The Ford On Film Awards 2017: Best Actress and Best Actor

Hello, and welcome back to the third instalment of the Ford On Film Awards 2017. Yesterday, I awarded Allison Williams and Willem Dafoe the awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Today, I’m handing out the big prizes for leading actors: Best Actress and Best Actor.

It has to be said that going off of UK dates is always a struggle when awarding actors, because many performances considered to be the best of 2017 haven’t made it to these shores yet. Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water, and Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread are just three of the Oscar favourites I won’t get to see until further into 2018. Luckily, I’ve seen more than enough stunning performances over the last year to be able to pick my favourites.

As with all the categories, I’m ignoring any film previously nominated for an Oscar. If I had included the Oscar films, you can bet that Casey Affleck and Natalie Portman would have ranked highly for Manchester by the Sea and Jackie. However, those two have earned more than enough plaudits; I want to highlight some fresher performances. Here they are then, my picks for Best Actress and Best Actor:

Best Actress:

5. 

Carla Gugino – Jessie Burlingame, Gerald’s Game

Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game was a decent stab at adapting Stephen King, but it  let itself down with a weak ending. Thankfully, many of the film’s flaws were patched up by Carla Gugino, stunning in a role that required her to spend most of the film alone. Realistically portraying the disturbing moral conundrum posed by the film, Gugino is so good in her solo scenes that it’s almost a shame when she’s disrupted by her co-stars.

The Ford On Film Awards 2017: Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress

Welcome back to the Ford On Film Awards 2017. Yesterday, I ranked my top ten films of 2017, crowning The Florida Project as Best Film of the Year. Today, I’m turning my attention to the best supporting performances of the past year. While there have been some tremendous leading performances this year, the Best Supporting Actor and Actress nominations were stacked, with young newcomers making a big breakthrough and older veterans giving career best turns. 

As usual, I’m looking at films released in the UK over the last year, and ignoring any films previously nominated for an Oscar (sorry Michelle Williams and Mahershala Ali, you were both great but you’re not featuring in this list). With that in mind, let’s take a look at my picks for the Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor of 2017:

Best Supporting Actress

5.

Holly Hunter – Beth Gardner, The Big Sick

The Big Sick was a solid rom-com that felt a too long and shambling to be truly great. However, there is still plenty to enjoy about the film, especially the performances of Ray Romano and Holly Hunter as the parents Kumail Nanjiani has to deal with when his girlfriend Zoe Kazan falls into a coma. Feisty and brittle, Hunter gets big laughs from her interrogations of Nanjiani and shouting matches with hecklers, but it’s her softer conversations where she reveals the extent of her emotional pain that provides much of The Big Sick’s heart.

The Ford On Film Awards 2017: Best Film

Has it really been a year since Ford On Film crowned Paterson the best film of 2016? Yes, it’s that time of year again when I look back over the last twelve months of film and television, ranking the best films, actors, directors, and everything else of the year. After a slow start to the year, during which many of my most anticipated titles left me disappointed, the second half of 2017 delivered some outstanding titles from new and old directors alike.

Like previous years, I’ve decided to omit any film previously nominated for an Oscar. As much as I loved Oscar favourites like Manchester by the Sea and Toni Erdmann, they’ve already been written about extensively, and I wanted to free up some space for the less talked-about films I loved this year. Sorry The Handmaiden, My Life As A Courgette and Moonlight; you’re brilliant, but you won’t be making my list. 

As per usual, we’re kicking off the Ford On Film awards with the big one: Best Film. It’s been a close race to the top this year, with one film holding out the top spot for months until two very different contenders took over the first and second spot. As diverse as ever, the top ten includes British and Italian romances, pure horror, family adventure, a few laughs and plenty of drama. It’s been a great year, and I’m excited to unveil my list of the ten best films of 2017.

Before we kick off the countdown, there are a few honourable mentions to include. Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer and S. Craig Zahler’s grisly Brawl in Cell Block 99 were two totally different films that inflicted disturbing imagery and unique performances on their audience, while two female directors made powerful directorial debuts in Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not A Witch and Julia Ducournau’s Raw. Now, let’s get onto the top ten!

10.

Call Me By Your Name (Dir. Luca Guadagnino)

2017’s best romance? Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino’s languid, passionate tale of a teenager (Timothee Chalamet in a terrific breakout performance) exploring his sexuality with an older student (Armie Hammer, giving his best performance since The Social Network) is subtle compared to most love stories, more interested in the tiny details (a light touch here, a longing glance there) than any grand gestures. Guadagino knows how to create a memorable image (Hammer’s dance moves, the unbroken final shot), but it’s a quiet monologue from the brilliant Michael Stuhlbarg that stands out the most.