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,

A Podcast is Born

I’ve been talking about doing a movie podcast for what seems like years, probably because it has been years. We were actually on the verge of launching one, with equipment purchased and everything, when TechnologyTell closed back in the summer of 2015.

My friend Rich Heimlich and I had been talking about launching both a Philadelphia film critics group and a podcast for years, and now, happily, we’ve launched both. You can check out the first three episodes of the Film Scribes podcast- the first two of which I’m in, right here, and you can also subscribe on iTunes, and even leave us a nice review if you so choose. We record every Sunday at The Olde Bar, in the old Bookbinders on Walnut Street in Old City, and it’s usually online on Tuesdays.

On the first episode we previewed the recently completed Philadelphia Film Festival, and on the third my colleagues recapped it, and I’m happy to have spread my coverage of the fest over three different outlets

• I reviewed I, Tonya and The Florida Project at Broad Street Review.
• I reviewed three of the festival’s best films, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lady Bird, and Alaska is a Drag, at Splice Today.
• And I wrote about the award given to Bruce Willis by M. Night Shyamalan, at Philly Voice.
• On the day of the Willis event, I was happy to present a discussion of the movie Denial at Temple Sinai in Dresher, PA, as part of Hot Dog and a Movie Night (We thought about calling it “Hot Dogs and Holocaust Denial,” but…) Anyway, if you’re at a synagogue or another institution and would like to host me for such an event, get in touch with me.
• As always, you can read all of my movie reviews at my Rotten Tomatoes page.
• In addition to that, I recently took on a new part-time role as Northeast Regional Casting Reporter for Backstage.com. If you have any movie, TV or theater casting notices in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, Cleveland or Cincinnati, let me know.
• I’ve got another new gig coming up that I can’t talk about yet, but soon. I also had one book project I was working on, stalled out with it, and started working on another one. More on that later.

A few other recent writings of mine:

• I was interviewed by my friend Pete Croatto for The Writer magazine about my process for finding gigs. I talked to Pete for this a LONG time ago, but good to see it finally surface.
• At the website known as Living Life Fearless, I have written three essays: A defense of traditional movie-going, an argument for movies to cast Kyle MacLachlan, and an essay about The Meyerowitz Stories and the career of Noah Baumbach.
• I wrote an essay at Splice Today about the fraught topic of Harvey Weinstein and jokes. 
• I wrote another essay for Screen Rant about why there’s a good chance Blazing Saddles could be made today. You can read my other Screen Rant stuff here.
• At Philly Voice, I looked at Philadelphia’s ever-more-crowded roster of comic-con events.
• I wrote for the newly-renamed NBC Sports Philadelphia about Markelle Fultz, and while it’s wrong to demand that athletes “play hurt”

And finally, speaking of which: I’m thinking about launching a Patreon-supported website, in which I would write, five days a week, columns about Philadelphia sports. Would you be interested in reading about this? Donating to it? If so, let me know.

 

Year-End Movies and More

In case you missed it last week, here’s my top ten movies list for the year, which is led by “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

New recent reviews include “American Hustle,” “Saving Mr. Banks,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and a roundup of recent video/Netflix viewings.

And switching gears, here’s the year-end blog post from Noah and Jonah.

Recent Clip Roundup: Movie Reviews

You can always find my movie reviews at EntertainmentTell and on my Rotten Tomatoes page; I’m also pleased to announce that I recently became a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

Here are some recent notable movie reviews:

– “Short Term 12”

– “The Spectacular Now”

– “Drinking Buddies”

– “Jobs”

– “The Act of Killing”

– “Fruitvale Station”

– “We’re the Millers”

Affleck/Batman: Everyone’s Talking About the Same Thing

Film Critic Quote of the Day

Wesley Morris on “RIPD”:

Poor Stephanie Szostak is in the Demi Moore part. She played a screenwriter’s predictable fantasy of a sexy French lover in Dinner for Schmucks, a movie that’s like having a hippopotamus sit on your face. If she’s worse off here, it’s only because the hippopotamus has a bigger ass.

Some Recent Writings

I’ve been behind on blogging due to the holidays and general busy-ness, but here are some recent bylines of mine:

My last two Philly Post columns are both about the Eagles: Why the Eagles should sign Chris Kluwe (they didn’t) and why the fight over Donovan McNabb will never end (it should.)

A lot more on EntertainmentTell: a look at the mother on How I Met Your Mother, an update to the “Skyler is a Bitch” issue, some words about the finale of The Office, and something about that awful new “Princesses” show on Bravo. I also reviewed “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Fast & Furious 6,” “The Hangover Part III” and “Hava Nagila: The Movie.”

I’m also proud to share my first piece for the Good Men Project, about why Roy Halalday didn’t need to apologize for pitching hurt.

Also, I’ll be appearing again on 1520 AM, WCHE, Wednesday at about 1:40 p.m., talking movies with my EntertainmentTell colleague Shawn Kotzen. The stream should work on that website.

And finally, here’s a video of my son Noah playing sports:

This Week’s Writings

At EntertainmentTell, I reviewed “The Great Gatsby.”

For GadgetTell, I write about a new study on airline passengers leaving their phones are.

And at Philly Post, I wrote about Al Gore being “Romney-rich.”

Tony Stark and Frank Luntz

Two new pieces of note this week: I reviewed “Iron Man 3” for EntertainmentTell, and wrote about the Frank Luntz/Penn controversy for the Philly Post.

Highlights of this Week’s Writings

I had quite a prolific week of new writings.

For the Philly Post, I wrote about the FCC’s correct decision to not pursue fines after David Ortiz cursed on the air before the first post-bombing Red Sox game.

At EntertainmentTell, a ton of stuff: My essay on the Coexist sticker flap- with an Adam Carolla angle to fit the Entertainment part of the site, is here.

I also reviewed Michael Bay’s odious new movie “Pain & Gain,” as well as the documentary “Koch,” and I interviewed the director of the latter film (not, thankfully, the former.)

In addition, I wrote about the renewal of Parenthood, a particularly funny old Facts of Life clip, and the arrival of the complete Saturday Night Live archive on Yahoo.

Thanks for reading, everyone!