serious story, marking The Big Sick as not just a memorable romantic comedy, but a cross-cultural character study that can’t be missed.
– Parker Danowski
BLADE RUNNER 2049
Check out our review.
It is rare for a sequel to surpass its predecessor, and while the brilliantly realized lighting and production design in Blade Runner 2049 might not quite live up to the vibrant, neon-streaked freshness of the original 1982 classic, just about everything else masterfully builds upon the groundwork laid in the first film to create an even more thought-provoking experience. Ryan Gosling gives one of his most affecting performances in years as K, a detective who has to come to terms with the fact that his very existence may not be quite what it seems. Harrison Ford returns as original protagonist Rick Deckard, and fellow cast mates Jared Leto, Sylvia Hoeks, and Ana De Armas turn in memorable portrayals of new characters. Denis Villeneuve’s steady direction and Roger Deakins’ expansive cinematography meet to give us a glimpse into a dystopian future that has only gotten worse since we last saw it, but the plot is the real star here. The mystery at the center of Blade Runner 2049 and the world-shaking implications it suggests once again ask us to consider what exactly makes a person human, and whether human is a worthy title to long for anyway. These thoughts will stay with you long after you leave the theater.
– Parker Danowski
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
Check out our review.
Call Me By Your Name fully lives up to its hype. What Guadagnino accomplished with A Bigger Splash in terms of kinetic atmosphere and heightened emotion, he does tenfold with Call Me By Your Name, adding a full-proof script that intensifies and humanizes the classic coming-of-age tale. Timothée Chalamet, starring as the seventeen-year-old Elio, steals every single scene and somehow dominates his over-confident counterpart Oliver, played charmingly by Armie Hammer, through a strikingly powerful vulnerability expressed way beyond his years. Guadagnino taps into the feeling of first love and heartbreak quite unlike anyone before him, and will leave audiences feeling the pangs long after the credits roll.
– Rachel Lutack
THE FLORIDA PROJECT
Writer-director Sean Baker’s look at impoverished people living in the “shadow of Disney World” is one of the most remarkable slice of life movies in years and easily one of the best of 2017. It focuses on a single mother and her young daughter who live in a flea-bag motel run by Willem Dafoe (the only ‘known’ actor in the cast, who proves that he can do The Average Man as amazingly well as any of his other roles). During a single summer, we see how parents make ends meet through legitimate and illegitimate means, and how children can make a world of their own without traditional luxuries (and while psychologically distancing themselves from the endless squalor and fights). What makes The Florida Project unique is the complexity with which Sean Baker presents this world. It’s sympathetic, but not cloying. Baker treats his subjects with neither condemnation nor nobility. It doesn’t give into traditional melodrama, nor does it wear its socially relevance on its sleeve. It gives us something that feels genuinely honest and human.
– Brett Harrison Davinger
GET OUT
When you hear Jordan Peele’s name, most conjure images of his Barack Obama impersonation, his knack for improv and a break-dancing enthusiast shouting ‘noice.’ But lately, Peele has been making a name for himself outside of the comedy world with his new breakout horror hit, Get Out. Playing like a nightmarish version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, Peele’s directorial debut has not only become a bonafide success, making over a $100 million back on a budget of a mere $4.5 million, it has also established the young director as a reckoning force. And with Peele signed up to direct at least four more social thrillers, there’s a whole bunch to look forward to in the coming years.
– Riyad Mamedyarov
PERSONAL SHOPPER
As thoughtful as it is confounding, Olivier Assayas’ enigmatic and leisurely paced latest feature is bound to polarize. Yet, those willing to surrender to the offbeat, unconventional beat of this arthouse ghost story/spiritual crisis character study may find themselves haunted (in a good way) by the results. After giving her the best role of her career thus far in meta-soaked reflection on celebrity Clouds of Sils Maria, Assayas reunites with Kristen Stewart, who expertly balances this odd, incongruent, yet strangely beautiful tale all the while instilling her specific hipster movie star persona. In Personal Shopper, Stewart portrays a young American dashing through Europe slavishly working for a plutocratic diva in the midst of a personal crisis following the death of her twin brother. What follows is an elegant, richly atmospheric thought experiment all bent and contorted to the unique drums of its alluring star.
– James Tisch
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Check out our review.
Packed with the same sort of dark humor that In Bruges fans have come to love and expect from McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri expands that filmic ideology into new realms of sublime unease. It makes for a wonderful viewing experience, pushing the boundaries of characterization to new heights of complexity. Combined with the film’s whip-smart dialogue, Three Billboards showcases the increasingly sharpened skills of an auteur in the making.
– Riyad Mamedyarov
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
Check out our review.
While Dunkirk is the best movie so far in 2017, I’d like to give special recognition to Matt Reeves’ trilogy-ending War for the Planet of the Apes. It has a notably three-dimensional protagonist in Caesar, who has grown significantly over the past three films, a villain whose motivations we understand, and a bittersweet view towards the end of one world and beginning of a new one. It successfully continues/concludes Caesar’s journey without it feeling like a retread what came before, and it references the original Planet of the Apes (e.g. human muteness, the Alpha and the Omega) without feeling like fan service. It’s a reboot done right, a prequel done right, a sequel done right, and most of all, a movie done right.
– Brett Harrison Davinger
WONDER WOMAN
Check out our review.
Greek mythology, women kicking ass, and historic action — what isn’t there to like? Director Patty Jenkins pulls audiences into the heart of Wonder Woman (a.k.a. Diana Prince), and accomplishes precisely what an origin story should. The narrative is focused, the themes are clean and clear, and the hero’s journey of identity and purpose takes center stage in the midst of flashy mythical action, romance, and war politics. Although lacking an abundance of solid female representation, Gal Gadot manages to somewhat soothe Wonder Woman’s impenetrable exterior and bring D.C. back on the superhero map.
-Rachel Lutack
11/24/17 – Call Me By Your Name, Blade Runner 2049, The Florida Project and Three Billboard Outside Ebbing, Missouri added to the list.
8/18/17 – Baby Driver, The Big Sick, Dunkirk, My Cousin Rachel, and War for the Planet of the Apes added to the list.
6/25/17 – Wonder Woman added to the list.
4/27/17 – Free Fire added to the list.
4/17/17 – The Lost City of Z added to the list.
3/29/17 – Frantz added to list.
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