Each and every one of these is absolutely worth your time.
Here are 12 brilliant films that (A) You didn’t get round to seeing in the cinema, or (B) Have never heard of them before.
If you’ve got a few free days over Christmas, these are definitely worth a watch.
BERLIN SYNDROME
An American tourist (Lights Out’s Teresa Palmer) hooks up with a hunky local (Sense 8’s Max Riemelt) while on holiday, and heads back to his apartment for a night of adult fun. When she wakes up in the morning, she discovers that she has been accidentally locked into his apartment, so she is forced to wait for him to come home. But when he returns, she discovers it was no accident.
BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99
Vince Vaughn is going down the geri-action route by playing a drug mule for a local kingpin who ends up getting caught by the local police and sent to jail. But when it is feared that he might be flipped to become a witness against the kingpin, a riot in the cell block is organised to kill Vaughn, who won’t be going down with a fight.
THE FARTHEST
This Irish-produced documentary is still sitting pretty with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and is one of the most awe-inspiring films of the year. Interviewing several rocket scientists and members of NASA as they essentially made history by sending an incredibly powerful satellite into the depths of space, it is essentially a love letter to Earth and all of the things that humanity can accomplish when we put our minds together to get it done.
THE FLORIDA PROJECT
A heart-breaking but ultimately feel-good drama dealing with a poverty line mother and her six-year-old daughter, who live in a run-down motel within spitting distance of DisneyLand, but are never able to afford to enter there. As the mother is forced into more desperate ways to make money to provide her daughter, things take a turn for the worst. It also features a career-best performance by Willem Dafoe as the grumpy motel manager with a heart of gold.
GIRLS TRIP
Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Regina Hall and a scene-stealing break-out turn by Tiffany Haddish are four life-long friends who haven’t seen each other in a while. In an attempt to blow off some steam, they all head to New Orleans for a girls-only weekend, which eventually turns into the kind of debauchery that the lads of The Hangover would have a tough time keeping up with. Legitimately, probably the funniest movie of 2017.
GOOD TIME
The Robert Pattinson Career Trajectory Correction continues here, as he plays a bank robber who sees his mentally-challenged brother sent to prison while on a heist. In an attempt to free him, he decides to break him out of jail before being transferred. Things do not go well. Side note: it might have the best soundtrack of the year.
INGRID GOES WEST
The poisonous toxicity of living your life solely through the shallow pond of social media is the target here, as Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Rec) decides that Instagram “star” Elisabeth Olsen (Avengers: Age Of Ultron) should be her new BFF. Once they meet up though, the surface-level-only lifestyle doesn’t have enough depth for them to both wade in, and the potential friendship starts to take on shades of an updated Single White Female. Comedy at its absolute darkest.
IT COMES AT NIGHT
2017 has been a stellar year for horror movies, and this is probably the best one that didn’t get the reach of Split, Get Out or It. Set in an unexplained apocalypse, a family are living in solitude in the woods, as an unknown, unidentifiable evil stalks the darkness at night. When they encounter another family running for their lives, we find out that the real monsters probably aren’t waiting outside for them, but sitting at the dinner table right alongside them.
THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED)
The first of two fantastic Netflix exclusive movies (so you actually couldn’t catch them at the cinema, but maybe you skipped over them at home, too). Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller play the competing sons of tortured artist Dustin Hoffman, both of whom are bottomless pits of neuroses and anxieties and personality issues, all of which they manage to keep a leash on until they’re forced to interact with their egocentric father again.
MUDBOUND
And the second of the Netflix movies, which is being called this year’s answer to 12 Years A Slave. When two men – one white and one black – return from World War II, they find their homes in the southern states of America are treating them both very differently, despite them both fighting to keep their country safe. Topical, powerful, emotional and brilliantly acted, with a surprisingly brilliant turn by Mary J Blige.
PERSONAL SHOPPER
We’ve had one of the stars of Twilight already, so why not the other? Kristen Stewart plays the ghost-whisperer who is looking for the spirit of her deceased brother, while also moonlighting as the personal shopper for a big-time celebrity. What starts off as a search for hope, quickly takes a turn for the creepy as Stewart realises that the more she leaves the door open for her brother to make contact, the more other spirits can pass through to get to her.
RAW
A pitch-black take on female sexuality, as a vegetarian teenager heads to vet school, but being surrounded by meat spurs on a side in her personality that she was completely unaware of. She finds herself falling in love with her new gay room-mate, but also that her sudden hunger for meat has gone beyond the usual chicken and cows and pigs…
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