20 Best & Worst Movies From 2017 Oscar Nominees

Best: Blue Valentine (2010)

Michelle Williams has quietly made a career for herself as one of the most understated, gifted actors working this generation: she has a remarkable knack for emotional truth - particularly in films dealing with devolving, destructive relationships.

And In Blue Valentine, we see the zenith of that performance type: at the two stages of the central relationship on screen, she is at once vibrant and passionate, and then drained, haunted and riddled with guilt at not loving her husband the same way any more. She is brave enough to end it, but there's such complexity in the performance that she comes off as both victim and villain, even as Ryan Gosling shines as the more wounded party. It's hard watching, but it's beautiful all the same.

Worst: Deception (2008)

With Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams all playing key roles, Deception should have been even remotely remarkable, but it's only memorable as a strange forerunner to Fifty Shades Of Grey, meshing a sort of corporate Tinder for thoroughly unlikeable characters with edgy sex games and straight up murder and deception.

Even with all of that going on, it's a slog of a watch, and Michelle's easy, humanist empathy is entirely missing as she plays the pseudo-femme fatale swamped by daft twists.