Kilian Melloy's Best Films of 2018

Followups from "The Lobster" and "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" director Yorgos Lanthimos and "Moonlight" director Barry Jenkins; Robert Redford's farewell to acting; a high-profile remake of a classic giallo about lesbian vampires, directed by none other than the filmmaker who brought us "Call Me By Your Name"; roof-raising, mind-blowing social satire; documentaries that tell the stories of teenaged chefs and fearless rock climbers; "gay conversion" dramas told from both sides of the gender coin; searing political history that tells us how we got where we are and strikes terror for the future into one's heart; sublime comedy and laffs that fly right over the top; animated fare that takes us to an "Isle of Dogs," and bleak visions in which hopelessness (almost) destroys faith. Oh yes, and a superhero called Black Panther.

So many worthwhile movies! How to choose from among this year's cinematic banquet? Well, just because I referenced a movie in the pr�cis above doesn't mean that movie will show up on this year's Best Of list, so all bets are off! Lists of this sort are bound to be personal, idiosyncratic, and similar in nature to the shifting sands or the undulation of seawater. Ask me tomorrow and you might get a very different result.

But what can you do? Come this time of year, critics argue, agonize, watch and re-watch, and, eventually, go with their guts as much as with their appreciation for technical formalities.

Let's dive in, eyes wide open, and take a look at an even dozen standouts.

1. Roma

Alfonso Cuar�n comes back to earth and populates his newest film with a brood of children as well as a brace of complex adults – and, perhaps most crucially, he continues to trust in his storytelling instincts on every level, from scripting to directing to cinematography. "Roma," told boldly in tones of black and white that service Cuar�n's funny, poignant, classically informed visual compositions, is a memory play captured in light. This is a slice of life from another country and culture – and yet it so very much belongs to the viewer, no matter what locale or generation the viewer might hail from.

2. Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Crude comedy might be Melissa McCarthy's bag, but when she chooses to act out of that particular box she astounds. In the role of a forger of "literary artifacts" – based on the memoir of an actual forger – McCarthy proves her comic chops don't rely solely on gross-out gags. Better, she demonstrates equally impressive dramatic skills. What makes this movie really pop, though, is the addition of Richard E. Grant as an irrepressible gay sidekick.

3. The Rider

Chlo� Zhao takes the story of a real rodeo star, Brady Jandreau, along with his immediate family, and fictionalizes him to tell the story of a young man whose bronc-riding days are over following a serious brain injury. If a man defines himself according to his work, who does he become when he can no longer do that work? This is more than a tale of life in the hardscrabble American West; it's a fable about how men of any time and place struggle to find themselves when the markers of their lives have been taken from them.

4. We the Animals

Reminiscent of Jenkins' 2016 stunner "Moonlight," "We the Animals" – based on the novel by Justin Torres – tells the story of boy turning into a man... a gay man... just as his parents are weathering relationship-testing stresses and his brothers are ripening into older versions of their rambunctious selves, complete with the sort of limited understanding of manhood that their father – played wonderfully by "Looking" star Ra�l Castillo – has passed down to them.

5. Shoplifters

Hirokazu Koreeda interrogates the very nature of family in this tale of marginal people – mother, father, grandmother, and offspring, each of them with their own scams and questionable careers choices – who rescue a neighborhood child from abusive parents, at the risk of exposing themselves to the kind of legal attention they most need to avoid.

6. The Death of Stalin

Has historical fiction – or is is fiction? – ever been so funny and frightening? Co-writer and director Armando Iannucci reminds us of the eventual consequences that arise when political leaders cease being public servants and elevate themselves, through force of will and sheer contagious delusion, to the status of national cult figure. Stalin's reign of terror doesn't end when his life does; instead, his death serves to spill every scorpion-containing bucket in communist Russia. This film's ensemble cast and whip-smart script make "The Death of Stalin" instructive, and possibly prescient, viewing in the age of Trump.

7. Dark Money

Speaking of the age of Trump, one of the most persistently urgent questions remains: How the hell did a rational liberal democracy – America, the savior and champion of the free world, for Christ's sake – come to find itself on the brink of fascism? I mean, come on: There's a strongman in the Oval Office spouting divisive rhetoric 24/7 and targeting minorities, the separation of powers, and the free press. The world has seen this sort of thing before, and it almost never ends well. There are many answers to this question – as many answers as there are facets to the question, which in itself is complex – but the documentary "Dark Money" serves up a whole bundle of interrelated revelations that shed light on how limitless cash from anonymous donors – people not always very friendly to democracy, or to the liberties of common working folks – corrupts our entire system of government, from grassroots to all three branches. Compelling, haunting, enraging... and, finally, essential in order to gain clarity around where we're at and how we can get back to who we ought to be (assuming that's even possible).

8. Capernaum

If the erosion of the middle class, the opening of a huge economic gulf between rich and poor, and the swallowing of millions of families into that abyss is something we're just starting to learn to contemplate in America, it's long been a fact of life elsewhere in the world. The price for such failures of government, and of human decency, are grim and pervasive; in Nadine Labaki's "Capernaum (Chaos)" we see one slender strand from a tapestry of desperation. 12-year-old Zain (Zain Al Reefa) is a natural leader: Resourceful and courageous, he dedicates himself to helping his family survive. But when his parents basically sell his sister into marriage, he revolts by abandoning them and seeking a better life for himself. Upon setting out, however, he very quickly runs out of road; only a chance meeting with Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw), an immigrant worker, saves him, and he in turn refocuses his energy and loyalty on helping her and her infant son. But the society Rahil and Zain live in is a perilous one for people on the edge, and before long they face a new – and potentially unbridgeable – gulf between where they are and where they need to go. Startlingly, this story unwinds in flashback as an explanation for Zain's legal quest to sue his parents for having had him and his siblings in the first place.

9. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Ethan and Joel Coen bring their zippy, borderline-cartoonish sensibilities to a movie that comprises an anthology's worth of Western yarns. A singing gunslinger, a wagon train beset by catastrophe, a gold-seeker's intrusion into a peaceful valley's natural order, and more; that's what you'll find in this treasure trove of a film.

10. BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee's hand is heavy in this film, which is based on the true story of a black undercover cop (John David Washington) teaming up with a white colleague (Adam Driver) to infiltrate a Colorado cell of the Ku Klux Klan. But that doesn't mean Lee doesn't have a keen sense of what stories need to be told, and how to tell them; this is one of those "so incredible it has to be true" accounts, a film populated by deeply stupid racists and featuring KKK Grand Dragon (and former politician) David Duke as portrayed by none other than Topher Grace.

11. You Were Never Really Here

Jonathan Ames' novel comes to the screen under the direction of Lynne Ramsay. Joaquin Phoenix plays Joe, a badass who more or less eats lesser badasses for breakfast but whose sense of chivalry makes him capable of rescuing endangered young women – and, not incidentally, tending to his elderly mother. When a job goes wrong and powerful people assume they can treat Joe as a disposable hired hand, he pulls himself together for an epic slapdown that takes a wildly unexpected twist. Gripping and hallucinogenic, this might be the movie that finally scores Phoenix that ever-elusive, and so very deserved, Oscar.

12. Hereditary

Toni Collette rules, often with strange, downbeat, or outright mental material. In Ari Aster's thriller "Hereditary," she's either crazy, or being driven there by supernatural forces... or both. The film trembles with suspense in a way we've seldom seen since Donald Sutherland disregarded the titular advice of "Don't Look Now" and George C. Scott plumbed the mysteries of "The Changeling." This movie's scattershot horrors include hauntings, decapitations, spectral shapes, and worse; when the final scenes play out, the film proves it's got a sting in its tail so potent (and so risky) that only a leading woman of Collette's talent (and Aster's verve) could pull it off.

Runners Up

I can hear the collective gasp from here: What? No "A Star is Born?" No "Vox Lux?" All I can say is, that's what the "Runners Up" paragraph is for. Yes, I loved Lady Gaga in "A Star is Born," but I thought the movie itself ran out of steam midway and then limped home. Natalie Portman deserves huge kudos, and maybe an award, for "Vox Lux," but let's face it: Comedies usually don't take the top honors, even when they are disguised as something else. (For the exceptions to this rule you need something along the lines of "The Death of Stalin," or maybe an age of Trump in which everybody just needs the relief of some escapist fare – hallo, "Lala Land." And while Paul Greengrass' film about white nationalist terrorism "22 July" was even more effective than his 9/11 drama "Flight 93," there were certain ways in which that film just didn't quite gel.

Even so, those movies, and so many more, deserve recognition and appreciation. Add to the titles I just mentioned the following, and you have the makings of an epic, weeks-long film fest to call your own:

"First Reformed": Paul Schrader's film about a grieving cleric (Ethan Hawke) pulled into despair goes just a little too far, only to step back from the edge with a hackneyed twist, but don't let that turn you off.

"Blaze": Speaking of Ethan Hawke, when he steps behind the camera to give us this biopic about country music singer Blaze Foley (Ben Dickey), Hawke proves his directorial talent – and Ben Dickey shows himself to be ready for a major movie career.

"Divide and Conquer: The Roger Ailes Story": He brought us Nixon. And Fox News. And, arguably, the (sigh) age of Trump, which is more or less the pinnacle (or nadir) of those disasters. But who was Roger Ailes? This doc clues you in, and you realize just how ruthless the bullies who rise to power really are. Color America #UsToo.

"Let the Corpses Tan": This whack-job foreign film about a band of cut-throat robbers devouring each other (with a sex-addicted artist, some kick-ass bystanders, and a hapless cop thrown into the mix) is as bravura in its filmmaking techniques as it is balls-out crazy in its storytelling. Like a graphic novel come to life, it's told in saturated... well, color, yes, but also everything else here just seems to be dialed up to 11. If Russ Meyers had been an auteur who made indelible foreign films, this would have been his baby.

"Nico, 1988" - Tryne Dyrholm makes the role of Nico her own in this poignant saga of a woman coming unraveled – a woman who can still rock it on stage when she so chooses.

"Three Identical Strangers": The bizarre true story of identical triplets whose discovery of one another opened doors to personal crises, but also caused other doors – leading into dark, perhaps dangerous, secrets – to be all the more firmly locked tight is a heartbreaker, but also an intellectual teaser. You can take the high road and debate the ethics of the situation, or you can obsess with paranoiac intensity over secret experiments. Both avenues are valid in this case.

"A Kid Like Jake": More about the parents than the child, this drama is centered around a trans girl but is propelled by Claire Danes' scorching performance. Jim Parsons hold his own, too, as the concerned, yet accepting, father, but this is a mother's tale.