2019 has been an excellent year for films so far, and I thought that as a sort of warm up for my list of favourites for this year (which won't be out until probably mid-2020 once I've seen all of them) I would make my list for my favourite films of last year, 2018. There are still some that I haven't seen, but these are the ones that I saw that I thought were really excellent.
Top 10:
Honourable Mentions:
- The Death of Stalin (MA15+)
- If Beale Street Could Talk (MA15+)
- Eighth Grade (M)
10) Hereditary (MA15+)
The first act of Hereditary knocked my socks off. I remember sitting in the cinema and thinking "this is really something", and having a real sense of excitement about where it was going to take me next. For some the story became an issue as it progressed through to its final act, but where others found it derivative I found myself sucked in by the inevitability of it all, something that is set up early on in one of the most creative and technically astonishing opening shots to a film I have seen in a long time. Ari Aster has continued to impress me with 2019's Midsommar, a movie that will definitely be making an appearance in my list of favourites for this year, and has proved himself with both Hereditary and Midsommar to be a director that is in complete control of his craft, someone who clearly loves cinema and treats the audience with the respect it deserves, and someone with a real flair for horrific set pieces (and graphically realised head trauma). I am more and more impressed by Hereditary every time I see it, and a huge reason for this is the central performance by Toni Collette. Enough has been said about Collette in this film already, and while I had no confidence that the Oscars would acknowledge her in the first place, I was still disappointed and frustrated when she was not awarded a Best Actress Nomination for that year's ceremony. It exists in a really cool world between arthouse horror and popcorn horror that manages to satisfy the nerd in me whilst not skimping out on the scares. When the scares come they are not cattle prod scares that make you jolt, but proper chill-inducing scares that linger. There is so much more to say about Hereditary, but given this is number ten on the list I'm going to move on to the next one.
9) You Were Never Really Here (MA15+)
This is everything that this year's Joker wanted to be. Focusing on Joaquin Phoenix as an emotionally stunted ex-soldier named Joe as he attempts to rescue a kidnapped girl amidst a human trafficking conspiracy, the way it handles the violence of the story calls to mind films like Taxi Driver, Logan, or even Winding Refn's Only God Forgives in its simplicity, unflinchingness and brutality, while managing to impart its own spin on it. In particular, the film's use of silence - in both Phoenix's performance and the portrayal of violence - and its use of jump cuts sets it apart from the vast majority of hitman thrillers. Johnny Greenwood's score is also a major player, adding so much to the surreal, otherworldly nature of the film. No doubt a film that starts conversations, Lynne Ramsay created a movie that is deeply sad and broken, much like its protagonist.
8) Isle of Dogs (PG)
I've always been a Wes Anderson fan, even if I haven't loved all of his movies. I find The Grand Budapest Hotel hugely entertaining, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou is all kinds of wonderful, but other than that I have been an admirer of his films from a distance. Something about their clockwork nature has put me off in the past. Not so with Isle of Dogs, an animated film with all the visual flair and beauty of his last animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, but with the depth and maturity of his more adult films. The voice cast do an amazing job, as do the animation team. There is something about Isle of Dogs that really resonated with me on a deep childhood level, on the level of understanding that things can never be the same as what they were when I was younger, and that as much as I might want to I can never recapture the wide-eyed wonder and naivety of being a kid again. It is very entertaining, beautiful to look at, but also deeply affecting.
7) Roma (MA15+)
The rightful recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Roma is Alfonso Curaon's most personal film, supposedly based in large part on events taken from his own childhood. Roma washed over me for days after seeing it for the first time on Netflix (although I encourage you to see it on the biggest screen you can), much like the waves on the beach in a particularly memorable scene towards the end of the movie. Throughout there are countless reminders why Cuaron is one of the most important directors working today, letting us know that even though he took a quick detour to make Gravity, he still is a master of immersive and emotionally cathartic storytelling. There are moments that take your breath away in its sheer beauty, shot in black and white, and moments that force you to wallow in its unflinching honesty. Much like his earlier work Children of Men (one of my all time favourites) and Y Tu Mama Tambien, Cuaron favours hand held camerawork that lends the movie a feeling of real authenticity and weight. I cried and cried after seeing it.
6) Incredibles 2 (PG)
For me, Incredibles 2 was the best superhero movie of 2018. While Avengers: Infinity War certainly pulled off one of the most depressing, downbeat finales in blockbuster history, Incredibles 2 is smarter, more subversive, funnier and for me more exciting than most of what the genre has offered up in recent years.
5) First Man (M)
Ryan Gossling gave one of the most understated, subtle and nuanced performances of the year as Neil Armstrong in Damien Chazelle's (Whiplash and La La Land) third feature film, First Man. He is impenetrable and closed off, which could only work as well as it did opposite Claire Foy as wife Janet, the emotional backbone of the movie. Something I really enjoyed about First Man was the choice to shoot on 16mm film, giving it a real documentary feeling and allowing the lunar landing sequence to really stand out in its IMAX format. The launch sequences are genuinely anxiety inducing, and it spends enough time with Neil and his family to provide a reason for us to actually care about him when things get tough. It's a really excellent drama that has small adrenaline shots of action sprinkled throughout, driven by strong character focus and riveting lead performances by Ryan Gossling and Claire Foy.
4) First Reformed (M)
First Reformed disturbed me to my core. Written and directed by Paul Schrader of Taxi Driver fame, it is the story of Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke), who is the pastor at First Reformed Church, a small church in upstate New York. It has been in decline for years, and has become more of a museum or "tourist church" compared to the near by church Abundant Life. He is asked by Mary (Amanda Seyfried) to speak to her husband, an environmental activist who experiencing a serious moral dilemma, and a complete crisis of faith. This experience shakes Toller to his core, and to say any more about the story would be to rob you of the unexpected, gripping and profoundly unsettling experience of seeing First Reformed in all its grim beauty. It engages with questions of faith, environmental collapse, depression and mental illness, the role of God and religion in the world, and crises of faith in a way more truthful and honest than I have seen before, and as soon as I had seen it I needed to show it to someone else so I could talk to someone about it. My only caution is that it is a strong M rating, and very confronting. But if you are willing to go beyond your comfort zone and ask some tough and very timely questions, I highly recommend First Reformed. Show it to your friends and have conversations about it.
3) Annihilation (MA15+)
This is the film adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's wonderfully creepy novel, written and directed by Alex Garland, who not only directed Ex Machina (a film I really enjoy) but wrote the novel The Beach and has writing credits on films like 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Never Let Me Go. The setup immediately draws comparisons to Tarkovsy's Stalker, which is immediately going to be getting into my good books, and as it develops it begins to borrow from the films of David Cronenberg and even seemingly from Junji Ito mangas like Uzumaki in its visual grotesquery and violation of the human body. It follows a group of female scientists that venture into something called "The Shimmer", a bubble-like border that has been expanding since what is shown very early on to be an extra-terrestrial presence has crashed to earth. Our protagonist is played by Natalie Portman, whose husband (Oscar Isaac) went missing in The Shimmer for a year before mysteriously returning, disorientated and physically unwell. He is the only person to have returned from The Shimmer, everyone else has entered to never return again. Once they enter The Shimmer the film plays out a bit like The Blair Witch Project: they lose all recognition of time, their memories seem to have holes, and none of their navigation gear works. But as they travel deeper and deeper into The Shimmer they begin to encounter both extraordinary beauty and horrors that turn Annihilation into as much a horror film as a science fiction. The narrative grows increasingly heady as they travel further and further, with the finale calling to mind the Stargate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey in its astonishing visual beauty, mind-boggling implications and ultimately impenetrable core logic. For me, the main reason Annihilation works so well is that it is a science fiction film that absolutely engages in visual and narrative tropes, but does so in a way that allows the writing and the characters to explore really complex ideas - ideas that are inherently baked into the DNA of the film, and ideas that drive all of the characters in different ways. Despite its huge thematic ambition it is a film that is concise in its execution, sharp and technically stylish, genuinely terrifying when it needs to be, and ambiguous enough to leave room for pondering long after the credits roll. I get really excited whenever I talk about Annihilation, because it is a rare breed today, although thankfully becoming less and less rare with the advent of services like Netflix funding auteur-driven projects like Okja and Apostle. I really really love Annihilation.
2) Mandy (MA15+)
I can pretty well guarantee that you have never seen a movie quite like Mandy before. It's a sort of supernatural thriller/horror revenge drama with both B-movie grindhouse sensibilities but also lofty arthouse portentous aspirations. Yes, it's as crazy as it sounds. And yes, it does star Nicolas Cage in quite possibly the most Nicolas Cage role of his career. This could all have come together into a movie that collapses in under itself and its own grand aspirations, but under the hand of Panos Cosmatos (Beyond The Black Rainbow) it was a movie that held my jaw open and fastened my hands to the side of my face for the majority of its runtime. For an indication of just how insane this movie is, there is a scene in which, after revenge-killing some leather-clad demon bikers, Nicolas Cage snorts a huge line of coke off a shard of broken glass. Later in the movie he has a chainsaw fight with another demon biker. Drugs play a huge part in this movie, too, not only in a narrative sense but particularly in the way this quasi-fairytale world is realised on screen. Cosmatos and his DP Benjamin Loeb paint the landscape with rich primary colours, similar to the Dario Argento does in the original Suspiria. The camera floats along almost lazily, and the pace of editing combined with the dreamy cinematography gives off the feeling of a bad trip. In this way it actually reminded me of Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void, and in fact both have sequences that can only be described as the cinematic equivalent of a drug trip. When the carnage starts, it is really nasty, and people do get hurt. It doesn't gloss over the violence, nor does it revel in its excess where it could easily have done, but instead it presents it in such a way that is fitting with its fairytale aesthetic. Everything in the film exists in a sort of hyper-reality. I recommend this for Cage's performance alone, but if you are a horror fan you cannot let this one through the cracks.
1) Suspiria (MA15+)
When I first heard that Suspiria was being remade I think my reaction was probably very similar to almost everyone elses - do we really need to remake Suspiria? I have so much love for the Dario Argento original that the thought of a remake seemed blasphemous. My feeling sitting in front of the Luca Guadagnino helmed reimagining was one of great relief, then, when I realised that what he had done was not simply remake Suspiria, but present his own unique interpretation of the key elements of it. The contrasts between the two films are stark - where the original was bombastic, loud and joyous in its use of colour, this is dull, muted and melancholic, making the explosions of colour unbelievably effective. Where the original is steeped in the giallo tradition, including the dubbed audio, the nonsensical leaps of logic and the slasher tropes, this film is sleek, mysterious, brooding and genuinely horrific. Where the original is completely contained within the walls of the dance company and ambiguous in its timeline, the remake is very firmly placed against the backdrop of the Berlin wall, and the political undercurrents play a big part in the film. Where the original is exuberant and energetic in its delivery, the remake is more subtle, withdrawn, and content to let the events play out in their own pace. And by a simple comparison of runtime, this film is a full hour longer that the original. So I was very pleased to realise that what they were doing was not simply retreading the original, but rather following a bold new direction. The nuts and bolts stay the same - an optimistic young American dancer joins a dance academy, only to realise that it is run by a coven of witches. From there the similarities all but run out. There are some wonderful surprises, and a particularly special cameo. Tilda Swinton confirms that she is on a completely different level to any other working actor today; I won't ruin any surprises for you, but suffice it to say that her work in Suspiria is unbelievable. Something else that takes much more of the foreground in this movie is the dancing itself. In the original there is one scene in which we see dancing, but here it is very much a key part of the film, and I think lends it much more of a physical, visceral feeling to the original. Having done my best to dance around plot spoilers, I feel comfortable to now say that I think Suspiria is not only unbelievably better than the original, but my favourite film of 2018.
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