The Best and Worst Films at SXSW 2017

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor
and Keith Kimbell, Metacritic Film Editor – March 19, 2017

The 2017 edition of South by Southwest wrapped up its film program last night, and the 10 days of premieres produced some welcome hits (with five films scoring 81 or higher) as well as some surprising misses.

Below, our editors have picked out the most notable films debuting at the festival, and sampled the critical consensus for each one. You can also find bonus reviews for a handful of television shows that premiered at SXSW (though not the highly anticipated upcoming series American Gods, since Starz has embargoed reviews until April 17th).

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77 Win It All

Director Joe Swanberg reunites with his Drinking Buddies and Digging for Fire star Jake Johnson for this tale of a gambling addict who agrees to watch a duffel bag full of money for a friend headed to prison only to lose it all and have a short time to win it back. The film, which finds Swanberg returning to Netflix after his recent anthology series Easy, is “funny, warm and broken-in in all the right ways,” writes Variety’s Andrew Barker. And Eric Kohn of Indiewire believes the film “feels more purposeful than anything else in the filmmaker’s oeuvre to date.”

Where To Watch