2018 was a complex year when considering structures and stories across the film industry. The focus on diversity of voices and shifting trends in people’s consuming habits have impacted the output of Hollywood, and indigenous cinema alike. What we’re seeing presently, dappled in amongst the anticipated reboots and rehashed narratives, is something a bit fresher. To keep your film banter on point, we’ve compiled our Top 5 films.
You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)
“You Were Never Really Here marks Ramsey’s piercing return to cinema, and solidifies her as one of the most potent cinematic forces working today, with a perilous uncompromising vision.”
First Reformed (Paul Schrader)
“According to reports, First Reformed could be Paul Schrader’s last film, if so it marks the end of a terrific thematic through line. ‘God’s lonely man’ stemmed from the budding rage of Travis Bickle, nestling in the narcissism of American Gigolo’s (1980) Julian Kaye to then be caught in the midst of a mid-life crisis with John LaTour in Light Sleeper (1992).”
Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
There’s an otherworldly air to the storytelling. Prophetic writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson has forged a gothic romance out of a haunting embrace between two souls; and which by means of either alchemy or witchcraft, has been engraved in celluloid for all eternity.
Hereditary (Ari Aster)
Sorry to Bother You
