The gang’s leader, Enn (Alex Sharp), is an introverted romantic with a hardened wannabe exterior. Written by Mitchell and Philippa Goslett, and adapted from Neil Gaiman’s short story, the film spends a major chunk of the first act as a slice-of-life period dramedy about the punk scene in 1977’s Croydon-a fairly bland working class suburb of London, crammed with blocky and gray housing projects-as told through the eyes of three teenagers trying desperately to get laid. How to Talk to Girls at Parties is a deliciously bizarre and refreshingly unique experience that manages to not only successfully meld two completely opposite tones-punk and whimsy-but to wrap them up into an exhilarating narrative that infuses a familiar sci-fi/comedy/romance structure with a host of surprises that even the most hardened genre scholar will appreciate. Here’s to hoping you can find a film to truly love in 2018.

So, there’s something for everyone in the following: big budget crowd-pleasers, obligatory sequels, obligatory franchise installments, more than two naturalistic dramas, at least three horses, vision quests, doppelgängers, revenge fantasies, kids’ fantasies, experimental adaptations, an experimental documentary, genre mash-ups, genre throwbacks, genre mash-backs and, of course, genre throw-ups. All excuses of course: With writers spread out all over the world, and with something like 3,000 film festivals currently active, the number of great movies on our individual lists splays out far too broadly to be limited by a few months. One of these films premiered first in the UK in 2017, one was made three years ago but premiered at Sundance this year and one was bought for 2018 distribution but has yet to get a date confirmed. As was the case last year, when it comes to collating the best movies we’ve seen so far in 2018, we did our mathematical mightiest to not only give a general consensus among our section’s staff, but to keep in mind which films our readers will actually be able to catch in theaters.

Top best movies 2017