Foreign language films feature prominently in year’s top 10
This year, the blockbuster movies disappointed and the smaller independent movies left a surprising mark.
This has been a year in which the blockbuster movies produced by the major studios have disappointed while there has been an embarrassment of riches from the independent and international sectors.
Two of the biggest Hollywood films of the year, Black Panther and A Star is Born, attracted large audiences but the former, though celebrated for finally giving superhero status to African-Americans, was essentially pretty much the comic book mixture as before, while the latter, despite Lady Gaga’s successful transition to the big screen and Bradley Cooper’s efficient direction, paled when compared to the 1954 George Cukor version of the classic showbiz story.
The importance of streaming services was again manifest, with Netflix Originals offering up some very strong titles, among them Paul Greengrass’s film of the aftermath of the massacre in Norway, 22 July; Nicole Holofcener’s The Land of Steady Habits, starring Ben Mendelsohn; and, finally, Orson Welles’s long-delayed The Other Side of the Wind, which he started filming in 1970.
An unusually large number of impressive films tackled true stories. Some were political (Steven Spielberg’s The Post; Spike Lee’s incendiary BlacKkKlansman; Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour; the tragic story of Ted Kennedy’s fall from grace, Chappaquiddick); while others involved the sporting and entertainment fields (I, Tonya; Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool; Bohemian Rhapsody; England is Mine; and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, containing career-best performances by Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant).
Some of the best films that missed out on my top 10 list include Paul Schrader’s riveting First Reformed, in which Ethan Hawke gives one of his best performances as a troubled country priest; Isle of Dogs, the latest joyful eccentricity from Wes Anderson; Lady Bird, an honest and revealing autobiography from Greta Gerwig starring the talented Saoirse Ronan; Leave No Trace, Debra Granik’s film about a father and daughter attempting to live far away from civilisation; Peter Jackson’s extraordinary restoration of World War I archive footage, They Shall Not Grow Old; and Boy Erased, Joel Edgerton’s moving exploration of the shabby world of sexual indoctrination, with its four great performances from Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Lucas Hedges and Edgerton himself.
I wish I could have found room to include in my list two Australian films: Bruce Beresford’s lovingly made Ladies in Black, with its outstanding performances from a rich ensemble cast, and Simon Baker’s evocative adaptation of Tim Winton’s Breath.
British films of note included two written by Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach and The Children Act, as well as the very entertaining Juliet, Naked and The Party.
Good thrillers were few and far between, but I very much liked Widows, director Steve McQueen’s re-imagining of the British television series of the same name; Bad Times at the El Royale, Drew Goddard’s Tarantino-influenced multi-charactered suspenser; and Searching, Aneesh Chaganty’s startlingly original drama of a widower’s frantic search to find his missing teenage daughter.
On the horror front, director John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place represented an unusually intelligent approach to well-worn themes.
Half of my 10 best are foreign language films and it was an unusually rewarding year for films made in languages other than English. Among the considerable delights I’d include the Palestinian Wajib; The Insult (Lebanon); Donbass (Ukraine); Cold War (Poland); No Date, No Signature (Iran); The Other Side of Hope (Finland); The Wild Pear Tree (Turkey); A Fantastic Woman (Chile); On Body and Soul (Hungary); Summer 1993 (Spain); The Square (Sweden); and, from France, Happy End, C’est la Vie and See You Up There. Some of these excellent films received only limited release.
And so, after a great deal of agonising, and with my apologies to the two Australian near-misses in particular, I present my top 10 films for 2018, which are listed alphabetically.
Custody (Jusqu’a la Garde)
Xavier Legrand’s award-winning feature debut is a magnificently acted and intensely filmed depiction of a woman who, along with her children, lives in fear of her ex-husband.
The Favourite
Olivia Colman is magnificent as Queen Anne, the eccentric monarch who ruled Britain in the early 18th century. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has created a hugely engaging variation on All About Eve as Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone vie for the Queen’s favours.
Foxtrot
A provocative film from Israeli director Samuel Maoz in which a Tel Aviv couple is informed — incorrectly — that their son, a conscript in the army, has been killed.
Loveless (Nelyubov)
Master director Andrey Zyvagintsev’s probing investigation into life in today’s Russia involves a selfish couple whose son goes missing.
Roma
Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron’s evocation of his childhood in the suburbs of Mexico City won the Golden Lion in Venice. A Netflix original, this personal and multi-layered masterwork involves a well-to-do family from the perspective of their live-in maid.
The Shape of Water
This best film Oscar winner is an original sci-fi thriller-romance from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro in which a timid young woman falls in love with a “gill-man” discovered in the Amazon.
Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku)
The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, this magnificent Japanese film from director Hirokazu Kore-eda is about an impoverished family that resorts to petty crime to make ends meet.
Sweet Country
The multi-talented Warwick Thornton won the best film AACTA for his 1920s Australian western in which an Aboriginal labourer shoots a white settler in self-defence and becomes the focus of a manhunt.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Released in cinemas on the first of the year, this clever comedy thriller from Martin McDonagh won for Frances McDormand the best actress Oscar.
Vice
This masterly profile of Dick Cheney, superbly played by Christian Bale, is certainly one of the high points of a very good year. Although not everyone may agree with its political viewpoint, director Adam McKay’s film is undeniably witty, inventive, original, sometimes funny and always utterly gripping.
Keiran Culkin deserves an Oscar for being A Real Pain
The actor best known for Succession is annoying but excellent in this funny film about a pair of Jewish cousins on a pilgrimage to visit the childhood home of their Holocaust survivor grandmother
‘You are not a victim’: Spacey hits back at Pearce’s claims he was ‘targeted’
In a fiery video posted to his X account, the Oscar-winning actor rebuked Pearce’s claims that he had made untoward advances on him in 1997 while filming L.A. Confidential.