The 10 Best Movies of 2018
ISSUE #34
To kick off this month of Top 10 Countdowns, I wanted to share the ten best movies of the year. They're more my favorites than the objective best, which is true of all lists, but of this one especially because I didn't get time to see many movies during the tumult of the year. Those that I missed include If Beale Street Could Talk, The Favourite, First Reformed, Eighth Grade, Burning, The Tale, Suspiria, and plenty of others that would be on anyone else's list. But no one can see everything, so I had to simply be honest about what moved me. I chose a song to go along with each of them, one that fit either sonically or thematically with these movies I loved. Feel free to follow along on the playlist:
#10. Tully
"I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it" / The 1975
A magic and misty-eyed fever dream mapping the heights and horrors of motherhood, Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis have some of this year's best on-screen chemistry outside of A Star is Born. Their third team-up proves that Diablo Cody always brings out the best in Jason Reitman, which is fitting for a film about how we could all be better if we just had a little help and support.
#9. The Death of Stalin
"Give it to Me" / Miya Folick
The guy who made Veep and In the Loop takes on the days after Stalin's death in 1953, and the slapstick scrambling his advisers made for power in his absence. An incredibly dark comedy, but if you meet it on it's own terms, it's a really funny funeral.
#8. Incredibles 2
"You Don't Own Me" / Leslie Gore
Sorry about it, but nobody weaves action and story like Brad Bird, and the Screenslaver's on-air monologue may be one of the best spoken-word pieces of the year, whether you agree with it or not. Plus, this time Elastigirl takes the spotlight, and any world in which I get more Holly Hunter is a brighter world to me. The swirling action is only matched by one other movie this year:
#7. Mission: Impossible — Fallout
"Meet Me in the Bathroom" / The Strokes
This quiet little indie was released to minimal fanfare, and if you blinked you might have missed it. In this installment, the screenplay's the star: we finally get a human version of Ethan Hunt, one whose moral fortitude is what we're rooting for instead of his general insanity and his disregard for life and limb. It also gave us some meaty lines like "I wonder: did you ever choose not to?" Imagine me cocking my fists like Cavill, but to reveal my two thumbs up.
#6. Support the Girls
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" / Cyndi Lauper
Some people have trouble watching characters go through mundane miseries. They go to the movies to escape, not to live see characters toil through a shitty day at work. I, on the other hand, love when the big screen can serve as a mirror. I want to see others survive what I feel like I can't, and while I've never worked at a breastaurant, I put in enough retail time to see the triumph in this story. Most of the time, the only way through minimum wage is to enjoy the company of your coworkers, and thank god here we have Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson, and Shayna McHayle. This is my favorite superhero move.
#5. Hereditary
"Lost my Head there" / Kurt Vile
At a certain point in the second act, I felt the most despair I think I'd ever felt in a movie theater. The reason this movie ends up so high on the list is that, miraculously, the ending pulled me completely out of the funk that it had spent 100+ minutes putting me in, so much so that I left the theater in awe. We so rarely get endings anymore, whether in the endless scroll of social media or the relentless onslaught of reboots and television resurrections. When you see one this well-executed, you really start to miss them.
#4. Annihilation
"Any Colour You Like" / Pink Floyd
Even though it's an adaptation of the first of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, it still feels like one of the most audacious and original sci-fi films since Ex Machina (same director). The sound design and colors alone are enough to make it worth the watch, but then it goes on to explore growth and decay and the creeping invisible flux of nature. Remember that time you went to someone's house that you didn't really know just because they were the only one who had weed? And you accidentally got uncomfortably high, and then they turned on their Windows Media Player visualizations and it freaked you out so much you didn't speak for twenty minutes? That's this movie.
#3. Paddington 2
"Lady Marmalade" / Patti LaBelle
In which Paddington serves as a one-bear Queer Eye for prison. Director Paul King is acting on a "Wes Anderson directs a Charlie Chaplin talkie" level, and it's way better than it sounds. We've all seen the internet erupt over this movie, but it's all true! It's delightful, fantastic filmmaking, and Hugh Grant's performance cannot be overhyped. It's the year of the outstanding children's movie sequels.
#2. Widows
"Search and Destroy" / The Stooges
McQueen and Gillian Flynn pull off a heist movie full of pulp and panache, one that peers out over the cliff of high art with its arthouse direction, but pulls back just before careening into austerity. This one has my favorite shot of the year, in which Colin Farrell's corrupt and racist alderman-elect is driven from a benefit in the projects to his luxurious home only a few streets over, the controlled camera focusing not on the characters but instead on the street, visually mapping just how close those two worlds are to colliding. When the movie swerves back into the road of the thriller, its twists left everyone in my theater shrieking.
#1. Roma
"Watermelon in Easter Hay" / Frank Zappa
I'm a huge softie for Alfonso Cuarón. His signature long-take camera movements are like your friend has learned to fly and is grabbing your hand to whisk you away to another world. More grounded than Del Toro and much softer than Iñárritu, he's the one with the most heart of Mexico's Big Three Directors, and Roma feels like a culmination of everything he's done up to this point. He combines the social turmoil of Children of Men with the growing pains of Y Tu Mamá También, and ends up with something so life-affirming in the story of the housekeeper Cleo that I wanted to rush home and immediately watch it again. And while I cried like a baby, I ended up leaving the theater full of love for myself and everyone else, something so hard to achieve in this world of white noise and digital bickering. As I get older, I desperately crave silence, so I can give my mind the rest it needs to love. With Roma, Cuarón has given me two gentle hours to charge my heart so I can daydream again.