But as the emeritus film critic Roger Ebert once famously put it, “The movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” This world needs more of that these days, and at their best, we can look to the movies to speak to and show a path for our better nature. It’s been a pretty difficult year for a lot of people, progress being made through so much pain being exposed on a constant basis.

In so many words, it’s been a great year at the movies, from the ones you watched on your couch to the ones you caught in one of those perfectly loud Dolby theaters with the rumbling seats. As a kind of fever gripped the world, our pop entertainment became part of the landscape, and a new wave of directors told their stories with greater purpose. Film challenged biases, recast old franchises in striking new lights, and reached out to our troubled past in an effort to explain the tumultuous present. Fresh voices broke out while established directors achieved career highs. Newly growing distributors revived a space in the moviegoing market for odder and more challenging stories. Studio movies got weird and challenging, whether successful or not. Victims, from recent years and decades alike, came forward in a world that at once questioned them in vicious ways and upheld their absolute right to be heard.īut in a year where a number of films became lightning rods for so many shifting dialogues about art and culture and inequalities of all sorts, it was sometimes difficult (and arguably, just a shade less relevant) to focus on the fact that 2017 was an exceptional year for filmmaking. Some of the movies you used to like have become a challenge, in a way you might have hoped they wouldn’t, but now have to be. A few deeply unfortunate and untimely films were released. Power structures were challenged at a historic level. But the film industry has been the near epicenter of what many hope will be a genuine and lasting sea change within American culture.

Top best movies 2017