Here we are again, the end of 2017, another year of cinematic delights and, as per usual, studios leaving their big guns for the end-of-year slugfest that is Awards Season, as individual critics and critics associations list their favourites and the major award ceremonies – The Golden Globes, Baftas and the Academy Awards – are in the throes of final preparations.

The most celebrated films of the year are a mixture of the fantastical (The Shape of Water), the honourable (The Post), the romantic (Call Me by Your Name; the coming-of-age story (Lady Bird), the patriotic (Dunkirk), the darkly comedic (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), the biographical (I, Tonya) with horror sensation Get Out also sharing some of the love.

Saoirse Ronan and Lucas Hedges in Lady Bird.Saoirse Ronan and Lucas Hedges in Lady Bird.

In what critics are calling his best film since Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is yet another magical fable about Elisa (Sally Hawkins) a worker in a high-security government laboratory whose life is changed forever when she discovers a secret classified experiment. The film leads the list of Golden Globe nominations with seven, and has already won numerous critics’ associations’ awards.

What could go wrong with a movie directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks? Absolutely nothing, clearly. The Post has won the minds of the critical world. This is a thrilling drama about the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post’s publisher Katharine Graham (Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), who must overcome their differences as they risk their careers – and their very freedom – to help bring long-buried truths to light.

The Post has won the minds of the critical world

Seemingly winning the hearts of many and already the recipient of numerous awards, especially for director Luca Guadagnino and young co-star Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name tells the tender love story between the young Elio Perlman, (Chalamet) a 17-year-old American who spends his days in his family’s 17th century Italian villa, and Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old graduate student.

Greta Gerwig is an actress and writer whose name has been associated with a number of critically-acclaimed independent projects, and she makes her directorial debut with Lady Bird, a coming-of-age story of a high-school senior, played by the phenomenally talented Saoirse Ronan, and her turbulent relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf).

Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in The Post.Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in The Post.

Christopher Nolan’s elegiac Dunkirk unsurprisingly is also doing well. The acclaimed director’s account of the titular evacuation of World War II was a superb depiction of the event, a heart-rending film that brought the horrors of the event to dramatic life.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a darkly comic drama about Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) who commissions the three billboards of the title following inaction by the authorities after the murder of her daughter. Directed by Martin McDonagh, the movie is another one having already amassed a considerable list of accolades.

The 1994 attack on figure skating champion Nancy Kerrigan by her rival Tonya Harding is the topic of black comedy I, Tonya. Directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Margot Robbie as Harding, it is a story that attracted major headlines when it occurred; as is this film, with particular emphasis on its star Robbie, and Allison Janney as Harding’s mother.

Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name.Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name.

One of the year’s dark horses is horror-comedy Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele. A low-budget horror-comedy, it boasts 99 per cent approval ratings on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and it features on a number of Top 10 lists, having won the hearts of critics.

While their films do not feature as prominently as the afore-mentioned, look out for Daniel Day Lewis bagging some awards for his role – his last, apparently – as a renowned dressmaker in Phantom Thread; and Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom in Molly’s Game, based on the true story of the woman who becomes the target of an FBI investigation of her lucrative underground poker empire.

Coming as a surprise to no one is the fact that Pixar Animation Studios’ Coco is the one to beat in the Animated categories. Jockeying for position in the technical awards categories are a little-seen movie about a Jedi and Blade Runner 2049.

The Golden Globes will be handed out on January 7, with the Bafta’s following in February, and finally, the big daddy of them all, the Academy Awards in March.

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