Nesselson is in-house film critic for the English-language channel of 24-hour TV news network France24. After 17 years at Variety, the Paris-based critic began reviewing for Screen International in 2008.
More critics pick best films of 2017
Top five
1. Wormwood
Dir: Errol Morris
A flat-out brilliant reminder of how America’s fear of ‘godless Commies’ prompted the US government to do terrible things during the Cold War, Errol Morris’s hybrid doc also makes a mockery of that old saw, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” Interweaving riveting interviews with re-enactments, Morris delivers a real-life horror film incorporating decades of almost unbearably dark (and literally buried) US history.
CONTACT: Netflix
2. My Friend Dahmer
Dir: Marc Meyers
Ross Lynch brilliantly embodies the budding serial-cannibal-to-be in this period-perfect ode to dysfunction in plain sight. Anne Heche also dazzles as Jeffrey Dahmer’s mom.
CONTACT: Altitude film sales
3. The Death Of Stalin
Dir: Armando Iannucci
A jubilant and pointed farce with perfectly cast sharp-tongued comrades jockeying for their slice of the totalitarian pie.
CONTACT: Gaumont
4. Suburbicon
Dir: George Clooney
An unfairly rejected subversive cousin to Get Out, also basted in violence and racism, Suburbicon slyly skewers ‘family values’ paired with ironically cavalier disregard for children.
CONTACT: Bloom
5. See You Up There
Dir: Albert Dupontel
This lavish, sardonic and affecting tale, in which two First World War veterans ingeniously take revenge on warmongers, questions what it means to be patriotic.
CONTACT: Gaumont
Best documentary
78/52
Dir: Alexandre O Philippe
A splendid rebuttal to anybody who maintains that movies are merely entertainment, this lively film is a blast, looking at how the notorious shower sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was a watershed moment in exhibition, horror, social commentary, musical scoring and iconic characterisation. Hitchcock may have shot in black-and-white so the blood wouldn’t be too red, but still left a blazing impression on generations of mind’s eyes.
CONTACT: Dogwoof
Underappreciated gem
Brigsby Bear
Dir: Dave McCary
A sweetly profound meditation on everything from home schooling and parental love to pop culture and the potential beauty of all things analogue, this adorable tale of a Kaspar Hauser-esque young man whose worldview is based entirely on a TV series aimed at kids — make that ‘a kid’, singular — suggests that people are innately trusting and good, society can only mess them up, and cinema can set them free.
CONTACT: UTA
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