As we head off to our Fourth of July holidays to celebrate what’s left of America, it’s time to take a look back at the year we’ve had so far. Somehow we’re halfway through 2017—and, despite everything, we have seen quite a few good movies and watched some great TV. Which certainly is worth celebrating. For this list, we’re only counting movies and television that were released before July 1, so while we’d love to include wonderful things like War for the Planet of the Apes or A Ghost Story, we’ll have to save that praise for later. In the meantime, these 20 projects stand out as the best 2017 has to offer, so far. We’re not ranking them 1-10 just yet. We’ll save that for December.
MOVIES
Get Out
Writer-director Jordan Peele’s first feature is a stylish, trenchant horror film. It’s also grimly funny, though it has a real anger and sorrow lying knotted at its heart. A tale of race and racism that in no way attempts to placate or soothe, Get Out has an electrifying boldness to it, the immediate and tingling thrill of seeing something expressed on screen that is so rarely allowed to be.
Logan
A superhero movie with a fatalist-humanist bent, small and intimate in scale, James Mangold’s sad, crunching finish to the Wolverine saga has brutal, flinty flair. Hugh Jackman tears into this tough material with grizzled intensity, reminding us that not all superheroes have to be slick and quippy. (Though he does say some funny things.) Logan also does what so few superhero spectaculars, with their turgid mega-battles, manage to do: remind us of the actual life-and-death stakes of all this blockbuster violence.
Personal Shopper
Olivier Assayas’s bewitching (beghosting?) film is hard to classify as any one thing. It’s a grief drama, a paranoid techno-horror, a metaphysical inquiry into the supernatural, a tour of the banalities of the fashion world. In jumbling its tropes and styles, Personal Shopper captures something both mysterious and piercingly relatable. Assayas and his wise and marvelous star Kristen Stewart say something chilling, comforting, hopeful, and mysterious about what it is to be alive in the world—and, just maybe, what it is to not be.
Life
At the beginning of this year, if you’d told me that between Daniel Espinosa’s Lifeand Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, Espinosa’s film would be the superior extraterrestrial thriller, I’d have called you crazy. But, here we are. While Covenantis an eye-rolling slog, Life has surprising smarts and visual invention. The alien is squishy and terrifying, the performances—from Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson most of all—are thoughtful and engaging, and the movie rattles with a disarming, elegantly realized dread. What more could you want from a springtime B-movie?
Colossal
All we initially knew about this movie was that Anne Hathaway plays a woman who has somehow mind-melded with a monster that is attacking South Korea. Which sounded fun enough. But Nacho Vigalondo’s arch, biting film has a lot more on its mind than mere wacky sci-fi. As it crescendos to its rather stirring grand finale, Colossal becomes a pushback against the culture of toxic, entitled masculinity, a furious fantasy pitched with a stinging righteousness. It’s dark, odd entertainment, and Hathaway gives her most engaging performance in years.
Your Name
Makoto Shinkai’s achingly gorgeous animated feature was a worldwide smash last year, but it only opened in the States this spring. Thank heavens it finally did. Shinkai’s strange, poignant body-swap tale—about a city boy and a country girl who are cosmically linked somehow—is as sweet and magical as a first kiss. (A good first kiss, anyway.) Your Name is wistful and full of wonder, a dreamy tearjerker that is blissfully transporting.
The Lost City of Z
A stunner of an epic, James Gray’s film is ravishing to behold—while also deeply affecting, emotionally and intellectually. Charlie Hunnam asserts himself a true leading man (pity about King Arthur) as doomed early 20th century explorer Percy Fawcett, sturdily, persuasively holding the center of Gray’s study of obsession, ego, and the ever-present human yearning for meaning and purpose. There’s an arresting existential whisper murmuring through the jungle that Gray so richly renders, beautiful and menacing and metaphorical. Tragically overlooked in its release, The Lost City of Z is Gray’s first true masterpiece.
Beatriz at Dinner
This dreamy, gentle film does something cathartically cruel. It draws you in, lulls you with its soft tone and understated, mellow performances. And then it utterly guts you. Director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White set up a kicky social comedy—Salma Hayek plays a masseuse who squares off against a Trumpian billionaire (played by John Lithgow) when her client invites her to a dinner party. But the story they’re telling ultimately proves far more serious, far more despondent than any awkward fish-out-water tale. An almost unbearably timely movie, Beatriz at Dinner is a brilliantly acted (especially by Hayek), gorgeously shot and scored movie that, in the end, says, Yup, everything’s terrible, and then walks off tantalizingly into the night. Hopeless, but mesmerizingly so.
The Beguiled
Small and pointy as a dagger hidden in a petticoat, Sofia Coppola’s handsome, efficient Civil War-era thriller finds the filmmaker working in surprisingly compact mode. She’s also doing something more narrative than she’s ever done before, a risk that pays off. Coppola has perhaps copped-out by avoiding the topic of race in a movie about the Civil War—especially considering the women are, nominally, Confederate supporters. But as a piece of technical filmmaking—and acting from Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst—this quick, wry 90 minutes is formidable.
Okja
A heartening and galvanizing call to resistance, Bong Joon-ho’s peculiar and rollicking story of a girl and her giant pig-hippo creature is uneven. Some of its comedy is too broad and mannered. But when the movie clicks into place, dashing off on a whizzing chase scene or slowing down for a moment of quiet introspection, it’s really something. The spirited cast is led by impressive newcomer Ahn Seo-hyun, who helps ground all of Bong’s whimsical flights of fancy in a decidedly human place. Okja is an effective rallying cry for compassion, one with heart and a healthy perspective. Which is probably what a lot of us need right now.
—Richard Lawson
TV
The Leftovers
There was an enormous amount of pressure riding on HBO’s The Leftovers as it headed into its third and final season. Whether the show “stuck the landing” would serve as either a referendum on or redemption of embattled showrunner Damon Lindelof, still licking his wounds from the 2010 controversy over the end of Lost.But the melancholy, weird, and utterly absorbing third season of The Leftovers not only stuck the landing—it drew near-total adulation from critics and fans alike, a rare feat these days. The nearly perfect eight-episode season not only showcased the acting talents of its heavy-hitting cast—including Carrie Coon, Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman, and Christopher Eccleston—but also delivered a deep meditation on faith and human relationships that somehow managed not to drown in its own self-seriousness. There’s still a lot of great TV to come in 2017, but all other shows will have a high bar to clear if they want to beat The Leftovers Season 3.
Downward Dog
Alas, this oddball gem of a sitcom has already been cancelled by ABC, but it’s not too late to celebrate its gone-too-soon beauty. Starring Fargo alum Allison Tolman,Raising Hope’s Lucas Neff, and a delightfully wry talking dog, the quirky comedy never felt quite like network material. But anyone (animal lover or no) looking for a sweet story of a compelling woman torn between work, romance, and, well, the responsibilities of being a pet owner should catch up with this short season. Maybe, maybe, if Downward Dog gets enough love, ABC will rescue it from the cancellation pile. Stranger things have happened.
Master of None
If the first season of Master of None was very much the quasi-autobiographical Louie model remixed through the lens of Aziz Ansari’s experiences as an actor, foodie, and son of immigrant parents, Season 2 transcends that to become its own thing. Unconcerned with conventional parameters like episode running time, coloring consistency, or the main characters appearing for most of an episode, Ansari and his crew flexed all their experimental creative muscles to create a bold season of television that meticulously blended the bitter with the sweet. Standout elements like guest-star Angela Bassett, love interest Alessandra Mastronardi, and the sumptuous Italian countryside all help elevate Ansari’s winning star turn to a 2017 showstopper.
Big Little Lies
There was an early impulse, amongst some TV fans weened on the golden age of the white male TV anti-hero, to dismiss this star-studded HBO series as prestige Lifetime drama. But though Big Little Lies might be a show about infighting and intrigue among monied California wives and mothers played by Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz, Big Little Lies quickly put to rest the notion that this was just a show for women about women. And even if it were “just” for women, director Jean-Marc Vallée and writer/producer David E. Kelley dished up an irresistible blend of soap opera, murder mystery, and grounded, hyper-realistic drama. Vallée and Kelley did such a phenomenal job, in fact, that Big Little Lies may (improbably) return for another installment next year. Will it make a repeat appearance on the 2018 version of this list?
Twin Peaks
There was a real concern among lovers of both David Lynch and the original Twin Peaks that this 18-episode revival series from Showtime would tarnish the legacy of one of the most groundbreaking shows in TV history. After all, the Peak TV landscape is littered with the corpses of ill-conceived reboots of beloved old shows. But roughly halfway through the season, Lynch and his massive cast of both returning favorites and new faces are surprising and delighting audiences with the classic Peaks blend of weird and wonderful.
The Handmaid’s Tale
With red-robed and white-bonneted costumed protesters hitting Washington D.C. this week, it’s hard to imagine a more relevant show in the age of Trump. But politics aside (if that’s even possible these days), Bruce Miller’s powerful adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel rises above the rest of 2017’s TV offerings thanks to a riveting lead performance from Elisabeth Moss and a distinct, color-washed style from director Reed Morano, who helmed several pivotal episodes.
The Magicians
The first season of Syfy’s adaptation of the popular Lev Grossman book trilogy stumbled a little as it ambitiously tried to combine elements from all three books into a bold Harry Potter For Grown-Ups formula. But in this year’s second season, the show hits its stride, tossing off more wry jokes per minute than anything else out there, and taking a clear-eyed look at more adult themes. The fully-realized fantasy world of Fillory might provide a balm for those Game of Thrones fans currently going through major Westeros withdrawal.
Legion
When FX—home of some of the most prestigious dramas on television—announced it was getting into the comic book adaptation game, TV lovers didn’t know what to think. The network threw another wild card into the proceedings when it announced Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley would be at the helm. The curious result of this surprising combination was every bit as bizarre as you might expect, and also very much a breath of fresh air for comic book fans. The over-the-top visuals are anchored by an emotionally authentic performance by Dan Stevens—but when the action gets going in the back third, it’s Legion’s secret weapon, Aubrey Plaza, who steals the show.
Feud
Ryan Murphy’s fascination with commanding actresses of a certain age should be familiar to anyone who has watched his ratings juggernaut American Horror Story. But in Feud, Murphy deploys Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, some impeccably researched film history, and a few dramatic liberties to present a long-lens view of the sexist attitudes that pervaded the Golden Age of Hollywood—and, guess what, still do.
One Day at a Time
For all its work in bold and experimental storytelling, one of the most successful offerings from Netflix in 2017 is this very conventional, multi-camera reboot of the classic Norman Lear sitcom. (Yes! The second reboot on this list.) The story of a divorced, hard-working mom raising her kids, One Day at a Time broke ground when it originally aired in the 1970s and 80s, showing a woman making her way in the world without a man by her side. That particular angle seems almost quaint in 2017, so new showrunners Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce gave One Day at a Time a minor facelift by making the family Cuban and the divorced mother, played by Justina Machado, an injured veteran who served in Afghanistan. The show probes into modern topics including homosexuality and PTSD, but is most winning when it leans into its old-fashioned roots—with Rita Moreno, as the family’s grandmother, stealing every scene she‘s in with classic slapstick charm.
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