DECEMBER 23 — 2017 hasn’t been an especially mind-blowing year when it came to movies, at least not in the sense that I found myself spoilt for choice when I started to think about the list seen here.

Mainstream-wise it’s been a bit special in the superhero movie department as we were finally treated to a little bit of variety with highlights like Logan, Spider-man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok all actually belonging to different movie genres, but all with superheroes in them.

I must also admit that living in Malaysia, I haven’t managed to see most of this year’s festival highlights like the latest from Bruno Dumont, Mahamat Saleh Haroun, Sean Baker, Lucrecia Martel, Valerie Massadian, Hong Sang Soo’s two new Cannes films, and so many more that I’m not able to list them all here, but of the hundreds that I did manage to see this year, these are the ones that I love the most.

A Ghost Story

A film so dear to my heart that I’ve seen it three times already this year, without any diminishing returns in terms of emotional impact and power.

Being a film that’s wondrously wide open to interpretation, David Lowery’s meditation on memory, longing and the meaning of existence is obviously an acquired taste.

But if you’re tuned in to its very particular wavelength, it’s unreal how much leverage a guy in a sheet playing a ghost who haunts a house can get you to think about your life and the ones you love.

I cried every single time I saw this.

Aquarius

Former film critic Kleber Mendonca Filho has made only two feature films so far, this one included, but he’s now clearly earned his place alongside current day prodigies like Miguel Gomes, Lisandro Alonso and Albert Serra for making films that are formally challenging yet so very watchable and, dare I say it, intellectually entertaining.

On its surface this looks like a simple film about a middle-aged woman standing her ground against an unscrupulous property developer who wants to buy her apartment for redevelopment purposes.

But as he did so well in Neighbouring Sounds, the director has again used a seemingly simple premise to examine and illustrate the many social and political cracks that exist in Brazil, through the eyes of a privileged middle-class woman, and in the form of a casual yet menacing slow burn thriller.

Good Time

Without a doubt the most thrillingly propulsive film I’ve seen this year, and that includes action films and thrillers, my long time faves Joshua and Bennie Safdie have finally made something that resembles a Hollywood calling card, in which they’ve applied the organising principle of action films (which usually goes from one set-piece to another) to their usual tales of New York junkies, losers and lowlifes.

Starring an almost unrecognisable Robert Pattinson, Good Time is like a shockingly successful marriage of Hollywood action propulsion and the arthouse "mission” film, wherein Pattinson’s character spends the whole film trying to get his brother out of police custody, and by the end you’ll realise that the film and its title makes perfect sense — it’s a celebration of Pattinson’s last few hours as a free man, a "good time” through his eyes, and a good time for the audience too.

By The Time It Gets Dark

I’ve been enthralled with Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong’s unique and cosmic film-making style ever since I first laid eyes on her debut Mundane History, which felt a bit like her compatriot (and Palme D’Or winner) Apichatpong Weerasethakul tackling Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life.

She’s at it again with her second film, again fusing the sensibilities of Apichatpong and Malick, but with an extra layer of twists and turns courtesy of an Abbas Kiarostami-esque meta playfulness in which the boundaries between what’s real and what’s staged are continuously blurred.

A puzzle that doesn’t look like it’s constructed to be solved, but playing it is fun anyway.

On The Beach At Night Alone

Probably the most painful Hong Sang Soo film yet, one probably can’t talk about this film without mentioning the autobiographical story behind its making as well — it’s a film about an actress who’s having an affair with her much older director, and it’s made by a much older director and leading actress pair who did have an affair in real life and which became tabloid fodder back home in South Korea.

How much of this is real and pretend, we’ll never know, but to lay their souls so bare (both for the director and the actress) here and often in painfully funny situations is just something remarkable to behold.

Raw

Derided in some circles as a pretentious blend of arthouse and genre film-making, I have nothing but admiration for director Julia Ducournau’s refreshing take on the coming-of-age cannibal film.

It is thoughtful and cerebral enough but without sacrificing any of the primal pleasures that violence, blood and gore provide in films of this kind. And in succeeding to strike that balance so gracefully, Ducournau has made something quite special indeed.

Free Fire

I didn’t think anyone but Quentin Tarantino would be able to make a good new Tarantino-esque movie again, especially in 2017. But here comes UK genre whiz Ben Wheatley to prove me wrong with an absolutely delightful take on what might happen if that final shootout in Reservoir Dogs is stretched into a full-length film.

With only a very short intro located outside its main location, which is some sort of an abandoned factory, the whole film is set inside said factory with two sets of characters shooting (and verbally abusing) each other after a weapons deal gone wrong, and we spend the whole movie in their company as they try to make their way out of there alive.

This is Tarantino-esque gunfight and verbal sparring taken to almost new heights.

Brawl In Cell Block 99

Just as I thought I could only be proven wrong once this year, in comes writer-director S. Craig Zahler to deliver another jaw-dropping Tarantino-esque film that’s probably even better than Tarantino himself when it comes to mind boggling ultra-violence.

A wee bit like an ultra-violent Shot Caller, filtered through the verbal rhythms of Jackie Brown and the blackly comic violence of Pulp Fiction, Brawl In Cell Block 99 is like a sip of cold water on a swelteringly hot afternoon, even when compared to its genre brethren. It’s a violently good time at the movies.

The Villainess

It’s been a pretty damn good year for action/fight flicks with John Wick: Chapter 2 and Headshot being the clear highlights, but when it comes to out-of-this-world action set-pieces, no other movie even comes close to the crazy majesty of South Korea’s The Villainess.

A standard revenge movie plot involving highly trained assassins is given a huge jolt of life courtesy of the movie’s GoPro-for-broke aesthetics, which takes what Hardcore Henry does with its first person video game-like visual style and improves it tenfold.

In short, imagine The Raid shot a bit like Hardcore Henry. Imagine not only the choreography of the action, but also of the camera movements.

You’ll be wondering how they pulled off certain shots and scenes in the movie long after it’s over.

Brimstone

What is it with non-American film-makers making Westerns that almost always result in something unforgettable? Is it because they grew up watching the genre from the outside looking in that makes their treatment of the genre different?

Is that also why they bring more of a mythic quality to the films? Just look at The Salvation, made by Danish director Kristian Levring or The Proposition, by Aussie director John Hillcoat for recent examples.

Brimstone, by Dutch film-maker Martin Koolhoven, belongs on that list as well, as Koolhoven expertly crafts a two and a half hour tale of vengeance and simmering emotions that’s positively brutal in its condemnation of patriarchy in the Wild West.

Dakota Fanning mesmerises as the mute heroine and Guy Pearce simply oozes evil as the antagonist. It’s just a shame that this powerful little movie got lost in the shuffle and didn’t find the audience it deserved.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.