My 2017 personal fav, You Were Never Really Here is a most violent film, about a hired gun saving a teen from a pedophile ring. Its style, in the hands of its female director Lynne Ramsay, points towards the future of the thriller genre and why not, filmmaking in general. Edited by Herzog’s darling Joe Bini, the film’s form is stunning. Character design is very attractive, Joaquin Phoenix interprets with great inner power a multidimensional ex-military doing violence for a buck, living with his ageing-mom with whom he has sing-alongs while cooking diner, visited at all corners by childhood dramas. Ramsay’s choices are superfresh, many times we don’t experience the violence (hammer is the preferred weapon of choice here) but some exceptional side-effects (the killer rests by the victim, holding hands till death). Besides this, the tone is as grim as it gets and we can thank Johnny Greenwood’s score for this. Wonderful all around.