To get a sense of how many great movies played UK cinemas in 2017, just look at some of the outstanding titles that didn’t make my top 10 list. From Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden (brilliantly adapted from Sarah Waters’s novel Fingersmith) to Anocha Suwichakornpong’s dazzling By the Time It Gets Dark, Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (featuring an Oscar-nominated Isabelle Huppert) and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius (with Sônia Braga in breathtaking form), there was a dizzying array of delights on offer. Even so-called mainstream cinema seemed particularly adventurous this year, ranging from Patty Jenkins’s rip-roaring Wonder Woman to Christopher Nolan’s overwhelming Dunkirk, Kathryn Bigelow’s gripping Detroit, Edgar Wright’s pulse-racing Baby Driver and Darren Aronofsky’s bewildering Mother!.
Home-grown triumphs included William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth (which made a star of Florence Pugh) and Francis Lee’s passionate God’s Own Country, while Zambian-born, Welsh-raised Rungano Nyoni emerged as a major new talent with the uncategorisable I Am Not a Witch. My favourite Bollywood film of 2017 was Advait Chandan’s Secret Superstar, which cleverly interwove dark themes of domestic abuse into its musical fantasy narrative. There were also several Netflix-backed movies that cried out to be seen on the big screen, most notably Bong Joon-ho’s creature-feature Okja.
As always, I restricted my top 10 list to films that actually opened in the UK cinemas in 2017, so such eagerly awaited titles as Clio Barnard’s Dark River, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here and Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (all of which will be released here in 2018) aren’t eligible. My list also features some films that other critics may have included in last year’s lists, such as Toni Erdmann, The Red Turtle, My Life As a Courgette and of course Moonlight, all of which competed for the Oscars in February.
The subject of the Academy’s most infamous “mix-up”, Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-winner Moonlight was a kaleidoscopic gem which found great beauty in tough surroundings – a quality that also characterised Sean Baker’s vibrantly honest The Florida Project. In my review of Moonlight in February I wrote: “I doubt I will see a better film this year”. But then I hadn’t reckoned on Raw, the flesh-ripping French-Belgian debut from writer/director Julia Ducournau. Using cannibalism to tell an intimate story of growing pains and sibling rivalry, Raw is an astonishingly assured work from a film-maker whose unique vision is etched into every frame, straddling humour, heartbreak and horror with ease.
The year has proved particularly strong for horror, with Andy Muschietti’s It becoming a record-breaking box-office hit, while Trey Edward Shults’s It Comes at Night got under the skin of these paranoid times. And then there was Jordan Peele’s Get Out, a brilliant sociopolitical chiller which provided a rollercoaster ride into the dark heart of so-called post-racial America, aided by a superb cast led by the versatile British actor Daniel Kaluuya.
From the hand-drawn beauty of Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle to the stop-motion wonder of My Life As a Courgette, a variety of animation formats continued to thrive, coexisting with the computer graphics that were once predicted to wipe out more traditional techniques. Both these movies moved me to tears, offering some of the richest and most profound viewing experiences of the year. Good, too, to see Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name (which featured in my top 10 last year) back in UK cinemas in 2017.
This year also saw the long-awaited release of The Levelling, a tremendous debut from writer-director Hope Dickson Leach. It’s a brilliant work from a film-maker who should also be commended for setting up Raising Films, a campaigning organisation whose suggestions for addressing harassment and discrimination in the UK film industry in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal offered some positive, practical responses to the horrors of this still unfolding story. Brava!
Top 10 films
Raw
Julia Ducournau devours her audience with this fearless feature debut.
Moonlight
Barry Jenkins’s Oscar winner is a miracle in a minor key.
The Levelling
Love, loss and reconciliation in Hope Dickson Leach’s family drama.
The Red Turtle
Swoon and swoon again at the beauty of Michaël Dudok de Wit’s heartbreaker.
The Florida Project
Sean Baker finds a modern-day Our Gang on Disney’s doorstep.
My Life As a Courgette
Stop-motion magic from director Claude Barras and screenwriter Céline Sciamma.
Toni Erdmann
Sandra Hüller shines in Maren Ade’s bittersweet comedy.
Blade Runner 2049
Denis Villeneuve doesn’t disappoint with this belated sci-fi sequel.
Get Out
Shades of Ira Levin in Jordan Peele’s razor-sharp chiller.
In Between
Three women in Tel Aviv find their own space in Maysaloun Hamoud’s feature debut.
Turkey
Wolves at the Door
A repellently exploitative entry in the already sordid “Manson movies” canon.
