Best of lists are always strange beasts. We sift through a year of ‘stuff’ trying to find value and quality, only to put it in some kind of arbitrary order. These lists always play like a competition – where you sit there for weeks pitting one ‘thing’ against another, judging its quality and minutely assessing it for blemishes and bruises that may tarnish its placement. Why do we do this? To what purpose is the existence of a ‘Best of List’?
Well, for me, a ‘Best of List’ is not so much a ranking of quality, but instead a way of putting a series of ‘things’ in order of their perceived value to me. Are these the best ‘things’ that that year had to offer? No, not entirely. In fact, there’s little way of actually deeming what is the ‘best’ at the end of a year.
I’m being deliberately obtuse – mostly because I’ve already done a handful of Best of Lists for 2018, but also because I’m trying to emphasise that the following list of fifty films from 2018 is in no way a definitive statement of what is the ‘Best’ that cinema had to offer. To that end, neither is the Academy Awards, or any awards ceremony for that matter.
What this list is, is a reminder to me that these were the films that were the ones that left the longest impression on me. Whether it was a personal connection I had with the film – I think of Strange Colours and my initial reaction of complete surprise that a film like that could speak so directly to me – or whether it was that these were films that utilised the art form of filmmaking in a way that I appreciated the most, these films all left a mark on me in some way.
I find ‘Best of Lists’ a fascinating endeavour. They work as a glimpse into the minds of the many, as a way of seeing into their lives for a moment and understanding what impacted them the most in that year. There’s something uniquely intimate about a ‘Best of List’. It’s a way of looking into someone’s life and seeing where they were at that point in time. Maybe you’ll agree with some of the films on my ‘Best of List’. Maybe you’ll find something about me through my selections that I didn’t know.
Most importantly, for me at least, I hope you find a few titles that you haven’t heard of or hadn’t seen.
As I’m based in Australia, all of the films included are done so by Australian release dates. For some films, they have only had festival appearances – in these circumstances, I have included them with the knowledge that they may appear at a theatrical screening later on. Given the finicky aspect of global release dates, this is an imprecise element of list making.
Some stats about the list:
- Seventeen films directed or co-directed by women
- Twelve films not in the English language
- Ten documentaries
- Seven Australian films
- Eleven films from Perth’s Revelation Film Festival
50. Happy End
Director: Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke’s Happy End plays like a ‘Best of Michael Haneke’ album, with nods to his previous work and the continuation of many themes he’s explored before. It’s also his most accessible, with the dark saturation of depressing themes surprisingly absent. Give this a watch for the best karaoke version of Sia’s Chandelier.
49. Book Club
Director: Bill Holderman
The distinct charm of watching masterful actors like Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen, work together is the core essence of why Book Club is such a deeply enjoyable film to watch. Easy fun with an easy plot that’ll bring out easy laughs.
48. The Endless
Directors: Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson
Unique, original science-fiction fare tends to fall between the cracks, which is why it’s important to single out the work of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson who manage to craft one of the most intriguing, mind bending narratives in genre film for 2018. The Endless works like a flower, revealing itself gradually until it’s in full bloom, only to close up at the end with you trapped inside wondering what’s just happened.
47. Jane
Director: Brett Morgen
Jane Goodall is one of the finest human beings to ever exist. Her narrative is so pure, and so inspiring, that watching this documentary that collates much of the footage captured in her time in Gombe is like sinking yourself into a hot spring. It’s refreshing, calming, and reinvigorating. Goodall is a person – like Fred Rogers – whom you are better off for having spent time with them.
46. BlacKkKlansman
Director: Spike Lee
Spike Lee is not a subtle director, and BlacKkKlansman is no different. Yes, it has a gut punch of an ending, and it’s full of Spike Lee-isms, but it’s also a film that encompasses black culture in all its glory in an unexpected way. Open discussions about the difference between Super Fly and Shaft, or the historical relevance of Gone With the Wind, help create a timely film about race and racism in America.
45. Annihilation
Director: Alex Garland
Home of one of the most unsettling scenes of 2018, Alex Garland’s Annihilation feels like a film lost in time. It’s an eerie, affective film about what thrives within us – whether it be emotions, or a past we can’t escape, Garland’s film explores it as a whole. Driven by some of the years finest performances, Annihilation is another sign that science-fiction that tests your mind is alive and well.
44. Avengers: Infinity War
Director: Anthony & Joe Russo
If Annihilation and The Endless got your mind grapes going, then Avengers: Infinity Warwill get your science fiction action heart pumping. One of the most visually exciting films in recent years, this is a film that, on paper, should not work, but punch after punch, quip after quip, and CGI explosion after CGI explosion, it somehow manages to be one of the most exciting comic book films ever.
43. Downrange
Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Downrange is a fairly simple concept with one heck of an execution. A car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, with the occupants gradually finding out that it was no accident, but instead a gunman somewhere. As the bodies pile up, the madness of the scenario amplifies to one heck of a crescendo that ends with easily one of the best endings of 2018. Low-fi horror filmmaking at its finest.
Director: Dana Nachman & Don Hardy Jr.
2018 was not a good year, but at least Pick of the Litter was there to deliver all the puppy goodness you need in your life, plus a little bit more. But, a good film can’t ride on cuteness alone, and Pick of the Litter ensures to show the hard work that goes in to training dogs for the vision impaired, while also showing what happens with the dogs who don’t pass the test. Easily one of the best family films of the year.
41. Padman
Director: R. Balki
Padman is one of the very few films that states a case for mansplaining (under the necessary conditions). Let me clarify (or, rather, let me do a little mansplaining myself) – based on a true story, this is a film about Arunachalam Muruganantham, a man who invents a low cost sanitary pad making machine in India and travels around India explaining to women why using these pads is life-saving. Akshay Kumar is great as the titular ‘Padman’, and the film as a whole is an eye opening exploration into how poorly the needs of women around the world are met.
Director: Morgan Neville
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? follows the narrative of Fred Rogers – a man who worked to make the lives of kids just a little bit easier in an ever changing world. It’s hard to believe that there ever was someone as pure as Rogers living in the world, especially as we further our strides into darkness and cynicism, but this documentary shows that yes, he existed, and yes, he was as good a man as the stories suggest. If only we had another Fred Rogers in the world to bring some kind of stability for the kids out there.
39. Shirkers
Director: Sandi Tan
Shirkers is a bittersweet celebration of filmmaking and friendship. It’s a film about a lost film and the effects it had on those who made it. Sandi Tan’s misfortune in the nineties is our gain today as this is one of the most engaging and entertaining documentaries of 2018. The announcement of Sandi Tan as a filmmaker may have come 25 years too late, but at least she’s here now. More of this please.
38. The Insult
Director: Ziad Doueiri
The gradually escalating tension that drives the narrative of The Insult plays out like the butterfly effect in Lebanon. A brief moment of aggravation between two strangers tumbles into a court case that tears a city apart. What seems like a simple issue that could be resolved easily unfolds to explore the antagonism directed towards Palestinian refugees, all the while exploring the cause of that antagonism. A deep exploration into the way anger cements itself in society and rears its ugly head in disturbing ways.
37. The Shape of Water
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar winning ode to those who live on the fringes of society is a harmonious, fantastical and, like its subjects, kind of feels like an anomaly in this filmic landscape. Ever the romantic, del Toro’s direction is at peak del Toro – he embraces everything that makes him the filmmaker he is, all the while accentuating it with clear affection for the characters whose story he is telling. Obviously a personal film for del Toro, while also a clear invitation from del Toro to come and sit beside him on the couch to dance a little together.
36. Faces Places
Director: Agnes Varda
It’s easy to forget that documentaries aren’t always serious fare about exposing the unknown truth about a story. They can be joyous, smile inducing affairs that warm your heart in just the right way. Thanks to Agnes Varda and her sidekick JR, Faces Places is the cure to your woes, as the two travel the countryside taking photos of people and sticking their faces onto buildings. It’s deceptively simple stuff but by gosh you’ll be positively beaming come the end.
35. Widows
Director: Steve McQueen
Widows is a film positively dripping in subtext. Everything from the exploration of the way women are trapped in society by the hands of men, through to the corruption that permeates through politics – this is a film that takes no prisoners, moving like a ten hour miniseries condensed into a tight two and a half hours. Powerhouse performances from Elizabeth Debicki, Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Cynthia Ervio, make this more than just a heist flick.
34. Columbus
Director: Kogonada
Kogonada’s immaculately composed debut feature film is at once an ode to architecture, while at the same time an ode to the relationships that guide our lives in different ways. It’s rare to see a genuine, plutonic connection between two people like the one that John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson have in Columbus, and the narrative is all the better off for it. John Cho once again proves why he’s one of the most undervalued actors working today, and it’s roles like this that will hopefully one day guide him towards even greater things. Subtle filmmaking like this is not easy, but filmmakers like Kogonada make it look effortless, and actors like John Cho make it seem like a walk in the park.
33. Let the Corpses Tan
Directors: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
The term ‘style over substance’ is usually used in a derogatory manner, except when it comes to Let the Corpses Tan where the style is the substance. Co-directors Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani have created a meticulous, visually manic piece of art that exists to dazzle and stun. One sequence that involves explosions of gold contrasted with a gun being fired is seared into my mind forever. A lurid dive into hypercolour.
32. [CENSORED]
Director: Sari Braithwaite
Sari Braithwaite’s thesis in Australian film censorship is like cinematic crack for me. It’s everything I look for in cinema – an engaging exploration into the form of cinema, as well as a glimpse into film history, all the while shining a light on a little known part of Australian history. Informative and enraging, [CENSORED] is a film that shines a light on the male gaze and forces us to reconcile with what we’re seeing in a very uncomfortable manner.
31. Lady Bird
Director: Greta Gerwig
When I think of Lady Bird, I don’t immediately think of the superb central performance by Saorise Ronan, or the energetic direction by Greta Gerwig, or the empathetic mother figure that is Laurie Metcalf, but instead, I think of the editing by Nick Houy that works to amplify and accentuate all of these excellent elements into one exceptionally relatable film. Playing like the bratty older sibling to Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, Lady Bird is an ode to growing up and expecting privilege to fall in your lap and being disappointed when it doesn’t.
30. Leave No Trace
Director: Debra Granik
Leave No Trace is a masterwork from filmmaker Debra Granik. Through some kind of magic divinity, she draws quiet, tender performances from Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie, easing them in to the role of father and daughter and allowing that relationship to grow and bend as their situation changes. Cinematography by Michael McDonough helps realise the wilderness of America in a way we have never seen before. It’s hard to lose this one from your mind once you’ve experienced it, and given its G-rating in Australia, it’s one that is worthwhile experiencing with younger kids who can process the mature themes within it.
29. First Reformed
Director: Paul Schrader
A lot has been said about Paul Schrader’s writing, and most importantly, Ethan Hawke’s finest performance in First Reformed. It’s a towering achievement of filmmaking from both artists that lingers long in your mind afterwards. What sticks the most is the way Schrader effortlessly assesses the role of religion in an ever changing world, and the way religion is bending alongside the effects of climate change. A film that leaves you with a question rather than an answer – and it’s a question that you may never find the answer for.
28. Backtrack Boys
Director: Catherine Scott
I’ve talked a lot about Backtrack Boys, it’s a film I genuinely adore. But in the world of Gillette commercials advocating for a better version of masculinity, it’s worthwhile reminding that there are people like Bernie Shakeshaft that are staking their claim and ensuring that – at least in one town in NSW – there’s a generation of kids who will grow up with a better future. Backtrack Boys place on this list seems low for this statement to ring true, but it’s honestly one of the films which I’d recommend every Australian seek out.
27. Private Life
Director: Tamara Jenkins
There is a moment of perfect framing within Private Life where Paul Giamatti’s Richard lays on a bed next to his wife Rachel – a career best performance from Kathryn Hahn –, his shadow looms large on the wall as they argue about the last time they had sex. As a representation of physical expectations of a relationship looming large, it’s also an open discussion in a film that’s full of open discussions. Tamara Jenkins personal film comes much too long after her last essential film, The Savages, and the inhale-without-an-exhale of an ending has me wishing that it’s not so long before there’s another film.
26. The Rider
Director: Chloé Zhao
If there’s one word which I use a little too much in this rundown of films, it’s gentle. But, it’s not without reason, as a lot of my favourite films from 2018 have been gentle affairs. Chloé Zhao’s second film, The Rider, is a docu-drama that looks at an injured rodeo bronco rider, Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau), as he tries to find his way through life without the one thing that gave him purpose. The Jandreau family essentially play versions of themselves, allowing for a natural narrative to unfurl with a lived-in perspective. This is what cinema is about – a glimpse into a world you didn’t know existed by a guiding hand that knows exactly where to take you. Gentle filmmaking at its finest. Watch it in a double bill with Leave No Trace.
25. Upgrade
Director: Leigh Whannell
My palms are itching for whatever Leigh Whannell brings out next. Such is the power on display within Upgrade. What should be a basic sci-fi action flick turns into so much more with a film that explores personal autonomy in a believable future where being a ‘cyborg’ is a reality. Logan Marshall Green gives one of the best performances of the year, helping elevate this film to unexpected heights.
24. The Wife
Director: Björn Runge
Glenn Close delivers the finest performance of her career in this powerful film about the suppression of women’s voices in the world, and how men proudly co-opt their wives genius and slap their own name on it. Johnathan Pryce equals Close as the opportunistic husband who has crafted a career around Close’s Joan Castlemane’s brilliance. Glenn Close will likely win her first Oscar for this performance, and it’s well deserved for what is a timely film.
Director: Sebastián Lelio
Sebastián Lelio had two films out in 2018 – Disobedience and A Fantastic Woman. Both tell stories which are wholly unfamiliar to me – a Jewish community and a transgender narrative. But, both are exceptionally caring, sympathetic films about women that have been pushed into situations that suppresses who they are as people. Disobedience has one of the finest endings of 2018, but it’s Daniela Vega’s powerful performance in A Fantastic Woman that pushes it up as one of the best of the year.
22. The Other Side of Hope
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Kaurismäki’s blend of dry comedy and drama is – admittedly – not for everyone, but his work is so humane and caring that even if the comedy doesn’t land, then the drama will work for you. With The Other Side of Hope, Kaurismäki looks at the refugee crisis in Europe and crafts a simple narrative around a man trying to establish a life for himself, and hopefully his sister, in Finland. Containing one of the most purely hilarious scenes in cinema in 2018 (a moment with wasabi that goes drastically wrong), The Other Side of Hope is Kaurismäki at his finest.
21. Roma
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
When a director fires on all cylinders, they can truly transport you to another realm. This is what Alfonso Cuarón does with Roma. He plants you in his home town and takes you on a long, winding journey, down the side streets, to the beach, to the countryside, and allows you to be immersed in the world. He does so via some of the most stunning cinematography in recent memory that allows us to witness scenes that carry profound immediacy in glorious black and white. Forget discussions about watching this at home or in a theatre – just watch Roma. You won’t regret it.
20. You Were Never Really Here
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Joaquin Phoenix carries the weight of depression and PTSD with disturbing reality, making You Were Never Really Here one of the finest portrayals of mental illness in film. There is a moment within You Were Never Really Here that would feel mildly comical if there were any other director than Lynne Ramsay behind the camera. After a bloody affair, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joe lays down next to a man he’s mortally wounded and sings with him as he dies. In this moment, Joe yearns for the one thing that eludes him – death.
Director: Marielle Heller
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is possibly the most respectful depiction of the life of an introvert. Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of Lee Israel contains a level of cynicism with it, but it’s presented in a very caring manner that allows people to relate to the life of the introvert. Paired with Skate Kitchen, Can You Ever Forgive Me? carries on the perfect reclamation of New York as being a diverse city that is not just white men in business suits.
18. A Woman Captured
Director: Bernadett Tuza-Ritter
There were a few documentaries in 2018 that made me aware of issues that I was either already tangentially aware of, or completely ignorant of. A Woman Captured is one such film that highlighted my ignorance about the prevalence of domestic slavery around the world. Not only did it enlighten me about a tragedy that occurs daily around the world, but it challenged the notion of the relationship between filmmaker and subject. At once, I was furious as director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter for being complicit in Edith’s domestic slave life, but as the film unveils her tragic story, moments of hope shine through the darkness.
17. Love, Simon
Director: Greg Berlanti
The romance genre had a pretty stellar year in 2018 with Crazy Rich Asians, Love, Simon, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, all coming out in the same year. My pick of the bunch is a film that hasn’t left my mind since it came out – Love, Simon. Beautifully directed by Greg Berlanti, and containing a really wonderful performance from Nick Robinson as Simon, as well as Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner as Simon’s parents, Love, Simon is a timely film about male sexuality. Love, Simon shows what it feels like to be alone with your sexuality and at a point of uncertainty about whether it’s right. The climax that has almost the whole town coming out to support Simon could have felt trite, but it’s presented with such authenticity and warmth that you can’t help but wish that every young boy growing up unsure of their sexuality gets to watch this great film to show that it’s ok to be gay.
16. In the Fade
Director: Fatih Akin
Films that deal with political turmoil as it continues to rage are often conflicted affairs. Is it possible to even see the radius from within the blast zone? Director Fatih Akin proves that it’s possible to craft a socially relevant film drawing form current world events and to still make it engaging. In the Fade carries the career best performance from Diane Kruger through to one heck of a devastating conclusion. Through the films running time she carries the weight of the death of her husband and her son at the hands of Neo-Nazi’s, trying to not let it wear her down, until it finally does. The closing moments of In the Fade stand as some of the most powerful cinema from 2018.
15. Revenge
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Playing like Let the Corpses Tan with a plot, Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge is quite simply the best horror film of the decade. Disgusting villains make for compelling fodder for Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz’s brutalised Jen, as she hunts them down in the desert after being raped and left for dead. Yes, this is another rape-revenge film, but the direction from Coralie Fargeat ensures to not glamourize or sensationalise the act of the rape, and instead, she opts to focus on the fallout of this horrific event.
14. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
The world has been blessed with the pairing of Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise. One is a man who is intimate with the craft of action filmmaking, the other is a malleable tool that can be tossed around, bent and folded, bruised and battered, as per the films requirements. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the action genre working at full throttle – jaw dropping sequence after jaw dropping sequence is elevated by a thrilling plot that draws together decades of Mission: Impossible lore, culminating in the action sequence of the year. This film will never get old.
13. The Cleaners
Directors: Hans Block & Moritz Riesewick
Not long after watching The Cleaners, I put up a photo on Facebook with Prince Harry in his Nazi attire. I didn’t think much of it, but almost straight away I was given a Facebook ban. At once I was furious, but then I remembered the outsourced workers in the Philippines whose job it was to clear the internet from contentious imagery. It’s a problematic area of online life – we demand safety, but what happens when the safety we demand works against us? The Cleaners asks us to consider the effects of social media and to recognise that while our bubble on the internet is relatively safe, it is with the realisation that it actively harms many others in the world. There are no easy answers or solutions to this problem, instead, The Cleaners presents you with facts and asks you to decide for yourself how you will engage with social media.
12. Hearts Beat Loud
Director: Brett Haley
Chicken soup for the soul is the best way of describing Hearts Beat Loud. The way that Nick Offerman’s laugh makes your heart soar needs to be bottled up and given to the world – it can cure any ailment. When paired with Kiersey Clemons serene vocals, the two can do anything. While I love the films I’ve placed higher a little bit more than Hearts Beat Loud, I know that in years to come this will be the film that I’ll be reaching for when I’m feeling down. (Plus, any film that has Toni Collette, Ted Danson, and Sasha Lane, as supporting players gets a huge round of applause from me.)
11. Shoplifters
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
There is a genuine sweet concept at the core of Shoplifters, where the best family is the one that you choose for yourself. This is a film that reveals itself slowly, encompassing you with a mood that is hard to shake. Ten minutes after my first viewing, I was driving in my car, and simply burst into tears. The sorrow that the film leaves you with is not a leaden one, but it does leave a mark. Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of the most patient directors working today, and Shoplifters is a monument of his great talent.
10. Skate Kitchen
Director: Crystal Moselle
The way cinematographer Shabier Kirchner captures skating in Skate Kitchen plays a huge role in the vibrancy of this absolute powerhouse of a film from Crystal Moselle. Yes, it’s a pitch perfect celebration of girls growing up, especially as they tear down gender stereotypes and raise a massive middle finger to anyone who challenges them. And yes, it’s a downright essential revisualisation of New York City, which is born again through new eyes. But, alongside Moselle’s great direction, the cinematography bundles all of it together in a way that simply electrifies the viewer. In a year where great women directors were passed over, Crystal Moselle stands as one of the most egregious omissions.
9. Island of the Hungry Ghosts
Director: Gabrielle Brady
Island of the Hungry Ghosts is not only the best documentary of the year, and not only one of the best Australian films of the year, but it’s clearly one of the greatest films of the year. Gabrielle Brady’s direction is measured and considered, reflecting the actions of the core subject, trauma counsellor for refugees, Poh Lin Lee. The subject material Brady is documenting is horrifying and alarming, but the way she presents it is entirely without histrionics. As Poh’s time on Christmas Island becomes untenable, we can feel through Brady’s direction that both her and her subject have become exhausted, reflecting the mood of a nation who has become exhausted and exasperated at continuous government inaction over asylum seekers.
8. A Star is Born
Director: Bradley Cooper
Oddly enough, throughout all my years of film watching, I had never seen a version of A Star is Born. Thankfully, it appears I chose a pretty darn great version to jump into, as Bradley Cooper’s indie aesthetic direction applied to a grand canvas helps turn what should have been a ho-hum affair into something truly sublime. Not only does Cooper coax a soaring performance from Lady Gaga, but he also offers up a perfect acting companion to bounce off, helping him craft arguably his best performance. The music is, expectedly, great, but it’s the emotions behind the songs that help A Star is Born linger long after the credits have rolled.
7. Tully
Director: Jason Reitman
It had been seven years since the last Jason Reitman/Diablo Cody pairing, and with Tully it’s clear that this is a duo that works in supreme harmony. Throw Charlize Theron into the mix, and you’re on the path to perfection. Tully is a simple poem to motherhood and the difficulties of raising children. It highlights the inadequacies of fathers, while also accentuating the immense difficulties that women face after bringing a human into the world. Changing bodies bring changing minds, and with those changing minds come the weight of post-partum depression. Charlize Theron’s depiction of a mother struggling will make you weep. I’ll always be partial to Young Adult, but I have to say, Tully is evidence of three immense talents working at their peak.
6. On Body and Soul
Director: Ildikó Enyedi
There were two films that spoke to me the most in 2018; films that felt like they were telling a story that was tangential to my own. On Body and Soul is the first, with its story of two people falling in love with each other. Géza Morcsányi and Alexandra Borbély play Endre and Mária respectively, two colleagues who find that they share the same dreams. Both are introverted, living solitary lives, and as they fall in love with each other they learn more about how to exist alongside each other. What works so perfectly with On Body and Soul is the way that director Ildikó Enyedi never treats being an introvert as a ‘shell’ that needs to be broken. Instead, she utilises serene imagery of deer in a snow filled forest to show that under the apparently vacant exterior, there is a peaceful world existing. On Body and Soul reassures the introverts of the world that no, you’re not weird, and you’re not abnormal, and you’re not different; you’re just you. And you deserve to have someone to love.
Directors: soda_jerk
To call Terror Nullius an Australian left-leaning Ready Player One feels reductive, but it’s the most apt comparison out there for this 50-ish minute roller coaster of political punkery. For Australian film lovers, there’s a wealth of recontextualisation of classic cinema to embrace. For Australian politics fans, there’s a huge amount of nods to contentious politics. And for those who want to feel invigorated and revitalised, ready for the next protest event, then Terror Nullius has your back. Heck, any film that turns Skippy into a feminist hero needs to be applauded.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
A masterwork of madness from a filmmaker who has made it his life’s agenda to craft films about the human mind, Phantom Thread features a career best performance from Daniel Day Lewis, with a pitch perfect supporting turn from Lesley Manville. Yet, both actors are working in service of Vicky Krieps’ simply powerful and formidable Alma. I don’t say this lightly – Vicky Krieps gives the finest performance in a Paul Thomas Anderson film ever. Amplified claustrophobia is paired with delicious dialogue that carries the often manic narrative about fashion and mushrooms through to a heady conclusion. A year on from viewing this film, I’m still processing the imagery in my mind, trying to tease out thematic elements to roll over my tongue and consider, and I will likely be doing this for many years forward.
3. Vice
Director: Adam McKay
Adam McKay’s Vice is a gosh darn masterpiece of cinematic brilliance. Modernising the school of Bertolt Brecht, McKay paints a political picture that’s full of fourth-wall breaking quips, amplified performances, and Shakespeare-esque dialogue. What makes Vice work so damn well is the way McKay and his players – career best performances from Christian Bale and Amy Adams – to bend the form of cinema to comment on the subject matter of American politics. Adam McKay has you laughing as the apocalypse unfurls. It’s absurd, it’s ludicrous, it’s eccentric, it’s hilarious, it’s fucking unbelievable. But, as dramatised as the events in Vice may be, they did really happen, and that in itself it the most unbelievable thing of them all – that this farce that continues on in the guise of Donald Trump, the recent history of American politics is real.
Director: Alena Lodkina
When I stepped out of Strange Colours, I was shaking. I had entered the film not knowing what it was about other than it was an Australian film, and I left having had my world changed. Kate Cheel leads this quiet film about life in a country town, unassumingly giving the best performance of the year. What first time feature director Alena Lodkina’s film is one that looks at the comfort of loneliness. Yes, there’s a level of pain that comes with being alone – especially when the company you keep is the vast nothing of Lighting Creek –, but Lodkina’s catalogue of characters are all comfortable with living alone; that is, as long as they have a beer in their hands. When Cheel’s Milena tries to make a connection with the youngest bloke in town, Frank (a heartbreaking performance from newcomer Justin Courtin), he declines. Lodkina knows not to explain the pain that Frank is carrying, simply allowing Justin Courtin’s eyes to show a world of guilt and hurt. I’ve thought about Strange Colours every day since I first saw it, and if there’s one thing I know for sure, Alena Lodkina is one of the finest new talents Australian cinema is lucky to have. A genuine masterpiece of Australian cinema.
Director: Warwick Thornton
If Strange Colours is a masterpiece of Australian cinema, then Sweet Country is the summit. I’ve talked at length about the importance of this film in the pantheon of Australian cinema, but I want to stress that I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this film is quite simply one of the greatest Australian films ever made. Warwick Thornton is one of cinemas great unsung masters, and with a one-two punch like Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country, one has to wonder when the rest of the world is going to catch up to his genius.
What makes Sweet Country such a perfect film is not just the performances, or the direction, or the cinematography, but it’s the narrative that deeply explores Australian history in a manner that has never been done before in Australian cinema. Warwick Thornton holds a mirror up to this land and asks us all to look at the dried blood that is caked under the sand and dirt. He demands we explore the history of indigenous Australia, and to experience the horrors that were inflicted on the first nations people. There is no lecturing, there is no yelling, there is no obvious anger. This is a mere depiction of pain, a deep assessment of the scar that remains open in this land of ours.
Undeniably the finest Australian film of this generation. Every Australian needs to see Sweet Country. Everyone needs to see Sweet Country.