Jim Healy is Director of Programming of the UW Cinematheque and the Wisconsin Film Festival.
I don't think I saw any one movie this year that gave me as much pleasure as the new season of David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS did, but of all the individual movies I saw for the first time in 2017, these were my very favorites:
In alphabetical order:
DUNKIRK (2017, Christopher Nolan)
THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1940, Robert Florey)
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017, Sean Baker)
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2 (2017, James Gunn)
AN INN IN TOKYO (1935, Yasujiro Ozu)
LOGAN (2017, James Mangold)
L’ORO DI NAPOLI/THE GOLD OF NAPLES (1954, Vittorio De Sica)
MA VIE DE COURGETTE/MY LIFE AS A ZUCHINNI (2016, Claude Barras)
THE POST (2017, Steven Spielberg)
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017, Matt Reeves)
I also got a lot of enjoyment from these movies, presented in alphabetical order:
L’AFFAIRE MAURIZIUS (1954, Julien Duvivier)
LES AFFAMES (2017, Robin Aubert)
AFTERIMAGE (2016, Andrzej Wajda)
THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY (1965, Carol Reed)
ALIAS JIMMY VALENTINE (1915, Maurice Tourneur)
ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (2017, Ridley Scott)
APOSTASY (2017, Dan Kokotaljo)
AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (1962, Yasujiro Ozu)
BACHELOR FLAT (1962, Frank Tashlin)
BAD DAY FOR THE CUT (2017, Chris Baugh)
THE BARGAIN (1914, Thomas Ince)
BEAST (2017, Michael Pearce)
BEATRIZ AT DINNER (2017, Miguel Arteta)
UN BEAU SOLEIL INTERIEUR (2017, Claire Denis)
THE BOOGENS (1981. James L. Conway)
IL BOOM (1963, Vittorio De Sica)
BRAD'S STATUS (2017, Mike White)
THE BRAT (1931, John Ford)
THE BULLET TRAIN (1975, Junya Sato)
BY SIDNEY LUMET (2015, Nancy Buirski)
THE CARIBOO TRAIL (1950, Edwin L. Marin)
CASTING (2017, Nicolas Wackerbarth)
CATCH THE WIND (2017, Gael Morel)
CÉSAR (1936, Marcel Pagnol)
COCK OF THE AIR (1934, Tom Livingston)
COCO (2017, Lee Unkrich)
COLUMBUS (2017, Kogonada)
CRAIG’S WIFE (1936, Dorothy Arzner)
D.O.A. (1949, Rudolph Maté)
DAMSEL IN DISTRESS (1937, George Stevens)
DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (2016, Bill Morrison)
DEALING: OR THE BERKELEY-TO-BOSTON FORTY-BRICK LOST-BAG BLUES (1972, Paul Williams)
THE DEATH OF STALIN (2017, Armando Iannucci)
DESPERATE LIVING (1977, John Waters)
DIRIGIBLE (1931, Frank Capra)
THE DONOR (2016, Zang Qiwu)
DON’T FORGET ME (2017, Ram Nehari)
DOWNSIZING (2017, Alexander Payne)
ECSTASY (1933, Gustav Machaty)
THE END OF SUMMER (1961, Yasujiro Ozu)
UNA ESPECIE DE FAMILIA (2017, Diego Lerman)
EX LIBRIS THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (2017, Frederick Wiseman)
DER FAN (1982, Eckhart Schmidt)
FANNY (1932, Marc Allegret)
FIRSTBORN (2017, Aik Karapetian)
FLOATING WEEDS (1959, Yasujiro Ozu)
FOR THEM THAT TRESPASS (1949, Cavalcanti)
FORBIDDEN GAMES (1951, Réne Clément)
THE FOREIGNER (2017, Martin Campbell)
FOREVER PURE (2016, Maya Zinstein)
GET OUT (2017, Jordan Peele)
GILBERT (2017, Neil Berkeley)
THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954, Lewis Gilbert)
THE GREAT SINNER (1949, Robert Siodmak)
THE GREAT WALL (2016, Zhang Yimou)
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017, Michael Gracey)
HELL ON FRISCO BAY (1955, Frank Tuttle)
HIGH SCHOOL (1968, Frederick Wiseman)
HITLER’S MADMAN (1943, Douglas Sirk)
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959, Terrence Fisher)
I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE (2017, Macon Blair)
I REMEMBER MAMA (1946, George Stevens)
INSIDE OUT (1975, Peter Duffell)
INVISIBLE GHOST (1941, Joseph H. Lewis)
IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER (1937, Archie Mayo)
THE GRASSHOPPER (1970, Jerry Paris)
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973, Norman Jewison)
JIM AND ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND...(2017, Chris Smith)
JOHN WICK, CHAPTER 2 (2017, Chad Stahelski)
JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (2017, Jake Kasdan)
THE KID FROM SPAIN (1932, Leo McCarey)
KIDNAP (2017, Luis Prieto)
KILLING GROUND (2016, Damien Power)
KINGSMAN THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (2017, Matthew Vaughn)
KOKO: A TALKING GORILLA (1978, Barbet Schroeder)
LADY BIRD (2017, Greta Gerwig)
THE LADY IN RED (1979, Lewis Teague)
THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935, Ernest B. Schoedsack)
LATE AUTUMN (1960, Yasujiro Ozu)
THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (2017, Chris McKay)
THE LETTER NEVER SENT (1959, Mikhail Kalatozov)
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROSIE THE RIVETER (1980, Connie Field)
LION (2016, Garth Davis)
LITTLE WING (2016, Selma Vilhunen)
MARIUS (1931, Alexander Korda)
THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (2017, Noah Baumbach)
LA MOGLIE PIU BELLA (1970, Damiano Damiani)
MOM AND DAD (2017, Brian Taylor)
NAPALM (2017, Claude Lanzmann)
THE NIGHT VISITOR (1970, Laszlo Benedek)
1984 (1956, Michael Anderson)
NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER (1986, Cory Yuen)
NORTHERN PURSUIT (1943, Raoul Walsh)
ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO (1964, Larry Peerce)
THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (2017, Aki Kaurismaki)
OUR SOULS AT NIGHT (2017, Ritesh Batra)
PANIQUE (1947, Julien Duvivier)
PARTS THE CLONUS HORROR (1979, Steven Fiveson)
PATERSON (2016, Jim Jarmusch)
PATTI CAKE$ (2017, Geremy Jasper)
PERSON TO PERSON (2017, Dustin Guy Defa)
THE PHANTOM OF CRESTWOOD (1932, J. Walter Ruben)
PINK STRING AND SEALING WAX (1945, Robert Hamer)
THE POLKA KING (2017, Maya Forbes)
RANDOM HARVEST (1942, Mervyn LeRoy)
RAVENS (2017, Jens Assur)
RECORD OF A TENEMENT GENTLEMAN (1947, Yasujiro Ozu)
RHUBARB (1951, Arthur Lubin)
RILEY THE COP (1928, John Ford)
RING OF SPIES/RING OF TREASON (1963, Robert Tronson)
ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. (2017, Dan Gilroy)
ROMAN SCANDALS (1933, Frank Tuttle)
SAVING BRINTON (2017, T. Haines/J. Richard/A. Sherburne)
THE SHADOW OF THE CAT (1961, John Gilling)
SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM/BLAZING MAGNUM (1976, Alberto De Martino/Martin Herbert)
SILENCE (2016, Martin Scorsese)
SMALL CRIMES (2017, Evan Katz)
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (2017, Rian Johnson)
STREET SCENE (1931, King Vidor)
STREETWISE (1984, Martin Bell)
STRIKE ME PINK (1936, Norman Taurog)
THE STUDENT NURSES (1970, Stephanie Rothman)
TAKE ME (2017, Pat Healy)
TERMINAL ISLAND (1973, Stephanie Rothman)
THERE WAS A FATHER (1942, Yasujiro Ozu)
THESE THREE (1936, William Wyler)
THIRST (1979, Rod Hardy)
THOSE WHO MAKE REVOLUTION HALFWAY ONLY DIG THEIR OWN GRAVE (2016, Mathieu Denis & Simon Lavoie)
TITICUT FOLLIES (1967, Frederick Wiseman)
TONI ERDMANN (2016, Maren Ade)
TORMENTO (1950, Raffaello Matarazzo)
THE TRAVELER (1974, Abbas Kiarostami)
THE TRIAL OF VIVIENNE WARE (1932, William K. Howard)
TWICE-TOLD TALES (1963, Sidney Salkow)
THE UNHOLY FOUR/CIAKMUL (1970, E.B. Clucher)
THE WALL (2017, Doug Liman)
THE WHIP HAND (1951, Wm. Cameron Menzies)
WIGILIA (2016, Graham Drysdale)
WIND RIVER (2017, Taylor Sheridan)
WOLF GUY (1975, Kazuhiko Yamaguchi)