Music and Movies of the Year 2017

I always enjoy compiling end-of-year lists. For the past few years I’ve added all the new music I like to a Spotify playlist, then selected my favourite songs from that year’s list to make a top 10, or 20. It’s normally been quite tough to narrow it down, but this year there was an entirely different problem: I could barely find 10 songs I really liked. For me, it’s been a dreadful year for new music. There’s nothing which would have made my top 5 in 2016, 2015, or 2014. Still – for what it’s worth – here are the 65 songs I put on the list. Good, but not great.

Movies of the Year

However, the opposite applied when it came to movies. 2017 was the best year for ages. I think that even the winners in 2016, 2015 and 2014 barely compete with the best of this year’s releases.

I saw 61 new movies at the cinema in 2017. This was a new record for me, just passing my target of 60. Thanks to The Light Cinema in Cambridge for making it such a good experience. There were only three films which I’d class as duds (It Was 50 Years Ago Today, Baywatch and Table 19) and one I simply disliked (The Florida Project). That’s a pretty good ratio, so I think I’ll set myself the same target for 2018. Any more and I suspect the dud-count might run unacceptably high. Here then are my Top Ten Movies of 2017…

10. Colossal

Review

9. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Review

8. Hidden Figures

Review

7. Paddington 2

Review

6. Toni Erdmann

Review

5. Baby Driver

Review

4. The Death of Stalin

Review

3. Dunkirk

Review

2. La La Land

Review

1. Blade Runner 2049

Review

You can see my full list, ranked, at Letterboxd.