lukeonfilm TOP 10 FILMS OF 2018

Much has already been written about how Ari Aster’s debut feature Hereditary cribs many of its story elements from classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist; but the film sustains such a singularly oppressive atmosphere over the course of its runtime that makes the experience all the more difficult to shake, much less dismiss. It wholly commits to its fatalism in a way that is utterly disquieting — the bloated length not so much a first-time director’s self-indulgence or a failure of conciseness as it is an essential component of the film’s design. Aster puts the audience through the ringer with the grieving family at the heart of the story: the film is long, it is arduous, grueling, pitiless, and there is no hope or redemption at the end. It’s a film filled with uniquely grotesque imagery that I never want to see again. What begins as a seemingly The Omen/Exorcist style malevolent child movie quickly pulls the rug out from out from underneath its audience, from that point forward marching deliberately towards a destination that we know is unavoidable, but is still just as horrifying when we finally arrive there. Toni Collette, whose sterling performance in The Sixth Sense remains one of the most authentic on-screen portrayals of motherhood, gives yet another tour de force performance, this time in a decidedly more operatic register — and it’s a performance that haunted me for days afterwards. The highest compliment I can pay the film is that I wanted it to end about as soon as it started. It feels genuinely unholy, and I needed a shower afterwards to wash away the residue.

Hands down the most fun I had at the theater this year (twice!), Mission Impossible: Fallout is a nonstop barrage of action and death-defying stuntwork that left me breathless. The plot is old hat: once again, villains are trying to acquire nuclear weapons to blow up the world, or whatever—it hardly matters. But while McQuarrie’s film is largely a string of set pieces masquerading as a story, it’s hard not to get swept up in it all when the energy level is this high and the scale this gargantuan. Long live Tom Cruise.

A Star is Born is a story that’s as old as Hollywood itself, with three previous incarnations that ranged from mediocre to downright awful. Luckily, director-star Bradley Cooper’s modern revamp of the film is the first one to actually get it right. The film can’t quite sustain the euphoria of its initial forty-five minutes or so, but in hindsight it’s clear that’s by design, with the film’s structure mirroring the gradual decline of its male lead and the rift that it creates between the two lovers. It’s a relatively grounded affair, with great, naturalistic performances from Gaga and Cooper and neon-drenched cinematography from Matthew Libatique, noticeably disinterested in the artifice of other contemporary musicals like La La Land. But the film also doesn’t shy away from embracing its movie-ness—an early scene where Gaga goes up on stage with Cooper and sings a song that she came up with the night before on the fly is perhaps the movie moment of the year. It’s a stellar debut feature, and a clear indication that Cooper has a promising directing career ahead of him.

A frequently funny but also deeply elegiac swan song, The Mule is a work of self-reflection that finds its octogenerian star’s character Earl Stone — and Eastwood himself — reckoning with the mistakes of his past. The film finds great humor in the farcical nature of the premise and America’s current generational divide, but is also unexpectedly forward-looking — attuned to social issues like racism in policing and the understanding that Eastwood, as a Hollywood star, is at the end of his career and that the torch must be passed from the old Hollywood, with its old masculine ideals, to the new Hollywood (the casting of Bradley Cooper is integral to this bit of metatextuality). It’s a deceptively simple film that is densely layered, and a must see for anyone who is even remotely a Clint Eastwood fan.

Isle of Dogs features the typically sophisticated design work you expect from a Wes Anderson film — every frame is spilling over with detail, and it’s a veritable feast of art direction. It’s consistently entertaining, witty, and visually inventive (multicolored sake bottles! cherry blossom petals! sushi-making!), with repeat viewings only further revealing the richness of the production design and the intricacy of the plotting. Anderson has inspired a host of imitators over the years (*cough* Paddington), but they’ve still yet to come even remotely close to matching the ingenuity of his vision. It’s another winner from one of our best living filmmakers, and Isle of-ed it.

Taking the expression “get back in the saddle” to a literal extent, Chloe Zhao’s moving modern Western The Rider follows the semi-autobiographical story of Brady Jandreau, who found his future as a horse rider in jeopardy after suffering cranial injuries. Zhao’s film combines a visual style that recalls early Terrence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven) with a Reichardtian eye for observational drama. It’s a quiet knockout.

The Coen Brothers have always been fascinated by the randomness of the universe, chance, fate, mortality — and with Buster Scruggs, they have funneled their pet themes through a Western genre framework to perfection. It’s essentially their manifesto as to why they’re filmmakers, and enough to make their previous summary of their worldview A Serious Man look like a rough draft. A problem I’ve had with the Coens in the past is that they are too ironically detached for their own good, but passages of Buster Scruggs are among the most sincere they have ever put to film (see: The Girl Who Got Rattled). And even when they do revel in the cosmic irony of the situations their characters end up in, it feels completely appropriate, and simply an authentic depiction of how uncertain and perilous life was in the Wild West. Although the film maintains a thematic throughline and successfully juggles all of the Coens’ usual motifs, each segment of the anthology is visually and tonally distinct. Any qualms that I may have had prior to watching the film about the Coens switching to digital cinematography were put to rest almost immediately; the gorgeous landscapes and striking period scenery captured by Inside Llewyn Davis cinematographer Bruno Delbonell providing each story with a perfectly judged aesthetic. Buster Scruggs, in some ways, feels like the culmination of the Coens’ entire filmography. It’s a work of casual mastery, and their best film in years.

At first, the very existence of First Man may seem puzzling: How do you wring dramatic tension out of NASA’s mission to the moon when the outcome is widely known? But director Damien Chazelle and screenwriter Josh Singer approach the story from a fresh angle — opting to examine Armstrong’s personal motivations for getting there, balancing a more melancholy, intimate study of how this one man’s ambition was borne from grief against the cosmic scope of the US’s towering achievement. Boasting career best performances from Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy, First Man sets a new standard for the biopic format, with a real artistry shining through all the conventions of the genre.

Alfonso Cuarón is one of our greatest living filmmakers, his work ranging from sci-fi classics like Children of Men and Gravity to unexpectedly tender sex comedies like Solo Con tu Pareja and Y Tu Mama Tambien. But throughout the years, his versatility has unfortunately not been matched by his prolificness, with the esteemed Mexican director only delivering three films in the 21st century. The wait was well worth it, however, and he has finally returned with Roma, a deeply personal and utterly magnificent film to add to an already impressive oeurve. Filtered through Cuaron’s own life experiences, the film has a time capsule quality to it, with the grain-free softness of the black and white cinematography effortlessly replicating the feel of a vividly recalled memory. Led by extraordinarily gifted actress Yalitza Aparicio in her film debut, Roma works on multiple levels: as a transporting domestic portrait of Mexico in the 1980’s, a heartfelt ode to the resilience of women in the face of adversity, and a loving celebration of Mexican culture. It’s yet another gorgeously wrought film from a modern master.

I’m not necessarily opposed to movies about bougie New Yorkers’ first world problems, but stuff like Noah Baumbach’s mumblecore-inflected junk pisses me off to no end, so I went into this with some trepidation. But Private Life completely disarmed me within minutes — it’s uncommonly honest and beautifully written, with an expert blend of gut-busting situational comedy and pathos. The entire cast is fantastic. No film has brought me this much joy this year, and I could easily see it becoming my go-to comfort film. My favorite of the year, hands down.

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