Best Films of 2017: #5-1

The list of my 25 favorite films of 2017 marks the culmination of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click on film titles below to read reviews and click here to see all categories of the awards.

#5: Thoroughbreds

#4: Lady Bird

#3: The Shape of Water

#2: The Big Sick

#1: The Florida Project

Best Films of 2017: #10-6

The list of my 25 favorite films of 2017 marks the culmination of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click on film titles below to read reviews and click here to see all categories of the awards.

#10: Faces Places

#9: Coco

#8: Land of Mine

#7: Battle of the Sexes

#6: Sweet Virginia

Best Films of 2017: #15-11

The list of my 25 favorite films of 2017 marks the culmination of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click on film titles below to read reviews and click here to see all categories of the awards.

#15: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

#14: My Life as a Zucchini

#13: In Between

#12: The Women’s Balcony

#11: The Wedding Plan

Best Films of 2017: #20-16

The list of my 25 favorite films of 2017 marks the culmination of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click on film titles below to read reviews and click here to see all categories of the awards.

#20: The Fate of the Furious

#19: Wonder

#18: Stronger

#17: Princess Cyd

#16: Dunkirk

Best Films of 2017: #25-21

The list of my 25 favorite films of 2017 marks the culmination of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click on film titles below to read reviews and click here to see all categories of the awards.

#25: Voyeur

#24: The Disaster Artist

#23: Downsizing

#22: Blade Runner 2049

#21: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

AFT Awards: Top 15 Scenes of the Year

This is a special category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards, my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. These are my fifteen favorite scenes of the year, listed in alphabetical order by film title. Click here to see previous years of this category. Beware spoilers for these films.

Blade Runner 2049

Joi (Ana de Armas) is first introduced, seen in his apartment constantly changing what she is wearing in the middle of a normal conversation with K (Ryan Gosling), a masterful display of the visual creativity at work in an imagined future where desire is one commodity that is quite well-serviced.

Blade Runner 2049

Joi takes it one step further, bringing home a human prostitute that K can actually have sex with, positioning her projected image over the prostitute’s body and creating the illusion of melding with her, yearning for a humanity that she can’t possibly achieve.

Dunkirk

For all of its action scenes and spectacular intensity, it’s one of the quieter moments that stands out most in this film: when all hope seems lost and those little boats finally arrive to save the day, a joyous and miraculous sight after such devastation has been felt with no seeming salvation to come.

I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore

This odd film – one that taught me that maybe I should read plot descriptions rather than just relying on seeing the names of stars – took its most hilarious turn when, in trying to intimidate the thieves who stole Ruth’s laptop, Tony (Elijah Wood) throws his weapon of choice into the wall, confusing and startling all.

Land of Mine

This somber, lonely film was at its most effective when those prisoners of wars sentenced to clean up the bombs planted by their army first encountered an explosion, one that showed just how careful their work has to be and how easily and unassumingly a deadly consequence can occur and end a life.

Permission

After Anna (Rebecca Hall) and Will (Dan Stevens) decide to sleep with other people just to see what it’s like before spending their lives together, the funniest and most utterly shocking moment comes when Lydia (Gina Gershon) pushes Will to do whatever he’s always wanted him to do, prompting him to spit in her mouth, eliciting a shocked reaction followed by a shrug of acceptance.

Sweet Virginia

The extended opening scene of this chilling thriller sets a perfect tone for the entirety of its content, introducing Christopher Abbott’s Elwood as he comes into a diner to do a job that turns violent very quickly and ends up with more than one mourning widow left to pick up the pieces.

The Big Sick

In a film filled with sweet, great moments, the one that sticks out is very early in their courtship, when Emily (Zoe Kazan) decides to call an Uber and Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) readily accepts the trip, forcing them to spend more time together in a fitting modern-day romantic development.

The Fate of the Furious

This film series always has spectacular stunts and logic-defying sequences, and this film’s signature scene comes early on when Dom (Vin Diesel) drives a car backwards while it’s on a fire for more than a short time, staying calm and proving that he can handle anything behind the wheel.

The Florida Project

The most memorable and impactful moment in this transformative film finds Halley (Bria Vinaite) treating Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) to a blowout meal at Waffle House just to get back at Ashley (Mela Murder) for daring to judge her parenting, taking every opportunity to make her friend miserable.

The Last Word

This underappreciated comedy from Sundance had a lot of laughs, and the scene that garnered the most was one of the quick snippets in which Anne (Amanda Seyfried) interviews people to find out about Harriet (Shirley MacLaine), where a man describes her as a horrible woman before his collar is unveiled to give some extra weight to that statement.

The Shape of Water

This scene is highly controversial since it’s the one that made people hate this movie that some boiled down to one in which a woman has sex with a fish, but it’s also one of the most beautiful examples of how this film portrays its characters and gives them humanity, demonstrated by the smile on Elisa’s face and the glow on her new partner’s skin as water leaked down onto the theatregoers below.

The Square

Though this film took some lamentable turns later on, the beginning of its main character’s woes was still immensely intriguing, as Christian (Claes Bang) steps in to help a woman being chased by a man on his way to work only to find that his phone, watch, and cufflinks have been stolen when he checks his pockets.

Thoroughbreds

Early on in this great thriller, Amanda (Olivia Cooke) trains Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) on “the technique,” tearing up while watching a movie only to reveal that anything is possible with a little acting and giving plenty of insight into her psyche.

Walking Out

Things turn bad very quickly for David (Josh Wiggins) and Cal (Matt Bomer) at the top of a mountain with snow falling fast when David’s hand is bitten by a bear and the gun goes off, setting in motion the intense journey home.

AFT Awards: Best Director

This is the twenty-third category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):
A United Kingdom, Axolotl Overkill, Baby Driver, Band Aid, Below Her Mouth, Blade Runner 2049, Blame, Brigsby Bear, Call Me By Your Name, Coco, Darkest Hour, David Brent: Life on the Road, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, Downsizing, Free and Easy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Holy Air, In the Fade, Ingrid Goes West, It Happened in L.A., Jungle, Landline, Logan, Marjorie Prime, Menashe, Mudbound, My Life as a Zucchini, Novitiate, One Percent More Humid, Permission, Princess Cyd, Rememory, Some Freaks, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Stronger, The Big Sick, The Boy Downstairs, The Disaster Artist, The Fate of the Furious, The Hero, The Last Movie Star, The Last Word, The Meyerowitz Stories, The Salesman, The Vanishing of Sidney Hall, The Wedding Plan, The Women's Balcony, The Zookeeper's Wife, Tomorrow Ever After, Wilson, Wonder, Wonderstruck

Runners-up:
Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird)
Martin Zandvliet (Land of Mine)
Maysaloun Hamoud (In Between)
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Battle of the Sexes)
Andrew J. Smith and Alex Smith (Walking Out)

The winner:
Sean Baker (The Florida Project) transformed a simple story of those living on the outskirts of success into a stunning, powerful portrait of poverty in America.

Other nominees:
Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape of Water) guided another masterful vision of a misunderstood monster to the screen with a loving and sweet touch. Cory Finley (Thoroughbreds) invigorated a dark story of two unlikely friends with humor and a sense of purpose. Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk) didn’t need outer space or time travel to tell a compelling story filled with intensity and expert pacing. Jamie M. Dagg (Sweet Virginia) helmed a gripping, suspenseful film with focus and a fierce commitment to his characters.

Movie with Abe: Beauty and the Dogs

Beauty and the Dogs
Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania
Released March 23, 2018

The #metoo movement has unearthed many stories of sexual harassment, assault, and rape that were in many cases previously reported but then ultimately ignored. This cultural moment has revealed that, for as many perpetrators of such acts as there are, there have been just as many, if not more, enablers who either refused to do anything to help or took active steps to suppress reports of what they knew or suspected to have occurred. In a country where there are decency laws that include the prohibition of sexual relations outside marriage, exposing deplorable behavior is a considerably more cumbersome and seemingly impossible battle.

Mariam (Mariam Al Ferjani) is a young Tunisian woman living in nearby dorms spending the night at a party. After she leaves with Youssef (Ghanem Zrelli), she is raped by two policemen. Missing her phone and her identification, she struggles, with Youssef’s help, to get anyone to listen to her, first going to a clinic, then the emergency room, and then the police station, where every person they encounter expresses either disinterest or immediately jumps to denial of her claims. Mariam, still traumatized by her experiences, is in shock but relentless, determined to get a report that will prove that she was raped so that she can sue the policemen who assaulted her.

This film is very relevant for the present moment, and poignant as a viewing experience in the United States for the way in which it isn’t nearly as different as it should be given its setting. Mariam is frazzled when, while her statement is being taken, she is asked how she knows Youssef, whom she has just met, because of her country’s laws. Yet pretty much everything else that happens involves a systematic denial of her grasp on the situation and, worse still, a vilifying of her behavior that might even justify, to those who talk down to her, what she has suffered. Coming from a female Tunisian director, this is a powerful story, but it’s one that should resonate everywhere.

Newcomer Al Ferjani delivers an entirely committed, lived-in performance as Mariam, so energetic and jovial at the start of the film and then so permanently scarred and unable to shake what she has been through and continues to experiences as more and more people refused to validate what she says. Those actors who portray the policemen who interrogate her so crudely deserve commendation for astonishing imitations of such horrific callousness and cruelty. This film, despite being divided into numbered sections, is a strong narrative that never seems to let up and remains entirely watchable as it delves into the ways in which people try to silence its main character, telling her story in a remarkably simple but tremendously effective manner.

B+

AFT Awards: Best Ending

This is the twenty-second category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click here to see previous years of this category. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Beware spoilers for the films pictured above.

Runner-up: The Big Sick, Ingrid Goes West

The winner:
The Wedding Plan had to end in a way that do justice to its main character and her wild journey, and it was wonderful to see a winning nod to success that was clear to those with knowledge of its religious significance and just as subtly effective for everyone else.

Other nominees:
The Florida Project wasn’t going to provide its kids or adults with a happy ending, and that made the mad-dash to a nearby destination feel all the more dreamlike, one last chance to experience unfettered bliss for these children living in their own world. Darkest Hour gave its tremendous star a fabulous opportunity for a stirring final speech, extending the influence of his towering character well past the events of the film.

AFT Awards: Best Opening

This is the twenty-second category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Click here to see previous years of this category. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.

Runner-up: The Florida Project

The winner:
Molly’s Game didn’t need to dive right into its protagonist’s time spent as a poker game runner, choosing instead to have her introduce herself with a detailed breakdown of the end of her skiing career, culminating in an intense conclusion that set this film’s events in motion.

Other nominees:
The Greatest Showman got off to an energizing musical start with its title song, amping up the excitement from the beginning with a strong song and good beat to go along with it. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 frontloaded its action-packed runtime with a humorous opening scene and then a fantastic jam session featuring Baby Groot.

AFT Awards: Best Ensemble Cast

This is the twenty-first category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):
Baby Driver, Band Aid, Blame, Brigsby Bear, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, Downsizing, Free and Easy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, It Happened in L.A., Marjorie Prime, Menashe, Mudbound, Novitiate, Permission, Princess Cyd, Stronger, Table 19, The Disaster Artist, The Fate of the Furious, The Last Movie Star, The Last Word, The Meyerowitz Stories, The Vanishing of Sidney Hall, The Wedding Plan, Their Finest, Wilson, Wonder, Wonderstruck

Runners-up:
In Between
Battle of the Sexes
Ingrid Goes West
The Florida Project
The Women's Balcony

The winner:
The Big Sick captured two people falling in love and a family in crisis in a beautiful and highly entertaining way, with each cast member supporting the rest to the utmost comedic and dramatic effect.

Other nominees:
Lady Bird
The Shape of Water
Sweet Virginia
Thoroughbreds

AFT Awards: Best Limited Performance

This is the twentieth category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category, which is sometimes split into male and female and sometimes been combined.

Honorable mentions:
Angelique Cabral (Band Aid), Brookyn Decker (Band Aid), Bruce Greenwood (The Post), Cheryl Hines (Wilson), Hannah Simone (Band Aid), Jeremy Strong (Molly's Game), John Cho (Literally, Right Before Aaron), Judy Greer (Wilson), Lea Thompson (Literally, Right Before Aaron), Luis Guzman (Literally, Right Before Aaron), Margo Martindale (Wilson), Michael Cera (Molly's Game), Nelson Franklin (Band Aid), Peter Gallagher (Literally, Right Before Aaron), Tracy Letts (The Post)

The winner:
Elisabeth Moss (The Square) enlivened a lackluster foreign film with her decidedly American journalist who quickly got very intense when things became intimate.

Other nominees:
Jonathan Tucker (Sweet Virginia) made a strong impression as a character who could easily have been the focus of a film that he didn’t end up seeing. Vella Lovell (The Big Sick) was an important part of her film as the only true romantic possibility for its protagonist out of a sea of options presented by his mother. Brian D'Arcy James (Molly's Game) had a great time playing dumb, just enjoying poker for the company despite his incredible lack of skill. Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) channeled his signature wild energy into his most focused and formidable role, the eccentric owner of said billboards.

AFT Awards: Best Breakthrough Performance

This is the seventeenth category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Valerica Cotto (The Florida Project), Rachel Crow (Deidra and Laney Rob a Train), Ashleigh Murray (Deidra and Laney Rob a Train), Christopher Rivera (The Florida Project)

The winner:
Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) was full of boundless energy as she explored her own little corner of the world and didn’t let anyone tell her what she could or couldn’t do.

Other nominees:
Ruben Niborski (Menashe) displayed emotional maturity in a very believable and compelling turn as a son who idolized his imperfect father. Jessie Pinnick (Princess Cyd) was quiet and subdued in her portrayal of a teenager exploring what her life could be in a different setting. Nadia Alexander (Blame) was mean and immensely watchable as a student determined to be the talk of the school. Bria Vinaite (The Florida Project) felt real and raw as a single mother who wasn’t going to let anyone to tell her how to parent or how to live.

AFT Awards: Best Foreign Film

This is the nineteenth category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category. For this category, I consider eligible only films that were released in their native countries within the past year.

Honorable mentions:
Glory (Bulgaria), In the Fade (Germany), The Passion of Augustine (Canada)

The winner:
The Wedding Plan (Israel) was a marvelous wedding-centered follow-up to “Fill the Void” for director Rama Burshtein that took a deeply comedic look at one woman’s unconventional search for happiness.

Other nominees:
The Women’s Balcony (Israel)
In Between (Israel)
Free and Easy (China)
Axolotl Overkill (Germany)

Oscar nominees like “The Insult” and “A Fantastic Woman” will be nominated next year in major categories since they were not released in 2018 in the United States.

AFT Awards: Best Documentary

This is the eighteenth category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):
Aida's Secrets, Armed with Faith, Desert Wounds, Destination Unknown, Elish's Notebooks, Four Sisters: The Hippocratic Oath, I Am Not Your Negro, Icarus, Island Soldier, Last Men in Aleppo, One of Us, Playing God, Quest, Red Trees, Standing Up, Strong Island, The Field, Zero Weeks

The winner:
Faces Places was a wonderful story of self-discovery, with two photographers traveling the countryside getting to know each other and helping others to see a value within themselves.

Other nominees:
Voyeur
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Trumped
A Better Man

AFT Awards: Best Animated Feature

This is the seventeenth category of the 11th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order in which I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Runner-up:
The Red Turtle

The winner:
Coco was a smart, touching look at death and how living family members can remember those who are gone with sweet characters, a lively soundtrack, and an overall positive message about relationships for children and adults alike.

Other nominees:
My Life as a Zucchini
The Breadwinner
Loving Vincent
Ferdinand