As usual, house rules apply. I consider these year-end lists as acts of subjective curation rather than mathematical proofs. It’s simply a list of what I loved in 2018, in ranked order. Nothing about these lists makes much sense anyway. So enjoy the madness.
10. You Were Never Really Here
YWNRH is at once quiet and emphatic — an apt description of Lynne Ramsay’s work in general — a film that doesn’t rise or fall but simply simmers the whole way through, always seeming to be on the verge of something, then holding back… until. Ramsay bottles the oddball verve of Jaoquin Phoenix and sells its wholesale in this poetic and gloomy character sketch of a ruthless hitman who really is a nice guy deep down, you know? Only a filmmaker of Ramsay’s caliber could make this adaptation work. And it works wonders.
9. Unsane
Utterly unpretentious as ever, Steven Soderbergh has a blast with the plot of Unsane. You might walk away thinking you’ve experienced a gripping (if a bit silly at times) and taut thriller about identity, mental health, and the true nature of madness. But I think to Soderbergh, it’s just a genre romp, something fun to do. He shot it on an iPhone. Claire Foy registers the year’s most underappreciated lead performance, not to mention the most awesome character name of the year: “Sawyer Valentini.”
A morally serious deconstruction of hatred (as well as a hymn to competency in our institutions) shouldn’t be this funny, but Spike Lee’s film is one of the funniest of the year. (As well as one of the most harrowing, to be sure.) It’s probably all the dunking on racists that’s done just in the minor mannerisms of Topher Grace’s portrayal of David Duke. Or it could be John David Washington’s mannered pronunciation of the word “white” (he really hits that “wh-” sound). Lee is never subtle. But we don’t live in subtle times.
7. First Man
Damien Chazelle’s biopic of Neil Armstrong is extremely un-biopic-y. Like its star, Ryan Gosling, First Man is downbeat and morose and utterly mesmerizing. La La Land won the box office over. This, a far better and more humane film, did not. It’s the first Chazelle film about which I’ve been unequivocally enthusiastic. The guy can do endings, I’ll give him that.
Ethan Hawke and Paul Schrader have teamed for, at the very least, the best plot twists this year. At best, Schrader’s brooding film acts out his love of Bresson and Dreyer more than anything he’s ever done. The wayward and damn-near insane Reverend Toller has a heart too pure for mainstream religion, and bad habits that make him fit right in. What the ending signifies, much in the tradition of Schrader’s European heroes, is up to you.
5. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
I don’t know what I was expecting when I heard the pitch for the Coen brothers’ latest movie. A series of western short stories that, truth be told, looked fairly cartoonish in the trailer. It is cartoonish. The titular character (Tim Blake Nelson) ascends into heaven playing a harp the way Bugs Bunny used to. But the trailer sells the film short. What the Coens’ inimitable brand of alchemy has created here is easily one of their best films. (“The Gal who Got Rattled” is my favorite, if you care.) And the best dialogue of 2018 is found therein.
4. America to Me
After screening at some festivals, Steve James’ latest documentary aired on Starz earlier this year. America to Me is a ten-hour docuseries that takes us inside Oak Park River Forest High School just outside Chicago. The racially diverse student body and faculty allow themselves to be followed (and followed home) by James and his crew. Where Frederick Wiseman might hang back and capture, James probes, asks questions, delves into the lives of the students and adults as they live through questions of race, class, and justice. It’s amazing how James, who possesses such a soft touch, has social conscience that hits hard.
3. The Tale
Jennifer Fox’s autobiographical film about coming to terms with having been sexually exploited as a child veers toward magical realism but is at its best when closer to the ground. The plain old matter-of-fact realism Fox achieves with her actors — particularly Laura Dern and Elizabeth Debicki — is searing and intense. Fox doesn’t spare us the details, which makes for a most uncomfortable film. (The actual molestation scenes were achieved with deft editing and the use of an over-18-years-old body double for the child actor, Isabelle Nelisse.)
2. Madeline’s Madeline
I bristle when I see Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline described as “art house fare” or “experimental cinema.” It’s the most narratively coherent movie I saw in 2018. A teenage girl (the scary-good Helena Howard) is part of an adult’s acting troupe that specializes in experimental theater. Its director (Molly Parker) thinks it’d be a great idea for Madeline’s real-life personal turmoil to be material for the troupe’s art. Typical descriptions point out that the lines between the troupe’s art and Madeline’s inner world “begin to blur,” but what blurs is our ability to play favorites with the characters. People don’t behave logically in this film, but somehow their surprises are what one would expect. It’s not artsy so much as it’s about artsy.
1. The Mule
Clint Eastwood’s reputation as a conservative firebrand has to be in some kind of jeopardy at this point. This is a film about, among other things, white privilege, the futility of the war on drugs, and the ways in which economic pressures can disintegrate families. It’s also the funniest film of the year. Eastwood’s casualness as a director, the ease with which things play out and the low-key feel of the images, mirrors his own demeanor as an aged actor, one who still has the singular grit and grimace of The Man With No Name.
Lewis On Film 