We asked our blog contributors for their highlights of the year and this is what they came up with.

Bill

My highlights from the films shown at the Picture House are:

• Elle, France 2016
• I Am Not Your Negro, USA, 2016.
• Lady Macbeth, UK, 2016
• The Handmaiden, South Korea, 2016
• Lover For A Day, France
• Kedi, Turkey, 2016
• Thelma, Norway
• Loving, USA, 2016
• Detroit, USA
• Human Flow, Germany

and from the film festival at different venues

• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Showing at Hyde Park from January 12th), USA
• Mutafukaz, France/Japan
• The Teacher, Slovakia/Czech Republic, 2016

On a different day I could have included Neruda, Loveless, 20th Century Women or Human Flow.

Jake

My top 10 of 2017, sticking to films that got a general cinema release this year:

1. Certain Women (USA, dir. Kelly Reichardt)
2. Le Parc (France, dir. Damien Manivel)
3. Toni Erdmann (Germany, dir. Maren Ade)
4. Machines (India, dir. Rahul Jain)
5. Cameraperson (USA, dir. Kirsten Johnson)
6. Moonlight (USA, dir. Barry Jenkins)
7. By the Time it gets Dark (Thailand, dir. Anocha Suwichakornpong)
8. The Untamed (Mexico, dir. Amat Escalante)
9. Dina (USA, dir. Antonio Santini & Dan Sickles)
10.  A Ghost Story (USA, dir. David Lowery)

Keith

The new films that impressed me this year, in the order of when I saw them, are

• 3000 Nights / 3000 Layla, Palestine, 2015.
• Certain Women. USA, 2016.
• I Am Not Your Negro, USA, 2016.
• After the Storm / Umi yori mo mada fukaku, Japan, 2015.
• The Party,  Britain.
• Happy End,  France.

A special mention for Casey Affleck in

• Manchester by the Sea, USA, 2016

And of the classics from the past,

• Cloud-Capped Star / Meghe Dhaka, India 1960, really impressed me.

Stephen

I restricted this list to things I saw for the first time at the Picture House, otherwise the list could also have included Paddington 2, The Last Jedi, Blade Runner 2049 and Dunkirk.

• Manchester by the Sea, USA, 2016
• A Monster Calls, UK, 2016
• 20th Century Women, USA, 2016
• mother!, USA
• The Florida Project, USA
• Good Time, USA
• A Ghost Story, USA
• My Life As A Courgette, Switzerland/France, 2016
• Jackie, USA, 2016
• Bad Genius, Thailand

I’m a bit disappointed that my list is mostly English language films but a lot of the ‘foreign language films’ released this year such as A Man Called Ove, The Handmaiden and Toni Erdmann I saw at LIFF30 so haven’t included here.