22. Anna and the Apocalypse

If you’re going to make a movie that is a zombie-romantic-comedy-Christmas-musical, I’m going to put it on my best-of-the-year list, full stop. That level of inspired/demented genre-blending deserves a nod in and of itself. This delight of a flick is executed with joy, great performances, catchy songs, and a nice dose of cultural-corrective-to-JohnHughes for good measure. Martin Scorsese has often said that the musical format is in many ways the height of cinema, the combination of music and sound as the truest expression of the medium - I don’t agree, I’ve never been much a fan of the genre in particular, but when one really does work for me, it’s quite an exhilarating experience.

21. Support the Girls

Sometimes it takes the absence of something to really appreciate it. In recent years, the smart workplace-comedy genre that produced so many hilarious classics in the 70s and 80s seems to have all but disappeared. Support the Girls is a welcome return - a comedy grounded in hardship, filled with sympathetic characters, nuance, based in a recognizable contemporary setting, filled with authentic details specific to the vocation focused in the story, and it’s damned funny. It’s a formula, if followed with honesty, is almost guaranteed for success - take note, studios - watch and learn.

20. Annihilation

This is a science fiction film that manages to bring many of the elements that exist in the icons of the literary form but often fail to make it onto the screen. It has a genuine sense of mystery and profundity: characters are confronted with experiences that are genuinely alien to them, beyond comprehension, and through the examination of these moments, the very idea of humanity itself is subjected to interrogation. That reflection, that truth, can be humbling and shocking to the core. It also has an aesthetic visual sense that is not cliché - with the proliferation of big-budget sci-fi action films, a number of the tropes and images have become stale, but in Annihilation, the colorful, soap-bubble/hologram haze of beauty that spreads throughout the locations and beings creates a distinct and otherworldly aura, culminating in a final sequence of image and sound that echoes the awe and bewilderment of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

19. A Quiet Place

There is not an ounce of fat on this movie. It is structured to laser precision, not a moment wasted. The world-building is sparse but effective. John Krasinski directs this debut film with the assurance of a veteran, never indulging in cleverness for clever’s sake, or lingering on cool shots or anything gratuitous. Thriller/horror films know how to weaponize silence - to use it to increase tension before a big surprise moment punctuated by sound - and this film takes that technique to another level. Instead of watering down the effectiveness of the silence, its selective and disciplined use of audio create a world in which those tensions and discomfort are pervasive. The choice to feature deaf actress Millicent Simmonds was an enormous gift to the film - not only is she a talented performer, but her life experience brings an authenticity to this soundless world that is undeniable.

18. A Star is Born

Director Bradley Cooper and cinematographer Matthew Libatique managed to convey the experience of being in the whirlwind of celebrity through a clever choice in camera lenses and a heavy reliance on the use of steadicam. A number of early reviews of the film expressed a distaste for the more intimate framing of its subjects as if it were some ego trip - excusez mon français, but they missed the fucking point. The point was not to make a bunch of hero shots and linger on the performers for vanity’s sake - it was to bring the audience into their subjective point of view. For these performers, the crowds, the noises, the lights, the locations - occur as a spinning and out-of-focus environment that’s constantly on the move. One which lacks a sense of balance. One that never feels at home, rested, or at peace. Either craving attention or just getting it all the time just to get by, being at the center of a tornado of bullshit that doesn’t seem connected to the passion - the music - that brought you there in the first place.

Lady Gaga’s a capella rendition of the signature song from the movie was such a goosebump-inducing moment, an explosion of talent, a raw force of song that hits like a tidal wave - easily one of the top movie moments of the year. The storyteling is structured in a fast-and-episodic way that allows audiences' imagination to fill in the gaps, to skip over the mundane to get right to the important parts, to go on a more epic journey.

17. Widows

Steve McQueen’s thriller brought one of the more extraordinary audience reactions I’ve experienced in a theater in the past five years or so - there’s a surprise packed in the film, and when that surprise was sprung, the audience I was with audibly gasped. Loud. It’s a testament to McQueen’s handling of this well-trodden revenge/heist territory that he imbues it with such freshness and originality. Turning expectations upon its head, casting Viola Davis in a role that’d normally go to a Liam Neeson type, while having her in a relationship with Liam Neeson, gives a stark reminder as to how implicit gender expectations are pre-woven into this brand of material. Elizabeth Debicki gives a star-making supporting performance, and the ensemble cast makes every character flawed and complicated, putting you directly invested in the fates of several supporting characters at a level of connection that often doesn’t come for leading ones.

16. Shoplifters

Hirokazu Kore-eda is among the most talented directors in cinema today - his films are overflowing with keenly observed compassion for its characters, but unlike a lot of dramatists who focus on slice-of-life toned stories, Kore-eda can find a unique, sometimes whimsical, framing device in which to experience the characters. My favorite of his films, After Life, follows characters in a quasi-purgatory realm. In Shoplifters, he collects a group of characters via an undisclosed series of connections - finding out those connections are part of the joy of the discovery of the film. It’s a film about the families we choose - as opposed to those that are forced upon us by accident of birth. It’s a story about hustlers and bottom-feeding grifts, a collection of discards and forgottens, choosing to bind themselves together.

15. You Were Never Really Here

This film is an almost Buddhist-like experience, a meditation on a theme, rocking back and forth, at a consistent energy - a mantra chant of post-traumatic stress, channeled through the specific peculiarities of Joaquin Phoenix’s haunted visage. The sparse interjections of original sound (is it music?) are just plain batshit-in-a-good-way, transporting viewers into the troubled psyche of Phoenix’s reluctant anti-hero. The film manages to convey over-the-top violence without resorting to gratuitous techniques. It builds toward a standard cathartic climactic point - but then denies audiences any gratuitous or vicarious highs from payback/revenge-violence, creating an oddly even more satisfying, if unconventional, conclusion. Director Lynne Ramsay has delivered a unified vision, combining performance, photography, music and sound effects in service of a chilling and unsparing immersion into melancholic, joyless survival.

14. Cold War

Paweł Pawlikowski’s period piece, set in post-WWII Poland and various parts of Europe, brings to screen one of the most epic cinematic romances in years. Viewed over a course of many years and many countries, the central relationship, in a dynamic pairing between actors Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig, explore a theme of incessant dissatisfaction and longing. Łukasz Żal’s black and white cinematography is just glorious - often rendering Kulig, whose character is bathed in stage lights as a musical performer, in luminous fashion befitting a classic Hollywood star. At a running time of 85 minutes, the film propels forward with a momentum that rolls through years and pivotal moments with sheer velocity, covering an array of angles of this fascinating, flawed, complex, and devastating couple. Kot and Kulig’s on-screen chemistry is electric, and I hope to see more from both performers.

13. Eighth Grade

Let me save you the trouble of debating whether Eighth Grade is a comedy or a drama: it’s a horror film. It is an immersive re-living of teenage terrors with bone-chilling accuracy. I thought the Generation-X version of real-life eighth grade was hard enough when I lived through it, but witnessing the contemporary experience - with all of that awkwardness and self-doubt mediated through screens and social media, quantified with likes, shares, and view-counts - was both mesmerizing and terrifying. Bo Burnham’s direction is note-perfect, and the breakout lead performance by Elsie Fisher is often heart-wrenching.

12. Black Panther

It’s an aphorism about storytelling to say that there are only seven basic plots to be told. Black Panther arrived in cinemas as the 18th installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Think piece after think piece in the past five years has questioned, are we experiencing superhero fatigue? Can this formula show us anything new? Director/co-writer Ryan Coogler and Producer Kevin Feige had an authoritative answer - a resounding yes. Coogler, in collaboration with production designer Hannah Beachler, costume designer Ruth E. Carter, and cinematographer Rachel Morrison rendered a breathtakingly original new world, informed by Afrofuturist aesthetics. In addition to the originality of the visual style of the production, the ensemble cast are extraordinary - Chadwick Boseman’s serene and dignified heroism as T’Challa, Michael B Jordan’s fiery revolutionary Killmonger, Letitia Wright’s luminous genius and humor as Shuri, Danai Gurira’s honorable and intelligent warrior as Okoye, but perhaps my favorite is Winston Duke’s acerbic, bemused, detached, wry M’Baku.

11. The Other Side of the Wind

It’s impossible to separate the journey to this film’s existence from the experience of watching and evaluating the film itself. I waited for this movie for almost twice as long as I waited for the Star Wars prequels. The mythology surrounding the making of this lost final film, from the director of my favorite film of all time, was just so intoxicating - hundreds of film reels locked away in a vault, for decades, due to legal reasons. But how to judge and consider the film itself? As a masterpiece of sorts, ahead of its time, and as autobiographical and illuminating as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century ever allowed himself to be. A movie captured in analog film and video formats, but somehow completely at place in the social-media landscape of 2018. The primary set-piece of the film, a party conveyed by found footage captured by party-goers and documentarians, feels almost as if it was compiled by an algorithm on Instagram as much as it was orchestrated by Orson Welles. The man who conquered the medium of radio, staged some of the greatest productions in American theater history, and made the best film of them all, somehow also managed to anticipate the experience of the digital age he did not live to see himself.

It’s a shame the Motion Picture Academy didn’t recognize John Huston for this performance. It is a phenomenal piece of work, up there with his best. And it’s all the more amazing, considering that some key moments of audio were lost - and his dialogue was dubbed by his son Danny. It’s also a shame the editors did not get recognition - the reconstruction done here was truly an extraordinary piece of cinematic rescue and re-creation.

10. First Reformed

On January 22nd, 2019, a robbery occurred occurred at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills when it was announced that Ethan Hawke was not among the nominees for Best Actor. Hawke’s a performer whose career choices I have admired, if not always his performances, which I’ve found to be inconsistent. But this is arguably a career peak, in a role that transmits such weariness, weight, spiritual conflict, and moral reckoning. Paul Schrader’s film is a thematic sequel to the classic Taxi Driver - both films centering on an increasingly isolated figure who is attracted to notions of becoming an avenging angel. The film invests a lot in exploring the idea of a fallen world, a world just plain gone to shit, where the church and maybe even God has abandoned any constructive role to play. The film, among many other topics it explores, examines the battles of a small church offering an authentic engagement on matters of faith and struggles of the real world confronting a community that seems to prefer superficialities in their Sunday routines - lights, sound equipment, upbeat self-help-messaging. Hawke plays a priest confronting the most difficult questions of contemporary life - and never shies away from them, never opting for easy or pat answers. It’s a supernatural-cosmic heavyweight boxing match that goes the distance - with each jab, hook, and uppercut bringing a non-stop escalating tension, an ultimate test of faith, one which builds and builds to a transcendent final round.

9. Loveless

I ain’t gonna lie, this Russian tragedy is dark, ice-core, soul-crushing; a bleak film without hope, an almost excruciating two hours and seven minutes. How’s that for an endorsement? Put that on the fuckin’ poster, eh? The depths of sorrow and loss, at a family level, permeate minute after minute, and as the film continues it’s an utterly draining experience. Cold, sad, brutal. There’s a moment of all-too-real quiet hopelessness conveyed by a child actor in this film that’s one of the most unforgettable moments of film I’ve ever seen, and at the time it rolls across the screen you’re unaware of the full impact that moment is going to have, but as the story unfolds, your mind can’t help returning to it - an indelible image of a helpless innocent overwhelmed by the adult forces in his life.

8. Thoroughbreds

One of my favorite structures for a film or play is one in which our focus is essentially on two intersecting character arcs, where over the course of a story, one becomes other: alpha becomes beta and beta becomes alpha, hot becomes cold and cold becomes hot. My two favorite examples of this are the film The Dreamlife of Angels and the play True West, both of which have intersecting character arcs that, if plotted on a graph, would resemble an “X”. Thoroughbreds is heavily focused on the two lead performances by Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy, in intimate settings not unlike a stage play. The progression of character through each act is a textbook exercise in rising tensions and stakes, culminating in a cathartic finale. This film is also sadly notable as one of the final performances of Anton Yelchin, who died tragically at age 27 before the film was completed. He often played characters filled with optimistic energy, intelligence, and precociousness, but this performance signaled another layer to his range, playing a more weary and dark character, one that operates on instinct. Such a profound loss for the movie world. He will be missed.

7. Hereditary

The horror genre doesn’t do much for me - it’s often just a lot of effect-driven pandering, and the trailers consist of the lowest-common-denominator “BOO!” moments with overwrought sound booms and screams. I don’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses or demons or anything of the sort. The only “horror” I usually get to experience in cinema is when it is smuggled in via fantasy/sci-fi stories, or social commentary, and in those cases the supernatural elements work at a metaphoric level. But, Hereditary sneaks up on you. The majority of the film plays off the supernatural elements as-if they could be genetically inherited mental illnesses. But by the end, it lays its cards on the table, fully embracing the unreal, and those sequences achieve genuine awe and marvel and terror. In addition to Toni Collette’s incredible shattered and untethered performance, this film is notable for containing the single biggest shock moment of the year.

6. Infinity War

Infinity War isn’t so much a single movie as it is a culmination of more than a dozen other movies - a meta-movie climax that builds upon a decade-plus of storytelling and character investment. Among the many things to be amazed by this movie is the creation of Thanos, a combination of Josh Brolin and the effects team. They managed to imbue Marvel’s biggest big-bad with a quest dominated by a personal code of morality - a twisted code, but a code nonetheless. In the comics, Thanos’s quest is given emotional weight as a part of his obsessive love of the character of Death - which always struck me as bizarre and hard to connect with - but Brolin’s Thanos feels almost human, encumbered by purpose, and forced to make a genuine sacrifice to serve what he sees as the greater good. Another amazing thing is that Kevin Feige and the MCU team managed to make one of the most iconic moments in comics history - SNAP! - land with full surprise and impact. They kept the spoilers secret. Many of us veteran comics-to-film fans just naturally assumed they wouldn’t fully “go there” - and yet, there we found ourselves at the end of the journey, stunned and anxious for more. The sense of tension and angst as the credits rolled after the cliffhanger at the end of film was palpable in the auditorium.

The Russo brothers have become the perfect custodians of the signature Marvel franchise. They manage to weave a number of character arcs, worlds, genres, tones, with surprising consistency. They know how to make a character’s first appearance in a film pop (see: Captain America). They know how to suggest massive scale (see: Tony Stark wandering the streets, turning a corner, and happening upon a cosmic foe). They know how to tug at the heart-strings when needed (see: “I don’t feel so good, Mister Stark”). They know how to build threats and display powers in conflict (see: Cap v. Thanos). And in this film in particular, they know how to channel one hell of a rage-inflected opening-up-a-can-of-whoopass (see: “BRING! ME! THANOS!”).

5. Mission Impossible: Fallout

If you could isolate the forty-five minutes of MI:Fallout that are stunts and action, you would have the greatest pure cinematic experience in the history of the movies. What is cinema if not moving images and sound? Those sequences are the art-form in its purest uncut cocaine variety - and they are utterly fucking thrilling. Tom Cruise deserves some kind of special Oscar for inventing a new kind of performance since he does his own stunt-work: it’s a combination of dramatic film acting with the added adrenaline rush of a potential snuff film - the question isn’t just whether the character Ethan Hunt going to escape the situation, it’s oh-my-God is Tom Cruise going to die on film right in front of me?

But those 45 minutes aren’t the only thing to admire here, they only work as well as they do because of the rest of the filmmaking tapestry. Christopher McQuarrie has managed to spin an engaging espionage tale, with plenty of surprises and twists and perhaps for the first time in the series, a genuine emotional arc that all of the time invested in the series until now pays off. There are stunningly gorgeous locations, brilliant lighting, and a sense of pace that is relentless.

4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is in the argument for best superhero movie of all time, but it’s no question that it’s the most comic-booky of them all. The medium of animation lends itself more fully to the source material, and this film luxuriates in embracing the grammar of comic book storytelling, with captions, narration, word balloons, text-driven “sound” effects (e.g. “TWHIP!”).

It’s in vogue today in superhero-related movie talk to advocate for getting rid of origin stories altogether, especially for those characters for whom we know the broad outlines of their beginnings. Into the Spider-Verse even makes a sideways reference to this by distilling multiple “origin stories” into quickie sequences. But these origins are handled in such a way as to feel like they are the fuel to the engine of the story, not some burden of references or check-boxes to be ticked.

It’s also in vogue to dismiss Joseph Campbellian mythic structures and themes, but Spider-Verse has it in abundance, especially in its central theme - anyone can wear the mask of a hero. It also revisits these themes and structures with a freshness and vitality that feels genuinely new. The array of Spider-protagonists have complicated human journeys that are grounded in authentic character moments. There are about a half-dozen moments of emotional impact that wallop, including the best Stan Lee cameo of them all - packed inside of a sequence grieving the loss of a hero, just mere weeks after the passing of the legendary Marvel E-i-C.

3. Roma

Alfonso Cuarón is quite possibly my favorite director currently at the height of his creative powers - it’s a close call between him and Denis Villeneuve. Both filmmakers have recently turned to effects or genre-driven spectacles. After the space-driven survival drama of Gravity, Cuarón goes to another extreme, with a personal, black-and-white period piece set in early-1970s Mexico focusing on the life of a housekeeper, starring a cast of mostly inexperienced/nonprofessional actors.

Cuarón pulls multiple duties, serving not only as writer-director but also as editor and cinematographer. The black and white photography is breathtakingly beautiful, whether it is in the opening shots of reflections on water, or in some of the epic long-take shots for which Cuarón is known. Cuarón’s most famous long single-take-shot is from Children of Men, involving moving vehicles and stunning action, but there are a couple of long single-take shots in Roma that rival or surpass it. One in particular is an indoor scene, an almost clichéd movie/tv/soap-opera drama moment, but Cuarón depicts it with such unflinching brutal honesty - the moment is so harrowing it likely makes many audiences avert their eyes, just too much to absorb continuously.

Yalitza Aparicio stars as the main character, a housekeeper, in an ensemble cast that features several children in a large family. Aparicio plays a character with humility and reserved emotions, and considering her inexperience in screen acting, it’s a minor miracle that she’s able to convey on screen the fullness of humanity that she does. The concluding moments of her performance unleash a raw energy that’s just stunning to behold.

2. Burning

Co-screenwriter and Director Lee Chang-dong brings audiences on a winding journey, one that snakes and weaves in unexpected directions, one that pulses with an organic energy that feels utterly spontaneous. Character arcs and pivotal events spark and explode as if random fireworks on display. I walked into this film entirely cold, not even seeing a trailer, and I highly recommend doing the same. As several act breaks occur, it becomes possible to conceive of this film as having subtly shifted genres. Is it a thriller? A romance? A slice-of-life drama? Don’t answer now, you might change your mind later.

Steven Yeun gives a blistering performance, inhabiting a character type that’s become a screen-acting cliché, but he revels in the possibilities and provides an entirely new interpretation. I don’t want to spoil the character type to which I’m referring, because part of the beauty of his performance is the discovery. There’s a surface level to his performance, but he commands an expansive, nuanced, and multi-dimensional presence - it’s the best screen acting of the year, building appreciation and awareness and stays with you for hours, weeks, months after you see it.

1. Sorry to Bother You

No American film in recent years, perhaps decades, has had as much to say about contemporary life and culture as Boots Riley’s hilarious and incendiary satire “Sorry to Bother You.” I haven’t felt this level of forward-looking engagement with social, political, and economic trends since Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky’s Network.

Lakeith Stanfield is perhaps my favorite actor working today. His work in Atlanta and Get Out had already displayed several modes that he can succeed in. He can be whimsical. He can seem distracted and then abruptly shift into being more present and biting in the moment than any character in a scene. He can roll out bemused philosophy, a stoner-poet affectation, with dialogue and body language, but as anyone who saw Get Out can attest - he can exude terror with the slightest glance.

Stanfield’s eyes are put to great use in Sorry to Bother You. He inhabits an everyman, an everyman cursed with the ability to see through systems of exploitation, and struggle on a moment-by-moment basis whether to fight those tigers or ride them.

The film isn’t just laugh-out-loud funny, it’s did-I-just-hurt-myself I-need-to-leave-and-come-back funny. Armie Hammer gives a deliciously evil turn as a fully committed exploitative post-industrialist, a gently calm, smiling, beatific and pleasant presentation of the banality of evil. Patton Oswalt and David Cross serve as a side-splitting duo of excessively “white-sounding” voices, and Tessa Thompson portrays a fascinating revolutionary artist, almost an avatar for Riley himself, filled with complexities and self-examination on the performative aspects of protest.

No other film in 2018, a banner year for cinema, was as thrilling to engage with. Scene after scene were filled with meaning, energy, and turned its eye inward on America, with searing awareness and potential for prophecy.

Grand Jury Prizes

Taking a cue from the great Roger Ebert, who took his cue from film festivals, this year I'm adding a new category for a handful of films that didn't quite make the final list - but I still wanted to recognize. My list's already more than ten, so this is another way to cheat and pad the total.

• Baby Driver
  Edgar Wright's film opens with the most exciting car chase I've ever seen on screen. The soundtrack is propulsive fun. Stock heist characters given life and flair by energetic performances.
• Spider-Man Homecoming
  A Marvel movie as if John Hughes had directed it. High school and superheroics; the new kid finally nails a characterization of Spidey in all his key dimensions: his wit, his moral struggles, and his acrobatics.
• The Post
  Spielberg's painstaking detailed telling of the publication of the Pentagon Papers, anchored by Meryl Streep, whose excellence we may sometimes take for granted. This is among her best.
• The Disaster Artist
  James Franco channels the demented, yet somehow endearing, Tommy Wiseau in the funniest movie in quite some time.
• Darkest Hour
  Oldman manages to convey a world-historic figure, not as a marble bust sculpture, but as a fully three-dimensional, flawed human, confronting a terror of immense complexity.

13. Atomic Blonde

One could imagine at any given time in cinematic history, the undisputed bad-ass of action movies could be a revered title, passed around like a boxer's championship belt. The belt would've been worn by Clint, Arnold, Chow Yun-Fat, so many others, but all of them likely would've been men. With Mad Max: Fury Road and now Atomic Blonde, I think at this moment the belt's one true claimant is Charlize Theron.

Beyond its visceral action scenes, Atomic Blonde has a distinct aesthetic, rendering a unique (if not exactly period-authentic) re-imagination of Cold War espionage on the borders of divided Germany.

12. Trainspotting T2

A good rule of thumb for aging artists is: don't get the band back together. It never works. It inevitably disappoints. You can't recapture the magic. You'll risk ruining the enjoyment of the original.

Trainspotting T2 defies those odds by steering into the trap of nostalgia and confronting it head-on. It's a meditation on the sense of being trapped in place, held back by a past you cannot escape. Our trainspotters have changed some habits, and the world around them is almost unrecognizable. Renton updates his rant of contemporary pet-peeves in a thrillingly executed call-back sequence, another manifesto for a corrupted age. They caught lightning in a bottle for a second time, paid homage to the original, and brought something new and cathartic.

11. Logan

Over 17 years in 9 feature films, Hugh Jackman has not only portrayed the mutant Wolverine with the requisite intensity, brooding, and sarcastic wit, but he's been an ideal custodian of the character. At countless occasions in public, Jackman has gone out of his way to pay homage and recognize the original creators of the character.

Mangold's Logan brings a noir sensibility to a fitting conclusion for this epic cinematic journey. An amazing send-off both for Logan and Jackman.

10. The Big Sick

Kumail Nanjiani's been on my radar ever since he had a show-stealing role in the horror movie Bad Milo, and his character on HBO's Silicon Valley is a consistent source of laughter and empathy. But I was unprepared for the complexity of cross-cultural experience and deep human empathy smuggled inside of what was originally advertised as another fun Apatow-branded rom-com.

The screenplay by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon retelling the story of how they became a couple manages to both conform to the fundamentals of rom-com structure yet does so with originality.

9. Get Out

Jordan Peele's Get Out has frequently been compared to The Twilight Zone and I can think of no higher compliment that is also entirely appropriate. In the tradition of Rod Serling, Peele manages to suffuse a speculative horror tale with several dimensions of social commentary.

The cast is extraordinary. Daniel Kaluuya's eyes communicate an incredible sense of skepticism, intelligence, horror, and soul-crushing entrapment. Allison Williams becomes the perfect version for every layer of her character. Kieth Stanfield's shock and trauma are vivid. I had the good fortune of catching this on opening weekend, before its twists and turns and impact on the culture were known, and it was an unexpected thrill ride of the highest order.

8. Call Me By Your Name

One of my favorite moviewatchers out there chose this as her pick for the best movie of the year weeks before I had a chance to see it, so I walked out of the cinema slightly disappointed I hadn't seen a movie that would vault to the top of my list - but this is one of those films that stays with you for days after you see it.

This is a deliberately paced film that soaks in every detail of the lush romantic summer in 1980's Italian countryside. The central relationship of the story builds like a symphonic structure, slow and sweet at the start, culminating in an emotional crescendo. Near the end of the flim, Michael Stuhlbarg, who's becoming perhaps my favorite supporting actor, gives a wrenching monologue of human kindness and understanding. Call Me By Your Name contains one of the most powerful long takes I've ever seen an actor give on screen.

7. Phantom Thread

The ensemble trio of Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, and Vicky Krieps - I don't even know what to say; their achievement is breathtaking and extraordinary. This group of actors create a drama of intense emotional violence wrapped inside a world of obsessively crafted fashions.

Their weapons of this psychological warfare: glances, pauses, raised eyebrows, shrugs, outbursts, smiles, tears. The simplest of human gestures, under the command of these performers, can bring about pain, or release, or affirmation, or any number of complicated deeply held feelings.

6. The Florida Project

This year, I find myself much more in agreement with the Oscar nominations than usual, but the absence of this film is more than an oversight. It should've been nominated for Best Picture. The performances by Willem Dafoe and Brooklynn Prince were among the best of the year.

Willem Dafoe brings a pained humanity to the desparate everyday struggles of a manager of a bottom-tier long-term-stay hotel property. Solely on the basis of his "soda machine" scene, Dafoe should've earned a nomination. The 7-year-old Brooklynn Prince is outstanding. Finding a good child actor at that age is nearly impossible, but she manages to shoulder the film with heartbreaking honesty and innocence.

5. Blade Runner 2049

Writers Hampton Fancher and Michael Green found an ingeniuos solution to revisiting the world of Blade Runner - they recaptured the central question at the heart of the original: do replicants have souls? In the original, that question was explored with a human/replicant relationship, and in this sequel, by exploring the relationship of a replicant and an A.I.

Director Denis Villeneuve had the unenviable task of stepping into the shoes of Ridley Scott, who defined the cinematic cyberpunk aesthetic: the neon-lit Asian-influenced rainy streets that have become so iconic, they're still referenced in works as recent as Netflix's Altered Carbon series.

Villeneuve and legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins create their own aesthetic for this installment, building upon those templates but dumping atmospheric waste on them: clouds, rust, dust, haze: a climate-adjusted dystopic land and cityscape.

4. Lady Bird

Starting with her work as co-writer on Frances Ha, but now maturing into a more distinct form in Lady Bird, Gerwig has created a filmmaking style that suggests a new cinematic grammar. The fundamental units of composition: shot, scene, sequence, montage, in Gerwig's hands, they take on new meanings.

Gerwig frequently employs a techinque that is montage-as-scene, almost a meta-scene: cutting together moments of (partially improvised?) performance, organized around a theme or idea, allowing audiences to fill in a number of gaps. Several of these meta-scenes in Lady Bird suggest they could've sustained an entire Act or even a standalone film. That's why, at a brisk 93 minutes, the film manages to seem like it covers more story and character depth than many films capture in three hours. I'd be thoroughly delighted if she pulls an upset and her film wins either Best Picture or Best Director at the Oscars.

3. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Frances McDormand can be a force of nature when channeled into the right role, and this film provides her with another perfect opportunity to do what she does best: portray a flawed woman of conviction, with laser-focused eyes and a spine of pure fuckin' steel.

I've long been a fan of Sam Rockwell, who can go a bit off the rails sometimes with his glee and zany peculiarities, but this character allows him to bring the quirk and the melancholy in just the right proportion. Woody Harrelson's laconic lawman is an example of brilliant casting: Woody's innate Texas bearing and world-hardened skepticism come thorugh in a brief yet dense work of character acting.

Writer-Director Martin McDonagh has a knack for elevating tales of crime, revenge, depression; his characters stride through sadness and chaos, struggling to keep it together in a world they can no longer recognize.

2. Your Name

When I walked into the cinema to see Your Name I didn't know much about it other than the fact it had been one of the top-5 grossing films in Japanese box office history. I hadn't seen a trailer. I wish I could see more films this way because going in with zero knowledge and a vague sense of optimism allowed every single detail of the movie to be fresh and pack full impact.

I won't reveal the central conceit of the flim: it follows a trope that's been a used a lot in live-action comedies over the years, but the way in which that trope is revealed in the early stages of the film is surprising and brings an original riff on the format. To set expectations, it's a romantic drama with limited elements of science fiction.

Your Name is filled with gorgeous artwork: nearly every frame has a painterly obsession and beauty. Some sequences have visuals that combine the best aspects of hand-drawn animation with the advanced camera techniques allowed by computer animation, synthesizing a hybrid visual aesthetic which paints gorgeous horizons, looks to the stars, lingers on quiet moments and details of contemporary life in Japan.

1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

When Kathleen Kennedy took over Lucasfilm, I had a wish-list of things I wanted to see come to a new Star Wars film. As an avid fan of the Star Wars franchise, after The Empire Strikes Back, there have been a number of missteps and gargantuan fuck-ups, but they were correctible.

More than anything, the series needed to get back to its deepest roots. And by those roots, I'm not referring to the imagination of George Lucas, but the timeless mythological structure explored in the studies of Joseph Campbell - not just the oft-cited "Hero's journey," but the mosaic of the world's mythic traditions.

Those roots are best embodied in the character of Yoda. Ever since his appearances in the original trilogy, Star Wars films, comics, tv shows, and books have tried to emulate the wise master but failed spectaculary. The wisdom of a seeker in the mysteries of the force had been reduced time and again into cliché fortune-cookie bullshit. Nothing of substance or earnest grappling.

Rian Johnson restores a genuine moral and spiritual conflict, reuniting the ultimate student/master pair of Luke and Yoda to tell one last important lesson: the lesson of failure.

Failure is experienced by every character in The Last Jedi. Every step of the way the Resistance, Leia, Poe, Rose, and Finn - they fail. Luke's removed himself from the struggle because of an all-encompassing surrender to the fear of failure.

Through his critique of the corrupted Jedi order, the character of Luke rescues the mystery and wonder of the force as presented in the original trilogy that was mangled by the "midi-chlorian" mistakes of the prequels, democratizing the force, making it accessible again: once again, the characters in Star Wars can serve as inspiration to everyone, not just stand as an elite royal bloodline.

The grandeur and wonder of the mysteries of the universe as communicated through the Force had become occasionally formulaic in the multitude of spin-offs: the Jedi and Sith's tricks starting to have the vague whiff of magic tricks as opposed to revealing the foundation of all life in the galaxy. The Last Jedi presents a new use of the Force - in spectacular fashion - suggesting that maybe we're only scratching the surface of what's capable in this realm.

The conflicts at the heart of the original triology were pure and stark. In this era, they can seem a bit removed and less able to speak to the conflicts of this time. Re-calibrating the heroes and antagonists with less moral clarity and bringing in some shades of gray were just what this story and franchise needed.

Once the choice was made to bring back Mark Hamill and Luke Skywalker, an enormous challenge was presented: how to bring back an icon, and not have it be redundant, a repeat of Sir Alec Guiness in A New Hope? I love the answer: give the unsullied hero of the galaxy, the man we last saw in ultimate triumph, a crippling experience of failure, a chance to be redeemed when he had once been a redeemer of others.

Luke's final actions, his final monologe, allowed moviegoers to experience one last time a genuine miracle of inspiration, on par with his signature bullseye at the Death Star. Goosebumps and tears. Quite an extraordinary achievement by Rian Johnson. It's no wonder they signed him up to do three more once they saw this one.

This movie brought my Star Wars fan wish-list to life, better than I could've imagined.

I am aware of contrary views on this film. I've glanced them in your tweets. I've heard them on your pods. I've read them in your blogs. Heard them at the bar. After careful consideration:

BoJack Horseman - “Fish out of Water”

The fourth episode of BoJack Horseman’s third season was an inspired journey. The underwater setting for this story - claustrophobic, isolating, weighed by a pervasive pressure - was the perfect metaphor for the stifling mental territory traveled by BoJack. This series is astounding in its emotional depth, and this episode in particular brings a pathos and poignancy you’d never expect from an animated show about a sitcom star with a kiddie art style. With its second and third seasons, BoJack joins the likes of Don Draper and Walter White as one of the most psychologically compelling antiheroes of television.

Mr. Robot VR short film / Comic-Con experience

I already posted at length about this, but, the TL;DR version: the Mr. Robot VR experience opened my eyes to a new world of cinematic possibilities for virtual reality filmmaking. Like the transition from silent cinema to the sound era, or black and white to color, seeing a smart filmmaker take advantage of a new storytelling medium was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Atlanta - Season One

No show on television took more risks than this one, and audiences were rewarded with a fully-realized world that’s just a bit off. With a David Lynchian view, where the ‘normal’ world is shifted to an askew angle, ‘Atlanta’ is populated by oddities - but familiar ones. Brian Tyree Henry should win every acting award possible this year, with his stellar supporting role as the underground rapper Paper Boi. Not since James Gandolfini’s portrayal of Tony Soprano has an actor been able to convey so much with the slightest of eye-rolls or eyebrow-furrows.

Game of Thrones - Season Six

For a show that’s garnered a reputation for events so shocking that it’s become common for people to record their reactions on video, the finale for this season, titled “The Winds of Winter,” opened with a jaw-dropping sequence of horror executed with unparalleled aesthetic beauty. The “Battle of the Bastards” showcased some of the best stunts and war-choreography ever captured in moving images. “The Door” delivered an emotional wallop that unleashed thousands of Tumblr memes.

Stranger Things - Season One

I just loved everything about this Netflix series. The kids. The period details. The geeky homages. David Harbour’s incredible performance as Chief Hopper, the pained, rumpled and reluctant hero. Millie Bobby Brown, the casting find of the year, a prodigy with a debut performance of mystery, innocence and supernatural fury as Eleven.

Black Mirror - Season Three

This dark series exploring the frontiers of dystopic near-futures grappling with the consequences of technologies run amok continues to amaze. I enjoyed every episode, but there were three classics this year - ‘Nosedive,’ a tale of social-media credit scoring with Bryce Dallas Howard; ‘San Junipero,’ about a virtual world with Mackenzie Davis; and ‘Hated in the Nation,’ a feature-length episode about dystopic social media and terror with Kelly MacDonald.

Hamilton Soundtrack / Hamilton Mix-Tape

OK, technically the soundtrack came out in Fall of 2015 and I was late to the party. I was holding out hope to see the show live before hearing it, but couldn’t wait any longer. The intelligence and passion in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s telling of Alexander Hamilton’s story is a work of genius, imbuing the founders with a contemporary vitality in Shakespearean fashion. Can’t wait to see the show when it comes to Houston.

March: Book Three

This essential American classic concludes with a final chapter filled with power and impact. Congressman John Lewis’s journey in the civil rights movement reaches its destined steps across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma with devastating effect.

A Hundred Thousand Worlds

My favorite novel of the year. A road-trip story with a mother and son, traveling the country navigating the comic-book convention circuit. Its depiction of modern con culture is exceedingly well-observed. Filled with a cast of characters across the comics/sci-fi community, a greek chorus of cosplay girls, but centered on a wonderful and complicated relationship.

La La Land

Up until this year, I think I’d be on record as pretty much hating the musical genre. I could never get past the whole “breaking into song” transition. But this film is a transcendent delight. In a year filled with a pervasive sense of dread, this tale of starry-eyed lovers pursuing their passions is welcome invitation into a world of dreams.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

No chance at an ubiased view here. I’m an unapologetic Star Wars fan and this was one of the best movies in the history of the series. The final 30 minutes are pretty damned flawless; some of the best space battles ever put in a sci-fi movie. And that scene where you-know-who does you-know-what was a heart-pounding thrill.

Blue Monday

This book is gorgeous to look at; fantastic cartooning in service of a delightful period piece about adolescence and musical obsession. If you enjoyed “Scott Pilgrim” you’ll probably love this one.

Tokyo Ghost

This demented Mad Max with a cyberpunkian twist was an orgy of incredible visuals - an onslaught of imagery. This dystopian mix of information-addicted masses exploited by a debauched elite class spoke to the year 2016 perhaps better than anything in entertainment this year.

Deadly Class

Rick Remender and Wes Craig's ongoing series continues to be among the best in comics. The artwork is extraordinary every time. The most recent arc sees a turnover in the main cast and the choices were exciting and unexpected.

Love Addict: Confessions of a Serial Dater

This graphic novel memoir of a young man becoming addicted to contemporary dating apps is darkly humorous, filled with cringe-inducing moments of honesty worthy of a Ricky Gervais or Larry David show.

Fun Family

This book answers a question you never knew that you desperately wanted answered: what if the “Family Circus” cartoon family was real, three-dimensional, filled with ennui, dread, and various mid-life crises? Hilarious and moving.

Moonglow

Michael Chabon’s novel/memoir about his grandfather’s life as a World War II soldier and rocketry enthusiast who was doomed (or gifted?) to fall in love with a mysterious woman with strange behaviors stemming from mental health issues is yet another example of Chabon’s mastery of language and narrative. It’s a slow-building, meandering family drama that culminates in some amazing revelations which illuminate not only Chabon’s family life but several of his themes and obsessions over the course of his literary career.

Company Town

Madeline Ashby’s sci-fi novel about a security agent on a rig city is densely packed with incredible speculative concepts and fascinating transhumanist meditations. The central character navigates a cyberpunk underworld of sex workers from a strong feminist perspective.

Captain Fantastic

Viggo Mortensen is mesmerizing in this film about an uncompromising parent struggling to raise a family off-the-grid. Mortensen brings a sense of righteousness, principle, passion, intelligence - but conflicted by melancholy and doubt.

The Night Of

HBO should have deleted True Detective Season 2 from existence and retitled this mini-series and released it as the real True Detective Season 2. This mini-series managed to breathe life and originality into the tired crime procedural format. Two of the best performances of the year were in this show: Riz Ahmed’s numbed and post-traumatic “Naz,” and John Turturro’s lumbering and eczema-plagued John Stone. The showcase scene in the template for this genre, the defense lawyer final argument, has become so weighted with cliches and terrible examples, it was amazing to see The Night Of reclaim this trope with a truly original, well-earned example that belongs in the final-argument pantheon alongside Gregory Peck’s “To Kill a Mockingbird."

Arrival

Denis Villeneuve has a solid claim as the top-ranked pound-for-pound champion in the arena of cinema, and his musical collaborator Jóhann Jóhannsson brings another hypnotic score. Arrival is a rare sci-fi film that manages to capture what’s best on the literary side of the genre - ideas, mystery, and humanity.

The Nice Guys

Movies are always a delight when Shane Black is at the top of his game, and this is one of the best films written by the Ur-Tarantino. “The Nice Guys” is hilarious, an engaging mystery and authentic period piece rolled into one, anchored by Gosling’s charm and Crowe’s menace.

Manchester by the Sea

A deeply moving film about loss, Manchester’s drag of melancholic gravity is enlivened with a dark wit. Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges all give Oscar-caliber performances. Lonnergan is almost invisible as a director, never employing camera tricks or edits that bring attention to themselves, managing to bring the intimacy of a dramatic theater performance to cinema.

Orange is the New Black - Season Four

“OitNB” continues its streak of excellence, with each season an arguable contender for best in the series. This year’s was no exception, and culminated in a final trio of devastatingly brilliant episodes.

Everybody Wants Some

Richard Linklater’s latest combines a number of things I love: the ‘80s, baseball, Texas; exploring them in meandering, philosophical conversations about competition and authenticity.

Halt and Catch Fire - Season Three

This season was filled with unexpected turns and bold choices. There’s a lot to love in this show, but I just want to single out supporting actor Toby Huss, the weathered, plain-spoken Texan that provides a calming center to this show’s erratic leads. When he calls bullshit on something, he’s right - and does it with Lone Star style.

12. Carol

Just plain beautiful: gorgeous cinematography, make-up and costume design. Well-executed period-specific production design. Carter Burwell's evocative musical score rounds out a film where every frame pulses with aesthetic pleasures.

11. Brooklyn

Saorise Ronan's fantastic portrayal, fully inhabiting a timeless immigrant tale, brings a vivid sense of the alienation and inner conflict felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Brie Larson was indeed great in Room, but Ronan is my pick for the best actress Oscar (although both of them should've received additional competition from an actress who wasn't nominated but stole the show in the #1 movie of the year).

10. Love and Mercy

Paul Dano and John Cusack's dual portrayal of Brian Wilson spanning decades is one of the strongest acting achievements of the decade and it's a fuckin' felony that they were both overlooked for nominations.

9. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Easily the most surprising delight of the year. Wonderfully affecting. Laugh-out-loud funny. Skin-crawlingly cringe-inducing. Great ensemble performances. Sneaks in several emotional body-blows with the efficiency of a champion boxer - you're braced to expect them coming but they still land hard. As a feature debut for Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, this announces an exciting filmmaker to watch.

8. Creed

2015 was quite the year for 7th-installments in franchises that-are-also-kinda-reboots/remakes. Creed distills the Rocky formula back to its base elements, with remarkable success. Stunning to see that Sly Stallone can still summon up everything that was brilliant about his original portrayal of Rocky Balboa, despite all the baggage that the franchise and Stallone himself accumulated over the years.

7. Sicario

Holy mother of all fuck, those set-piece action sequences. Holy mother of all fuck, that soundtrack. Holy mother of all fuck, the moral darkness. And of course - the man, the myth, the legend: cinematographer Roger Deakins, who still to this date is owed so many Oscars I've lost count.

6. Straight Outta Compton

The most underrated film of the year. Outrageous that it did not get a best picture nomination. The Academy has a long history of drastically over-valuing films with a musical spine, so its absence is even more frustrating. Here is a film exploding with cultural relevance and contemporary resonance, it has an incredible ensemble cast, and yet it is ignored. #OscarsSoWhite indeed.

5. Ex Machina

With its confined single-location structure, this film feels like a stage play. Ex Machina captures the best of science fiction - meditating on the deeper moral consequences of possibilities suggested by current technological trends. Oscar Isaac's eccentric Stanley Kubrickian computer genius is one of the more fascinating performances to observe in recent memory. Ex Machina avoids the genre film convention of ending with a bombastic sequence, pressing the limits of special effects technology and action choreography. Instead, this film concludes with relatively quieter techniques: longer shots, lingering moments, singularity of action - and the results were chilling and transcendent.

4. The Big Short

Steve Carell's performance as Mark Baum is not only my vote for best actor of the year, I'm shortlisting it for best of the decade consideration. Carell embodied the outrage of a generation, the righteous anger that has been suppressed in the wake of the Great Recession. In the 1976 masterpiece Network, actor Peter Finch channeled madness and chaos into his portrayal of Howard Beale. Carell does something equally powerful here - instead of fully expressing that rage, instead of opening the window and shouting that he's mad as hell and can't take it anymore - Carell attempts to put a lid on it, and re-direct his fury into constructive action.

3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Kudos to Kathleen Kennedy, Lawrence Kasdan and JJ Abrams. They managed to make The Force mysterious and awe-inspiring again. They evolved a narrative for Han Solo that retained the essence of the character and broke fresh territory. They created a trio of new protagonists worthy of continuing in further adventures. Harrison Ford shocked us all by being able to turn on the switch and embody everyone's favorite space pirate as if the past thirty years hadn't happened. Adam Driver gave the Star Wars universe a much-needed bad-ass villain. The mythological structure of Star Wars and its inspiration from Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces spawned generations of imitators - but Daisy Ridley stepped into the archetype and made it her own. That goosebump-raising moment in the snow - the literal passing of the torch from the old generation to the new - was probably my favorite moment in cinema in 2015.

2. Spotlight

It's hard to praise this film because its brilliance is so evenly distributed across its humble structure. Stellar cast. Every single role played memorably. Subtle fly-on-the-wall camera work. Spotlight matches classic investigative films like All the President's Men and Zodiac for its devotion to process and detail: knocking on doors, scrolling through microfiche, consulting dusty directories stacked in basement archives. Liev Schrieber brings an understated authority. Michael Keaton and John Slattery both manage to convey a creeping sense of dread at realizing institutional failure - both from structures they trusted as well as those they personally participated in. Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo depict the shoe-leather industriousness and dedication of the unsung hero reporters who shocked the world with their revelations.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

By the time the film reaches the twenty minute mark, when Immortan Joe's vehicle army reveals itself to not only have its own rhythm section, but also its own flame-throwing heavy metal lead guitarist, I knew I had already seen the best movie of the year and it wasn't even half done. Charlize Theron out-Clint-Eastwooded Clint Eastwood. The incessant velocity of action and spectacle was thrilling to behold. Here is a film that lived by its motto: WITNESS ME.