'The Post' and 'The Shape Of Water' (tied)
"Directed with characteristic brio by Steven Spielberg and enriched by a superb cast that includes Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, this is a movie about press freedom, accountability and feminism that has clearly found its moment." [The Washington Post]
"Only a master can make an inter-species sonnet this splendid. With an old-fashioned sweep and a cast of characters (Richard Jenkins! Octavia Spencer! Michael Stuhlbarg!) who fit together like pieces of a weary puzzle, this resplendent achievement turns otherness into a fairy tale. How lovely." [HuffPost]Good Time
"As cinema, it's a smooth gloss on the gritty crime movies of yore, embodying everything that's good about the ongoing nostalgia trip currently afflicting movies and TV while falling prey to none of the usual bad habits. As pure entertainment, it's as lively, weird, and unpredictable as any movie released this or any other year, not least because of how well the Safdies capture a sense of life on the ground in a neon-streaked New York City." [The Ringer]A Ghost Story
"Far more than "that movie where Casey Affleck is under a sheet the whole time" David Lowery's A Ghost Story is a micro-budget movie that marries the sweep of The Tree of Life to the cosmic wonder of "2001: A Space Odyssey" while still making time for a Ke$ha cameo and a scene where Rooney Mara eats an entire pie in a single shot." [IndieWire]Faces Places
"In this glorious, vividly personal work, Ms. Varda both wanders through France and into the past alongside the visual artist JR, meeting new friends and seeking out old. Ms. Varda is often described as one of the greatest female directors alive, which is true. She is also one of the greatest." [The New York Times]6.Dunkirk
"Christopher Nolan shows us the meaning of pure cinema, depicting the 1940 evacuation of British soldiers from the French beaches of Dunkirk as Hitler's forces attempt to crush them by land, sea and air. Instead of telling us what to think, Nolan offers full immersion in the life-or-death experience of being there, prey to the whims of a dictator and still fired up with the will to resist." [Rolling Stone]Phantom Thread
"As eccentric as its characters, the film is claustrophobic and controlled as well as wild and rangy, and the excellence of his leads (Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville), along with the melodiously melodramatic score by Jonny Greenwood, ultimately makes something rich and strange out of the director's risky roll of the dice." [The Hollywood Reporter]The Florida Project
"Sean Baker has always been a filmmaker who can whittle down a situation to its no-frills emotional essence. There’s a beguiling directness to how he takes in the world, and he raises that technique to a new pitch of wide-eyed humanity in this tale of a 6-year-old girl and her rebel-vagabond punk-vamp mother." [Variety]Call Me By Your Name
"Call Me by Your Name is a rare preening beauty — the film knows you want it — that is nonetheless compassionate, humane, and inviting. [Vanity Fair]Lady Bird
"This smart, joyous, tender film about an out-of-sorts teenager (a superb Saoirse Ronin) growing up in Sacramento circa the early 2000s isn't writer-director Greta Gerwig's debut. But its openness about the anxieties of growing up with no money and an extremely complicated mother (Laurie Metcalf) make it feel like the arrival of a bright new voice. Sometimes you’ve got to run away from home to get there." [Time]Get Out
"Get Out is a chilling horror film, a savage social comedy, and a frank exploration of the reality that we're already living in both." [Slate]