House launched at Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl It’s not hard to find the link between right now and the threats that Nixon’s White In Steven Spielberg’s propulsive political thriller, Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf excel as a daughter and mother whose cage match of brawling affection hits home no matter what age you are. There’s nothing new about coming-of-age comedies, but Lady Bird gets the genre thrillingly right, thanks to screenwriter Greta Gerwig in a solo directing debut that mines her own formative years in Sacramento circa 2002. The result speaks volumes about what we choose to label “alien.” Visual master Guillermo del Toro goes back to the Cold War to probe the secret passion of a mute girl (Sally Hawkins) and a creature from the government-black-ops lagoon (Doug Jones). Here’s an ardent, ambitious, challenging experiment that restores our faith in film as an art form.ĭirector Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal take an incendiary look at the 1967 Detroit race riots still alive and toxic in the police brutality and systemic racism of today. You won’t want to.ĭavid Lowery’s supernatural tale of timeless devotion involves a woman (Rooney Mara) haunted by her dead lover (Casey Affleck). You won’t be able to get the film’s twisted secrets out of your head. But love, as Anderson sees it, is a magnificent obsession that can nurture or destroy. Will there be blood? Not in the way you might imagine. Sexual politics, then and now, echo through the film. Equally seismic to his creative process and personal life: a young muse (Vicky Krieps) who refuses to join a long line of women who jump at his command. Set in the posh world of 1950’s London fashion, the film stars a beyond-brilliant Daniel Day Lewis as a top designer whose world is rocked by a revolution in style. The last great film of 2017 comes from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, a talent whose roaring power and cinematic reach are apparently limitless.

Best movies 2017.