It feels weird making a “Top Five” list before the year is quite over yet. Like, as I’m writing this, movies like The House That Jack Built, Roma, The Favourite (yes, with the “u”), or If Beale Street Could Talk haven’t quite come out yet, which means that some of these could easily get bumped off or shifted around if I get around to seeing them. But this list has been on my mind since somebody asked about it at work, and I’m not sure where else this would fit into the schedule, so I thought I’d give at least a go at explaining myself here as well.
So without further ado, here are my five favorite films from 2018:
5) Thunder Road / Eighth Grade
(Thunder Road trailer) (Eighth Grade trailer)
Okay, I lied, it’s six films. But I liked these two for similar enough reasons that I couldn’t bear cutting one and not the other. It’s true that neither of these films is especially well shot (though Thunder Road does start with a reprise of the short film it is based on (which you can find here) which is a particularly impressive ten-minute long one take), but the writing very much makes up for it.
It’s actually interesting how these two films complement each other. Eighth Grade is about a girl’s final days in Junior High, dealing with the classic struggles of adolescence like not relating at all to her father or wondering why she’s not popular, but with a little bit of writer/director Bo Burnham’s wit mixed in there. On the other side of the coin, Thunder Road is about a father separated from his wife, sharing custody of a daughter the father has trouble relating to. But then he realizes he didn’t really know his mom that well either, and a large portion of the movie is him reconciling all that.
Anyway, they’re both really good with especially strong lead performances, so check them out if you can.
4) Thoroughbreds
(trailer)
It’s really easy to not care about what happens in Thoroughbreds, and I say that even as I put it on this list. There are simply no likable characters in the film, with even the two closest to sympathetic being a drug dealer and a literal sociopath. But the film (written and directed by Cory Finley), understands this and is shot in such a way to always keep the audience at a distance. The experience turns into a kind of helplessness, as you watch a series of events that was doomed to happen from the start.
And again, some people won’t like that. To those people, Thoroughbreds is a bunch of Rich, White People Problems with spoiled brats for characters, and that really is an acceptable reaction to this film. But once you get past that, the film just pulls you the rest of the way in.
3) Les Garçons Sauvages (The Wild Boys)
(trailer)
Oh, you thought the characters in Thoroughbreds were unlikeable, rich brats? Well, I’m one of two minds recommending this movie then. On one, some of the things not shown, only implied, in Thoroughbreds take center stage here, which means that the first third of this movie is just showing five terrible, terrible people doing horrible, uncomfortable to watch things. Thoroughbreds would just be a boring film without its audience’s engagement. The Wild Boys would have those same people leaving in disgust.
It also doesn’t do as much to draw people in, though that’s perhaps to be expected of a literal French art-house movie. It’s going to be pretentious and if you’re not into that, this probably won’t be an enjoyable watch. What the film does offer, though, is striking imagery and a Lord of the Flies-like energy that will leave those still in the theater with a peculiar sense of awe.
2) The Other Side of the Wind
(trailer)
I actually wrote a lot about this one already in my Blue Curtains post, but to summarize here, it’s fascinating how this film was made, it’s fascinating how it finally got all put together, and there’s enough of Orson Welles’ spirit to shine through, even if all the jokes and references land forty years too late.
Shot in a documentary style (almost ten years before Cannibal Holocaust and This is Spinal Tap popularized the mockumentary genre), The Other Side of the Wind describes to us the character of Jake Hannaford, a once-big-time film director who may be desperately clawing at relevance? It’s all unclear, of course, as Jake won’t let anybody into his private life without a fight, but on his seventieth birthday, there are cameras everywhere. I think some of the pieces are out of place, sure (the opening monolog practically begs to be respected for even releasing the film at all), but as I said in that post, I still can’t get this film out of my head.
1) Madeline’s Madeline
(trailer)
It was the trailer that first attracted me to this film, its cutout montage and constant “Hey Na Na” evoking that perfect sense of weirdness that I just had to see play out. And in that regard, I got what I was expecting. But what I wasn’t expecting was, to put it bluntly, the entire rest of it? Everyone’s performance is great, especially Helena Howard’s; it looks great, with a special commendation to make the images actually more focused as the film hits its weirdness stride; and its story slowly evolves in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way that perfectly models the perspective of its main character (and, if you watch a couple of interviews, also the creation of itself).
It’s weird. I mean, I knew I was pretentious (or at least enjoyed art people tend to call pretentious), but having it listed out like this made me realize it just a bit more. Like, the most accessible films are at the lower end of this list. Not that they’re bad, mind you, just that they’re listed lower than the more experimental fare. But at the same time, I do want most people to see most of these movies (The Wild Boys being the exception, again, you really do need to know what you’re getting into with that one), if only to help them find something new to enjoy.
-F
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