Or maybe the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead struck me as an unusual choice as the backdrop for an adventure starring a little boy. Perhaps Pixar had lulled me into a sleep with the uninteresting sequel Cars 3. This is a blistering page-turner of a movie that needs to be seen. But it's the way Sheridan plays the tensions between Wyoming natives and Olsen's 'stranger' that ratchets up the suspense and sizzles our frayed nerves. The characters are beautifully drawn, with Renner bringing a haunted sympathy to his emotionally wounded service agent. It's a masterfully constructed and tense-as-hell murder mystery set on the frozen tundra of Wyoming, where an out-of-place FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) needs a seasoned tracker (Jeremy Renner) to help her solve a violent and complicated slaying. But I mean that in the best possible way. Wind River is basically The Silence of the Lambs in the snow. Well, I'm now officially on board anything that Sheridan does moving forward (he also penned Sicario, and its upcoming sequel), as Wind River held me in its icy grip and delivered a staggeringly grim but satisfying conclusion to a difficult story.

Lord knows why I waited so long, especially because writer-director Taylor Sheridan's Hell or High Water made my Top 5 last year. It took me months to catch up with Wind River, because its distribution never reached the levels enjoyed by major-studio releases.

Top 10 best movies 2017