With Labor Day behind us, we have officially entered the fall movie going season full of film festival darlings, prestige pictures, and holiday season blockbusters. Before we look forward to what will likely be some of the best films 2018 has to offer, members of The Cinematropolis staff are looking back at the gems and surprises that have become our favorite films of the year so far. Read on to discover our most highly recommended movies of 2018 to date.
Jacob Leighton Burns’s Picks
5. Eighth Grade
Bo Burnam’s Eighth Grade continues a recent trend of expertly capturing the perils of our teenage years through the eyes of a young girl finding her place in the world, but manages to separate itself from the pack by embracing the ubiquity of social media, rather than shying away from it. Anchored by an incredible lead performance by Elsie Fisher, the film features scene after scene of painfully realistic moments that feel universal in their specificity, to the point where it sometimes felt like a documentary of my own teenage years. Incredibly funny, cringeworthy, and tear-inducing, Eighth Grade is not to be missed.
4. Annihilation
OMG THOSE VISUALS! OMG THAT LIGHTHOUSE SEQUENCE! OMG THAT ENDING! OMG THE ACCURATE AND EMOTIONAL EXPLORATION OF DEPRESSION AND TRAUMA! OMFG THAT FUCKING BEAR!!! It’s a good movie, ya’ll.
3. BlacKkKlansman
BlacKkKlansman uses a real life police investigation from the 1970s to tell a story about the complexity of issues of race that we are still struggling with in 2018. Thanks to a stellar cast and expert direction by Spike Lee, the film is a masterclass of balance of tone. Without skipping a beat, the film has you laughing in one moment and cringing in the next. And just when you think the film is over, Spike Lee pulls no punches with a knockout ending that left our theater in silent reflection as the credits began to roll.
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
I went into the theater expecting a pleasant nostalgia trip about a TV show I watched as a child, but left the the theater a teary eyed mess shaken to my core and questioning everything I’m doing with my life. Catching this film the same week that the country learned of the human rights abuses happening at the US-Mexico border, where children were being separated from their families, emphasized the severe lack of empathy present within our current leadership and how the whole world would be better if we would just follow Mr. Rogers’ example.
1. First Reformed
The best movie-going experience I’ve had so far this year was seeing Paul Schrader’s First Reformed in a theater full of people, including myself, who had no idea what they were in for. I was entranced and captivated from the opening frame revealing the titular church to the gasp-inducing final frame that I won’t spoil here. Ethan Hawke’s performance as a man of faith struggling to reconcile the horrors of how humans treat God’s creation with his dedication to his faith left me unsettled in ways that will haunt me for a long time. First Reformed may not be a movie for everybody, but it was definitely a movie for me.
Runner Ups: Mission Impossible – Fallout, Hereditary, Sorry to Bother You, The Rider, A Quiet Place
Zachary Burns’s Picks
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
I’m here to assure you that top film picks don’t always have to be capital S Serious works because this film is some of the most fun I’ve had at a theater in a while. My first pick is Christopher McQuarrie’s second turn in the writer/director’s chair for the “Tom Cruise Runs Away From Things” franchise, Mission: Impossible – Fallout. This time we catch Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team racing against time through a twisty turvy conspiracy after a mission gone wrong. With incredible turns from Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, the Rogue Nation returning favorite Rebecca Ferguson, Angela Bassett, and Henry Cavill’s Mustache, all in their top form, and death defying stunts that will leave you on the edge of your seat, this film will be held up as the standard all future action flicks will be held up to. All I gotta say is, that helicopter scene…
4. Eighth Grade
I recently caught Eighth Grade for the second time and it only confirmed its rightful placement on this list. It is a pitch perfect encapsulation of how terrible it is to be in eighth grade from Youtuber/stand up comedian turned writer/director, Bo Burnham. As an awkward introverted kid growing up myself, it was easy to relate to Elsie Fisher’s Kayla. The film also offers the unique perspective of being in the Eighth Grade today, surrounded by technology and screens that can both help and hinder personal relationships. This film also makes a point to show the toxic and entitled attitudes young boys can have even at such a young age while eighth grade girls are learning how to navigate that toxicity and the internalized shame they can feel because of it. This coming of age tale also continues a trend I can never get enough of, that of the Good Dad. Josh Hamilton puts in an excellent performance as Kayla’s dad, Mark. He is awkward, funny, often confused, but you can always tell he’s trying and more importantly that he cares. Mark is a dad who cares, and with his monologue in the latter half of Eighth Grade he joins the ranks of the other Good Dads of recent cinema history alongside Tracy Letts’ Larry McPherson in Lady Bird and the very tender hearted turn from Michael Stuhlbarg as Elio’s dad in Call Me By Your Name. You’re a Good Dad, Mark.
3. The Rider
A quiet but surprisingly affecting film that sneaks up on you, Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is a touching and bittersweet modern western. Similar to another pick on my list, Skate Kitchen, this film stars real cowboys and rodeo riders playing versions of themselves to tell a moving story about young rodeo bronc rider Brady Blackburn (played so subtly by Brady Jandreau) struggling to find his place in life after suffering a near fatal head injury that forces his retirement from rodeo-riding. It was about halfway through this film before I realized how deeply it connected with me – the filmmaking and the expert craft put into this film by Zhao, cinematographer Joshua James Richards, and editor Alex O’Finn is so subtle you don’t realize the cumulative effect it is having on you, until you do.
2. Skate Kitchen
It has been an incredible year for naturalistic cinema – films that are less focused on plot and much more on just following our characters wherever they may go with a near documentary style approach – and Crystal Moselle’s Skate Kitchen, a film about skater girls starring real life skater girls she met on a train ride one day, is a prime example. Lonely teenager Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) finds a new sense of belonging with an all-girl posse of skateboarders in New York City called Skate Kitchen, and that’s just about all the plot this movie needs as an excuse to hang out and follow the adventures of this badass troupe of skaters. The filmmaking is loose, at times hypnotic, the characters real, and the clips are valid (just some of the skater slang you’ll learn watching this film). Now to find my old skateboard…
1. First Reformed
You never know what you’re gonna get from a film by writer/director Paul Schrader, which is partially what makes him so exciting. And with First Reformed we got what is without question my favorite film of 2018 so far. First Reformed features a powerhouse performance from Ethan Hawke as Reverend Ernst Toller, the troubled priest of the historic First Reformed Church in upstate New York, as he grapples with mounting despair brought on by a recent tragedy and increasing obsession with the devastating effects of global warming. The film is so simply put together, but is by no means simple. Grappling with themes of faith, purpose, personal responsibility, grief, and righteousness, and best of their career performances from both Amanda Seyfried and Cedric the Entertainer (credited for the first time as Cedric Antonio Kyles), this film has rarely left my mind since I first saw it months ago. I didn’t watch First Reformed so much as I felt it and experienced it. An essential film for the religious and non-religious alike.
Christopher Shultz’s Picks
5. November
This bizarre fairytale from Estonia features some of the most gorgeous black and white photography in recent cinematic history (courtesy Mart Taniel). The film, written and directed by Ranier Sarnet (based on a novel by Andrus Kivirähk) juxtaposes the grim realities of peasantry with folkloric magic, most marvelously in the depiction of kratts, creatures built of tools, household items, and random junk, imbued with souls provided by Old Scratch himself. A truly surreal and spellbinding film.
4. They Remain
Based on the novella “-31-” by weird horror darling Laird Barron, this film from Philip Gelat follows two scientists (William Jackson Harper and Rebecca Henderson) stationed in a remote laboratory, charged with studying the hostile landscape that a death cult once called home. Knowing much else about the plot spoils the strangeness to come, but things between the pair soon deteriorate in psychologically frightening ways. They Remain is a shining example of sparse, low budget filmmaking with a big budget sheen. Jackson Harper and Henderson both give stellar performances.
3. Hearts Beat Loud
The soundtrack alone makes Hearts Beat Loud a worthy entry to any best of 2018 so-far list. The titular tune is one of the most infectious pop songs of the year, brought to life vocally by Kiersey Clemons, who plays Sam in the film, a young woman both excited and saddened to leave her hometown for college. Her dad Frank (the always delightful Nick Offerman) makes her departure all the more complicated when he uploads “Hearts Beat Loud” to Spotify and inadvertently creates buzz around the father-daughter duo. This wonderful offering from writer Marc Basch and writer-director Brett Haley is the epitome of a thoughtful feel-good movie.
Read my full Cinematropolis review of Hearts Beat Loud from the deadCenter 2018 film festival here.
2. Hereditary
A24 delivers another psychological horror home run with Hereditary, a film that has more tricks up its sleeves than Houdini. Writer-director Ari Aster revels in subverting his audience’s expectations, creating scenes and images that shock not expressly from gratuitous violence and gore. Red herrings and genuine twists run amok, so much so that the utter madness of the third act feels perversely normal. Toni Collette deserves at least three Oscars for a single scene toward the middle of the film (those who have seen it know the scene in question).
1. Annihilation
Alex Garland’s 2014 directorial debut Ex Machina established the writer and director as a master of horror-tinged science fiction, and with this follow-up—an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s first of three “Southern Reach” novel—he holds firmly onto this title. The visuals are absolutely stunning, from Rob Hardy’s cinematography to the lush set design and the heady, nightmarish special effects. Its grandeur is best experienced on a theater screen, but it also doesn’t lose much when viewed at home, and the entertainingly intellectual plot translates regardless of how one views the film. Annihilation more or less came and went, but here’s hoping it garners enough of a cult following to allow Garland to complete the trilogy.
Runner up: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
Caleb Masters’s Picks
5. Hereditary
I consider myself a casual fan of horror films, but rarely do they crack my top films of the year. As of Labor Day this year, Hereditary stands as not just an incredible, subversive, and nightmare-inducing horror movie, but also an excellent family drama exploring the tension created by unresolved history that runs in the blood. The film’s emphasis on drama and atmosphere is more in line with William Friedkin’s 1973 classic The Exorcist or Robert Egger’s more recent 2016 movie The Witch than it is blockbuster horror movies released today. Writer/director Ari Aster’s directorial debut is smart and impressively strong.
Listen to Caleb and Christopher’s full thoughts on Hereditary on The Cinematic Schematic.
4. Annihilation
Low key high concept science fiction movies rarely feel as ambitious and cinematic as Alex Garland’s follow up to 2015’s beloved sleeper Ex Machina, Annihilation. This visually stunning and oftentimes unnerving exploration into the shimmer is filled with rich ideas of self-rediscovery and the ongoing battle against personal trauma and depression. Every piece of this production, be it the sharp cinematography, the breathtaking set design, or nightmarish creatures (I’m still losing sleep over that bear), is absolutely stellar. It may not be the most widely seen film of the year, but I take no issue in saying the movie is the finest piece of science fiction filmmaking I’ve witnessed in 2018. Annihilation is always otherworldly, usually uncomfortable, and hasn’t let go of my psyche since sinking its teeth into my imagination last February.
3. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
2018 has proven to be a challenging and oftentimes demoralizing year in the world at large, especially as it relates to the core values of empathy and humility. Without delving too far into the politics, it’s clear that the act of loving one’s neighbor has been set aside in favor of division among interpersonal, local and international levels. It is in such a seemingly hopeless time that films like Morgan Neville’s Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? hit us the hardest. Fred Rogers dedicated his career to helping children understand the challenges and complexities of the world we live in through the lens of love, compassion, and empathy on national television. Though his quieter and more educational approach to programming for children may have been at odds with the more problematic evolution of cartoons through the decades, his message and ideology resonate and seem even more valuable today. Fred’s words “Love is at the root of everything – all learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love or the lack of it. And what we see and hear on the screen is part of who we become.” have never seemed as important in my lifetime as they do in 2018.
2. BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee built a name for himself by making confrontational films on the subjects of racial inequality, flaws in the justice system, and the African American experience like 1989’s Do the Right Thing. After several years waning with less well received films, the director is back in full force with BlacKkKlansman and he is not pulling any punches with his latest political buddy cop comedy. Based on a true story, the film follows Colorado Springs’ first black police officer, Ron Stallworth, who infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in 1979 through his white partner, Flip. History is stranger than fiction in this outrageously hilarious tale full of biting commentary reminding us that despite the way we talk about race in America, not all that much has really changed since the 1970s. Released exactly one year after the tragic “unite the right” 2017 rally in Charlottesville, BlacKkKlansman includes one of the boldest endings I’ve seen in cinema in recent memory by laying all of its cards on the table and you won’t soon forget it. This film is essential viewing for 2018.
1. First Reformed
Every so often, a movie comes along that feels made just for you. This year, I was challenged and moved by writer/director Paul Schrader’s film about a protestant minster who struggles with his faith when confronted by harsh realities in the world at large and within his congregation. Having grown up in the home of a Pastor, faith was a critical influence on my formative years and it’s a concept that is almost always poorly portrayed in film, especially in “faith based” movies such as the God’s Not Dead trilogy.
Though it may seem overly dour or humanist on the surface, First Reformed breaks that mold and begs important pointed questions about the role of the American church and its often twisted relationship with capitalism in today’s rapidly shifting culture. Ethan Hawke turns in an incredible Oscar-caliber performance as a spiritual leader who struggles to reconcile his faith with the changing culture and humankind’s mistreatment of God’s creation. First Reform‘s slow burn pacing and direct questions may not be for everyone, but as a person who has begged these sorts of questions through my life, I found the film to be exactly what “faith based” films need; challenging, but ultimately affirming stories of very real people.
Runner ups: Blindspotting, Eighth Grade, Mission: Impossible Fallout, Sorry to Bother You, The Death of Stalin
