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The Top 10 movies of 2017

The Oscars are approaching and marking with them the end of the 2017 cinematic year.  The least thing to say about 2017 is that it was one of the most un-special years for cinema, full of mediocre movies and forgettable efforts. I found it a little hard to pick 15 movies that I’d put in a top movies of the year list like I do every year, so I went with only 10 movies this time around. Here are my top 10 movies of 2017:

 10- Lady Bird:

While nothing feels particularly special about Lady Bird on a first viewing, it certainly gives a pleasant effect that lasts for a while after you finish watching it. The movie takes us through Lady Bird (our protagonist’s self chosen name)’s last year of high school and the pressures of having to take big decisions for adolescents in this day and age. And while it feels like you’ve seen this kind of story a million times before, something about Lady Bird feels more authentic than any other coming of age story. Whether it’s the extremely well written dialogue or the subtle performances (especially by the 3-time Oscar nominated 23 years old phenomenon that is Saoirse Ronan) or the easiness the movie flows with that comes as a sign of a masterful director, it all results in an original entry that gives a breath of fresh air to an overly saturated, overly explored genre.

 9- Okja:

The Netflix produced movie, released directly to the Internet. The movie follows the journey of Mija, a young South Korean girl who is willing to do anything to prevent an American company from kidnapping her special friend; a “super-pig” called Okja. While it looks and feels like the normal sad girl gets separated from pet movie in its first act, Okja turns out to be a movie that takes leaps and turns with every other scene. With such high level of unpredictability, I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat, anticipating the other ways this screenplay would surprise, eagerly. Being written and directed by Joon-ho Bong (the visionary behind one of the most powerful post-apocalyptic thrillers, Snowpiercer), I wasn’t surprised to witness Okja gradually unwind to show how multilayered and deep it is, yet still be one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Only Bong can squeeze subjects as universally relevant as the evils of capitalism, animal cruelty and the misguidance of media in a coming of age tale of a girl refusing to give up to life’s burdens. The movie also never feels too dramatic or too sentimental for its subject matter, all thanks to the balance the director keeps between drama, adventure and comedy. Okja features many remarkable performances. From Tilda Swinton’s intricate portrayal of two very distinct twins, to Jake Gyllenhaal’s comical take on reality TV stars, to memorable cameos from Steven Yeun, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito and Lilly Collins, all supporting cast paves the way Seo-Hyun Ahn to shine and have all the confidence she needed to play such a strong character. You might not have heard of Okja before, simply because it’s not a part of a well-known franchise or because it didn’t get the wide release other movies get, but it certainly is one of the most important movies on this list, simply because it showed us that internet-released movies can be of high cinematic caliber too.

  8- Loveless:

Loveless is writer/director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s follow up to his 2014 masterpiece Leviathan, and it is as bleak and as shocking to say the least. Instead of a strong subject matter as of Leviathan’s flashy plot though, Zvyaginstev chooses to tell us a very conventional, simple story this time around; an eleven-year-old boy (Alyosha) disappears after witnessing a terrible fight between his divorced parents. And just like every other missing person movie, questions quickly begin to rise in your head, did Alyosha run away from him or did he get kidnapped? Is anyone else involved in this sudden disappearance? Are they ever gonna find him? But the most important question of all is, would he really wanna come back to live through the ramifications of such a failed marriage? What starts as a community search hunt for a missing boy, turns into a holistic study on modern relationships, the selfishness of the human race, and how we currently define success in life. Loveless is a perfect example of how universal art could get no matter what language it’s made in.

  7- The Square:

The Square is probably one of the most unconventional movies of the year, and may be even of all time. It doesn’t follow any kind of specific narrative, it doesn’t have distinctive first and second and third acts, it is not about a major incident nor does it involve a character that goes through a major change or learns something new about himself or the society. In fact The Square never even sticks to one message or one way of telling its story, it keeps shuffling between what it wants to be at the moment, symbolizing how unpredictable, messy and sometimes, shocking, our day to day life could be. One could describe The Square as a satire on how someone’s normal life could turn upside down after taking a few very small terrible decisions, but by the end of it you’ll realize that this was a satire on life itself. How Christian (played by the highly charismatic Claes Bang) perceives himself and how his behavior around others usually contradicts those perceptions creates an irony that reminds us with how separated and segregated we all are from eachother. The Square is director Ruben Ostlund’s second movie to be nominated for best foreign language film after his 2014 masterpiece Force Majeure, another movie that tackles the idea of how small missteps could lead to life changing effects. Unlike Force Majeure though, The Square reaches new heights of ambition and doesn’t shy from criticizing almost all aspects of the average person’s life.

  6- The Florid Project:

The Florida Project gives us a documentary like look on the daily lives of three children who live in the projects of Florida from the children’s perspective. Just a few buildings away from Disney Land, they live in the colorful motels that don’t feel or look so colorful on the inside. As I witnessed the lives of these kids unfold in front of my eyes, I couldn’t help but recall my own feelings as a child, how a child’s look on what’s important in life is totally different from what an adult could think and feel. This kind of instant connection to the children comes as a result of a brilliant director who understands the importance of right casting, of understanding the subject matter he’s dealing with and knows how get the best out of his actors. The movie features one of the most heartfelt performances in years from Brooklynn Prince (the 7-years old first time actress) in the role of Mooney, the leader of our group of kids. One can’t help but fall in love with Mooney from the moment we see her on screen, and the director understands that so much that he sometimes allows the camera to follow her around, giving her the freedom to improvise and be herself, which allows the audience to experience life literally through the innocence of a young girl’s eyes in one of the most memorable scenes of the year. The only A-list actor in The Florida Project’s cast is Willem Dafoe (who gives one of the best performances of his career and the movie’s sole Oscar nomination), along with a bunch of first time actors who are so good, they make you wonder whether if they are real actors or just normal people who get to be followed by a camera and have their lives watched by an audience.

 5-Mother! :

Mother! is one of the most polarizing movies of the year. It’s a movie that’s been called one of the best movies of all time and one of the most tasteless at the same time. But whether you love Mother! or hate it, there is one thing that is certain about this movie, and that is you’ve never seen anything like it before. I wouldn’t say that I loved every choice that Darren Aronofsky (Pi, The Fountain, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Noah) chose to go with in Mother!. For example, the movie starts with what seems like a normal suburban wife and her artist husband, who can’t find inspiration in his boring life, but it’s very clear since the beginning that this isn’t just it, that this plot and those characters are symbolic of much broader ideas. But instead of leaving it for each viewer’s interpretation of such symbolism, Aronofsky decides to lay all symbolism aside and turn it to a very straightforward narrative, making it too easy and sometimes even forced on the audience to digest. On the other hand, Mother! features a third act that will remain engraved in my memory like no other in movie history. With using only close-ups through out the entire movie and setting a claustrophobic mood through lighting, Aronofsky keeps building up tension all through the first two acts duration, until it reaches the third act just to explode and multiply that tension till it reaches the roof. The last 20 minutes of Mother! are gut-wrenching to the least. One can’t even start thinking about how much effort went into the preparation of what you witness on screen, from the huge number of extras (that each needed different motives, costumes, motion around the camera and meanings to the movie), to the flawless camera movement that captured all that’s happening around it while keeping fluid enough to remain the tension and give sense of time passing, to the top notch sound mixing that was necessary in such a loud and full of action segment of the movie, it all goes down to a mastermind behind all that, by the name of Darren Aronofsky, who could pull one of the greatest directorial achievements of the year.

  4- Blade Runner 2049:

When it was announced that director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Prisoners, Enemy) will helm the new installment of the Blade Runner franchise, I wondered why would such a talented director, who’d recently been nominated for a well deserved Oscar nomination last year, risk putting his name on a movie that could never surpass the critical success or the cultural status and reputation of its predecessor. But after watching the movie I didn’t only get why he would choose that, in fact I understood why he probably is the only well-known Hollywood director who could give us such a masterpiece right now. Villeneuve’s own passion for the project is clear through out each and every choice he went with in 2049 and that ultimately made it succeed on all fronts. Blade Runner 2049 works both a sequel as much as it works as a movie on its own. A sequel that kept the bleak spirit, the slow tone, the extremely detailed technologies and the essence of the premise of the original Blade Runner, and still built on it to give us a deeper exploration of the human condition in a bigger world than that of the original, a wider scope of events, a more touching plot and consequently a taut and heartfelt psychological sci-fi thriller that is really needed between what’s being offered nowadays. The mesmerizing cinematography by Roger Deakins created a feast for the eye with a unique visual philosophy that made it stick in my memory for weeks after watching the movie. Only great movies get to have such a lasting effect after just one viewing.  

  3- Get Out:

I’ve never been a fan of Jordan Peele. His humor is mostly safe and naïve. When I heard about his directorial debut, Get Out, I thought it’s gonna be a light comedy that offers nothing different from his usual efforts. Instead, the result is one of the most important horror movies in years. Peele (who also wrote this movie) , was aiming at writing his first horror, about a man waking up to find himself held captive in a house. But halfway through his writing process, he decided to turn his script into a discussion about modern day racism, the horrors of being a minority in America and the establishment of white supremacy in all aspects of their lives. The movie is a testament that even the smallest of ideas could turn into masterpieces when given to the right hands. With a micro budget of an independent film (4.5 million usd), and a cast of small-parts actors, the fact that Jordan Peele succeeded in making a movie that stayed the first on the box for three consecutive weeks (to end up with 255 million usd) and get nominated for 4 Oscars (including one for best picture of the year and a couple of nominations for himself for both writing and direction) was beyond the imagination of the biggest optimist. All this praise comes at no surprise after watching the movie though, it’s one of the fun experiences I’ve had in a movie theater in years, a movie that kept me invested in its world, as captivated as the protagonist, on the edge of my seat from beginning to end, all thanks to the massive talent of first time writer/director Jordan Peele.

  2- Dunkirk:

Have you ever seen a PG-13 war movie that didn’t show a drop of blood? Have you ever seen a World War II movie without a scene inside the office of army generals while putting their tactical plan? Have you ever seen a war movie that doesn’t show you one soldier of the enemy’s army? Leave it to the one and only Christopher Nolan to break all walls and ceilings of a genre and turn it into exactly what he wants it to be. Only Nolan could direct a movie about the defeat and an evacuation of an army that everyone knows how it ends, and still make a gripping thriller out of it. You are taken through the journey of three different individuals, telling the story of the evacuation of Dunkirk through their eyes from the sea perspective, the land perspective and the sky perspective in a mere 106 minutes. In its core, it’s about scared kids who want to reach home and how home reached for them instead. There is no time in Nolan’s Dunkirk for forced patriotism or overly dramatized deaths. There is no time to even care about a certain character or cheer for a specific person to survive, you find yourself cheering for survival itself instead, desperate to find a way out of the trap you’re thrown in from the first minute of the movie. Whether it’s a pilot trying to break the glass of his drowning plane or stuck soldiers, gasping for air in a sinking ship, you feel as immersed in each situation as them, only thinking about a way out too. Hans Zimmer’s groundbreaking score (who created a sound illusion that aids in creating tension throughout the movie and built his whole score around it), Hoyte Van Hoytema’s magnificent cinematography (that captured the harshness of sea and air conditions like no other before, creating a horrifying, nearly monochromatic world), one of the best sound editing/mixing jobs in the history of filmmaking, and the masterful editing by Lee Smith, all helped Nolan in delivering Dunkirk in the mind-bending, intricately intersecting way that made it stand out between all war movies (if not all movies in general) of all time.

  1-Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri might have the most interesting title for a wide release movie in years, but it also has one of the most uninteresting premises on paper. When I first watched the movie’s trailer in the summer, I thought that this might be another boring movie that I’ll have to sit through just for the sake of awards season, where it will be nominated for a couple of awards just for one of its star cast performances and that’s it. I mean, sure, the movie’s writer/director is Martin McDonagh, who once made a really good movie (In Bruges), but he followed that but a very messy and forgettable movie (Seven Psychopaths). The movie’s cheesy plotline (A woman puts up three advertisements on three billboards outside a small town, cursing the police chief for not finding the killer and rapist of her daughter) doesn’t help an audience in knowing what could follow that. Normally, this should be a character study about a strong woman who decided to stand against the police, only to lose the fight to no avail. We’ve seen such type of movie a million times before. Turns out what follows is one of the most exciting, fast paced and unpredictable movies of the decade. The brilliance of the screenplay lies in creating multiple unique characters and making them feel as realistic as possible. Nearly all characters have as many terrible traits as they have good ones. You wouldn’t find any good reason to root for any side of the chess game that starts in Ebbing between Mildred and the police station other than for the trauma that affected them but not for them personally. You will just enjoy watching this purely original story taking turn after turn, surprising and sometimes shocking you with each one of them. The movie features a plethora of incredible performances. Spearheaded by Frances McDormand, who gives a career best performance, even surpassing her iconic performance in Fargo, in one of the most demanding and complex female characters that come to mind in years, to cement her status as one of the best actresses alive right now in Hollywood, no wonder that Martin McDonagh had her in mind while writing the character in the first place. Woody Harrelson gives one of the most powerful roles of his career, if not his most powerful. We are used to Harrelson playing the funniest or the craziest character in a movie, but who’d thought he could outdo himself while giving such an emotional and heartfelt performance. Sam Rockwell is the one who steals the show though, who feels like he was born to play Dixon, the repellent, alienating, racist cop who somehow still feels believable as a “good man on the inside” as one of the characters describes him. Three Billboards may be introduces broad ideas, asks deep questions and puts you through a social dilemma, but what makes it different is that Martin McDonagh never forgets that his primary target is that to simply entertain his audience, to give them a great story and the best performances his actors could deliver. And for succeeding on all those fronts, it sure deserves to be called the best movie of 2017.

   Honorable mentions:

-Baby Driver

-Wind River

-War for the Planet of the Apes

-The Insult

-Phantom Thread

-The Shape of Water

-Mudbound