2017: World Premieres 2017: U.S. Releases 2017: Cannes Festival 2017: Chicago Festival 2017: Toronto Festival 2017: The Fifties Looking Back Moving Ahead Browse Films by Title / Year / Reviews Home / Blog / E-Mail The Fifties of 2017: U.S. Releases  My annual tribute to the best work in the first 50 U.S. releases I saw in a given year.  Here is a screenshot of the movies that were eligible for this feature. Your thoughts? Best Picture Atomic Blonde - Summer's most fun entertainment is also its greatest craft showcase Beatriz at Dinner - Set up for easy political point-scoring but goes deeper, and weirder Get Out - Humor, then dread, then rage, premised less on suspense than inevitable build Last Men in Aleppo - Moving, horrifying, essential record of war and of sacrifice The Lost City of Z - Old-fashioned imperial adventure given needful, artful update The Ornithologist - Hypnotically shifts from "What's happening?" to "What is this?" Raising Bertie - Round, rich, communal portrait of just the kind our country needs The Salesman - Another knotty potboiler from Farhadi, deepening on each viewing Starless Dreams - Depicts girls with zero power without reducing them to victims Best Director Margaret Byrne, Raising Bertie - Assembles her footage with insight, sensitivity James Gray, The Lost City of Z - Classical techniques, nuanced points of view David Leitch, Atomic Blonde - Master of fight scenes; nails graphic-novel idiom Mehrdad Oskovei, Starless Dreams - Uses his startling access for rich revelations Jordan Peele, Get Out - Builds terror and satire without hiding where he's going Runners Up: Rodrigues (Ornithologist), Farhadi (Salesman), Arteta (Beatriz) Best Actress Sally Hawkins, Maudie - Extraordinary shadings while avoiding typical clichés Salma Hayek, Beatriz at Dinner - Keeps us on her side without putting us at ease Melanie Lynskey, I Don't Feel at Home... - Funny and heartsore and totally game Cynthia Nixon, A Quiet Passion - Spry, smart, and ever more brilliant as she goes Kristen Stewart, Personal Shopper - Deepens her work without losing its simplicity Runners Up: Alidoosti (Salesman), Blanchett (Manifesto), Pugh (Lady), Theron (Atomic) Best Actor Ethan Hawke, Maudie - Against type, convincingly grows from cruel to doting Shahab Hosseini, The Salesman - Captures someone who acts out but also clams up Charlie Hunnam, The Lost City of Z - Reveals Percy's core while remaining aloof Makis Papadimitriou, Suntan - Shows new angles on unpretty mid-life melancholy Adrian Titieni, Graduation - Keeps multiple motives and moral impulses in play Runners Up: Nanjiani (Big Sick), Hamy (Ornithologist) Best Supporting Actress Joanna Bacon, A Quiet Passion - Makes tiny role of Emily's mother eerily indelible Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip - Uproarious, but delivers a character, not just a jester Holly Hunter, The Big Sick - Deftly negotiates liking for and distrust of Kumail Sienna Miller, The Lost City of Z - Inhabits tension of adoring and envying Percy Allison Williams, Get Out - Earns Chris's affection, and doesn't overplay the reveal Runners Up: Gabriel (Get Out), Bugnar (Graduation), Ackie (Lady), Manovici (Graduation) Best Supporting Actor Jamie Foxx, Baby Driver - Nails Wright's tone while giving it much-needed edges Farid Sajjadi Hosseini, The Salesman - Sketches a man both pathetic and pitiable Lil Rel Howery, Get Out - A moral center who refuses to project "respectability" Angus Macfadyen, The Lost City of Z - A total asshole with a haunting epiphany Ray Romano, The Big Sick - His impulses to assuage are also avoidance tactics Runners Up: Hardy (Dunkirk), Carradine (Quiet), Jarvis (Lady), Abbott (It Comes) Best Ensemble Cast Beatriz at Dinner - Everybody plays the claws-out satire but makes it feel serious The Big Sick - Nobody is a hero or a laughingstock; you recognize these people Get Out - Everyone's in on the joke and the outrage, and nobody shrinks from them Graduation - Did you know that flawless ensembles are Romania's leading export? The Salesman - Even the actors in tiny parts help deepen the script's tensions Runners Up: I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Dunkirk Best Original Screenplay Beatriz at Dinner (Mike White) - Yasmina Reza setup, but odder and timelier The Big Sick (K. Nanjiani, E. Gordon) - Life, streamlined but still weird I Don't Feel at Home... (Macon Blair) - Unique entrées into modern malaise The Ornithologist (J. P. Rodrigues) - Arbitrary events given intricate shape The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi) - So smart about people, and about Miller Runners Up: Get Out (Peele), Graduation (Mungiu) Best Adapted Screenplay Atomic Blonde (Kurt Johnstad) - Fun and punchy, albeit hardly the main event The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola) - Tailors the material to her unique concerns Frantz (François Ozon, Philippe Piazzo) - Cleverly evades our expectations Lady Macbeth (Alice Birch) - Retains operatic austerity, in swift, bold strokes The Lost City of Z (James Gray) - Adroit compression of an even wilder life Runners Up: Ghost in the Shell (Moss/Wheeler/Kruger) Best Cinematography Atomic Blonde (Jonathan Sela) - Wizard with neons; balances motion and stillness Dunkirk (Hoyte Van Hoytema) - Resourceful with huge vistas and in tight spaces A Ghost Story (Andrew Droz Palermo) - Works poetic magic in a cramped ratio The Lost City of Z (Darius Khondji) - Heroic, inventive devotion to natural sources War for the Planet of the Apes (Michael Seresin) - Elegant frames, iconic images Runners Up: Beguiled (Le Sourd) Best Film Editing Atomic Blonde (Elísabet Ronaldsdottír) - Amazing action; gets comic-book pacing The Beguiled (David Lowery) - Sinuous, varying, deceptive manipulations of time The Lost City of Z (John Axelrad, Lee Haugen) - Some cuts classical, others bold The Ornithologist (Raphaël LeFèvre) - Careful hold on complex pace and events The Salesman (Hayedeh Safiyari) - Directs our attention in unexpected ways Runners Up: Personal Shopper (Monnier), Dunkirk (Smith) Best Sound Mixing Atomic Blonde (Jonas Jansson, et al) - Enjoyably unsubtle, with delightful accents Baby Driver (Julian Slater, et al) - See: Atomic Blonde; big but entertaining Detroit (Paul N.J. Ottosson, et al) - Gives the city a potent, troubling soundscape Get Out (Trevor Gates, et al) - A pushy score; a scraping teaspoon; those silences The Lost City of Z (Robert Hein, et al) - Ambient realities, sublime internal states Runners Up: Dunkirk (King, et al), Kékszakállú (Candler, et al) Best Production Design Atomic Blonde (David Scheunemann) - Period realism heightened into pop art Ghost in the Shell (Jan Roelfs) - Almost too dense with electric, suggestive details Lady Macbeth (Jacqueline Abrahams) - A world both opulent and monastic The Lost City of Z (Jean-Vincent Puzos) - Extravagant recreation on a budget Maudie (John Hand) - Dotingly exact, with a tangible sense of time and place Runners Up: War for the Planet of the Apes (Chinlund), Slack Bay (Dupire-Clément) Best Original Score Dunkirk (Hans Zimmer) - A commanding experience even without the images Get Out (Michael Abels) - Aggressive to the point of winking pastiche; still scary The Lost City of Z (Christopher Spelman) - Holds eclectic citations together Runners Up: War for the Planet of the Apes (Giacchino) Best Documentary Feature Last Men in Aleppo - You owe it to yourself to see Syria from these men's vantage Raising Bertie - You owe it to yourself to see the U.S. from these kids' vantage Starless Dreams - You owe it to yourself to imagine these girls' unimaginable lives Runners Up: Step, Karl Marx City, American Anarchist Some Honorable Mentions Alien: Covenant - First half-hour excites and surprises, in the ship and on land American Anarchist - I have my qualms, but Powell's troubled arc stays with you Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo - Rarely has explicit sex been so creatively depicted Prevenge - Lowe has trouble carrying to term, but germ of the idea is amazing Step - The students, mentors, and families are all inspiring; so happy I "met" them