The Big List 2017: Ranking Every Movie I Saw This Year

So this year I saw 240 movies, which were released in 2017 that I saw in 2017. This breaks my record from last year by a significant margin, for a few reasons: I had better access this year to both screenings and screeners, due in part to the advent of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle and the Film Scribes podcast. I’m also writing in more places this year.

Also, my friends in the film publicist world, both the local Allied reps and various national folks, went the extra mile this year, which is greatly appreciated. And I’d also liked to thank the Online Film Critics Society governing council, especially Dewey Singleton, for really coming through with delivering better access this year for OFCS members.

For the purposes of this list I’m including official, Oscar-eligible 2017 releases, as well as films I saw at film festivals that do not have a specific release date in any other year, whether 2016 or 2018 (so that omits Chappaquiddick and Thoroughbreds, which you can look for on next year’s list.) You can read the 2016 version of the list here, 2015 here,

As always, you can read all of my reviews at Rotten Tomatoes and on my Splice Today author page, and you can read my expanded Top Ten list article here, and my look at the year’s top documentaries here. You can also listen to and subscribe to the podcast, and come to our event at the Prince Theater on January 9. 

Thank you all, once again, for reading my reviews this year and listening to the podcast. Even after more than 20 years, I still can’t believe that I actually get to do this.

Without further ado..

The Big List 2017:

1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Get Out
3. The Florida Project
4. Lady Bird
5. Call Me By Your Name
6. Dawson City Frozen Time
7. Coco
8. The Post
9. The Shape of Water
10. Baby Driver
11. Princess Cyd
12. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
13. Wonderstruck
14. Marjorie Prime
15. Lucky
16. Let’s Play Two
17. Wonder Woman
18. The Disaster Artist
19. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
20. mother!
21. Mudbound
22. Icarus
23. Risk
24. Logan Lucky
25. Wormwood
26. Wind River
27. Alaska is a Drag
28. Long Strange Trip
29. The Breadwinner
30. Lady Macbeth
31. Get Me Roger Stone
32. The Work
33. Jane
34. Obit.
35. BPM (Beats Per Minute)
36. Columbus
37. Battle of the Sexes
38. The Big Sick
39. The Beguiled
40. It
41. I, Tonya
42. Spider-man: Homecoming
43. Thor: Ragnarok
44. Dunkirk
45. American Made
46. The Meyerowitz Stories: New and Selected
47. Last Flag Flying
48. A Ghost Story
49. Blade Runner 2049
50. The Lego Batman Movie
51. The Greatest Showman
52. Atomic Blonde
53. Detroit
54. The Square
55. Nocturama
56. Faces Places
57. One of Us
58. Quest
59. I Called Him Morgan
60. Colossal
61. The Little Hours
62. Five Came Back
63. A Gray State
64. Ex Libres The New York Public Library
65. Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond
66. Long Shot
67. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
68. May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers
69. All The Queen’s Horses
70. Oklahoma City
71. Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent
72. The Force
73. Darkest Hour
74. A Quiet Passion
75. Girls Trip
76. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
77. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
78. Logan
79. John Wick Chapter 2
80. Okja
81. Their Finest
82. The Hero
83. Beauty and the Beast
84. The Blackcoat’s Daughter
85. The Hitman’s Bodyguard
86. Brad’s Status
87. Dean
88. Marshall
89. Menashe
90. First They Killed My Father
91. Rough Night
92. Strong Island
93. Gilbert
94. Step
95. LA 92
96. Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
97. 11/8/16
98. Loving Vincent
99. Last Men in Aleppo
100. City of Ghosts
101. Beauty and the Dogs
102. The Wall
103. Human Flow
104. Gook
105. Brigsby Bear
106. The Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis
107. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
108. At the Drive In
109. Let It Fall: Los Angeles, 1982-1992
110. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
111. Tickling Giants
112. Thelma
113. Gifted
114. Gerald’s Game
115. Graduation
116. Personal Shopper
117. All the Money in the World
118. Victoria & Abdul
119. Brawl in Cell Block 99
120. Murder on the Orient Express
121. Ingrid Goes West
122. After the Storm
123. The Last Laugh
124. Dina
125. Gaga: Five Foot Two
126. AlphaGo
127. Cries From Syria
128. The Fate of the Furious
129. Crown Heights
130. The Problem With Apu
131. My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea
132. All These Sleepless Nights
133. The Women’s Balcony
134. The Man Who Invented Christmas
135. Megan Leavey
136. The Lost City of Z
137. It Comes at Night
138. Contemporary Color
139. Kedi
140. In the Fade
141. The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
142. California Typewriter
143. Philadelphia and the Invention of Movies
144. Disgraced
145. Whitney: Can I Be Me
146. Elian
147. Ferdinand
148. Karl Marx City
149. Alien: Covenant
150. Roman J. Israel, Esq.
151. Phantom Thread
152. Molly’s Game
153. I Love You, Daddy
154. Wait For Your Laugh
155. The Lovers
156. The Lure
157. The Incredible Jessica James
158. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
159. Beatriz at Dinner
160. Wonder Wheel
161. Mobile Homes
162. The Death of Louis XIV
163. Kong: Skull Island
164. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
165. Goon: Last of the Enforcers
166. England is Mine
167. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
168. A Bad Moms Christmas
169. A Cure For Wellness
170. Raw
171. Donald Cried
172. Land of Mine
173. Landline
174. Bright Lights: Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
175. The Final Year
176. Cars 3
177. Boss Baby
178. Justice League
179. Chasing Coral
180. The Dinner
181. Patti Cake$
182. Carrie Pilby
183. Whose Streets?
184. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
185. I Don’t Feel At Home in this World Anymore
186. Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
187. Holy Air
188. Scaffolding
189. Bloody Milk
190. Everything, Everything
191. Good Time
192. Power Rangers
193. Lemon
194. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
195. Lost in Paris
196. The Zookeeper’s Wife
197. Voyeur
198. Nobody Speak: Trials of a Free Press
199. Rebel in the Rye
200. The Human Surge
201. Beware the Slenderman
202. To the Bone
203. Person to Person
204. All Eyez on Me
205. T2: Trainspotting
206. War Machine
207. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
208. Despicable Me 3
209. The Last Word
210. The Bad Batch
211. Sister of Mine
212. The Glass Castle
213. The Great Wall
214. The Hatred
215. Wilson
216. Snatched
217. Split
218. Song to Song
219. Free Fire
220. Sweet Country
221. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
222. CHIPS
223. Pitch Perfect 3
224. Fun Mom Dinner
225. Most Beautiful Island
226. Table 19
227. The House
228. Going in Style
229. The Space Between Us
230. Goodbye, Christopher Robin
231. The Circle
232. Downsizing
233. Baywatch
234. The Mummy
235. Fifty Shades Darker
236. Bright
237. Suburbicon
238. The Dark Tower
239. The Only Living Boy in New York
240. Fist Fight

Did not see (reputedly good): Hostiles, Stronger, A Fantastic Woman, Foxtrot, Citizen Jane: Battle For the City, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Rat Film, LBJ

Did not see (reputedly bad): Transformers: The Last Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, The Emoji Movie, The Book of Henry, The Snowman, Daddy’s Home 2,

My 20 Favorite Things I Wrote in 2017

2017 was quite a year for me, as a writer. I’ve been full-time freelance for seven of the 12 months, and in that time I’ve gotten to do a lot of stuff I’ve been talking about doing for years, including starting a film critics group and podcast, and even taking steps towards putting together a book proposal. I’ve also expanding the outlets I’m writing for, with hopefully more to come in the new year. Here are some of my favorites:

1. “The Many Kinds of Baseball Families: A League of Their Own at 25” (RogerEbert.com, June 12.) Roger Ebert is a formative influence on me as a writer and I probably wouldn’t be a film critic today if not for him, so it was a thrill to finally have my work on the site that bears his name- especially while writing about a film that’s always meant a lot to me.
2. “Oldies.com: The Story Behind That Warehouse” (PhillyVoice.com, August 9.) Most people who live in the Philadelphia suburbs know the Oldies.com warehouse, but most don’t know the story behind it. So I looked into it and discovered the amazing, 60-year story that starts with a rock single from the 1960s.
3. “Big Screen Blues” (Broad Street Review, June 5.) I’ve been complaining for a long time that there isn’t a great movie theater, or enough movie screens, in Philadelphia, so I wrote it.
4. “Political Correctness is Not Killing Comedy” (Screen Rant, October 4.) Much as I hate to disagree with Mel Brooks, I once again flogged a longtime hobby horse of mine here.
5. “Bruce Prichard, Wrestling’s Brother Love, Brings Show to Philly” (PhillyVoice.com, July 24.) I got to talk to the guy who played Brother Love in WWE- and now hosts one of the world’s best podcasts- before his recent live show.
6. ‘Fist Fight is Ugly and Sinister” (Splice Today, February 17.) I wrote a lot of movie reviews this year, but this one, of the year’s worst movies, 8was probably the angriest.
7. “Is the Mystery of Ga-ga, Everyone’s Favorite Summer Camp Game, Finally Solved?” (Tablet, August 2.) A year after I looked into the summer camp sport’s beginnings, I heard from a guy who says he invented the game himself.
8. “Markelle Fultz and the Catch-22 of Playing Hurt” (NBC Sports Philadelphia, October 25.) I wrote about how insane it is to vilify athletes for not wanting to play hurt.
9. “The Final Fall of Pete Rose” (Splice Today, August 11.) I wrote about how Jim Gray was right: Pete Rose has been his own worst enemy, and continues to be.
10. “The Documentaries of 2017: When Best Laid Plans Go Beautifully Awry” (Living Life Fearless, December 6.) I looked into why most of the year’s best documentaries ended up much differently from how they were originally planned.
11. “How the NFL Anthem Controversy (Mostly) Missed Pennsylvania” (50 States of Blue, December 8.) My first big essay for the political site at which I’m now Pennsylvania correspondent.
12. “Where Do the Muppets Go From Here?” (Screen Rant, July 27.) After the firing of Steve Whitmire as Kermit, I looked at what comes next for the Muppets franchise.
13. “Johnny From Dirty Dancing Pops the Question to State Mate” (Philly Voice, May 23.) My wife and I went to see the “Dirty Dancing” stage musical for our 10th anniversary- and after show, the actor playing Johnny proposed to the actress playing Penny . She said yes, and I interviewed both of them a few days later.
14. “The Case For Casting Kyle MacLachlan” (Living Life Fearless, October 6.) I made the case why “Twin Peaks: The Return” should mean renewed stardom for its leading man.
15. “Philly Geek Awards Celebrate Nerds Far and Wide” (PhillyVoice.com, August 28.) I was happy to cover the Philly Geek Awards for the first time, as it honored everyone from hackers to doctors to political activists.
16. “Has Game of Thrones Been Foreshadowing Daenerys’ Death?” (Screen Rant, September 11.) I tried my hand at Game of Thrones speculation, in pointing out a whole bunch of random references to a single arrow striking Khaleesi.
17. “The Chappaquiddick Film Couldn’t be More Timely- So Why the Delay?” (Living Life Fearless, November 28.) I covered the Philadelphia Film Festival for four different publications, and this one dealt with a film that hasn’t been released it- so I wrote about why.
18. “Three Billboards, Lady Bird Among the Best of the Philadelphia Film Festival” (Splice Today, October 31.) I also looked at some of the best films of the festival (and the year.)
19. “SuiteWorld 2017 Highlights Part 1 and Part 2 (Andersonfrank.com, April.) At my former day job, I returned to my CES roots and covered a big tech event in Las Vegas.
20. “Lessons From the Wonder Woman Wars” (Screen Rant, June 30.) I look at the many controversies- feminist, political, Israeli- related to the release of Wonder Woman.