Overstreet’s Favorite Films: 1997

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1997.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

Red = Treasures
Purple = Favorites
Blue = Achievements
Gray = Decent/Noteworthy
Green = Unseen or Undecided
*** = This film was discovered after the year in question and added in a list revision.**
•

1997

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
The Apostle
The Ice Storm
Princess Mononoke*
Henry Fool
L.A. Confidential
Good Will Hunting
Grosse Pointe Blank
The Fifth Element
The Sweet Hereafter
A Taste of Cherry*
The Children of Heaven
Boogie Nights
The Butcher Boy
Gattaca
Men in Black
Donnie Brasco
Face/Off
Breakdown
Chasing Amy
Life is Beautiful
The Spanish Prisoner
The End of Violence
Mrs. Brown
Jackie Brown

The Boxer
Titanic
Mrs. Dalloway
Ulee’s Gold
Fairytale: A True Story
Amistad (review)
Eve’s Bayou As Good as It Gets
Wag the Dog
Deconstructing Harry
Affliction
The Game
Men with Guns
Open Your Eyes
Sunday
Insomnia
Career Girls
Cop Land
Anastasia

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 1997

4 Little Girls A Merry War (Robert Bierman) Affliction Afterglow (Alan Rudolph) Barbara (Nils Malmros) Blue Moon Brother (Alexei Balabanov) Character Commingled Containers (Stan Brakhage) Critical Care (Sidney Lumet) Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) Deja Vu Destiny Docteur Chance (François-Jacques Ossang)* Double Team (Tsui Hark) East Side Story Event Horizon (Paul W.S. Anderson) Fireworks (Takeshi Kitano) Funny Games Gallivant Genealogies of a Crime (Raul Ruiz) Green Fish (Lee Chang-Dong) Gummo (Harmony Korine) Hamsun (Jan Troell) Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai) In the Company of Men Kiss or Kill (Bill Bennett) Kundun (Martin Scorsese) La Vie de Jesus (Bruno Dumont) Lawn Dogs (John Duigan) Le Septieme Ciel (Benoit Jacquot) Litle Shots of Happiness (Todd Verow) Live Flesh (Pedro Almodovar) Lolita Lost Highway (David Lynch) Love and Death on Long Island Ma Vie en Rose (Alain Berliner) Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov) Nil by Mouth Nowhere (Gregg Araki) Office Killer (Cindy Sherman) Ossos (Pedro Costa) Pronto (Jim McBride) Public Housing Riding the Rails Same Old Song (Alain Resnais) Sue (Amos Kollek) Suzaku (Naomi Kawase) The Castle (Michael Haneke) The Eel (Shohei Imamura) The Eye of God (Tim Blake Nelson) The Hanging Garden The Long Way Home The Prince of Homburg (Marco Bellochio) The Revenge – A Visit From Fate (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) The Revenge – The Scar That Never Fades (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) The River (Tsai Ming-Liang) The Second Civil War The Tango Lesson The Thief TwentyFourSeven Uncle Sam (William Lustig) Under the Skin Washington Square (Agnieszka Holland) Xiao Wu (Jia Zhang-Ke) Yours

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