James R | On 31, Dec 2017

2017 has been a fantastic year – well, for movie lovers, anyway. With Netflix and Amazon going head-to-head at the Oscars, MUBI, Shudder and Curzon providing digital platforms for arthouse and genre titles, and filmmakers such as Bong Joon-ho given the financial and creative freedom to make art as they wish, it’s a thrilling, exciting time.

Films such as Princess Cyd, Prevenge, Okja and Mudbound, which might fail to get the attention enjoyed by such big-hitters as Dunkirk and La La Land, can now be discovered and watched by people anywhere they choose and whenever they want. The mix of storytellers at our fingertips has never been more diverse or more immediately accessible. Take a look at our best films of 2017, voted for by our team of writers, and you can find an eclectic house with room for blockbusters, documentaries, indie films, anime and international gems alike.

Cinema, some might say, is under threat from streaming services. The industry is certainly undergoing a dramatic change, but judging by the below, it’s clear that cinema, as an art-form, as entertainment (on the big or small screen), and as a machine for empathy, is thriving.

These are our top 25 movies released in the last 12 months:
 

Paterson

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“Jarmusch’s hymn to finding something you love, and loving it, is brilliant, idiosyncratic cinema.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online
 

Toni Erdmann

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“It’s rare that a subtle comedy drama holds so much international attention and acclaim (especially an almost three-hour German one). Yet, upon closer examination, Toni Erdmann is a timely, clever – and at times barbed – skewering of modern middle-class existence that balances a fine line between cold detachment and warm humanity that will speak to many.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

The Incredible Jessica James

Available on: Netflix UK

“”‘I’m tall. I’m pretty. I’m smart. Obviously, I will have many great loves in my life.’ This incredibly funny, honest indie comedy is a perfect showcase for Jessica Williams.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

The Big Sick

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“Lauded as a highlight of this year’s Sundance line-up and subsequently picked up by Amazon Studios in the second-largest deal of the festival, Kumail Nanjiani’s autobiographical film delivers on its hype with a brilliantly scripted, emotionally involving and amusing story of cross-cultural romance.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online
 

Personal Shopper

Available on: Netflix UK

“Is there anybody out there? Olivier Assayas captures the uncertainty of the digital age in a haunting drama of isolation, starring Kristen Stewart.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

American Honey

Available on: Sky Cinema / NOW

“Andrea Arnold again confirms herself as one of Britain’s most interesting directors with this epic road trip across America. Sasha Lane stars as Star, a girl who finds herself tagging along with a bunch of teen magazine sellers to escape her day-to-day life. Led by Riley Keough’s Krystal and Shia LaBeouf’s Jake, they’re a ragtag group who have no homes or money and are happy to live one door knock at a time. An intoxicating road movie that makes you fall in and out of love with the road over and over again.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

A Dark Song

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“A chamber piece of horrors, this fine two-hander manages to combine the horror genre with a dollop of social realism.” Words: Laurence Boyce
 

Prevenge

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“Without a doubt the best pregnant serial killer movie you’ve ever seen, Alice Lowe’s Prevenge is a masterpiece of maternal nightmares.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Jackie

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“Chronicling the passing of an administration from one hand into another, and the shifting of affection from one figurehead to another, this biopic of Jackie Kennedy is a dazzling dissection of surface and superficiality, a study of spin and strength that zooms in on the cracks of an iconic picture. But most of all, it’s a portrait of grief and gathering composure, a tour of a mind and nation in equal disarray.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Brawl in Cell Block 99

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“There’s something wonderful about the way that Brawl in Cell Block 99 tells you exactly what to expect – and still manages to surprise you at every turn. Starring an unrecognisable Vince Vaughn, S. Craig Zahler’s follow-up to Bone Tomahawk is brutally violent and worryingly entertaining.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Arrival

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“This isn’t a blockbuster of sudden revelations, but slow epiphanies, a tale that allows for the nuance of meaning to dawn gradually. The result is a beautifully composed genre movie that elevates the usual alien invasion cliches into something more philosophical. Arrival is science fiction at its most thoughtful, elegant and moving.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Okja

Available on: Netflix UK

“We’re gonna need a bigger Babe. Teaming up with writer and journalist Jon Ronson, Bong Joon-ho’s Okja comes on like Disney’s Pete’s Dragon crossed with abattoir horror short Blood of the Beasts, or Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation. It might have a cute creature at the centre of the action – a genetically engineered ‘super pig’, named Okja – but this is not really a traditional kids’ movie in the key of the House of Mouse. Instead, it uses corporate satire and scenes of animal slaughter to ram home the point not only that meat is murder but that our consumption of bacon, sausages, hams and trotters is doing untold damage to the environment. Okja is essentially a zanily-imagined plea to vegetarianism and a message movie in an age where message movies are largely out of fashion.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

The Handmaiden

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“Based on the 2002 Sarah Waters novel, Fingersmith, Park Chan-wook’s Palme d’Or contender, The Handmaiden, is a mystery romance by way of Anaïs Nin-like erotica. For some, the cocktail of melodrama and raunchy lesbian sex scenes will lead to accusations of kitsch and superficiality, but that is to underestimate the inner workings of the movie and overlook its overall cleverness.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

War for the Planet of the Apes

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“This thrilling, tender action flick rounds off a franchise that that is so frequently jaw-dropping you don’t even notice that your jaw has been on the floor for two hours.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

Mudbound

Available on: Netflix UK

“Period tales rarely feel so relevant as this marvellous, weighty piece of filmmaking, which offers a rallying cry for empathy.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

My Life As a Courgette

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“This delicately heartwarming study of loss, family and friendship is a tiny stop-motion masterpiece.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

I Am Not Your Negro

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“A soulful biopic and a powerful documentary, I Am Not a Negro is a tapestry of a determined struggle that hasn’t stopped, one that’s packed with vital observations for people the world over.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Manchester by the Sea

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“This masterfully prickly study of pain and grief throbs with unspoken emotions.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

La La Land

Available on: Netflix UK

“A romance about romance, Damien Chazelle’s musical captures the rush of madness, the frustration of failed auditions, the foolishness of heartbreak, and that universal constant: the distraction, inspiration and enchantment of the movies. They don’t make them like that anymore, you may well say. That, of course, is exactly what La La Land wants you to think.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Lady Macbeth

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“This suffocatingly intense period drama is one of the best films of 2017, with a jaw-dropping performance by Florence Pugh.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online
 

Your Name

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“This jaw-dropping epic of body-swapping, coming-of-age and science fiction is one of the most beautiful animations you’ve ever seen.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Princess Cyd

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“This low-key coming-of-age drama is a gorgeous, generous showcase for two contrasting, complex women.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Dunkirk

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“This raw, stripped-down war film is a harrowing elegy to British lives lost – and a powerful portrayal of despair in the face of hope.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Get Out

Available on: Pay-per-view VOD (Buy/Rent)

“A scathingly sharp horror that doesn’t need monsters to be horrifying.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Moonlight

Available on: Amazon Prime Video

“This brooding deconstruction of masculinity and profoundly universal tale of personal identity is one of the best films of the year.”

Read our full review – plus where to watch online

 

Other notable recommendations:

Click on each film’s title to read our full review and see where to watch them online.

The Lost City of Z
Raw
Christine
Hidden Figures
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Logan
Strong Island
Casting JonBenet
Good Time
78/52
Anti Matter
Aquarius
Baby Driver
Hunt For The Wilderpeople
Sun Choke
On Body and Soul
Creep 2
The Ghoul
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki

 

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