Per tradition, the day after the Oscar nominations are announced is also the day I begin the annual process of counting backwards in celebration of the best films of the prior year. Most other fervent film fans engaged in this exercise weeks ago, but I am a victim of both geographic and time limitations. Under current circumstances, I can’t even imagine making a declaration of preference much earlier than this.

Much as I endeavor to get in as many of the prospectively great films in any given year, there are always plenty of blind spots, and I may mentally rearrange this list before I’m done. But I’m satisfied with the films I’ve settled on, as a reflection of the cinematic year and especially my personal encounter with it. As I’ve found myself in a practically inescapable state of exhaustion from surveying the smoldering trash pile of current events scalding newspaper pages like acid, movies have served as even more of a blessed escape than usual.

I firmly believe that it’s misguided to the point of blind foolishness to identify trends in a year of movies. Finding a common thread in the material I as a moviegoer identify with, though? Well, that’s a whole different matter.

The thesis may not hold across all ten movies I’ve settled on at the creative peaks of 2017, but I strongly favored material resonant with a strong sense of humanity. It’s probably no mystery as to why I might find that appealing in the political climate, but I think there are motivations at play. Sometimes I think the loss of Jonathan Demme early in the year made me more attuned to and appreciative of the sort of deep understanding he brought to his filmmaking. It’s not that ill turns for the characters and sad or grim endings are off limits, because that’s not honest. Instead, I want films to offer some level of respect to their subjects, their themes, their audiences.

It calls to mind the Roger Ebert observation that will likely become — if it hasn’t already — his most loved and lasting contribution to discourse around the wonder of movies:

“We all are born with a certain package. We are who we are: where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We’re kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.”

Starting tomorrow, and periodically from now until the Academy Awards, I’ve got ten movies that wonderfully fulfilled the mission laid out by Ebert. In the past year, they’re my favorite machine.