THE TOP 5
1. Dunkirk (review)
“By making Dunkirk about the individuals and not about the moment (especially since even cursory students of history know the ending), we get dropped into an overwhelming situation, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Saving Private Ryan. The end result may be clear, but Nolan makes sure to keep us on the edge of our seats with respect to the fictional people to whom we’ve been introduced.”
2. Lady Bird (review)
“Does the world really need yet another coming-of-age flick? Well, when the flick in question is the exquisitely crafted and eminently delightful Lady Bird, the answer is a flat-out ‘heck yeah.’”
3. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (review)
“It’s not the easiest film to watch—at times dark, violent, and so heartbreaking that it will rip your chest open—but it’s also among the more memorable and powerful things you’ll see this year, a no-frills masterwork that will stick with you for a good long while after.”
4. Wind River (review)
“As raw, emotional, and powerful as his two preceding screenplays, Wind River is a haunting and desolate masterpiece—a superbly crafted tale of crime and punishment as brutal and unforgiving as its snow-covered setting.”
5. Darkest Hour (review)
“Director Joe Wright, working from The Theory of Everything scribe Anthony McCarten’s stellar script, takes a very straightforward history lesson and turns it into a wildly interesting and beautifully shot masterpiece. With the help of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, the film is as much a visual treat as it is a cerebral one.”
THE REST
6. Mudbound
7. Blade Runner 2049
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (40th Anniv.)
9. It
10. The Big Sick
11. The Disaster Artist
12. The Florida Project
13. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
14. All the Money in the World
15. The Greatest Showman
16. Thor: Ragnarok
17. Only the Brave
18. Coco
19. Atomic Blonde
20. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
21. Thank You for Your Service
22. Victoria & Abdul
23. Logan Lucky
24. Gerald’s Game
25. War for the Planet of the Apes
26. The Man Who Invented Christmas
27. American Made
28. Downsizing
29. 1922
30. Detroit
31. Spider-Man: Homecoming
32. The Shape of Water
33. Happy Death Day
34. The Hitman’s Bodyguard
35. Pitch Perfect 3
36. The Babysitter
37. Justice League
38. Murder on the Orient Express
39. The Mountain Between Us
40. A Bad Moms Christmas
41. Battle of the Sexes
42. American Assassin
43. Kidnap
THE BOTTOM 5
44. Daddy’s Home 2 (review)
“Daddy’s Home 2 ends up feeling like a poorly-written sitcom; all that’s missing is the laugh track. Heck, even the requisite sappy ending with everybody coming together to the tune of a classic Christmas song can’t save the day.”
45. Geostorm (review)
“As god-awful as the Devlin-produced 2016’s Independence Day: Resurgencewas, at least it featured gratuitous amounts of fictional disaster porn. Devlin would have been better served saving some for this go-round. For a movie called Geostorm, there’s precious little storm to be found.”
46. Kingsman: The Golden Circle (review)
“Moving past the over-the-top antics (both behind the camera and in front), Circleis a mess. Entire story lines make no sense, promising characters are introduced and then (literally) put on ice for the duration, and screenwriter Jane Goldman can’t seem to grasp the difference between satire and flat-out silliness.”
47. Suburbicon (review)
“There’s not much at all that works in Suburbicon, but it could have been at least somewhat watchable had the Coen brothers and Clooney not tried to mash the disparate plots together in some sort of unholy mess. It’s not only poorly executed, it was a lousy idea in the first place.”
48. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (review)
“The finished product is a hideous, overblown mess of cartoony cheesiness that may well be the offspring of something, but whatever it is, it was born prematurely and then dropped on its head.”