1. "Logan" (2017)

"Logan"

There are two factors that might lead you to conclude that James Mangold’s Logan doesn’t deserve top billing on this list. First is the fact that it doesn’t totally stand on its own — you need to at least have seen the 2000 X-Men kickoff to understand its leads and their world. Second is the violence — the film is a charnel house of severed heads and bloodstained claws. But these are ultimately merits, not missteps. At its best, the superhero genre makes an art out of the notion of the franchise, by assembling different installments into a mosaic that takes on an aggregate shape when seen from a distance. Logan is a shining example of that storytelling method, benefitting from the fact that it doesn’t have to waste time on exposition — in fact, it entrusts the viewer with nearly all explanations of what has transpired before the curtain’s rise — and rewarding our existing adoration of the title character by sending him out on a high note.

And the gore is both aesthetically rich in the mode of Peckinpah and Psycho, and purpose-serving: It serves as a visceral metaphor for our awful planet and the struggle to be a good person amid the temptations of joining its cruel inertia. Plus, the ultraviolence is something of a subversion and commentary on superhero cinema. All of these flicks are filled with despicable brutality; Logan just shows us what punches actually feel like, rather than cleaning it up for the kiddies.

Indeed, the movie is one of the only superhero pictures that feels meaningfully adult. Logan grapples with the burdens of middle age: caring for elderly parents, reconciling oneself with defiant children, confronting the meaninglessness of one’s profession, and living inside a body in decline. But though those topics may be weighty and dense with misery, the film is defiantly hopeful and believes passionately in humanity’s capacity for empathy. As the man once known as Wolverine traverses a cursed earth, we watch him overcome the hypnotic seduction of cynicism and choose to feel vulnerable. What’s more, the movie is almost deliriously funny at times, and the humor comes not from cheap pop-culture references or silly banter, but rather from naturalistic vignettes about parents and children.

Everything feels urgent and bone-deep: the dialogue, the iconography, the world-building, and the subtle rebellions against our present political situation, which never feel preachy. Plenty of super-stories are about overcoming immense obstacles, but the reasoning is usually based on negation: The hero needs to fight against evil. Here is a rare story about a superpowered individual fighting for something: love. When I use that word, I mean it not as the romantic eros, but as a curious, bloody version of the expansive agape, the embrace of our flawed species as a whole. Sure, our hero kills plenty of folks, but that’s a fine metaphor: Who among us doesn’t have trouble loving? We can only hope to move in the right direction. Logan is a tale that grabs you by the face, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear, “We’re all in this together.” Not bad for a story about a guy with big ol’ knives in his knuckles.