Doesn't sound like a laugh riot? Well, wait'll you hear what the stars (including Sam Rockwell and Peter Dinklage) do with the dialogue. McDonagh ( In Bruges) loves to mix violence with comic patter, and in McDormand, he has found an American muse: a grieving mom who puts up the titular signs to embarrass police chief Woody Harrelson into finding her daughter's rapist/killer. It feels like the sharpest Coen brothers movie the Coen brothers didn't make, possibly because it has Frances McDormand in the lead. The darkest of dark comedies, Martin McDonagh's scabrous script is smart, funny, affecting and filled with commentary on race.

From the fertile opening shots to the ravishing close-up that concludes the film, 'Call Me by Your Name' is an enrapturing experience, like a melancholy dream that sends you floating into the enchanted, unwritten future.Movie Reviews Mourning Becomes Electrifying In 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' Life is but a dream in this adaption of André Aciman's celebrated novel, directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory, who treat the central courtship like a feature-length Sufjan Stevens ballad. Their connection builds slowly, steadily, sensually. Timothée Chalamet gave the year's finest performance, playing a bookish 17-year-old who jumps at the chance to be tour guide and companion for Armie Hammer's strapping grad student. Nestled in the Italian countryside during one lush summer, a love story springs to life, first in furtive gestures and finally with profound euphoria. The only parallel from 2017 is 'Call Me by Your Name,' the most blissful heartache ever to saunter across the screen. That's how I felt about 'Jackie' last year, and about 'Carol' and 'Mad Max: Fury Road' the year before. Maybe once or twice a year, a movie will come along that I adore so much it seeps into my soul.

Best movies 2017 first semester