BEST MOVIES of 2018

[Chris Knipp]

First is my ten best list sent to Indiewire, but that's not necessarily final. Below is a working list of some of my faves. Many are foreign and some unreleased. NYAFF=New York Asian Film Festival; SFIFF=San Francisco Film Festival.

1. BURNING
2 ISLE OF DOGS
3. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
4. BLACKKKLANSMAN
5. NEVER LOOK AWAY
6. BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, THE
7. WILDLIFE
8. LOVELESS
9. LEAN ON PETE
10. A PARIS EDUCATION

Other favorites (listed alphabetically):
306 Hollywood (Elan & Jonathan Bogarín)
Alpha ( Albert Hughes 2018)
Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
Ash Is Purest White / 江湖儿女) (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, Dexter Fletcher)
Boom for Real (Sara Driver 2017)
Capernaum/Capharnaüm (dir: Nadine Labaki)
Chef Flynn (Cameron Yates 2018)
Cold War/Zimna wojna (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Crazy Rich Asians (Jon M. Chu 2018)
Daniel and the Mountain (Felipe Barbosa 2017)
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham)
A Faithful Man / L’Homme fidèle (Louis Garrel)
Foxtrot (Maoz)
Free Solo (Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi 2018)
Girl (Lukas Dhont)
The Guilty (Gustav Möller)
Jane Fonda in Five Acts (Susan Field 2018)
John McEnroe: In The Realm Of Perfection (Julien Faraut)
Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)
Let the Sun Shine In/Un beau soleil intérieur (Claire Denis)
Mandy (Panos Cosmatos 2018) - Nicolas Cage, horror
The Marriage (Blerta Zeqiri 2017)
McQueen (Peter Ettedgui, Ian Bonhôte 2018)
Non-Fiction / Doubles vies (Olivier Assayas)
The Old Man and the Gun (David Lowery)
Petit Paysan (Thomas Chaluret) RENDEZ-VOUS
A Quiet Place (John Krasinski 2018)
The Rider (Chloe Zhao)
Roma (Alfoso Cuarón )
Shoplifters/ 万引き家族 Manbiki Kazoku, (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Sunset (László Nemes)
Support the Girls ( Andrew Bujalski 2018)
Tea With the Dames (Roger Michell)
Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle 2018)
Transit (Christian Petzold)
The Twinning Reaction (Lori Shinseki 2017)
Wajib (Annemarie Jacir 2017)
We the Animals (Jeremiah Zagar 2018)
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (Morgan Neville 2018)
Yomeddine (A.B. Shawky)
You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsey)

Not Released Yet in US:
LOOK UP by Fulvio Risuleo (New Italian Cinema series)
PURE HEARTS/CUORI PURI by Roberto De Paolis (N.I.C.)
The Looming Storm (Doug Yue) NYAFF
One Cut of the Dead (Shin'ichirô Ueda 2017) - NYAFF
Sad Beauty (Bongkod Bencharongkul 2018) - NYAFF
Respeto (Treb Monteras 2017)-NYAFF
Crossroads (Ron Yassen 2018) - SFIFF

I Am Waiting to See:
Dogman (Matteo Garrone)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) - reviewed Dec. 2018
In My Room (Ulrich Köhler)
Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher) - reviewed 27 Dec. 2018
Loro (Paolo Sorrentino)
Peterloo (Mike Leigh ) April 2019
Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)
The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

These Mean More to Other People:
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
First Reformed (Paul Schrader)
The Favourite (Yourgos Lanthimos)
Private Life (Tamara Jenkins)
A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper)