Top Ten Films of 2017

David Davidson

1. Acres (Rebeccah Love)

2. Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée)

3. Nirvanna The Band The Show Season 1 and 2 (Matt Johnson)

4. Scaffold (Kazik Radwanski) and Ta peau si lisse (Denis Côté)

5. Good Time (Safdie brothers), Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh), Golden Exits (Alex Ross Perry), Get Out (Jordan Peele) and Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh)

6. Zama (Lucrecia Martel), La caméra de Claire (Hong Sang-soo) and Jeannette (Bruno Dumont)

7. Good Luck (Ben Russell) and Caniba (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel)

8. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch) and PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

9. Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie) and La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (Simon Lavoie)

10. Unarmed Verses (Charles Officer), Incidental Reports (Mike Hoolboom) and In the Name of All Canadians

11. All You Can Eat Buddha (Ian Lagarde), Sundowners (Pavan Moondi), The Last River (Victoria Lean), Maison du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz), Dim the Fluorescents (Daniel Warth), Wexford Plaza (Joyce Wong), The Devout and The Cameraman (Connor Gaston) and Luk’Luk’I (Wayne Wapeemukwa)

12. Sweet Yoyo and 150-2017 (Mark Cira), La chasse (Pierce Csurgo, Mitch Greenberg), Milk (Heather Young), Cave Small Cave Big (Joële Walinga), Les deuxièmes (Claudia Hébert), Lira’s Forest (Connor Jessup), Fantassút (Federica Foglia), The Tesla World Light (Matthew Rankin), Rainfall (Efehan Elbi), It’s No Real Pleasure in Life (Nikolay Michaylov) and Walk Good (Karen Chapman)

***

Candice Beaith

1. Downsizing (Alexander Payne)

2. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

3. Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon)

4. Planet Earth II (BBC)

5. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

6. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

8. American Vandal (Tony Yacenda, Dan Perrault)

9. Keti (Ceyda Torun)

10. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

***

Rebeccah Love

- Maudie (Aisling Walsh)

- Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

- Dim the Fluorescents (Daniel Warth)

- Scaffold (Kazik Radwanski)

- The Lego Batman Movie (Chris McKay)

- Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

- My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)

- Far From the Madding Crowd (John Schlesinger, 1967)

***

Federica Foglia

- 24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami)

- The Captain (Robert Schwentke)

- Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

- The Seen and Unseen (Kamila Andini)

- 3/4 (Ilian Metev)

- 120 battements par minute (Robin Campillo)

- Human Flow (Ai Weiwei)

- Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

- On Body and Soul (Ildikó Enyedi)

- Jusqu’à la garde (Xavier Legrand)

Honorable Mentions: The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki), The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci) and La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (Simon Lavoie)

***

Samuel Adelaar

- I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

- Potamkin (Stephen Broomer)

- Beyond the One (Anna Marziano)

- Good Luck (Ben Russell)

- The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho)

- The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

- below-above (André Lehmann)

- Pierre Radisson: Fjord and Gulf (Ben Donoghue)

- Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

***

Nicholas Little

No specific order just alphabetical:

- The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

- Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

- Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

- Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

***

Megan Widawski

- The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

- Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

- A Cure for Wellness (Gore Verbinski)

- Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)

- A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

- Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts)

- Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

***

Jordan Cronk

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. Jeannette, l'enfance de Jeanne d'Arc (Bruno Dumont)

3. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

4. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

5. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

6. Good Luck (Ben Russell)

7. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sangsoo)

8. L'amant d'un jour (Philippe Garrel)

9. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

10. El mar la mar (Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki)

***

Blake Williams

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. Delphi Falls (Mary Helena Clark)

3. Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

4. Mrs. Hyde (Serge Bozon)

5. Rose Gold (Sara Cwynar)

6. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

7. Onward Lossless Follows (Michael Robinson)

8. Strangely Ordinary This Devotion (Dani Leventhal, Sheilah Wilson)

9. Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée)

10. The Wandering Soap Opera (Raúl Ruiz, Valeria Sarmiento)

11. Turtles Are Always Home (Rawane Nassif)

12. Nathan for You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder)

13. Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

14. Pumpkin Movie (Sophy Romvari)

15. 24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami)

16. Pixillation (Anne Charlotte Robertson, 1976)

17. Once There Was Brazilia (Adirley Queirós)

18. Idizwadidiz (Isiah Medina)

19. Scaffold (Kazik Radwanski)

20. R-15 (Kevin Jerome Everson)

***

Sophy Romvari

1. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

2. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

3. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

4. The Rider (Chloé Zhao)

5. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

6. Milla (Valérie Massadian)

7. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

8. Manic (Kalina Bertin)

9. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

10. Fail to Appear (Antoine Bourges)

Honourable Mentions: Princess Cyd (Stephen Cone), Maison Du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz), Western (Valeska Grisebach), PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams), Lover For a Day (Philippe Garrel). Did not see, but probably would like: Ex Libris, BPM…

***

Lola Landekic

1. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

2. Raw (Julie Ducournau)

3. Fish Story (Charlie Lyne)

4. Foxtrot (Samuel Maoz)

5. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

6. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)

7. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

8. Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)

9. The Love Witch (Anna Biller)

10. Good Time (Safdie Brothers) 

Still not over: Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

***

Sean Rogers

Three from 2016 I caught up with this year:

1. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

2. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

3. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt) 

Three from 2017:

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

3. Visages, villages (Agnès Varda, JR) 

Three from 2017 I'm looking forward to catching up with next year:

1. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

2. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

3. Un beau soleil intérieur (Claire Denis) 

The best thing I saw all year: In a Year with 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978)

***

Jesse Cumming

1. Western (Valeska Grisebach) 

2. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

3. AKA Jihadi (Eric Baudelaire)

4. Strong Island (Yance Ford)

5. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

6. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

7. 3/4 (Ilian Metev)

8. The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho)

9. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

10. Incense, Sweaters, and Ice (Martine Syms)

***

Lydia Ogwang

1. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

2. Strangely Ordinary This Devotion (Dani Leventhal, Sheilah Wilson)

3. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

4. Mañana a esta hora (Lina Rodriguez)

5. Incense, Sweaters, and Ice (Martine Syms)

6. Ouroboros (Basma Alsharif)

7. Girls Trip (Malcolm D. Lee)

8. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

9. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

10. La Libertad (Laura Huertas Millán)

***

C.J. Prince

20 worthwhile films/series/cinema/whatever-you-want-to-call-it from 2017:

- Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée)

- BPM (Robin Campillo)

- Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

- Cardinals (Grayson Moore, Aidan Shipley)

- Columbus (Kogonada)

- Dim the Fluorescents (Daniel Warth)

- A Fantastic Woman (Sebastian Lelio)

- First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- A Gentle Creature (Sergei Loznitsa)

- Good Manners (Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra)

- Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

- Life and Nothing More (Antonio Méndez Esparza)

- Manhunt (John Woo)

- Marjorie Prime (Michael Almereyda)

- Mom and Dad (Brian Taylor)

- Princess Cyd (Stephen Cone)

- PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

- The Rider (Chloé Zhao)

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

***

Efehan Elbi

- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo)

- This Is Us Season 2 (Dan Fogelman)   

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- The Endless (Justin Benson, Aaron Scott Moorhead)

- Stars’ There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light   

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Orphan Black Season 5 (John Fawcett)

- Sense8 Season 2 (Lana and Lilly Wachowski)

- Kim's Convenience (Ins Choi)

- The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)
***
Aleksey Matviyenko 
1. Disobedience (Sebastián Lelio) 
2. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) 
3. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) 
4. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) 
5. Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow) 
6. The Disaster Artist (James Franco) 
7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) 
8. Get Out (Jordan Peele) 
9. Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi) 
10. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

***

Mitch Greenberg

1. Good Time (Josh Safdie, Ben Safdie)

2. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)    

3. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo)    

4. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)    

5. The Battleship Island (Ryoo Seung-wan)     

6. The Meyerowitz Stories (Noah Baumbach)    

7. The Great Buddha+ (Huang Hsin-yao)    

8. Sundowners (Pavan Moondi)    

9. The Day After (Hong sang-soo)    

10. Bluebeard (Lee Soo-yeon) 

Favourite Shorts: Acres (Rebeccah Love), Scaffold (Kazik Radwanski), Lira’s Forest (Connor Jessup)

***

Connor Jessup

1. In This Corner of the World (Sunao Katabuchi)

2. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

3. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

4. Coco (Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina)

5. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

6. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

7. After the Storm (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

8. The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit)

9. Werewolf (Ashley McKenzie)

10. Your Name (Makoto Shinkai)

***

Matthew Stein

1. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

2. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

3. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

4. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

5. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

6. Coco (Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina)

7. Lost City of Z (James Gray)

8. The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach)

9. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

10. Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond (Chris Smith)

11. Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

12. The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho)

13. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

*This is a placeholder for Phantom Thread which I haven’t seen, but am assuming would be Number 1 if I had.

***

Lev Lewis

(Compiled without having seen Phantom Thread or The Post)

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

3. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

4. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

5. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

6. Downsizing (Alexander Payne)

7. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

8. The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach)

9. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

10. Sandy Wexler (Steven Brill)

***

Steve Gravestock

I am not a great person to ask since I tend to watch stuff that most people would consider fairly specialized but then again most critics exist on a diet of American crap. So here goes.
- What Will People Say (Iram Haq)

- La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (Simon Lavoie)

- Thelma (Joachim Trier)

- The Square (Ruben Östlund)

- Ava (Sadaf Faroughri)

- Adventures in Public School (Kyle Ridout)

- Hope (Allan Zweig)

- Unarmed Verses (Charles Officer)

- Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

- Under the Tree (Hafstein Gunnar Sigurdsson)

But I also liked Get Out, Ravens, The Other Side of Hope, thought Alias Grace was pretty major, and Adolfo Alix's Dark is the Night may be the year's most politically courageous and timely  film. Loved the last couple minutes of Peter Capaldi and Steven Mofatt's swan song Twice Upon a Time but perhaps the most beautiful piece I saw was under the Cambie Street Bridge, Nettie Wild's installation UNINTERRUPTED. The Guillermo del Toro exhibit at the AGO Inspiration is a Monster was an amazing event too. I have yet to see The Shape of Water as well and am sure I would be predisposed to like it.

***

Hugh Gibson

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch) 

2. The Vietnam War (Ken Burns, Lynn Novick) 

3. Zama (Lucretia Martel) 

4. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

5. Western (Valeska Grisebach) 

6. El Mar al Mar (Joshua Bonnetta, J.P. Sniadecki) 

7. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo) 

8. Casa Roshell (Camila Jose Donoso)

9. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)  

10. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach)

***

Simon Ennis (writer/director)

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

- The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- The Love Witch (Anna Biller)

- Lucky (John Carroll Lynch)

- Raw (Julia Ducournau)

- Riot In Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing)

- Ta peau si lisse (Denis Côté)

Also very good: Get Out, Lady Bird, Paterson, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer and Ex Libris: The New York Public Library. 

Special mention for a non-movie movie: Nathan For You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder)

***

Paul Williams

This is a shorter list than previous years as I spent a lot more time at home in 2017 working on a project, and when at home my thoughts go to old movies, but since I work for a major international film festival, I have also managed to see a few interesting new ones. Here are my thoughts about six of them.

- Cocote (Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias): Dominican slang for "the neck of an animal", Cocote's protagonist tries to avoid all the violent connotations that that phrase suggests. Christian, a gardener working in Santo Domingo returns to his family village to grieve his father's murder by the local crime boss, but the village patriarchy expect him to avenge that murder as well. A mix of surreal, film noir like imagery and ethnographic documentary realism, Cocote is an ecstatic experience that is the most emotionally overwhelming film I've seen this year. I hope it appears on lots of year-end lists.

- Western (Valeska Grisebach): A group of German labourers migrate to rural Bulgaria to construct a new water filtration project for the suspicious local inhabitants. While it contains the superficial archetypes of the classical Hollywood westerns that inspire it, Western is also a critical film of post-war European antagonisms brought to full weight by the paranoia between the workers and the local villagers fueled by their limited ability to communicate. Cinematically, the film is probably the most ambitious of the year with its well-cast troupe of non-professional actors awash in Bernhard Keller's startlingly beautiful cinematography. Look for this one on my best of the decade list in a few years.

- Golden Exits (Alex Ross Perry): What's a "best of" list without a new film from my favourite American maker of populist films, Mr. Alex Ross Perry.  Designed as a series of two-shots between pairs of characters, mostly made up of forty-somethings and thirty-somethings, discussing and describing in breathtaking detail the enormity of their dissatisfaction with everything about their lifestyles and relationships, Exits might be Perry's best film to date.  It's certainly his best since Listen Up, Phillip. For a Perry film it also has an uncharacteristically lush score that supports his growing talent as a true actor's director.

- Ta peau si lisse (Denis Côté): Côté follows six professional body-builders with their obsessive routines and particularly regimented diets. To directly quote the film, Côté mixes these observations with a life-drawing student's attention to the texture and shape of their unique bodies.  It's one of those truly unique hybrids that only Côté can make. 

- Jamie Foxx (Edgar Wright): Mr. Foxx is an actor, not a movie, I am aware, but I wanted to take a few sentences to talk about his performance as Bats in Baby Driver. I'm a fan of odd but sophisticated cinema and Baby Driver's style certainly delighted and enchanted my first few viewings in the cinema but it's also frustrating in its celebration of utterly conventional music and shallow characters. Foxx's Bats is, arguably, the only masterful part of this film that can be singled out and discussed. Foxx performs his dialogue with a rhythm that only a singer could deliver. Indeed, most of his confrontations are musical with his most memorable scene ending in a shoot-out choreographed and cut to the beat of The Champs' Tequila. Bats and the film are pure musicality but transcend the music itself. If you try listening to its soundtrack on its own, it's a pretty dull time, and in a film that's received mostly blind praise from its fans, I have to admit that the reason I admire it and have been able to watch it as many times as I have is largely because of Jamie Foxx. Otherwise, "fuck your Baby."

- The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho): I'll admit that Portugese filmmaker Pedro Pinha's latest drags a bit and probably would've been better received if it had come out ten years ago, or ten years from now. Since we all currently live within the epicentre of the demise of traditional employment terms and labour protection, The Nothing Factory can come off as a bit crass in that portrayal and the tastelessness of its genre mashups.  All that said, it's a pretty good time and worth the three hours.  

Albums: Kendrick Lamar’s Damn, Leikeli47’s Wash and Set, Children of Alice’s Children of Alice, Hercules and Love Affair’s Omnion, Alex Cameron’s Forced Witness, The Duke Spirit Neptune (maybe not 2017), Too Many Zoos’ F Note (2015, I think), Pixx’s The Age of Anxiety, Colors’ (sic) Beck and Cold Specks’ Fool's Paradise.

***

Brian Robertson

- All You Can Eat Buddha (Ian Lagarde)

- Beach Rats (Eliza Hittman)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

- Caniba (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

-Twin Peaks: The Return - Gotta Light? (David Lynch)

- Vietnam (Ken Burns, Lynn Novick)

-Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

- Wormwood (Errol Morris)

Special Mention: Brigsby Bear (Dave McCary)

***

Ian Lagarde

Il y a plein de films que j'aurais aimé voir cette année, ma liste est donc vraiment affectée, mais la voici, "in no particular order": 

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Laissez bronzer les cadavres (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)

- Good time (Safdie Brothers)

- Ta peau si lisse (Denis Côté)

- Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

- The Florida Project (Sean Parker)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

- Maudite poutine (Karl Lemieux) 

J'aurais vraiment aimé voir I, Tonya et les deux Ava, ainsi que Luk’Luk’I. Je suis convaincu qu'ils auraient fait la cut, mais je les ai manqués…

***

Denis Côté

1. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

2. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)    

3. Ex Libris: NYC Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

4. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

5. The Day After and On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong sang-soo)    

6. Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing)

7. Frost (Šarūnas Bartas)

8. A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

9. Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing)

10. Distant Constellation (Shevaun Mizrahi)

***

Nicole Brenez (Programmer at the Cinémathèque française and Cinéma du Réel, and researcher at the Femis and Université Paris 3)

No order. Everyone is Number 1.

- Des choses comme ça, Paul Grivas, France, 2017 

- The Ride, Stéphanie Gillard, France-USA, 2016 (to be released in 2018) 

- Sakhisona, Prankit Basu, India, 2017 

- A feeling greater than Love, Mary Jirmanus, Lebanon, 2017 

- This is a war, baby, Yurii Pupirin, Ukraine, 2017 

- Rubber Coated Steel, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Jordan, 2016 

- The Burden, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Sweden, 2017 

- Les Îles, Yann Gonzalez, France, 2017 

- Farpões, Baldios Marta Mateus, Portugal, 2017 

- Lecture about the impossible adaptation of Ovid by the cinema, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Femis, December 8, 2017.

***

Jean-Sébastien Chauvin

1. Twins Peaks : The Return (David Lynch)

2. La villa (Robert Guédiguian)

3. Jeannette, l’enfance de Jeanne d’Arc (Bruno Dumont)

4. Brothers of the night (Patric Chiha)

5. Un jour dans la vie de Billy Lynn (Ang Lee)

6. Split (M. Night Shyamalan)

7. Le jour d’après (Hong Sang-soo)

8. Kuso (Flying Lotus, inédit)

9. Certaines femmes (Kelly Reichardt)

10. Get Out (Jordan Peel)

***

Jean-Jacky Goldberg

Hors-Concours: Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, Mark Frost), both a film and a TV series, best thing ever. 

1. Billy Lynn (Ang Lee)

2. I love you Daddy (Louis C.K.)

3. Split (M. Night Shyamalan)

4. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

5. Les fantômes d’Ismael (Arnaud Desplechin)

6. Call me by your name (Luca Guadagnino)

7. The Post (Steven Spielberg)

8. Logan (James Mangold)

9. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

10. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

11. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

12. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

13. Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)

14. Un beau soleil intérieur (Claire Denis)

15. Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders)

***

Gaspard Nectoux

1. Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-soo)        

2. L'Amant d'un jour (Philippe Garrel)

3. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)   

4. Barbara (Mathieu Amalric)

5. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

6. Good Time (Safdie brothers)     

7. Bitter Money (Wang Bing)

8. Jeannette (Bruno Dumont)

9. Les Fantômes d'Ismaël (Arnaud Desplechin) 

10. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

***

Laurent Vachaud

I haven’t seen all the films. Here are my favorites.

- Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

- Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

- A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

- Wind River (Taylor Sheridan)

- Alien: Covenant (Ridley Scott)

- Au revoir là-haut (Albert Dupontel)

- Les gardiennes (Xavier Beauvois)

- All The Money in the World (Ridley Scott)

***

Bruno Dequen

- Braguino (Clément Cogitore)

- Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

- Meteorlar (Gürcan Keltek)

- Rat Film (Theo Anthony)

- Silence (Martin Scorsese)

- The Square (Ruben Östlund)

- Taming the Horse (Tao Gu)

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, Mark Frost)

***

Ariel Esteban Cayer

∞ Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, Mark Frost)

1. The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue (Yuya Ishii)

2. On the Beach At Night Alone / The Day After / Claire’s Camera (Hong Sang-soo)

3. Okja (Bong Joon-ho)

4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

5. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

6. Free and Easy (Geng Jun)

7. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

8. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

9. Radiance (Naomi Kawase)

10. Claire l’hiver (Sophie Bédard Marcotte) 

HM1. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

HM2. Win It All (Joe Swanberg)

HM3. Les garçons sauvages (Bertrand Mandico)

HM4. Laissez bronzer les cadavres (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)

***

Edouard Sivière

1. Félicité (Alain Gomis) 
2. Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing) 
3. L'Autre Côté de l'espoir (Aki Kaurismäki) 
4. La villa (Robert Guédiguian) 
5. L'Amant d'un jour (Philippe Garrel) 
6. Certaines Femmes (Kelly Reichardt) 
7. Grave (Julia Ducournau)
 8. Gabriel et la montagne (Fellipe Barbosa) 
9. Loving (Jeff Nichols) 
10. Rodin (Jacques Doillon)

***

Oriane Sidre

1. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

ex-aequo w/ 120 battements par minute (Robin Campillo)

3. Harmonium and Sayonara (Kôji Fukada) 

4. A Quiet Passion (Terrence Davies)

5. Silence (Martin Scorsese) 

6. L'Autre Côté de l'espoir (Aki Kaurismäki)

7. I Am Not Madame Bovary (Feng Xiaogang)

8. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)

9. Loving (Jeff Nichols)

10. Psiconautas (Pedro Rivero, Alberto Vázquez)

***

Vinz J. Orlof

1. Loving (Jeff Nichols)

2. L'Amant d'un jour (Philippe Garrel)

3. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

4. L'Autre Côté de l'espoir (Aki Kaurismäki)

5. Carré 35 (Éric Caravaca)

6. Grave (Julia Ducournau)

7. Jackie (Pablo Larraín)  

- Cinématon n°2996 (Gérard Courant)

***

Marko Orlic

1. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

2. The Square (Ruben Ostlund)

3. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

4. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

5. The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

6. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

7. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

8. BPM (Robin Campillo)

9. I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

10. The Meyerowitz Stories (Noah Baumbach)

Best Canadian Film: Sweet Yoyo (Mark Cira)

Honourable Mention: All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak)
Best Films Not Released Yet: Lean On Pete (Andrew Haigh), First Reformed (Paul Schrader) and Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

Haven't gotten around to yet: Phantom Thread, The Post, The Disaster Artist, Thelma, The Work and Lady Macbeth.

***

Mark Cira

Ok this is totally tentative. I’m sorry! But I haven’t seen Call Me By Your Name and Phantom Thread yet. 

1. The Square (Ruben Östlund)

2. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

3. I Love You, Daddy (Louis C.K.)

4. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

5. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

6. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

7. Lean On Pete (Andrew Haigh)

8. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

9. Okja (Bong Joon-ho)

10. Person To Person (Dustin Guy Defa)

***

Mike Hoolboom

- Ouroboros (Basma Alsharif)

- You Remain Dismembered (Helen Cho)

- Limpia (Julieta Maria)

- Ciudad Maya (Andrés Padilla Domene)

- Turtles Are Always Home (Rawane Nassif)

- Domus (Rhayne Vermette)

- The Thread (Bulgarelli Pietro, Polanco Pablo)

- redux/time/OUT OF JOINT (Caspar Stracke)

- This River (Erika MacPherson, Katherena Vermette)

- A Volatile Tale (Carlo Vestroni)

***

Dan Browne

10 Canadian films seen in 2017: 

- Potamkin (Stephen Broomer)

- Athyrium filix-femina (Kelly Egan)

- some cities (Francesco Gagliardi)

- Watching the Detectives (Chris Kennedy)

- Dust Cycles (Eva Kolcze)

- Final Roll-Out: The Story of Film (Lindsay McIntyre)

- In Still Time (Leslie Supnet)

- Domus (Rhayne Vermette)

- Membrana Mortis (Dead Film) (Kyle Whitehead)

- PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

Plus two digital restorations: Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World (R. Bruce Elder, 1985) and Picture of Light (Peter Mettler, 1994)

***

Stephen Broomer

- Taxidermy of Light (Greg Boa)

- Generation (Dan Browne)

- Athyrium Filix-femina (for Anna Atkins) (Kelly Egan)

- Dark Adaptation (Chris Gehman)

- Watching the Detectives (Chris Kennedy)

- Dust Cycles (Eva Kolcze)

- Elder (Daniel McIntyre)

- DOMUS (Rhayne Vermette)

- Membrana Mortis (Dead Film) (Kyle Whitehead)

- PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

***

Ryan Krahn

1. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)  

2. Western (Valeska Grisebach  

3. The Rider (Chloe Zhao)

4. Occidental (Neil Beloufa)

5. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

6. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

7. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

8. Angels Wear White (Vivian Qu)

9. 24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami)

10. Wasteland No. 1: Ardent Verdant (Jodie Mack)

***

Brandon Wall-Fudge 

1. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

2. Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

3. Maison du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz)

4. Caniba (Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor)

5. Scary Mother (Ana Urushadze)

6. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

7. Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)

8. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

 9. Person to Person (Dustin Guy Defa)

10. Claire's Camera (Hong Sang-soo) 

***

Honorata Trojanowska

1. Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

2. Maison du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz)

3. BPM (Robin Campillo)

4. Winter Brothers (Hlynur Pálmason)

5. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

6. Good Luck (Ben Russell)

7. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

8. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

9. Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing)

10. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

***

Sofia Bohdanowicz

- Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

- Rose Gold (Sara Cwynar)

- On Body and Soul (Ildikó Enyedi)

- Tonsler Park (Kevin Jerome Everson)

- Under the Tree (Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson)

- Thelma (Joachim Trier)

- I am not a Witch (Rungano Nyoni)

- Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

- Braguino (Clément Cogitore)

- Le fort des fous (Narimane Mari)

***

Ashley McKenzie

- Desert Hearts (Donna Deitch, re-release)

- Ma Loute (Bruno Dumont)

- The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

- A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

- Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves (Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie)

- Mass for shut-ins (Winston DeGiobbi)

- Maison du bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz)

- Caniba (Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor)

- Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

- Fire (Lucy Parker)

***

Deragh Campbell

1. Happy End (Michael Haneke)

2. Fail to Appear (Antoine Bourges)

3. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

5. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

6. Maison du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz)

7. Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog (Julian Radlmaier)

8. Mes Nuit Feront Echo (Sophie Goyette)

9. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

10. Prototype (Blake Williams)

11. Call me by your name (Luca Guadagnino)

Haven't seen: Nocturama, Into the Waves, Sollers Point, Thirst Street.

***

Violet Lucca

Tie for best: Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch), Phantom Thread (P.T. Anderson) and Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

Rest unranked: BPM, The Human Surge, I, Tonya, Mudbound, The Other Side of Hope, The Work and Wormwood.

***

Adam Cook

1. Twin Peaks (David Lynch)

2. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo)

3. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

4. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

5. Nathan for You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder)

6. Ex Libris (Frederick Wiseman)

7. Split (M. Night Shyamalan)

8. Milla (Valérie Massadian)

9. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

10. Fail to Appear (Antoine Bourges)

Honourable mentions (in alphabetical order): Changjiang (A Yangtze Landscape, Xu Xin), The Florida Project (Sean Baker), Girls Trip (Malcolm D. Lee), The Green Fog (Evan Johnson/Galen Johnson/Guy Maddin), Kimi no na wa (Your Name, Makoto Shinkai), Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh), Maison du bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz), Princess Cyd (Stephen Cone), PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

***

Barry Hertz

1. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

2. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

3. Werewolf (Ashley McKenzie)

4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

5. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

6. Visages, villages (Agnès Varda, JR)

7. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

8. Mudbound (Dee Rees)

9. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

10. John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski)

***

John Semley (Globe and Mail, Salon, Maclean’s)
N.B.: I am avoiding an increasingly grating tendency in list-making culture to include TV programs/episodes/events in this list: Twin Peaks: The Return, Wormwood, the somewhat overrated Nathan For You finale, the as-yet-unaired NHL Winter Classic, etc. These things are all worthy, but they are—at the risk of reducing all manner of medium-essentialist arguments—not movies.
N.B., also: I still haven’t seen Call Me By Your Name, though I intend to see it tomorrow, that is, the day after filing this.

1. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki, Finland/Germany)
2. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, U.S.A.)

3. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, U.S.A.)

4. Song to Song (Terrance Mallick, U.S.A.)

5. Caniba (Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, France)
Note: Undistributed, as of now, I think.

6. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Luc Besson, France)
Note: This may seem like some cheeky ironic pick, but I swear I watched this movie like five times in 2017; in a world where razzle-dazzle blockbuster cinema is eternally boring, Besson’s visions offer a bracing antidote, precisely because of their messiness, stupidity, etc.

7. Rat Film (Theo Anthony, U.S.A.)

8. Get Out (Jordan Peele, U.S.A.)

9. mother! (Darren Aronofsky, U.S.A.
10. Raw (Julia Ducournau, France/Belgium)

Bonus: Albert Serra’s Death Of Louis XIV. I think I put this on my list last year, and I don’t believe it got a “proper” Toronto release, in order to qualify for lists. I find these rubrics for inclusion very tedious. In any event, it is a very good movie.

***

Marko Balaban

- Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (S. S. Rajamouli)

- Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

- Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

- The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci)

- First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- Jeannette, l’enfance de Jenne d’arc (Bruno Dumont)

- I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck)

- I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

- The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

- Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd)

- The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

- Loveless (Andrei Zvyagintsev)

- The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

- Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

- Western (Valeska Grisebach)

- Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

***

Peter Kuplowsky

10 Favourites in Alphabetical Order + my 10 Midnight Films: 

- Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (S.S. Rajamouli)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Junk Head (Takahide Hori)

- The Laplace’s Demon (Giordano Giulivi)

- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

- On The Rocks (Alex Kavutskiy, Ariel Gardner)

- The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

- Person to Person (Dustin Guy Defa)

- The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

- Bodied (Joseph Kahn)

- Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

- The Crescent (Seth Smith)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- Downrange (Ryuhei Kitammura)

- Mom and Dad (Brian Taylor)

- Let The Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani

- Revenge (Coralie Fargeat)

- The Ritual (David Bruckner)

- Vampire Clay (Sôichi Umezawa)

***

Randy Jones

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch) 

- xXx: Return of Xander Cage (D. J. Caruso)

- Short Stay (Ted Fendt) 

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)  

- Good Time (Safdie brothers) 

- Bodied (Joseph Kahn ) 

- Nathan for You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder)

- Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond (Chris Smith)

- Wolf Warrior 2 (Wu Jing)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

***

Will Sloan

1. Ex Libris: New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

2. Good Time (Josh and Benny Safdie)

3. Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (S. S. Rajamouli)

4. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

5. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

6. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

7. Short Stay (Ted Fendt)

8. Risk (Laura Poitras)

9. Human Flow (Ai Weiwei)

10. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

***

Ethan Vestby

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

3. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (Steve Zahler)

4. Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie)

5. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

6. I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

7. Sandy Wexler (Steven Brill)

8. Split (M. Night Shyamalan)

9. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W.S. Anderson)

10. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

***

Peter Merriman

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. BPM (Robin Campillo)

3. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

5. Okja (Bong Joon-ho)

6. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

7. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

8. John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski)

9. Caniba (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel)

10. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) / Happy Times Will Come Soon (Alessandro Comodin)

HM: Get Out, The Little Hours, Mom and Dad and ManHunt

***

Ryan MacDuff

1. PROTOTYPE (dir. Blake Williams) 

2. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

3. Girls Trip (Malcolm D. Lee) 

4. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan) 

5. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

6. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

7. Person to Person (Dustin Guy Defa)

8. Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone (Alex Huston Fischer, Rachel Wolther)

 9. The Rider (Chloé Zhao) 

10. Dim the Fluorescents (Daniel Warth) 

11. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

12. Maison du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz)

13. Rat Film (Theo Anthony)

14. The Lost City of Z (James Gray) 

15. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)  

Best non-features: Nathan for You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder), Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée), Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch) and Scaffold (Kazik Radwanski)
***
Julian Carrington
- Brexitannia (Timothy George Kelly) 
- Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) 
- City of Ghosts (Matthew Heineman) 
- Get Out (Jordan Peele) 
- Good Time (Safdie brothers) 
- I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) 
- The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki) 
- Rat Film (Theo Anthony) 
- Strong Island (Yance Ford) 
- Unarmed Verses (Charles Officer)

***

Vadim Rizov

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

- Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadignino)

- Phantom Thread (P.T. Anderson)

- The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach)

- If Only There Were Peace (Carmine Grimaldi, Deniz Tortum)

- On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo)

- Distant Constellation (Shevaun Mizrahi)

- Golden Exits (Alex Ross Perry)

- Good Time (Safdies)

- On Generation and Corruption (Takashi Makino)

***

Marcus Pinn

- The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

- Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont)

- Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)

- Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

- Nathan for You: Finding Frances (Nathan Fielder)

- Happy End (Michael Haneke)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- Goon: Last of the Enforcers (Jay Baruchel)

Honorable mention: A Dark Song, A Quiet Passion, Beach Rats, White Face, John Wick 2.

***

Niles Schwartz

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. Phantom Thread (P.T. Anderson)

3. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

4. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

5. Wonder Wheel (Woody Allen)

6. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

7. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

8. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

9. My Happy Family (Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon Groß)

10. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

***

Evan Jerred

1. Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond (Chris Smith)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

3. The Devil’s Freedom (Everardo González)

4. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

5. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

6. Thelma (Joachim Trier)

7. Lady Dynamite Season 2 (Mitchell Hurwitz, Pam Brady)

8. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

 9. Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée)

10. La part du diable (Luc Bourdon)

***

Jade Hurlbut

1. The Shape of Water (Guillermo Del Toro)

2. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

3. Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Watiti)

4. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

5. Happy End (Michael Haneke)

6. Logan (James Mangold)

7. The Girl with All the Gifts (Colm McCarthy)

8. Birds Without Names/ Kanojo ga Sono Na wo Shiranai Toritachi (Kazuya Shiraishi)

9. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn)

***

Chandler Levack (We Forgot to Break Up)

1. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

2. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) 

3. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

4. BPM (Robin Campillo)

5. Okja (Bong Joon-ho)

6. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

7. Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

8. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

9. Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer)

10. Wexford Plaza (Joyce Wong)

Other film and entertainment I loved:

1. Finding Frances: The season finale of Nathan for You beloved by Errol Morris and yours truly is a heartbreaking examination of male vulnerability like no other!  

2. American Bitch (Girls): A masterclass in modern American television, this episode of Girls only takes place in one location with two actors (Dunham in full Hannah Horvath mode and the Americans' Matthew Rhys playing a famous author accused of sexual assault on Tumblr). Premeditating #metoo by several months, Dunham's brilliant, complex script unveils layer after layer of contradiction in both characters as they parry around consent, the male genius syndrome, and the definition of sexual assault. It's incredibly smartly directed by Richard Shepard who films it like a Hitchcock movie for girls who talk shit about Phillip Roth on Tumblr. Watch it again.  

3. Season 2 of Insecure (HBO): Season 2 of Issa Rae's brutally honest and beautifully-executed show Insecure, which offers honest examinations of the lives of black 20-somethings navigating their careers and love lives in Los Angeles, just really got me.   

4. Season 2 of Search Party (FX): Sarah Violet-Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter took their “millennial Nancy Drew” high concept one step further this year, investigating the consequences of life after you murder someone. Their ability for blistering satire but also really raw human emotion (often in the same moment or reaction shot) is matched by an amazing comedic ensemble (Alia Shawkat, John Early, Meredith Hagner, and John Reynolds) who stunned and amazed all season long. Also: it has really nice cinematography.  

5. Right Now (HAIM music video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson): A performance video in the Jonathan Demme “stop making sense” tradition, PTA is so clearly in awe of every HAIM sister and gives them all the space they need to make insane drummer faces in a single, swirling around-the-room live take. a perfect, inspiring video that seems simple but is just so hard to pull off! 

6. The Tesla World Light by Matthew Rankin (short film): I'm just so happy this person exists and that he continues to make the sort of sublime, electrifyingly-weirdo art films our country really needs. His synthesia-inducing love story between world-famous inventor Nikola Tesla and the glorious pigeon who lands at his window will give you a seizure. Reader, I loved it! 

7. Midnight Confession (short): Toronto filmmaker Max McCabe-Lokos made another short - filmed in berlin on 16mm! - that's just as seedy as any Fassbinder movie and twice as wickedly gross and funny.  

8. The Burden (short): I saw Niki Lindroth von Bahr's haunting stop-motion musical at TIFF where it made such a strong impression on me, I think it's just circling through my veins now.  

9. This meme: https://twitter.com/FreddyAmazin/status/924665126913011714

***

Zac Goldkind

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. The Work (Jairus McLeary, Gethin Aldous)

3. Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie)

4. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)

5. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

6. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

7. Song to Song (Terrance Malick)

8. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W.S. Anderson)

9. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo)

10. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

***

Pat Mullen

1. Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)

2. Step (Amanda Lipitz)

3. Kedi (Ceyda Torun)

4. Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

5. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

6. The Post (Steven Spielberg)

7. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

8. Don't Talk to Irene (Pat Mills)

9. Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

10. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

***

Kevin Laforest

1. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)  

2. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)  

3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn)   

4. Mudbound (Dee Rees)  

5. Les Affamés (Robin Aubert) 

6. Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (Michael McDonagh)  

7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) 

8. Logan (James Mangold) 

9. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)  

10. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)  

http://extrabeurre.com/post/168751724915/2017-ça-que-ctait

***

Noah Taylor

- Coco (Lee Unkrich)

- War for The Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)

- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

- Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)   

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

***

Michael Davidson

- Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

***

Adriana Floridia

1. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) 

2. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

3. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

4. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

5. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) 

6. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

7. Beach Rats (Eliza Hittman)

8. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

9. Coco (Lee Unkrich) 

10. Brad’s Status (Mike White)

***

Leora Heilbronn

1. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

2. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) 

3. Mudbound (Dee Rees)

4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

5. Phantom Thread (P.T. Anderson)

6. Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd)

7. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

8. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach) 

9. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

10. The Square (Ruben Östlund) 

***

Claudia Sicondolfo

Of the 2017 new release films I saw this year and I missed quite a bit. In no particular order, I just thought these ten were the best I saw.

- Get Out (Jordan Peele) 

- Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison)

- Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda, JR) 

- PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

- Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- Maison Du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz)

- Wajib (Annemarie Jacir)

- Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

- Bodied (Joseph Kahn) 

Honourable Mentions: Western (Valeska Grisebach), John Wick 2 (Chad Stahelski), Resurrecting Hassan (Carlo Guillermo Proto), Scaffold (Kazik Radwanski), Palmerston Blvd. (Dan Browne) and INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./it flies. falls./] (Zack Khalil, Adam Khalil)

***

Cody Lang

1. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

2. Good Time (Josh and Ben Safdie)

3. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

4. The Ornithologist (Joao Pedro Rodrigues)  

5. Okja (Bong Joon-Ho)

6. Split (M. Night Shyamalan)

7. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

8. The Meyerwitz Stories: New and Selected (Noah Baumbach)

9. Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow)

10. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

***

Rob Trench

1. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

2. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

3. Thirst Street (Nathan Silver)

4. Logan (James Mangold)

5. Columbus (Kogonada)

6. It (Andres Muschetti)

7. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

8. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

9. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

10. The Lure (Agnieszka Smoczynska)

***

Ben Harrison

1. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

2. Bodied (Joseph Kahn)

3. Caniba (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel)

4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

5. Mom and Dad (Brian Taylor)

6. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

7. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

8. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang Soo)

9. It Comes At Night (Trey Edward Shults)

10. For Ahkeem (Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest)

***

Mark Barber

1. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

2. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

3. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

4. Life (Daniel Espinosa)

5. A Cure for Wellness (Gore Verbinski)

6. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

7. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

8. Anti-porno (Sion Sono)

9. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W. S. Anderson)

10. How to Talk to  Girls at Parties (John Cameron Mitchell)

***

Shahbaz Kh

1. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

2. Happy End (Michael Haneke)

3. Kedi (Ceyda Torun)

4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

5. In the Fade (Fatih Akin)

6. Looking for Oum Kulthum (Shirin Neshat)

7. The Square (Ruben Ostlund)

8. The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci)

9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

10. On Body and Soul (Ildiko Enyedi)

Honourable mentions: Anti-porno (Sion Sono), Caniba (Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor), I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck) I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie), Manifesto (Julian Rosefeldt) and The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismaki)

***

Courtney Small

1. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

2. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Gyadagnino) 

3. I, Tonya (Craige Gillespie)

4. The Florida Project (Sean Barker) / What Will People Say (Iram Haq)

5. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

6. Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda, JR)

7. Coco (Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina)

8. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) / Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

9. The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

10. mother! (Darren Aronofsy)

***

Kurt Halfyard

1. Lucky (John Carroll Lynch)

2. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

3. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

4. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

5. Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

6. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

7. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

8. Alien: Covenant (Ridley Scott)

9. A Cure For Wellness (Gore Verbinski)

10. Wormwood (Errol Morris)

***

Adam Litovitz

- Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu)

- Patterson (Jim Jarmusch)

- I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck)

- A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- Park (Sofia Exarchou)

- Chasing Trane (John Scheinfeld)

***

Robert Reece Crothers

Okay here is my list, but it comes with the caveat that I still haven't seen so many films that likely deserve to be on it (Lady Bird, The Florida Project, Call Me By Your Name, All The Money in the World, etc, etc, etc -- but I spent a huge chunk of the year living in a cabin on Pigeon Lake).

1. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

2. Wormwood (Errol Morris)

3. T2 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle)

4. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

5. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins)

6. Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond (Chris Smith)

7. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

8. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

9. The Incredible Jessica Jones (Jim Strouse)

10. Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2016 but released 2017)

***

Nathaniel Wilson 

1. 5:29 AM (MWT)

2. They Came From The Light

3. The Polish Accountant 

4. Stare

5. Four Furious Rounds

6. Odessa, Texas

7. Green Glove: Homecoming

8. The Fucks Are At It Again!

9. My Dharma, Your Dharma

10. Nine Inch Nails: Live At The Roadhouse

***

TOFilmCritic

1. Twin.Peaks.S03E01.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

2. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

3. Twin.Peaks.S03E02.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

4. Twin.Peaks.S03E04.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

5. Twin.Peaks.S03E03.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

6. Twin.Peaks.S03E06.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

7. Twin.Peaks.S03E09.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

8. Twin.Peaks.S03E10.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

9. Twin.Peaks.S03E07.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

10. Twin.Peaks.S03E13.HDTV.torrentfreakz.x264-SVA

***

Mehdi Pilehvarian

1. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

2. Visages, Villages (Agnès Varda and JR)

3. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

4. Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)

5. Western (Valeska Grisebach)

6. Silence (Martin Scorsese)

7. Good Time (Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie)

8. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismaki)

9. The Meyerowitz Stories (Noah Baumbach)

10. Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison)

***

Matt Blais

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch) - nothing in cinema this year surpassed ep.16. and s/o to ep.8 of course.

2. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

3. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

4. Silence (Martin Scorsese)

5. All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak)

6. Sleep Has Her House (Scott Barley) + Womb (Scott Barley)

7. Columbus (kogonada)

8. Idizwadidiz (Isiah Medina) + Ending (Isiah Medina, Philip Hoffman) 

9. Call Me by Your Name (Luca G) tied w/ Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

10. Untitled Fragments (James Benning) 

Very good movies I wanna shout-out: ʔEtsu (Trevor Mack), Mass for Shut-ins (Winston DeGiobbi), Creep 2 (Patrick Brice), The Crescent (Seth A. Smith) and The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz)  

Full list: https://letterboxd.com/matthewblais/list/2017-best-to-worst/  

                                              

Best new-to-me movies seen in 2017: L’homme atlantique (Marguerite Duras, 1981), Origins of the 21st Century (Jean-luc Godard, 2000), Stemple Pass (James Benning, 2012) and Horizontal Boundaries (Pat O’Neill, 2008)

***

Isiah Medina

alphabetical

- breaking & entering (Dong, K.)

- i movie love baby plant (Dong, K.) + late embryo (Dong, K.)

- Journal (6.6.16 - 1.10.17) (Goes, I.)

- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Johnson, R.)

- 24 Frames (Kiarostami, A.)

- Death Stranding Trailer (4K) (Kojima, H.)

- Strangely Ordinary This Devotion (Restack, S.W., Restack, D.L.)

- CRISPR–Cas Encoding of a Digital Movie into the Genomes of a Population of Living Bacteria (Shipman, S. L., Nivala, J., Macklis, J. D., and Church, G. M)

- Justice League (Snyder, Z.)

- in:sent (no subject) (Tachick, D.)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, D.)

- Dragonfly Eyes (Xu, B.)

***

Kurt Walker

- Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

- La belle occasion (Isild le Besco)

- Kaatru Veliyidai (Mani Ratnam)

- Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

- Radiance (Naomi Kawase)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- Arábia (João Dumans, Affonso Uchoa)

- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W.S. Anderson)

- Barbs, Wastelands (Marta Mateus)

- Mass for Shut-Ins (Winston DeGiobbi)

- Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (David Soren)

- Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back (Tsui Hark) 

HM: Before We Vanish (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), The Art of Speech (Olivier Godin), Rose Gold (Sara Cwynar), Let the Summer Never Come Again (Alexandre Koberidze), The Night I Swam (Damien Manivel, Igarashi Kohei) 

Special Mention: Paris Can Wait (Eleanor Coppola), Strange Says the Angel (Shalimar Preuss), Les éternels (Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd), untitled (camera roll) (Douglas Dixon-Barker), The Edge of the World (Kate Saragaço-Gomes)

***

Neil Bahadur

1. 24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami, France/Iran)

2. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, USA)

3. Milla (Valerie Massadian, France)

4. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, USA/Canada) 

5. Piazza Vittorio (Abel Ferrara, Italy)

6. The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz, Philippines) 

7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (The Walt Disney Corporation, USA)

8. Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing, China)

9. Rose Gold (Sara Cywnar, USA)

10. Mindhunter (David Fincher, Andrew Douglas, et al, USA)

11. Zama (Lucretia Martel, Spain)

12. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)

13. Good Time (Josh and Benny Safdie, USA)

14. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, UK/USA)

15. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W.S. Anderson, Germany/Canada/USA)

16. Lover For A Day (Philippe Garrel, France)

17. Song to Song (Terrence Malick, USA)

18. Justice League (Warner Bros, USA)

19. PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams, Canada)

20. The Florida Project (Sean Baker, USA)

21. Girls Trip (Malcolm D. Lee, USA)

22. Princess Cyd (Stephen Cone, USA)

23. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)

24. Orders (Eric Marsh, USA)

25. The Lost City of Z (James Gray, USA)

***

Patrick Devitt

1. Rose Gold (Sara Cwynar)

2. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

3. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo)

4. Lover for a Day (Philippe Garrel)

5. Streetscapes [Dialogue] (Heinz Emigholz)

6. Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée)

7. Spiral Jetty (Ricky D’Ambrose)

8. Golden Exits (Alex Ross Perry)

9. Claire’s Camera (Hong Sang-soo)

10. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

11. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

12. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

13. She’s Gotta Have It Season 1 (Spike Lee)

14. Look and Learn (Janie Geiser)

15. Dieste [Uruguay] (Heinz Emigholz)

16. 2+2=22 [The Alphabet] (Heinz Emigholz)

17. Strangely Ordinarily This Devotion (Dani Leventhal, Sheilah Wilson)

18. Mrs. Hyde (Serge Bozon)

19. Unpresidented (Jay Giampietro)

20. Plus Ultra (Samuel M. Delgado & Helena Girón)

21. I Love You, Daddy (Louis C.K.)

22. Person to Person (Dustin Guy Defa)

23. Thirst Street (Nathan Silver)

24. Milla (Valérie Massadian)

25. Gemini (Aaron Katz)

***

Megan Moffat

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Raw (Julia Ducournau)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- The Beguiled (Sophia Coppola)

- Black Coat’s Daughter (Oz Perkins)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

- The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

- The Devil’s Candy (Sean Byrne)

- Free Fire (Ben Wheatley)

- Brawl in Cellblock 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

- It Comes At Night (Trey Edward Shults)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

- Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

- Lost City of Z (Jame Gray)

- The Square (Ruben Östlund)

- Logan (James Mangold)

- Tragedy Girls (Tyler MacIntyre)

***

Jason Wilson

1. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

2. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

3. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

4. Free Fire (Ben Wheatley)

5. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

6. The Beguiled (Sophia Coppola)

7. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

8. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

9. Mudbound (Dee Rees)

10. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

11. Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

12. Thelma (Joachim Trier)

13. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

14. It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults)

15. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

16. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

17. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismaki)

18. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)

19. Raw (Julia Ducournau)

20. The Blackcoat's Daughter (Oz Perkins)

***

Corey Pierce

1. The Shape Of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

2. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

3. Brigsby Bear (Dave McCary)

4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

5. Logan (James Mangold)

6. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)
7. Coco (Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina)

8. Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)

9. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

10. Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

***

Jason Tyrone

- Sing Street (John Carney)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- Okja (Bong Joon-ho)

- The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

- Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

- It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults)

- Free Fire (Ben Wheatley)

- Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)

***

Sean Patrick Kelly

1. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

2. I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck)

3. I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

4. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)

5. City of Ghosts (Matthew Heineman)

6. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

7.  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

8. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

9. Phantom Thread (P.T. Anderson)

10. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

***

Soufian Jalili

- A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

- Razzia (Nabil Ayouch)   

- The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach)

- The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- Blade Runner 2019 (Denis Villeneuve)

- Youth (Feng Xiaogang)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- The Hungry (Bornila Chatterjee)    

- Racer and Jailbird (Michaël R. Roskam)

***

Lars Aumueller

- Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

- Columbus (Kogonada)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

- Graduation (Cristian Mungiu)

- John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

- Thelma (Joachim Trier)

- The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

- Wind River (Taylor Sheridan)

***

Adrien Benson

1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

2. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

3. Good Time (Safdie brothers)

4. The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

5. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

6. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

7. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

8. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

9. A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lelio)

10. Columbus (Kogonada)

***

Matt Hoffman

1. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

2. The Deuce (David Simon et al)

3. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

4. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

5. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)

6. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

7. Let the Sun Shine In (Claire Denis)

8. Big Little Lies (Jean-Marc Vallée)

9. The Meyerowitz Stories (Noah Baumbach)

10. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

***

Thomas Prieto

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)

2. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang Soo)

3. Hermia and Helena (Matías Piñeiro)

4. Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (S. S. Rajamouli)

5. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)

6. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W.S. Anderson)

7. The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra)

8. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

9. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

10. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

***

Richard Lippe

- Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

- Beach Rats (Eliza Hittman)

- Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (Alexandra Dean)

- Call Me By My Name (Luca Guadagnino)

- The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

- Visages, villages (Agnès Varda, JR)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)

- The Square (Ruben Östlund)

***

Thomas Loree

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch) 

2. Samui Song (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) 

3. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

4. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)

5. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)

6. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)    

Overrated: Get Out (Peele), Dunkirk (Nolan), Lady Bird (Gerwig), The Shape of Water (Del Torro) and War for the Planet of the Apes (Reeves).

Oddest: Jeanette, the Childhood of Joan of Arc (Dumont)  

Sui generis: Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing)  

Unbearable: Okja (Bong)  

Best Performance: Kyle Maclachlan (Twin Peaks: The Return)

Worst Performance: Jake Gyllenhaal (Okja)

***

Abel Eliu

1. By The Time It Gets Dark (Anocha Suwichakornpong)

2. Kaili Blues (Gan Bi)

3. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)

4. The Human Surge (Eduardo Williams)

5. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

6. Jeanette:The Childhood of Joan Arc (Bruno Dumont)

7. Let The Sunshine In (Claire Denis)

8. The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho)

9. PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams)

10. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

***

Paolo Kagaoan

Alphabetically:

- The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve)

- Coco (Lee Unkrich)

- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- In a Heartbeat (Beth David, Esteban Bravo)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

- Logan (James Mangold)

- A Winter to Remember (Cecilia Valenzuela Gioia)

Performances, in no particular order: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project), Siddharth Djananjay (Patti Cake$), Sherwan Haji (The Other Side of Hope), Keanu Reeves (John Wick Chapter 2), Julia Vysotskaya (Paradise), Suzu Hirose (Ikari), Fawzia Mirza and Shabana Azmi (Signature Move), Song Kang-Ho (A Taxi Driver) and Gina Alajar (Dark is the Night).

***

Eric Bizzarri

- All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak)

- Wonder (Stephen Chbosky)

- Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)

- The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

- It Comes At Night (Trey Edward Shults)

- Brigsby Bear (Dave McCary)

- Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

- Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow)

- Good Time (Safdie brothers)

- Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

Honourable Mentions: The Big Sick, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Last Flag Flying and Get Out.

***
Tom Ue
- The Post (Steven Spielberg) 
- BPM (Robin Campillo) 
- God’s Own Country (Francis Lee) 
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) 
- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan) 
- Baby Driver (Edgar Wright) 
- The Lego Batman Movie (Chris McKay) 
- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve) 
- The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) 
- Werewolf (Ashley McKenzie) 
*** 
Kendall Grant (Absurdity and Serenity)
1. Foxtrot (Samuel Maoz)  
2. Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)  
3. Columbus (Kogonada)  
4. The Rider (Chloé Zhao)  
5. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)  
6. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)  
7. Marjorie Prime (Michael Almereyda) 
8. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki)  
9. A Ghost Story (David Lowery) 
 In a League of its Own: Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)  
Honourable Mentions: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson), Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig), Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino), God's Own Country (Francis Lee), BPM (Beats Per Minute) (Robin Campillo), Menashe (Joshua Z. Weinstein).  
Top Documentaries: Faces Places (Agnès Varda, JR), Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman), City of Ghosts (Matthew Heineman)
***

Clint Enns

A Few of My Favourite Short Canadian Experimental Films and Videos from the last few years (in no particular order):
Ryan Simmons – Three Minutes of Pure Rock (2017): The best film ever made about a rock. Similar to Manuela De Laborde's As Without so Within (2016), but more fun, less pretentious and, perhaps, more insightful. 

Stephanie Comilang - Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso [Come to Me, Paradise] (2016): Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso explores feelings of estranged nostalgia within the political context of poverty, forced labor, exploitation and human trafficking.  Working against a harsh and unjust economic and political reality, pockets of paradise are formed through communal gatherings that temporarily transform public space into private sanctuaries. The sea becomes an abstract space that separates Filipina workers living in Hong Kong from their homeland, while the internet provides the utopian potential of a collective consciousness, a way of bringing people together.

Check out this interview with Comilang by Alexander Iadarola for Dis Magazine:
http://dismagazine.com/discussion/82626/lumapit-sa-akin-paraiso-come-to-me-paradise/

Philip Hoffman and Isiah Medina – Ending (2017): A film masterfully shot by Philip Hoffman and skillfully edited by Isiah Medina. Hoffman's tinting and toning with flowers is digitally disrupted by the digital post-production techniques employed by Medina.  The depth of image typically found in the 16mm images produced by Hoffman is further amplified by Medina's technique of digitally treating the image itself as a 2D plane within a 3D digital space.  Analog and digital post-production techniques clash on-screen in a film that is much too sensitive to simply be reduced to a formal study on medium specificity.

Thirza Cuthand – Just Dandy (2013): Although a couple years old, I first saw this hilarious, yet scathing, film by legendary prairie filmmaker Thirza Cuthand this year at the Durham Festival of Fringe Film. The consequences are real whether the artist's love affair with the Queen really happened or not.
Pleasure Dome will be presenting a program of Cuthand's films and videos on February 24, 2018 at CineCycle.

Louise Bourque - Auto Portrait / Self Portrait Post Partum (2013): Also a few years old, this film has only recently started to be shown. The film creates a portrait of heartbreak by blending found footage, quotation, and decayed self-portraits of the artist. “What Ignites Me, Extinguishes Me” - François Miron

Christine Negus - I've been waiting to smile for a long time (2016): Filled with as much pain as Billy Corgan, this film combines simulated castration, those highly anticipated moments that just fail to deliver, and the pain every child of the 90s feels when they realize Danny Tanner moonlights as a smutty comedian.
Check out this interview I did with Negus for BlackFlash:
http://blackflash.ca/christine-negus/

Weeda Azim - Herat in my Head in my Heart (2016): Through a long distance call between Canada and Afghanistan, two realities collide in a work that juxtaposes feelings of nostalgia with the realities of war.

Stephen Broomer – Potamkin (2017): No, it's not a typo. Potamkin poetically examines the life of film critic Harry Alan Potamkin using the films that he wrote about including Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925).
Broomer has also compiled an excellent collection of poetry by Harry Alan Potamkin:

https://www.amazon.com/Embryo-All-Things-Collected-Sightlines/dp/1544813929

Dan Browne - Palmerston Blvd. (2017): Insta-archive fever, an intimate portrait of the artist's home and family through a series of photographs.

Christina Battle Tracking Sasquatch (field report #4) (2016): Battle continues her search for the elusive Sasquatch in Google Earth, an equally branded media that offers military surveillance technologies from the comfort of your own home.

Colby Richardson – Convolve (2016): Simple and elegant, a super 8 made using pages from Greg Bright's Fontana Mazes.

Scott Fitzpatrick – Ccconvolve (2017): A motorik re-mix of Richardson's Convolve created for Jesse Malmed's Asides & Besides, a showcase in which artists were asked to re-mix the works of other artists.

One final mention: Alexandre Larose - État des lieux, études, interlude et épilogue (shown with live soundtrack by thisquietarmy and Black Givre): A live performance that took place as part of Festival Ibrida*Pluri in Montreal. État des lieux, études, interlude et épilogue are a series of playful studies made in the same spirit as BROUILLARD - passage #14 (2014).  The semi-improvised soundtrack by veterans of the Montreal music scene thisquietarmy and Black Givre perfectly complimented the superimpositions LaRose uses to create lush, liquified images.