It features an impressive British cast playing a company of soldiers whose turn it is to man a trench in northern France in the final stretches of the war. Companies of soldiers have been required to take it in turns manning the position for six days at a time, each praying that a rumoured German offensive isn’t launched while it’s their turn. The drama, which takes place almost entirely within the trench and its officers quarters, is laden with the weight of what may or may not be coming for these men.

Sam Claflin stars as Captain Stanhope, a respected soldier whose mental faculties have been damaged by his time on the frontlines, and lack of leave. His second in command is Osborne (Paul Bettany), an affable and welcoming veteran upon whom stewardship of the outfit’s youngest and newest member, Raleigh (Asa Butterfield), will fall.

The film is divided into sections, each depicting one day of the six that these soldiers are to endure in the cold squalor of the trench, waiting for an attack that may or may not come. Trains creak ominously over rails somewhere in the distance, likely delivering German reinforcements, and occasional pockets of gunfire/artillery in the distance set the tone.

The brief action scenes are shot in a purposefully removed way, implying rather than showing what is taking place

It’s a claustrophobic setting and the anticipation of the attack lends the film a brooding quality that I found worked rather well, heightened at times by the subtly foreboding score. At times I felt the film lacked a bit of detail on everyday life in the trenches, because the vast majority of it is set in the comparatively cosy officers’ quarters, where food and drink is regularly available courtesy of Toby Jones’ comic-relief cook Mason, whose ingredients are regularly called into question.

But Dibb’s film shows enough of life outside that we know what we’re dealing with, and lets the drama unfold in an unfussy way that relies on dialogue in place of action. The brief action scenes that are shown are shot in a purposefully removed way, implying rather than showing what is taking place, with the camera focusing on the reactions of the soldiers and the violence expressed primarily through the sound effects. It’s a technique that generally works, although it does diminish the impact of those scenes a little. One event in particular lacks the profundity it might have had if it was shown.

The scenes in the trench work because the cast is likeable and on good form. Claflin and Butterfield are effective, respectively, as the broken captain and the young boy eager to contribute, even if the depiction of the Stanhope character is perhaps a little too reliant on facial tics to portray inner turmoil. But Claflin does a good job overall, and gets a nicely observed speech about “sticking at it” that emerges as a key piece of dialogue, delivered well. He is nicely offset by a lovely performance from Paul Bettany as a man whose exterior warmth and avuncular qualities perhaps belie an unseen darkness inside.

For all the film’s quality acting and careful setup, I found it lacked the emotional payoff I was expecting and wanting from filmmaking of this calibre, though that isn’t to say there aren’t moments of well-observed pathos in there. Ev en if Journey’s End will perhaps not be remembered as a classic of the genre, it is nevertheless a well made war film that with good performances that is worth checking out.

Fast forward a few thousand years, Dug (Eddie Redmayne) and his tribe live a simple life in the crater. Catching rabbits by day and sleeping under the stars by night, before they know it their utopia is abruptly ended by the wrecking balls of Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston), a power-hungry leader from the next town over. Nooth destroys the tribe’s homes and lays claim to the land, wanting to mine every inch of the creator for ore.

While the rest of the tribe gets away, Dug finds himself trapped inside one of Nooth’s transport pods, and when he finally gets away, he discovers that the world has moved on outside the crater. With the Bronze Age well under way, food stalls sit one way, and sword-smiths the other.

So far, so good, but it’s here where Early Man takes a strange turn. When horns start to blaze and the entire city charts a course for the town amphitheatre, it turns out this Bronze Age civilisation is obsessed with… football.

While everyone is piling into the stadium, Dug escapes the town guards by sneaking into the stadium changing quarters, but putting on the only disguise he can find (a goalkeeper’s outfit), he’s quickly forced in line with the home team and walked out onto the pitch.

Two goals down and Nooth spots something is amiss, but when Dug is discovered he makes one last play to save his home, and offers his captor a challenge: Nooth’s all-stars take on Dug’s rag-tag clan, winner gets the crater.

From there on, Early Man follows the usual sports movie tropes. Dug finds his gang and with the help of football fanatic Goona (Maisie Williams) – not allowed to play for Nooth’s side because she’s a girl – they train up for the big match.

It was a bizarre choice to make football the central element of Early Man. Once the sports story took hold, I kept thinking “and when is the real plotline going to kick in”, but that was it, there was no pivot and the films stumbles along to the big match finale.

That the beautiful game was invented at the dawn of time is a funny concept, as is the idea of the Stone Age vs. the Bronze Age on the football field, but there’s only enough plot for a quirky 15-minute short – not a 87-minute feature – and on several occasions the plot really runs out of steams.

With narrative steps are so clearly signposted along the way, Early Man is unadventurous and plays it too safe. It’s inoffensive and suitable for all the family, but it doesn’t feel inventive, and it doesn’t have the charm or wit we’ve come to expect from Nick Park.

Silly goofs raise a few chuckles but there isn’t the same sense of humour that runs through all of Aardman’s best stuff. Early Man is charming and means well, but it’s all without real personality, and the biggest laughs come from football puns that will go over the head of much of the audience.

In the voice cast, Tom Hiddleston clearly enjoyed hamming it up as villain Lord Nooth, but it’s Rob Bryden who steals the show as a carrier pigeon – yes, you read that right – and two football commentators. Richard Ayoade is ever-brilliant too, despite only reading only a handful of lines.

I’m loathe to call an Aardman picture run of the mill but unfortunately Early Man is just about that drab. Compared to Pixar’s recent masterpiece Coco, so full of life, imagination eccentricity, Early Man is middling, it’s grey vs. technicolour.

Still Early Man is not a complete disaster, and being an Aardman picture, the animation is smooth and colourful; their classic overstylised figures are still as much of a joy as when Wallace & Gromit first hit the screen. But  Early Man needs more than that, and it’s just such a surprise that nobody caught that something was missing; it’s an Aardman picture, but it doesn’t have the Aardman soul.

Martin McDonagh’s most recent project was Seven Psychopaths in 2014, though he is probably still most widely known for his debut, In Bruges. His latest, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, contains many of the elements we’ve come to expect from the younger McDonagh brother – primarily a dedication to carefully crafted, sometimes acerbic dialogue – crystallised into what is his best and most consistently impressive film.

Three Billboards… tells the story of Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), who lives in the titular town of Ebbing and is frustrated by the inability of the local authorities to bring anybody to justice for the murder of her daughter, Angela. Mildred channels her frustration into the renting of three billboards on a mostly unused stretch of road outside the town, which express her feeling in no uncertain terms. The billboards, and Mildred herself, quickly become famous among the townsfolk, and indeed the local media, bringing a number of disparate characters together.

Those characters are where Three Billboards… shines brightest. McDonagh’s films have hardly been starved for acting talent in the past, but this is certainly his most impressive cast. It’s a credit to the performances, and indeed the writing, that the vast majority of this large and talented ensemble feel like vital cogs in a well oiled machine, as opposed to being shoehorned in. At the head of everything, Frances McDormand is just wonderful, capable of evoking pathos, surprise and laughs in equal measure – much like the film as a whole. She gives Mildred exactly what the role requires: balance. We sympathise with her hugely, and are resolutely on her side, but not to the extent that she ceases to feel like a rounded, conflicted character. As the head of the local police force, Woody Harrelson is reliably great, with perhaps more of a gentle, affecting edge than we might expect from the opening scenes. Alongside him, Sam Rockwell (who was so good in Seven Psychopaths) is again on good form as disreputable cop Jason Dixon.

Three Billboards… is McDonagh’s most well-rounded, likeable piece of work

There are far too many names to mention individually, but crucially this isn’t because the film feels overstuffed. On the contrary, we want to spend more time with even the minor characters, because they’re played and written so convincingly. It inevitably means that characters like Mildred’s son Robbie (Lucas Hedges, so good last year in a not dissimilar role in Manchester By the Sea) and her ex-husband’s new fling Penelope (played with wit by Samara Weaving) are left mainly on the fringes, but that’s ok, because together they constitute a film that knows what it’s doing and has the confidence not only to let its cast breathe, but to edit them down where necessary. The film feels like it loves spending time with its characters, like McDonagh had a great time writing them, and this feeling transposes onto the audience.

What makes Three Billboards… McDonagh’s most well-rounded, likeable piece of work, is that the framework holding all those solid, well-written characters together feels delicately honed and precise; there is no fat on the bones of this film, and editor Jon Gregory deserves plaudits for keeping the whole thing moving while still allowing time for the script to indulge, in a good way, in its characters. There’s also a really well-chosen and effective soundtrack underlying all of this, which adds to the overall feeling of quality.

If there are missteps, they are so few and far between that they can be mostly ignored. One worth mentioning is that there are one or two facets to Officer Dixon (Rockwell) that don’t quite work, in particular a streak of racism that feels oddly out of place, most noticeably in a scene in a prison cell midway through, in which the N-word is invoked by two characters in a way that felt crass and misjudged. It’s a shame because the rest of the scene is beautifully put together.

That misstep feels like a too-obvious attempt by McDonagh to harness to hard-hitting writing style he’s (at least partially) known for, but ironically that talent of his is used to much better and more subtle effect in the rest of the film, which does contain lines here and there that can, in a positive way, draw gasps, laughs and surprises.

Three Billboards… feels like it was the ideal project to take Martin McDonagh to the next stage in his career, moving on from the well-written and well-played, but perhaps slightly indulgent, Seven Psychopaths. That film felt like it had a lot of very good elements strung together into something that didn’t entirely cohere, but Three Billboards… avoids that pitfall and then some. With a r oster of memorable characters, a cast on universally great form and a script that is frequently capable of wrong-footing its audience, there’s really very little to complain about.

And the presence of one massive-budget sci-fi blockbuster in my end-of-year list, plus another couple in the honourable mentions and plenty of other good ones besides, suggests that even blockbusters still have something to offer cinemagoers.

My top 10 of the year, which is ordered alphabetically, is the best of what I’ve seen. There are, as always, countless films I’m yet to catch up on, including, but certainly not limited to, A Quiet Passion, The Levelling, Detroit, Gods Own Country and a pair of animations, The Red Turtle and My Life as a Courgette, that I sadly haven’t got around to yet.

But even despite the missing names, 2017 has been a memorable year, and I wrestled hard with what to include in the final 10. Some of the films in the honourable mentions list came close to the final cut, but just missed out. Some of the films below came out so long ago I could scarcely believe they were released in the UK in 2017.

Enjoy the list, and Happy New Year from Fan the Fire.

Blade Runner 2046

A couple of years ago one long-awaited sci-fi sequel made it into my year-end list in the form of Star Wars The Force Awakens, and now, just two years later, we have another. If anything, Blade Runner 2049 had even more to live up to than The Force Awakens did, following on as it was from a masterpiece of an original, whereas JJ Abrams’ film only needed to dispel the memory of the much-maligned Star Wars prequel trilogy. My excitement levels for this sequel grew the more of its director’s previous films I saw. Denis Villeneuve, whose Arrival made my list of best films in 2016, did something great with Blade Runner 2049, managing to craft a film that is not only visually and aurally stunning, but which continues to wrestle with big themes in the way its predecessor did. It isn’t perfect – for one thing, the lead villain and his plot are disappointing – but it’s one hell of a ride.

Call Me By Your Name

The final part of Luca Guadagnino’s Desire trilogy, Call Me By Your Name stars Timothée Chalamet as Elio, a smart, charming teenager living with his American-Italian family in the Italian countryside. Into this apparently idyllic lifestyle (which is so sumptuous you want to leap into every one of Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s gorgeous frames) comes an American graduate student played by Armie Hammer, with whom Elio begins to form a deep friendship, and perhaps something more. Chalamet, who I’d only seen before in a minor role in Interstellar, gives an extraordinary performance here, capturing intelligence, love and grief in wholly believable ways. Opposite him, Armie Hammer gives probably his best performance yet as the charismatic Oliver, who is worldly and smart, but not beyond petulance or bad choices. The excellent supporting cast add further gloss to Guadagnino’s marvellous, moving romance.

 The Florida Project

Sean Baker’s follow up to 2015’s Tangerine, The Florida Project takes us into the world of the garish motels that sit on the outskirts of Disneyland, where deprived communities of people struggle to make ends meet. This world, unknown I would imagine to most viewers of the film, certainly to this one, is portrayed vividly and with great affection for its inhabitants, even when the film is dealing with serious social issues. The looming, candy coloured edifices that form the backdrop for the story bring a sense of fractured wonder to the whole thing, and Baker gets lovely, naturalistic performances from his young cast as they roam freely around this forsaken landscape – in particular Brooklynn Prince as Moonee, the precocious girl at the film’s centre. The supporting cast are terrific too, from Bria Vinaite as Moonee’s mother Halley to Willem Dafoe as the manager of the motel in which they live. Vivid, important filmmaking with a knockout final movement.

The Handmaiden

Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is alive with the joy of a filmmaker thoroughly in touch with, and enjoying working on, the material. This ambitious adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith shifts the action from Victorian-era Britain to Korea, but Park somehow makes that change feel vital. His film is a twisting, turning delight, with great performances illuminating a deceptively complex and well-structured narrative that crackles with erotic tension, dramatic weight and thrilling unpredictability. Park blends these elements together in something approaching gothic tradition, and in doing so creates a thoroughly idiosyncratic, mesmerising psychological drama not quite like anything else released this year.

I Am Not Your Negro

Three documentaries about, or at least partially about, race in America were nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category at this year’s Oscars. The one that won, OJ: Made in America, I confess I haven’t yet seen, but of the other two, which I have seen, I Am Not Your Negro was the standout for me. Ava DuVernay’s 13th is an equally important film and worth a watch, but the lyricism and beauty of Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro, based on an unfinished manuscript by social critic James Baldwin detailing his friendships and interactions with civil rights leaders, has stuck with me. Peck’s film fluidly blends archive footage with Samuel L Jackson’s narration, and elucidates its issues with intelligence and passion. It also benefits hugely from the eloquence and wit of Baldwin himself, who appears in numerous clips, and whose speeches resonate with power.

La La Land

One of a few films on this list that feel like they came out ages ago, but were actually released in the UK in January, is Damien Chazelle’s wonderful musical La La Land, which stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as star-crossed lovers both attempting to make their way in Hollywood. He’s a struggling jazz pianist, she’s a struggling actress, and as success begins to come their way, it will test the limits of their feelings for one another. The film harks back to classic musicals, perhaps chief among them Singing in the Rain, but does so in a way that is affectionate and original. The performances are great, the songs are great, and the whole thing is beautifully shot by Linus Sandgren. Chazelle paces the film with confidence and the tone is always just right, moving effortlessly between laughs, tears and dance routines, sometimes all at the same time.

 Manchester by the Sea

Kenneth Lonergan’s beautifully taut, emotionally raw Manchester by the Sea stars an excellent Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler, a man struggling to deal with a tragic event in his past who is suddenly called back to the town in which it happened and entrusted with the care of his teenage nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges, also excellent). Lee’s estranged wife Randi (Michelle Williams, sparingly used but great) still lives in the town, so he will be forced to confront his grief alongside his new and frankly unwanted companion. Depression is not an easy thing to depict on screen, but Affleck’s performance and Lonergan’s strong script make Lee a sympathetic protagonist. The film is a strong, surprisingly uplifting piece of work, some of the scenes in which have stayed with me throughout the year, in particular a beautifully choreographed sequence in a police station and a heartbreaking conversation between two characters late on.

Moonlight

Barry Jenkins’ affecting adaptation of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue won the Academy Award for Best Picture this year (after a brief fiasco in which La La Land was announced as the winner) and it was one one of the few occasions when the Oscars gave out a prestigious award to very little backlash. Moonlight tells the story of Chiron, a conflicted boy growing up in Miami, through three different time periods and three different actors. It’s tough when it needs to be, but the film is also capable of channeling both raw emotion and great delicacy. Quite apart from the film’s importance in terms of the mainstream profiling of prominent social issues, Moonlight is a dramatically rewarding, heartfelt piece of work, and deserves to be seen.

 Raw

Julia Ducournau’s cannibal coming-of-age tale will probably make you uncomfortable at times, but Raw is so much more than a shocker. Ducournau, who also wrote the script, injects the film with thrills and bold, concise moments of horror, but also more wit and dark humour than perhaps we might expect. Garance Marillier is terrific as Justine, a vegetarian student who joins a veterinary college and is horrified to find herself developing a taste for a very particular variety of meat. The film uses its subject matter as a lens through which to explore growing up and sexual discovery, among other things, but does so in a way that not only has depth, but which is visually inventive and at times impressively sinister. I can’t wait to see what Ducournau does next.

Toni Erdmann

Maren Ade’s film Toni Erdmann is regularly described as a comedy, though that description perhaps suggests an altogether different film. While there are laugh-out-loud moments in Toni Erdmann, Ade’s film is nevertheless dealing with difficult issues, particularly a broken father-daughter relationship and the domineering role that careers play in modern life. The film will make you laugh, yes, but it’ll also make you cry. Possibly at the same time, and possibly through a grimace as you cringe at some of the outrageously uncomfortable scenarios on screen. As a prankster father trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Peter Simonischek, with his daft wig and fake teeth, is great, and so too is Sandra Hüller as his daughter, whose professional exterior cracks just enough that we can see the woman, indeed the child, underneath. Quite apart from the great performances and sharply written dialogue, there are some truly memorable sequences and a wonderfully disconcerting touch of the weird.

Honourable mentions

Baby Driver, Lady Macbeth, Get Out, A Ghost Story, The Last Jedi, The Lost City of Z, mother!, Personal Shopper, Your Name