20 Best & Worst Movies From 2017 Oscar Nominees

Best: Doubt (2008)

Picking out the best of an Oscar-nominated horde should be a difficult prospect, but Doubt stands head and shoulders above even Meryl Streep's hottest streaks of work. While there is more pleasure to be had in performances like The Devil Wears Prada, she is at her ultimate best in the problematic, deeply difficult Doubt.

She is presented as a complex, unsympathetic busy-body, but spurred unconsciously on by the deep vein of abuse in the Church and haunted by doubt that would have her potentially miss something grave. And her wrestling with faith and truth and her doubt is the most compelling part of the entire affair, which remarkably always stays on the right side of hysteria.

Worst: Mamma Mia (2008)

There's no denying that Mamma Mia did well financially or filled a lot of hearts with joy, but it is a horrible, lurid affair, vulgar in its silliness, musically awful and entirely obnoxious. And somehow, the fact that not a single one of the very talented actors on show can actually sing - surely the primary requirement of a musical - gets entirely ignored when people talk about how joyful it is.

Imagine hiring Streep for her singing... It's almost like hiring her for her plumbing skills.