10. THE BIG SICK
190 LISTS | 5 TOP SPOTS Michael Showalter | 120 mins | Comedy/Drama/Romance Kumail Nanjiani |Zoe Kazan |Holly Hunter |Ray Romano
“After all of that, affirmation of the enduring idea of America as a melting pot is most welcome, especially when presented as appealingly as it is in The Big Sick, based on Kumail Nanjiani’s own experiences as a comedian and son of devout Muslim Pakistani immigrants who falls for a white woman (Zoe Kazan). It’s a romantic comedy about a fellow led by love into a no-man’s-land between two cultures. Only love can get him out.” – Gary Thompson, The Philadelphia Inquirer
9. BLADE RUNNER 2049
191 LISTS | 17 TOP SPOTS Denis Villeneuve | 164 mins | Action/Drama/Mystery Harrison Ford |Ryan Gosling |Ana de Armas |Dave Bautista
“No follow-up could match Ridley Scott‘s 1982 original for its audacity, and though it doesn’t quite capture the lingering, dreamy mystique and handcrafted feel of its predecessor, Denis Villeneuve‘s sequel is mostly a triumphant success. The Arrival helmer was the perfect choice to pick this story up after 35 years, and he respects his audience enough not to hand-hold as the dense plot satisfyingly builds upon its themes. Blade Runner 2049 is a worthy sequel to one of cinema’s mythic wildcards.
Scott’s film is probably the most visually influential film of the last half-century, and Blade Runner 2049 fittingly is one of the best-looking studio releases of the past decade at least. Cinematographer Roger Deakins will likely, finally, win his first Academy Award.” – Samuel R. Murrian, Parade
8. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
230 LISTS | 23 TOP SPOTS Martin McDonagh | 115 mins | Crime/Drama Frances McDormand |Woody Harrelson |Sam Rockwell |Caleb Landry Jones
“Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh finds his cinematic sweet spot in writing and directing this sorrowful and savagely funny look at a small-town dynamo (Frances McDormand) who rents billboards to rage at the police for not solving the rape and murder of her teen daughter. McDormand and McDonagh, a match forged in fire, catch the helplessness and fury we’re all feeling right now.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
7. PHANTOM THREAD
254 LISTS | 33 TOP SPOTS Paul Thomas Anderson | 130 mins | Drama/Romance Vicky Krieps |Daniel Day-Lewis |Lesley Manville |Julie Vollono
“Paul Thomas Anderson’s eighth feature film—and according to star Daniel Day-Lewis, the actor’s last—takes place in a world of great luxury, and it is also itself a luxury. But not a luxury product; this unashamedly gorgeous confection is a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind object like the intricately boned and impossibly draped gowns created by Day-Lewis’ character. He’s a famous couturier in 1950s London who’s a composite of several real-life figures, but very much his own man: a maddeningly exacting artist, an insoluble emotional puzzle, and much of the time, a first-class prick with no regard for anything or anyone but his work. Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville as the designer’s controlled and controlling sister, and Vicky Krieps as the young woman who becomes first his muse and then, by degrees, his slyly avenging angel, constitute an acting power trio on the order of Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson, and Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca.” – Dana Stevens, Slate
6. THE SHAPE OF WATER
273 LISTS | 47 TOP SPOTS Guillermo del Toro | 123 mins | Adventure/Drama/Fantasy Sally Hawkins |Octavia Spencer |Michael Shannon |Doug Jones
“Guillermo del Toro was unquestionably the most visible and voluble directorial presence on the fall festival circuit this season, and the beautiful film he brought with him provided a lot to talk about. A traditional fairy tale mated with a Cold War monster movie, it also features a mute heroine (played by Sally Hawkins) whose resilience and resoluteness were approached this year only by that of Frances McDormand in the almost equally fine Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This is at last another film in which del Toro’s delightfully unlimited film geekiness is matched by the finesse with which he channels his obsessions.” – Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter
5. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
334 LISTS | 46 TOP SPOTS Luca Guadagnino | 132 mins | Drama/Romance Armie Hammer |Timothée Chalamet |Michael Stuhlbarg |Amira Casar
“Haven’t we gushed about this one enough already? Luca Guadagnino’s blissfully languid, luxurious adaptation of André Aciman’s novel (the script is by James Ivory) marvelously invokes the blush and swoon of first love. And it gives cinematic shape to the intoxicating, elemental pull of adolescent lust in its perhaps most feverish bloom, vexing and thrilling and consuming in its intensity. As the film wanders through a Northern Italian summer full of good food and idle hours, Call Me by Your Name deftly illustrates the interiority of those heady teen years, when our minds raced in a thousand private directions, when we were just beginning to manage how we existed in the world—our weakness, our power—in relation to other people, especially those we desired or wished to be. As Elio, the precocious 17-year-old whose relationship with an older male grad student is the main thrust (so to speak) of the film, Timothée Chalamet near effortlessly communicates all that gangly energy, that impatience for life to somehow be clarified in all its bursting possibility. Armie Hammer makes for a disarmingly likable fantasy object, while Michael Stuhlbarg, playing bearded dad, delicately brings the house down with an 11 o’clock monologue that crystallizes the film’s melancholy assessment, its suggestion that we appreciate the bends and tears of living in the world as much as the giddy joys. Call Me by Your Name is a rare preening beauty—the film knows you want it—that is nonetheless compassionate, humane, and inviting. Oh, to be its version of young again. Or, really, for the first time.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
4. THE FLORIDA PROJECT
358 LISTS | 48 TOP SPOTS Sean Baker | 111 mins | Drama Brooklynn Prince |Bria Vinaite |Willem Dafoe |Christopher Rivera
“A granular exploration of the goings-on at a low-rent Florida motel just outside of a forbidden kingdom called Walt Disney World turns out to be offbeat, funny, and tender without the usual romanticizing of the poor as mere victims of circumstance. Written and directed by Sean Baker and starring seven-year-old Brooklynn Prince, the film is one of the most naturalistic portrayals of childhood I’ve ever seen on screen, a kind of antidote to sappy liberal clichés about the underclass’s supposed lack of agency.” – Kyle Smith, National Review
3. DUNKIRK
378 LISTS | 40 TOP SPOTS Christopher Nolan | 106 mins | Action/Drama/History Fionn Whitehead |Barry Keoghan |Mark Rylance |Tom Hardy
“Christopher Nolan dispenses with the exposition in favor of immersive aesthetics with Dunkirk, a dramatic account of the WWII evacuation of Dunkirk, France’s beaches in 1941. Fractured between three interwoven time frames and perspectives (land, sea and air), and shot almost entirely in 70mm IMAX—which stands as the ideal format in which to see this overwhelmingly experiential work—Nolan’s wartime tale cares little for character detail or contextual background. Instead, it thrusts viewers into the chaos engulfing a variety of infantrymen (including Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles), commanders (primarily, Kenneth Branagh), fighter pilots (led by Tom Hardy), and civilian boatman (notably, Mark Rylance), all of whose sacrifice, selfishness, cowardice, and heroism is thrown into sharp relief by Nolan’s grand set pieces. Through its towering scale, superb staging, and inventive structure, Dunkirk melds the micro and the macro with a formal daring that’s breathtaking, along the way underscoring the unrivaled power of experiencing a truly epic film on a big screen.” – Nick Schager, Esquire
2. LADY BIRD
447 LISTS | 52 TOP SPOTS Greta Gerwig | 94 mins | Comedy/Drama Saoirse Ronan |Laurie Metcalf |Tracy Letts |Lucas Hedges
“Lady Bird topped my list almost instantly, and only rose in my estimation on repeated viewings. For many who saw it (including me), it felt like a movie made not just for but about me. Lady Bird is a masterful, exquisite coming-of-age comedy starring the great Saoirse Ronan as Christine — or “Lady Bird,” as she’s re-christened herself — and it’s as funny, smart, and filled with yearning as its heroine. Writer-director Greta Gerwig made the film as an act of love, not just toward her hometown of Sacramento but also toward girlhood, and toward the feeling of always being on the outside of wherever real life is happening. Lady Bird is the rare movie that manages to be affectionate, entertaining, hilarious, witty, and confident. And one line from it struck me as the guiding principle of many of the year’s best films: “Don’t you think they are the same thing? Love, and attention?”” – Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
1. GET OUT
532 LISTS | 82 TOP SPOTS Jordan Peele | 104 mins | Horror/Mystery/Thriller Daniel Kaluuya |Allison Williams |Bradley Whitford |Catherine Keener
“It feels like a decade has passed since February, when Jordan Peele’s directorial debut opened in theaters and went on to become one of the year’s biggest cultural breakthroughs. Looking back on Get Out from the vantage point of December, what’s striking about it is how funny it is (sorry, Golden Globes truthers) as well as how eerie. Peele’s is a sharp, incisive film about liberal racism and supposed allies who are actually engaged in a very literal and gruesome appropriation of blackness. But it’s also a deft, meticulously made horror comedy that doesn’t waste a beat or a bit of imagery.
Even the throwaway anecdote Dean (Bradley Whitford) tells about how his father lost an Olympic slot to Jesse Owens lines up with that deeply unsettling late-night encounter Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) has with the house’s caretaker, Walter (Marcus Henderson), though we don’t know it at first. The scene in which Rose (Allison Williams) challenges the cop who’s asking for her boyfriend’s ID takes on a very different meaning by the end of the film. And that last glimpse of Rose provides a bleak but resonant parallel with the story Chris tells about his mother. The whole film comes together likes a power chord.” – Alison Willmore, BuzzFeed News
Full Top 50:
| R | TITLE | L | #1 | AR | L% | #1% | TCL | TCL1 | TCL% | TCL1% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Get Out | 532 | 82 | 4.14 | 63% | 12% | 200 | 28 | 60% | 9% |
| 2 | Lady Bird | 444 | 52 | 4.07 | 52% | 7% | 182 | 26 | 54% | 9% |
| 3 | Dunkirk | 378 | 40 | 4.23 | 45% | 6% | 128 | 14 | 38% | 5% |
| 4 | The Florida Project | 358 | 48 | 4.23 | 42% | 7% | 145 | 25 | 43% | 8% |
| 5 | Call Me By Your Name | 331 | 46 | 3.98 | 39% | 7% | 136 | 27 | 41% | 9% |
| 6 | The Shape of Water | 268 | 47 | 4.34 | 32% | 7% | 94 | 18 | 28% | 6% |
| 7 | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | 227 | 22 | 4.23 | 27% | 3% | 92 | 15 | 27% | 5% |
| 8 | Phantom Thread | 224 | 29 | 4.01 | 26% | 4% | 118 | 19 | 35% | 6% |
| 9 | Blade Runner 2049 | 191 | 17 | 4.75 | 23% | 2% | 52 | 3 | 16% | 1% |
| 10 | The Big Sick | 190 | 5 | 5.15 | 22% | 1% | 58 | 0 | 17% | 0% |
| 11 | Good Time | 185 | 14 | 5.05 | 22% | 2% | 78 | 3 | 23% | 1% |
| 12 | Baby Driver | 157 | 6 | 5.25 | 19% | 1% | 38 | 0 | 11% | 0% |
| 13 | A Ghost Story | 156 | 15 | 4.83 | 18% | 2% | 75 | 6 | 22% | 2% |
| 14 | Logan | 146 | 4 | 4.64 | 17% | 1% | 35 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 15 | Wonder Woman | 142 | 4 | 5.61 | 17% | 1% | 34 | 1 | 10% | 0% |
| 16 | The Post | 134 | 12 | 4.98 | 16% | 2% | 54 | 6 | 16% | 2% |
| 17 | Star Wars: The Last Jedi | 125 | 2 | 6.05 | 15% | 0% | 32 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 18 | I, Tonya | 121 | 2 | 5.32 | 14% | 0% | 45 | 0 | 13% | 0% |
| 19 | Personal Shopper | 124 | 12 | 4.8 | 14% | 2% | 62 | 2 | 19% | 1% |
| 20 | Mudbound | 118 | 11 | 5.45 | 14% | 2% | 59 | 6 | 18% | 2% |
| 21 | mother! | 106 | 6 | 5.55 | 13% | 1% | 48 | 3 | 14% | 1% |
| 22 | The Lost City of Z | 105 | 10 | 5.29 | 12% | 1% | 44 | 3 | 13% | 1% |
| 23 | Faces Places | 101 | 6 | 5.14 | 12% | 1% | 52 | 3 | 16% | 1% |
| 24 | Nocturama | 103 | 16 | 4.77 | 12% | 2% | 41 | 6 | 12% | 2% |
| 25 | A Quiet Passion | 100 | 7 | 4.62 | 12% | 1% | 60 | 4 | 18% | 1% |
| 26 | The Disaster Artist | 97 | 1 | 5.49 | 11% | 0% | 34 | 0 | 10% | 0% |
| 27 | Coco | 83 | 2 | 5.64 | 10% | 0% | 21 | 0 | 6% | 0% |
| 28 | War for the Planet of the Apes | 80 | 2 | 5.29 | 9% | 0% | 35 | 1 | 10% | 0% |
| 29 | The Killing of a Sacred Deer | 76 | 2 | 5.07 | 9% | 0% | 22 | 0 | 7% | 0% |
| 30 | BPM | 70 | 6 | 4.96 | 8% | 1% | 40 | 4 | 12% | 1% |
| 31 | Twin Peaks: The Return | 61 | 34 | 3.33 | 7% | 5% | 23 | 18 | 7% | 6% |
| 32 | Okja | 61 | 0 | 5.81 | 7% | 0% | 20 | 0 | 6% | 0% |
| 33 | Thor: Ragnarok | 60 | 1 | 6.39 | 7% | 0% | 10 | 0 | 3% | 0% |
| 34 | Columbus | 57 | 5 | 5.4 | 7% | 1% | 28 | 2 | 8% | 1% |
| 35 | The Square (2017) | 56 | 6 | 5.31 | 7% | 1% | 19 | 3 | 6% | 1% |
| 36 | Wind River | 56 | 2 | 6 | 7% | 0% | 21 | 1 | 6% | 0% |
| 37 | Raw | 57 | 1 | 6.07 | 7% | 0% | 28 | 0 | 8% | 0% |
| 38 | It | 54 | 1 | 5.92 | 6% | 0% | 11 | 0 | 3% | 0% |
| 39 | Ex Libris: New York Public Library | 51 | 3 | 4.07 | 6% | 0% | 28 | 1 | 8% | 0% |
| 40 | Dawson City: Frozen Time | 49 | 3 | 5.24 | 6% | 0% | 32 | 1 | 10% | 0% |
| 41 | The Meyerowitz Stories | 47 | 0 | 5.93 | 6% | 0% | 25 | 0 | 7% | 0% |
| 42 | John Wick: Chapter 2 | 46 | 1 | 6.52 | 5% | 0% | 15 | 1 | 4% | 0% |
| 43 | Detroit | 45 | 1 | 5.03 | 5% | 0% | 19 | 1 | 6% | 0% |
| 44 | Logan Lucky | 44 | 0 | 6.25 | 5% | 0% | 16 | 0 | 5% | 0% |
| 45 | Your Name | 44 | 3 | 5.33 | 5% | 0% | 15 | 1 | 4% | 0% |
| 46 | Darkest Hour | 38 | 1 | 6.16 | 4% | 0% | 15 | 1 | 4% | 0% |
| 47 | Brawl in Cell Block 99 | 37 | 1 | 5.76 | 4% | 0% | 18 | 0 | 5% | 0% |
| 48 | On the Beach at Night Alone | 36 | 4 | 4.07 | 4% | 1% | 19 | 3 | 6% | 1% |
| 49 | Spider-Man: Homecoming | 36 | 0 | 6.75 | 4% | 0% | 6 | 0 | 2% | 0% |
| 50 | Lady Macbeth | 33 | 1 | 6.17 | 4% | 0% | 17 | 1 | 5% | 0% |
| 50 | The Other Side of Hope | 33 | 1 | 5.64 | 4% | 0% | 15 | 1 | 4% | 0% |
Lists Included 848 | Top Critics’ Lists Included 335
R Rank
L Total number of lists where the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year
AR Average position on ranked top 10 lists
#1 Total number of lists where the film was selected as the best film of the year
L% Percentage of total lists where the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year
#1% Percentage of mentions where the film was selected as the best film of the year
TCL Number of times that the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year on top critics’ lists
TCL1 Number of times that the film was selected as the best film of the year on top critics’ lists
TCL% Percentage of times that the film was selected as one of the top 10 films of the year on top critics’ lists
TCL1% Percentage of lists where the film was selected as the best film of the year on top critics’ lists