Listomania! My Favourite Films of 2017

Time, once again, for my entirely arbitrary and idiosyncratic Films of the Year list. Because I love you, here are a bunch of links to sate your overwhelming desire to catch up with my lists from years past:

2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016

All caught up? Excellent!

I was going to write an elaborate, scene-setting preamble about My Year in Film, but I feel like I’ve been unwillingly subjected to the detailed opinions and tepid “hot takes” of Everyone On The Internet all year long, so I’m doing us all a huge favour by saying as little as possible about my choices this time round. As Dirty Harry Callahan said in his belated not-very-good sequel The Dead Pool: “Well, opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.”

In that spirit, in no particular order, and for our collective amusement, it’s time to moon you with My Top Ten. Here we go:

Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)

John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski)

Get Out (Jordan Peele)

Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson)

The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi) (Chan-wook Park)

My Life as a Courgette (Ma vie de Courgette) (Claude Barras)

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin) (Takashi Miike)

The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

It’s a small world after all.

Just under that formidable Top Ten is another honestly-just-as-good Ten - any one of which could have made it onto the main list on another day depending on my mood.

Close But No Cigar:

The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)
Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
Logan (James Mangold)
The Love Witch (Anna Biller)
Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (Sebastián Lelio)
The Merciless (Sung-hyun Byun)
On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl) (Ildikó Enyedi)
Silence (Martin Scorsese)
Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

UPDATED 20/12/17: The final results of the HeyUGuys Online Critics Best Films of 2017 Poll are now out, voted for by the great and the good (and me). Enjoy!