The Best Movies of 2018

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster in a scene from Debra Granik’s LEAVE NO TRACE< playing

It’s time for The Movie Gourmet’s Top Ten list for 2018. To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.

Between my number one and two choice, I could have gone either way. Here ‘s my Top Ten for 2018:

  1. Leave No Trace
  2. Roma
  3. The Rider
  4. Shoplifters
  5. The Other Side of the Wind
  6. A Star Is Born
  7. Green Book
  8. The Death of Stalin
  9. (tie) Beast and Custody
  10. BlacKkKlansman

The rest of the best of 2018 are:

  • Monrovia, Indiana
  • Three Identical Strangers
  • Quality Problems
  • Outside In

I would have included Bikini Moon and Barefoot if they were more widely available.

You can find fuller descriptions of these films and links to my posts about them (with images and trailers) at my Best Movies of 2018 page.

Yalitza Aparicio in ROMA

Best Movies of 2018 – So Far

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster in a scene from Debra Granik’s LEAVE NO TRACE< playing

I’ve posted my Best Movies of 2018 – So Far. Every year, I keep a running list of the best movies I’ve seen this year, adding to it as the year goes on.  By the end of the year, I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here’s last year’s list.

To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.

This year, as usual, I took advantage of Cinequest in March and the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) in April to preview some films that will be released later in the year.

My top pick so far this year is Leave No Trace.  Leave No Trace is Debra Granik’s first narrative feature since her 2010 Winter’s Bone (which I had rated as the best film of that year).  Leave No Trace is a brilliant coming of age film that stars Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting. Winter’s Bone launched the career of Jennifer Lawrence, and Leave No Trace might do the same for newcomer McKenzie.  I saw Leave No Trace at the San Francisco International Film Festival.   My full review will appear after the film’s release in the Bay Area at the end of June.

You can see other top picks The Rider and The Death of Stalin in theaters right now and Quality Problems and Outside In are now streaming.

There’s more at Best Movies of 2018 – So Far.

THE RIDER

Best Movies of 2017 – So Far

Javier and Ricardo Darin in TRUMAN
Javier Cámara and Ricardo Darin in TRUMAN

Every year, I keep a running list of the best movies I’ve seen this year. I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here’s last year’s list. To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.

The list so far includes some movies that you watch right now on video: Best Movies of 2017 – So Far.

I’m looking forward to many upcoming films that are be candidates for this list, including The Big Sick this weekend and A Ghost Story in July, plus all the Prestige Movies this fall.

Best Movies of the 21st Century – So Far

Patricia Arquette and Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD
Patricia Arquette and Eller Coltrane in BOYHOOD

Okay – here’s a first class Argument Starter.  In the past week, The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott released their list of The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far.  And it seems that everyone is weighing in with their own lists.  Me, too.

Of course I agreed with some of the NYT picks (Boyhood, The Hurt Locker, Million Dollar Baby, Spirited Away). But I thought they picked the wrong Coen brothers movie (the dreadful Inside Llewyn Davis instead of any other Coen brothers film) and the wrong Dardennes brothers movie (The Child instead of The Kid with a Bike or The Son). Moonlight and Mad Max: Fury Road are just too 2017-trendy.  I’m skeptical of their three Chinese and Taiwanese films that I haven’t seen (although I have some obscure picks on my list, too).

I found less fault with the accompanying article, Six Directors Pick Their Favorite Films of the 21st-Century.  I particularly dovetailed with Sophia Coppola’s choices of Ida, Grizzly Man, Force Majeure, Fish Tank and Ex Machina.

So, just for shits and giggles, here’s The Movie Gourmet’s Best 25 Movies of this Millennium (so far).

  1. Boyhood
  2. Million Dollar Baby
  3. Minority Report
  4. Winter’s Bone
  5. Ida
  6. Sideways
  7. Hell or High Water
  8. 25th Hour
  9. The Hurt Locker
  10. Ex Machina
  11. Best in Show
  12. The Kid on a Bike
  13. Gosford Park
  14. Memories of Murder
  15. Children of Men
  16. Spirited Away
  17. Monster’s Ball
  18. Toy Story 3
  19. Stories We Tell
  20. A Serious Man
  21. Grizzly Man
  22. Talk to Her
  23. I’ve Loved You So Long
  24. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  25. Blue is the Warmest Color

Just missed:  Margaret, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, The Secrets in Their Eyes, Incendies, Monster, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Take Shelter, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Crash, Traffic, After the Wedding, Away from Her, Mystic River, Wild Tales and The Hunt.

Jennifer lawrence breaks through in WINTER'S BONE, featured at the Camera Cinema Club
Jennifer Lawrence breaks through in WINTER’S BONE, featured at the Camera Cinema Club

IDA
IDA

Michael Polley in STORIES WE TELL
Michael Polley in STORIES WE TELL

Best Movies of 2016

Chris Pine and Ben Foster in HELL OR HIGH WATER
Chris Pine and Ben Foster in HELL OR HIGH WATER

Visit my Best Movies of 2016 for my list of the year’s best films, complete with images, trailers and my comments on each movie – as well as their availability to rent on DVD and to stream. My top ten movies for 2016 are:

  1. Hell or High Water
  2. Manchester by the Sea
  3. Toni Erdmann
  4. Elle
  5. La La Land
  6. Eye in the Sky
  7. Chevalier
  8. Weiner
  9. Frank & Lola
  10. Take Me to the River

The other best films of the year are:

  • The Handmaiden
  • OJ: Made in America
  • Green Room

And these three would be on my list if they had been made widely available to US audiences through release in theaters or on video:

  • The Memory of Water
  • Magallanes
  • Lost Solace

Note:  I haven’t yet seen Paterson, Fences or 20th Century Women.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Caset Affleck and Lucas Hedges in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

2016 at the Movies: I hadn’t seen this before

Isabelle Huppert in ELLE
Isabelle Huppert in ELLE

Here are some things that I hadn’t seen before in the movies:

  • Lead characters in Toni Erdmann and Elle that were completely sui generis.
  • A movie exposé, Under the Sun, built out of outtakes shot under the noses of the North Korean government handlers.
  • Tower, a documentary about a mass shooting that barely mentioned the shooter – and with a startlingly effective look.
  • The Greasy Strangler, a movie actually constructed as a cult movie for the midnight shows
  • The Korean period con artist movie The Handmaiden delivered some unforeseeable plot twists – and was gorgeous and erotic, too.
TOWER
TOWER

Just for Halloween…

PEEPING TOM, coming up on Turner Classic Movies and better than PSYCHO
PEEPING TOM – even better than PSYCHO

If you’re in the mood for a seasonal scare, I suggest you revisit last year’s Scare Week from The Movie Gourmet.  I programmed six horror films from different decades and from different countries.  Even folks who normally avoid the horror genre will find someone to enjoy here. I don’t like Gore Horror, so there’s relatively little blood and guts.  All six movies are available on home video.

And for more current horror, check out 2015 at the Movies: low-budget, high quality horror.

BORGMAN
BORGMAN

THE LINEUP: cool killer, volcanic killer, careening thru San Francisco

THE LINEUP
THE LINEUP

The 1958 film noir The Lineup plays this Saturday, July 30, on Turner Classic Movies. The villains and the final chase scene are unforgettable, as are the movie’s iconic San Francisco locations.  It’s one of my Overlooked Noirs.

Two gangsters are smuggling heroin into San Francisco, hidden in the bags of unsuspecting cruise ship passengers. When a shipment isn’t where it’s supposed to be (in a girl’s doll), the gangsters take the doll’s owner (Cindy Calloway) and her mother (Mary LaRoche) hostage and then try to hunt down the contraband in San Francisco’s underground. Will the crooks find the junk? Will they harm the hostages? Will the cops find them first? The suspense builds until the man hunt turns into a spectacular chase through San Francisco.

Richard Jaeckel and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP
Richard Jaeckel and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP

The bad guys, Julian (Robert Keith) and Dancer (Eli Wallach), really set The Lineup apart from other crime dramas of the period.  Julian is ruthless, but always controlled and strategic.  One of the most self-aware villains in cinema history, Julian says things like, “Crying’s aggressive and so’s the law. Ordinary people of your class, you don’t understand the criminal’s need for violence.” He describes his partner Dancer as “a wonderful, pure pathological study. He’s a psychopath with no inhibitions.”

Robert Keith’s son, Brian Keith, became a much bigger star in the TV series Family Affair and a host of Disney productions.  But Robert Keith was himself a fine actor, especially as a PTSD-addled colonel in Men in War (1957).  The role of Julian, with its unusual combination of cool smarts and calculated malevolence, became one of Robert Keith’s finest performances.

Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP
Eli Wallach in THE LINEUP

Julian’s biggest challenge is operating with a psychotic partner (Wallach’s Dancer) who is ready to explode in violence at any moment.  Wallach was a great movie character actor who had the gift of packing maximum entertainment value into any role.  Movie fans will probably best remember him for two bandito bad guys – Cavela in The Magnificent Seven and Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  But here he is, just three years after his feature film debut in Baby Doll, and Wallach is seething with intensity as he gives pychopathy an especially bad name.

To make their situation even edgier, Julian and Dancer have hired a local getaway driver  (the ever reliable character actor Richard Jaeckel) who is a raging alcoholic.

There isn’t any lineup of note in The Lineup, which was a theatrical feature seeking to exploit a police procedural TV series of the same name, hence the reference to “30 million fans” in the trailer.  Warner Anderson co-starred in the series and plays the cop in the movie.  The real juice in this movie, however, comes from the criminals that he is chasing.

The Lineup was brilliantly directed by the grievously underrated Don Siegel.  Siegel was a master of crime movies (and was the primary filmmaking mentor to Clint Eastwood).  I particularly love Siegel’s 1973 neo-noir Charley Varrick, the guilty pleasure Two Mules for Sister Sara and John Wayne’s goodbye: The ShootistThe Lineup is right up there with Siegel’s best.

THE LINEUP
THE LINEUP

The biggest star of The Lineup, however, is the San Francisco of the late 1950s. The Lineup starts on the waterfront and ends in a chase that careens from the Cliff House all across the city to the then unfinished Embarcadero Freeway (now itself torn down decades ago). The story also takes us to the old Embarcadero YMCA, the Golden Gate Bridge, War Memorial Opera House, US Custom House, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Legion of Honor, the old DeYoung Museum and the Mark Hopkins Hotel.  There’s even a critical scene in the Sutro Baths – which had become an ice skating rink when the movie was filmed.

Richard Jaeckel, Mary LaRoche, Cindy Calloway, Eli Wallach and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP
Richard Jaeckel, Mary LaRoche, Cindy Calloway, Eli Wallach and Robert Keith in THE LINEUP (the Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island in the background)
The unfinished Embarcadero Freeway in THE LINEUP
The unfinished Embarcadero Freeway in THE LINEUP

The Lineup (one of the few DVDs that I still own) plays occasionally on Turner Classic Movies and is available to rent on DVD from Netflix.

Best Movies of 2016 – So Far

THE MEMORY OF WATER
THE MEMORY OF WATER

Instead of waiting for my year-end Top Ten list, I keep a running list throughout the year: Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. At year’s end, my list usually is comprised of 20-25 films with an Official Top Ten.  I’ll also be updating my list throughout the year as films become available to stream or to rent on DVD.  Right now, my list includes:

  • The Memory of Water
  • Eye in the Sky
  • Magallanes
  • Chevalier
  • Weiner
  • Frank & Lola
  • Take Me to the River
  • Lost Solace
  • Green Room

I usually start my list in April or May, and I don’t think that I’ve ever waited until July before.  I guess that’s because none of these early-in-the-year releases have popped out at me like Ex Machina from last year, Boyhood or Ida from 2014, Blue Is the Warmest Color or The Hunt (2013), Winter’s Bone (2010) and the like. But these are all really, really excellent films.

Eye in the Sky and Take Me to the River are available streaming or on DVD right now, (see Best Movies of 2016 – So Far for details) and Frank & Lola will be in theaters later this year.

I’m self-conscious about how many of these films can’t be seen right now (or maybe ever) because they don’t have US distribution. I really try NOT to be precious and list a bunch of super obscure films. I’m particularly wringing my hands over three gems from Cinequest – The Memory of Water from Chile, Magallanes from Peru and the Canadian indie Lost Solace. But I’m pretty sure that you’ll be able to find the rest of the movies on my list by year’s end.

I’m still waiting to see many, many contenders for my year-end list, including film festival favorites Loving, Manchester By the Sea, The Birth of a Nation and Toni Erdmann.  I also reserve the right to reshuffle the list.

Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY
Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY

DVDs/Streams of the Week: Three smart romantic comedies written by women

A dream girl comes to life in RUBY SPARKS

Just when I had branded the entire genre brain dead, several smart and engaging romantic comedies have popped up – all written by women. In Ruby Sparks,  a shy writer writes about his imagined perfect love object until…she becomes real. Yes, suddenly he has a real life girlfriend of his own design. Ruby Sparks takes this fantasy of a perfect partner and explores the limits of a partner that you have designed yourself. The biggest star in Ruby Sparks is its leading lady Zoe Kazan’s ingenious screenplay – funny without being silly, profound without being pretentious, bright without being precious. Ruby Sparks is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Also co-written by its female star, in this case Rashida Jones, Celeste and Jesse Forever is about a couple that is now working on an amiable divorce and are still best friends. Once you accept the comic premise that this couple is made for each other but not as a married couple, everyone’s behavior is authentic. Sure, he wants to get back with her when she isn’t in a place to do that – and, then, vice versa – but the characters resolve the conflict as they would in real life. Here’s a mini-spoiler – this movie is just too smart to end in rushing to the airport or disrupting the wedding or any of the other typical rom com contrivances. Celeste and Jesse Forever is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

The grievously overlooked romantic comedy Man Up had a very brief US theatrical run  that did not even reach the Bay Area. British television writer Tess Morris weaves the story of Nancy (Lake Bell), who is on a four-year dating drought and has given up all hope when she inadvertently stumbles into a blind date meant for another woman. She’s intrigued with what she sees in Jack (Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead) and decides to impersonate his real date. As they get more and more into each other, the elephant in the room is when she will be exposed.  Morris authentically captures dating behaviors and female and male insecurities.  Man Up is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

Note:  I posted about Man Up last month and I’ve received more appreciative feedback from my readers for that recommendation than for any other this year.

And here’s a bonus if you enjoy Lake Bell in Man Up. The very talented Bell wrote/directed/starred in the American indie comedy In the World…, which I really, really liked. It’s available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

Simon Pegg and Lake Bell in MAN UP
Simon Pegg and Lake Bell in MAN UP