Kimberley Jones’ Top 10 Films of 2017


Phantom Thread

1) Call Me by Your Name

Just a ravishing addition to the coming-of-age/erotic awakening canon.

2) Phantom Thread

Terrible title, but Unconventional Ways to Gain the Upper Hand in Your Romance With a Megalo- maniac would never fit on the marquee.

3) Jane

Assembled from a trove of previously unseen footage, Brett Morgen's gorgeous doc about Jane Goodall is as intimate as a diary account of a heart divided.

4) The Big Sick

A big smile for this confirmation the romantic-comedy still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

5) I, Tonya

No punchline, just punches: Peel away the kicky, glib exterior and what's left is a raging picture of abuse and neglect.

6) My Happy Family

A keenly observational drama about a Georgian wife and mother finding her identity in middle age as simply a person, in her own place.

7) Mudbound

It's something of a miracle that love rises to the top in Dee Rees' heartrending epic about a hardscrabble South sick with racial hate.


Mudbound

8) Lady Bird

I wish Greta Gerwig's divine coming-of-age comedy was around when I was a teenager. I could've used the company.

9) BPM (Beats Per Minute)

This French stunner about AIDS activists in the Nineties makes a rousing sound to live life like it's always last call.

10) A Ghost Story

Alternately maddening and exhilarating, up its own ass and bouncing around the cosmos, daring to ask, and not answer, life's biggest questions.


A Ghost Story

Near Misses

The Salesman, Your Name, Get Out, The Florida Project, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore

Most Overrated

Beauty and the Beast; The Post; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Most Underrated

Band Aid, Breathe, Stronger

Wild Card

The Last Jedi wasn't a home run for me, but the thrilling showdown in Snoke's throne room had both my inner fangirl and film critic doing cartwheels.

Acting Kudos (Male)

Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name), Armie Hammer (Call Me by Your Name, Free Fire), Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me by Your Name, The Shape of Water), Jason Mitchell (Mudbound), Harry Dean Stanton (Lucky)

Acting Kudos (Female)

Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Salma Hayek (Beatriz at Dinner), Hong Chau (Downsizing), Cynthia Nixon (A Quiet Passion)

Best Director

Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), P.T. Anderson (Phantom Thread), Dee Rees (Mudbound)

Best Original Screenplay

Jordan Peele (Get Out), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories)

Best Adapted Screenplay

James Ivory (Call Me by Your Name), Dee Rees and Virgil Williams (Mudbound), Hampton Fancher and Michael Green (Blade Runner 2049)

TV series/event:

Wormwood

Worst Film

Oh, the Places You'll Go!: CHIPS and Baywatch, two not-so-hot TV shows, graduate to steaming-turd feature films.

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