And our top 10 movies of 2017 are ...

1. GET OUT

Racism is horror for those who experience it on a daily basis, so here's a horror film about racism and it's the smartest use of the horror genre in ages thanks to an ingenious decision by comedian director Jordan Peele to take the hot-potato topic of race in the US and filter it through the genre conventions of the scary movie.

WATCH | The trailer

2. BLADE RUNNER 2049

Dennis Villeneuve's decision to keep true to the atmosphere and philosophical concerns of Ridley Scott's original paid off handsomely, delivering a film that provides a solid continuation of the world of the first while raising new questions.

Read a more in-depth review of Blade Runner 2049.

WATCH | The trailer

3. WIND RIVER

Jeremy Renner stars as a hunter recruited into the service of the FBI in the icy badlands of Wyoming in a mostly quiet but always gripping small-town murder mystery about the relationship of the US to those who live on the margins.

Read a more in-depth review of Wind River. 

WATCH | The trailer

4. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO

Raoul Peck's excellently angry but cinematically reserved and assured look at the life and times of James Baldwin - one of the US's greatest thinkers and writers on the subject of race.

Read a more in-depth review of I Am Not Your Negro.

WATCH | The trailer

5. LOST CITY OF Z

James Gray's jungle explorer epic gives Charlie Hunnam a chance to shine as the grimly determined but ultimately doomed UK explorer Percy Fawcett, a man whose desire for success leads him down a treacherous path of the Amazon in search of a city of gold.

Read a more in-depth review of Lost City of Z.

WATCH | The trailer

6. DUNKIRK

The tautest, tightest, least expositional war film in recent memory provides Christopher Nolan with a chance to provide a masterclass in how to recreate a well-travelled, historical moment and make it real and urgent.

Read a more in-depth review of Dunkirk.

WATCH | The trailer

7. SILENCE

A labour of love and devotion by director Martin Scorsese, Silence, while heavy on religion and philosophical debate, is really a beautiful ode to the cinema of Akira Kurosawa. A beautiful film about the power of belief and the great lengths it has driven men to pursue in its name.

WATCH | The trailer

8. 20th CENTURY WOMAN

Annette Bening gives the performance of her career in Mike Mills' tender, offbeat but honest examination of the relationship between a mother and her son.

WATCH | The trailer

9. MOONLIGHT

Barry Jenkins sensitive, poetic and illuminating look at the life of one ordinary man just trying to get along in the shadow of Miami's glitzy towers and Latin rhythms.

WATCH | The trailer

10. THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED)

This is the only Netflix film on the list but in the future there will be many more. Noah Baumbach directs a story about the dysfunctional lives of a Jewish, New York intellectual family who have to come together after their sculptor father falls ill.

WATCH | The trailer