Honourable Mentions: Get Out, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, mother!, Alien: Covenant, All the Money in the World, Thor: Ragnarok, It, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Logan Lucky, Lady Bird, Wind River, Brigsby Bear, The Meyerowtiz Stories (New and Selected), Okja, Spider-Man: Homecoming

10. The Shape of Water

Guillermo del Toro creates a strange and beautiful monster love story. Mute Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a cleaner in an underground lab where she finds a monstrous amphibian man (Doug Jones) and enlists her misfit friends, Giles (Richard Jenkins), Zelda (Octavia Spenser), and a Russian spy (Michael Stuhlbarg), to help him escape from the sadistic agent, Stirckland (Michael Shannon).  Water has amazing production values and moments of transcendently strange beauty and horror, sweet, silent and compelling work by Hawkins and Jones and insane, villainous determination by Shannon. 

9. Colossal

An intimate character piece about shattered dreams that also involves Giant Monsters.  Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a small town drunk looking to restart her life with the help of a bar owner, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis).  She soon realizes is that every night for a few minutes she controls the movements of a Giant Lizard Monster across the sea.  Hathaway’s performance is moving and funny as someone who is learning to stand up for herself (and her monster mirror image) and when she realizes she can walk in two worlds it becomes bizarrely uplifting. 

8. Dunkirk

Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) creates a sweeping World War II film that twists the genre with his own distinct style.  The story is broken up separate times; soldiers trapped on The Mole (1 week), a family driving their boat to rescue them (1 day), and a pilot fighting the sky (1 hour).  Nolan interweaves plots like a continual 3^rd act action climax where one bit will amp up the tension in another, showing the numerous sacrifices British soldiers had to deal with an unknowable and unrelenting enemy.  With minimal dialogue and lush imagery, it’s an immersive experience.

7. I, Tonya

Margot Robbie delivers a fired performance as Tonya Harding, an Olympic figure skater who stumbled into a conspiracy of idiots.   Growing up with an abrasive mother (Allison Janney) Tonya marries an abusive jerk, Jeff (Sebastian Stan), and her “bodyguard” Shawn (Paul Water Hauser) who decides to break the knees of Tonya’s skating rival.  Directed with flair by Craig Gillespie, there are lots of darkly hilarious bits and fourth-wall breaking moments as characters are directly addressing the audience as Tonya sometimes rises above the chaos with her excellence on skates.   This is a funny, messy movie, just like Tonya herself. 

6. Baby Driver

Writer and director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Shaun of the Dead) delivers a zippy package about getaway driver Baby (Ansel Elgort) who has to go for one last ride for his overbearing boss, Doc (Kevin Spacey) so Baby can be with Debora (Lily James) but crazy crooks are getting in the way.  When the song “Bellbottoms”  kicks in leading to an insane drive by Baby, the movie signals that it’s going to be speedy, musical and crazy, but still with lots of room for cool character moments and amazing gags.  Baby Driver is propelled by music and heart. 

5. Blade Runner 2049

Director Dennis Villeneuve explores the shrinking line between machines and humanity in a mystery plot that builds on the iconic 1982 original film.  Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner who tracks down Replicants and finds evidence of a buried conspiracy from decades ago and a long lost Blade Runner, Deckard (Harrison Ford).  The film is visually amazing, with terror at moments when Replicants go crazy and heartbreak with K’s holographic girlfriend, Joi (Ana de Armas). With cool sci-fi scenes and multiple plot twists this is a dark movie but small glimmers of hope about where humanity is going. 

4. T2: Trainspotting

An anti-sequel where the four screw-ups from the 90s are still, surprisingly, alive.   The actors inhabit their roles again perfectly, Renton (Ewan McGregor) and Simon (Johnny Lee Miller) have a love/hate relationship, Spud (Ewen Bremner) is trying to kick smack and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) has busted out of prison.  Director Danny Boyle stages it with frenzy like scene where Renton and Simon try to win over a bar in a singalong is fantastically hilarious.  They’ve chosen life but are befuddled by what life has chosen for them. 

3. The Disaster Artist

Based on a true story, Tommy Wiseau (James Franco who also directed) wants to make a movie for his best friend, Greg (Dave Franco) but neither have any discernible talent.  Their movie, The Room,is an incomprehensible mess of disjointed dialogue and nonsense as Tommy gets crazier every day.  Disaster Artist is hilarious as James Franco’s performance is a piece of mad comedic genius as Seth Rogen plays the script supervisor who comments on the continual insanity.  It comes together in final sequence that is emotional and brilliant. 

2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Taking off from the end of Force Awakens, this follows the Resistance desperate flight from the First Order and Rey (Daisy Ridley) meeting legendary Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) who wants nothing to do with saving the galaxy.   Hamill puts in an astounding performance as Skywalker, weighed down by years of strife, and his final scenes in the movie are fantastic as Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) grows to ultimate antagonist.  There’s spectacle, heart, shocks, space battles, revelations, emotional catharsis and Wookiees.  As Luke says “This is not going to go the way you think” and Last Jedi often proceeds to do just that. 

1. Logan

The superhero genre is changed into a dusty Western dripping with pathos.   Hugh Jackman puts in his final, and best performance, as the aged mutant Logan having to look after the mentally ill, and mentally powerful, Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), when they run into a new mutant Laura (Dafne Keen) who could change everything.  While the story is small it has layers of thematic depth.   Jackman’s worn out Logan goes for one last ride even though he’s broken.  The direction by James Mangold has a sandblasted beauty as Logansupplies shocking violence, big laughs, soulful acting and cathartic payoffs.  This is a profound coda for the X-Men series and is totally unique.