February 17, 2017 -- Here is my list of the best and worst films, best actors, etc. from the year of 2017. Included on this page is a list of 2017 top films selected by Patrick Ivers, a fellow critic on this review site.

Below the list of top films, are lists of my picks for top director, top actor, top foreign film, etc. Those lists are followed by lists of the worst films, overrated films, funniest, saddest, most romantic, etc. I've included a Dubious Distinction award for a film of “bad faith.” My top 10 lists include more comedy and films starring black actors, two varieties of movies absent from most top 10 lists. Drama is easy, but comedy is tough to get right.

Page navigation: Honorable mention,  Best of by category,  Funniest movies,   Best Love Stories  Saddest movies,  Scariest villain ,  Overrated movies,   Best movies you haven't heard of,   Worst movies,   Dubious Distinction.

1. Mudbound This is the most powerful film of the year, a harrowing, intense, searing movie about two families bound together by land, war, hatred and poverty in rural Mississippi in the middle of the 20th Century. This is a very rare film in that it was directed by a black woman and its depiction of the complexities of American racism reflects that seldom seen perspective.
2. The Shape of Water This science fiction fantasy fish out of water cold war-era love story features a great villain in Michael Shannon, along with a great performance by Sally Hawkins. It is not just a love story, but also a story about prejudice, acceptance and courage.
3. Wind River This murder mystery set on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming has a compelling story, written by one of the best screenwriters in the business, Taylor Sheridan (“Hell or High Water”). The dialog in this film is spare, concise and powerful. When the action happens, it strikes like a thunderbolt. Jeremy Renner gives a great performance as a tracker and hunter.
4. Wonder This heartwarming, tear-jerker of a film about prejudice, love, diversity and the complicated dynamics of a family with a highly unusual child is a real crowd pleaser. What impressed me most, however, was the fact that the film did not choose to oversimplify the relationships. Instead, it embraced the complexity of people's feelings and the different ways they choose to deal with each other.
5. Molly's Game This based on a true story about a woman, Molly Bloom, who made, and lost, a fortune fronting high stakes poker, is one of the best-written films of the year (along with “Wind River”). Jessica Chastain (who gave another great performance in 2016 as “Miss Sloane”) burns up the screen with an incendiary performance.
6. Mother! No film pushed the envelope more than this film, loved by some critics and hated by audiences. It is a master work by writer-director Darren Aranofsky (“Black Swan”) who comes across like a mad genius in this surrealistic film. Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer all give outstanding performances as characters descending into utter madness.
7. The Lego Batman Movie This is my pick for the best animated film of the year, although “Coco” is a close second. This movie is not only the funniest film of the year, it has some insight into human nature, too. There are some very interesting characters in this film.
8. The Post This movie is based on the true story of a historic decision by the Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, despite threats of legal action and serious financial problems. Meryl Streep gives another in a long line of great performances as the legendary Post publisher, Katharine Graham.
9. Step This uplifting documentary about women on a dance team of the founding class of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women is bittersweet. On the one hand, it celebrates the achievements of young women who overcome obstacles to success, thanks to a nurturing school environment. On the other hand, it makes you realize most kids don't get to go to this kind of school.
10. The Work This is a powerful emotional documentary film about prisoners and outsiders who participate in a series of revealing group therapy sessions inside Folsom State Prison.

Hell on Earth I thought I knew about ISIS and the Syrian civil war, until I saw this revealing documentary, and discovered how much I did not know. This film gave me insights into one of the largest humanitarian disasters in history, due to the self-destruction of Syria.
Alive and Kicking This documentary film by Susan Glatzer is a joyous tribute to the energetic, acrobatic and sometimes seductive dance styles born in the 1920s in Harlem, and to the dancers who carry on this tradition.
Coco This is a very heartwarming story about family and the ending is quite emotional. The golden touch of Pixar and executive producer John Lasseter is evident here. The best of the Pixar movies often have these warm, emotional touches.
War for the Planet of the Apes There have been a whole bunch of Planet of the Apes Movies since the original in 1968, but this new one, the third in the most recent trilogy of ape movies, is the best of them all. In the near future it would be fitting for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize Andy Serkis, star of this film, for his talents as a motion capture and voice actor, and for his contributions as a pioneer in this evolving art form.
Baby Driver The man behind “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead” comes up with another dandy action film with a comic twist, but more subtle, and not a parody this time, more of an homage. This is a cut above the standard crime action drama, but it also bears some of writer-director Edgar Wright's comic touches.
Blade Runner 2049 Sequels or remakes are seldom as good as the original film but this is an exception. It takes the most intriguing elements of the original film and expands on them. Also, the acting is better in this film. It doesn't quite maintain its momentum to the end, but still, this is an exceptional film.
BPM The film has all the extremes of human emotion: Scenes of great joy, street celebrations, parties, dancing and sex, interspersed with heartbreak, hatred and arrests. This film is compelling and the superb performances are part of the reason why.
Jane This film uses a lot of archival film footage to tell the amazing story of how Jane Goodall, an English waitress without a college education ended up being one of the leading anthropological researchers in the world.
Lady Bird Coming of age stories have been done to death, but mostly they are about boys, in movies written and directed by men. This film is written and directed by Gretta Gerwig, so it is a bit different, and it is a lot more than just a coming of age story.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) Overall, this is essentially a light comedy, despite some dramatic overtones. It is a rich exploration of human nature and family dynamics.
Nowhere to Hide Nori Sharif, a kind of citizen journalist, documents the plight of his family flee their home and move desperately over a dozen times, trying to escape the violence that surrounds them in Iraq as the country crumbles into chaos.
Tickling Giants This bittersweet documentary about a banned Egyptian comedian, Bassem Youssef, a fan of influential American comedian Jon Stewart, is both haunting and instructive about rebellions, authoritarian governments and satirical humor.

Links to reviews of all the films on this page are indexed in the following web pages:

A through B   C through D   E through G   H through L
M through Q   R through S   T through Z

All of these films have won awards or have been highly rated by some critics groups, or have won praise at some film festivals, or are just rated higher than they ought to be. These are listed alphabetically. The most notable film on the list are Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Phantom Thread which both have ludicrous plots, but Three Billboards is also clueless in its depiction of racism and homophobia. Get Out is a good genre horror film with a seldom-seen black perspective on racism, but it doesn't really rise above the bloody genre in the end. Alien: Covenant
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Get Out
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2
John Wick Chapter 2
Logan
Phantom Thread
Whose Streets?

While I saw most of the best films 2017, I purposefully missed nearly all of the reportedly bad films, including Father Figures – Boo 2! A Madea Halloween – Daddy’s Home 2 – The Mummy – Just Getting Started – Rings – The Snowman – Amityville: The Awakening – Fifty Shades Darker – The Space Between Us – CHIPS – The Last Face – The Book Of Henry – The Emoji Movie – The House – Leatherface – the Flatliners remake and The Shack, among many others. Those are all wide release films which made it to most cities and towns in the U.S. I also missed most of the limited release bad films, among many others, so this is not in any way a list of the worst of the worst films, just the worst of the films I saw. I did see Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and while it was disappointing, it did not make my “worst of” list.

Let There Be Light This is a simple-minded faith-based movie which offers the argument that the only real choice between the thousands of religions in the world is between Christianity or ISIS, earning it the Bad Faith Award, below.
Lemon This is a disagreeable comedy in which the main character is unlikeable and every single conversation and social interaction is awkward.
The Girl on the Train (2016)This is a film like Fifty Shades of Grey where the women are passive and submissive, falling victim to a cruel man. They finally rise up against him, but I had to suffer through a lot of this nonsense before the unsatisfying, all-too-brief payoff at the end. The Dinner This talky drama about a group of people debating whether or not to do the right thing doesn't have enough people of character in it. When the politician in the group has the most moral fiber of the lot by far, that says a lot.
The Circle I got talked into watching this mess of a movie, but it wasn't really worth writing a review about it. While the subjects of the film, privacy and surveillance, are worthwhile, the central character is wildly inconsistent. Here is a review from my fellow critic Patrick Ivers, who was one of about 22 percent of critics reviewing this film who liked it.

If you meet a dead relative in the afterlife, and he tells you to believe in something, you probably will believe it, but that requires no faith. This film offers some phony arguments to believe in Christianity, like straw man arguments, and a false choice. This movie obviously doesn't have the intellectual heft to persuade atheists and agnostics that they are wrong. Instead, it literally preaches to the choir. It looks to be a movie with very narrow vision of Christianity and a very limited appeal. I like wider appeal religious movies such as Amazing Grace (2007) or Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) or even The Apostle (1997).

Page navigation: Honorable mention,  Best of by category,  Funniest movie,   Best Love Stories  Saddest movie,  Scariest villain ,  Overrated movies,   Best movies you haven't heard of,   Worst movies,   Dubious Distinctions.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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