2017: the year's most memorable movies

Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi celebrated a glamorous comeback at the 67th Berlinale in February. After abstaining from filmmaking for almost 20 years, she presented her work "On Body and Soul," for which she earned the prestigious Golden Bear. Here she is celebrating the win with Dieter Kosslick, head of the festival.

A few days after the Berlinale, the world turned to Los Angeles and the 89th Oscar ceremony. Although the musical "La La Land" had received a record 14 nominations, the most important Oscar, namely the one for Best Film, went to Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight." A flub during the award delivery suggested the story of a young African-American man in three acts was not the winner, causing an uproar.

The musical of director Damien Chazelle had to make do with "just" six Oscars. The film had already received numerous awards and "La La Land" conquered viewers' hearts all over the world. The movie triggered a comeback of an entire genre, as well as renewed public appraisal of the Oscars. After all, they honored two truly extraordinary works.

In May, the film world's most important festival award went to a Swedish director. In a rather average competition, Ruben Östlund turned out as the best director with his satire of the art world. "The Square" ridicules the elitist behavior of curators, museum directors and artists. Towards the end of the year, this unusual work was also honored with six European Film Awards.

In 2017, the Venice Film Festival clearly overshadowed its rival, Cannes. Following a competition with numerous highlights, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro emerged as the winner of the Golden Lion. His film, "The Shape of Water," convinced the jury with its mixture of a Cold War drama, fantasy and science thriller. In Germany, the film will not be shown until February 2018.

It was certainly a big risk to produce a sequel to one of the biggest cult films in cinematic history — and to do so 35 years later. So the huge success of the sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 dystopia, "Blade Runner," came as a big surprise. This time, the director was Denis Villeneuve from Canada.

The year in film doesn't always follow a predictable path. When the year began, Maren Ade's highly-grossing and much acclaimed film was already being celebrated by viewers and festivals alike. The huge success of "Toni Erdmann" started off at Cannes in 2016 and was followed by an Oscar nomination. A year after its premiere, the movie took home a German Film Award in early 2017.

In the era of Netflix and Amazon, the lines between film and television are becoming increasingly blurred. But in the fall of 2017, fans of good series and films agreed with each other, and both celebrated the premiere of the first episodes of the series "Berlin Babylon," first at festivals, and then after its release on private broadcaster Sky.

The fairy-tale musical remake of "Beauty and the Beast" has proven to be the most successful blockbuster of 2017, as it grossed roughly 1.3 billion dollars. Directed by Bill Condon, the film is based on an old work which has already been adapted several times. This time, the filmmakers tried out an original genre and the result was anything but your average Hollywood sequel.

In Germany, "Beauty and the Beast" ranked just fourth on the list of the most successful films of the year, with 3.4 million viewers. The US production was beaten out by the German film "Fack ju Göhte 3," which has box office receipts showing it's been seen by 5.7 million people. The film is the third in a series about underachievers at school, starring the very charming Elyas M'Barek.