If Grumpy Cat is the blockbuster franchise of cat videos, “Kedi” is the genre’s “Citizen Kane.” Though technically a sophisticated, artful documentary from Turkish filmmaker Ceyda Torun, “Kedi” will automatically find devout fans among anyone who delights at all things feline. Watch them all, try to make the case that movies are a dying art form, and embrace the opportunity to be wrong. I offered 16 highlights at the end of 2016 here are. As the years progress, my own year-end tallies continue to grow.

I stand by the credo that anyone who thinks this was a bad year for the movies simply hasn’t seen enough of them. When the mood of the moment is #resist and the future often looks more like a fake-news frenzy than the audacity of hope, the resilience of this art form is in sync with the zeitgeist. In 2017, even the best escapism came with a dose of harsh truths about struggles facing civilization today, and the best movies went to places woefully ignored by the culture at large.

At a time when the world is changing at an unquantifiable pace, when menacing world powers threaten everything we hold dear, we often look to the movies to bring the chaos into focus.

Indiewire best movies 2017