Time once again for my grandly unimportant January tradition: The Top 10 Movies List.
Here are the 10 that, at the moment, seem like the ones most deserving of recognition:
10. The Big Sick — This gentle, low-key comedy-drama about a health crisis that helps save a cross-cultural relationship left me feeling better, too.
9. The Disaster Artist — James Franco gives the performance of his career so far as Tommy Wiseau in this comedy about the making of The Room. This movie seems to work even for people who have never seen Wiseau’s bad-movie classic.
8. Colossal — Anne Hathaway gives one of her best performances in Nacho Vigalondo’s brilliant expansion of the possibilities of the giant-monster picture.
7. The Lego Batman Movie — It’s more coherent than some of the superhero flicks it sends up, and it’s certainly far funnier.
6. Loving Vincent — Supposedly the first fully painted animated movie, this exploration of Van Gogh’s death is both visually ravishing and also a watchable and touching drama.
5. Trophy — Not everyone will be able to watch this graphic examination of big-game trophy hunting, but it isn’t just sensationalism; there’s a real effort to get at the psychology (and politics) underlying this horror.
4. Step — It’s almost impossible to watch this documentary about the members of the step team at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and not feel invested in their futures.
3. The Shape of Water — Just your basic amphibious-man-meets-girl story from Guillermo del Toro. Get out your hankies.
2. Get Out — Jordan Peele’s horror melodrama about race as a hijack-able commodity is dazzlingly imaginative yet traditional.
1. The Lovers — Hardly anyone seemed to pay attention to this ingenious comedy about infidelity folded back onto itself, so I think I’ll let it top my list.
On the other hand, here are 10 other movies that could have found a place the list:
Downsizing; I, Tonya; Menashe; Kong: Skull Island;
Wonder Woman; Happy Death Day; Professor
Marston and the Wonder Women; Molly’s Game;
Spider-Man: Homecoming; Lady Bird
And here are some more that didn’t seem like
complete wastes of time:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Only
the Brave; The Trip to Spain; The Post; Darkest
Hour; Churchill; The Greatest Showman; Star
Wars: The Last Jedi; Murder on the Orient Express;
Logan, Thor: Ragnarok; Dunkirk; War for the
Planet of the Apes; The Hero; The Exception; All Eyez
on Me; Stronger; It; Ferdinand; Jeremiah Tower:
The Last Magnificent; and Wilson.
