BEFORE WE GET to the best movies of 2018, let’s talk about the most memorable moments of this year in cinema. Neil Armstrong casting his daughter’s bracelet into a canyon on the moon in First Man, a story as much about one person’s grief and desire to connect with another as about our species’ ambition and desire to conquer the final frontier.
The dawning realization, in What They Had, of why Robert Forster steps out of the bedroom he has shared with Blythe Danner for 60 years, sparing her more suffering and loving her until the end.
A deceptively simple scene—a conversation in a car going from one neighborhood to another—that’s a revelation of social inequality and how near yet far we live from each other. In minutes, Widows covers centuries of relationships of power.
An unexpected funeral in The Gospel of Eureka that breaks the audience’s heart and calls forth our loves.
And the titular character Christopher Robin, who holds Pooh Bear’s hand as they walk through a field, as though Terrence Malick is directing the film.
As for the 10 best movies, I’ll nominate: Isle of Dogs for its invitation to compassion; Lizzie, a life-affirming film because of how seriously it takes killing; The Wife, a challenging tale of personal talent constricted by prejudice; and Bad Times at the El Royale, a satirical mirror of America in which Cynthia Erivo gives the year’s most striking performance.
There’s also the Mr. Rogers documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which is, like its subject, both delightful and radical; Annihilation, a mystical science fiction experience; Leave No Trace, which respects the personal cost of military service enough to critique its aftermath; The Happy Prince, Rupert Everett’s lament about how artists often squeeze creativity from sorrow; and the kinetic and wise Blindspotting, which treats racism and toxic masculinity as problems that require neighborhood solutions.
And in Roma, the year’s greatest film—and perhaps one of the greatest films ever made—too many outstanding moments to count: the babysitter Cleo walking into water to protect the vulnerable; the crash of violence amid the mundaneness of buying a child’s crib; the beyond-astonishing birth sequence; the playing of a Spanish-language version of an iconic English show tune, totally reorienting the meaning we thought we knew.
“I don’t know how to love him,” sings Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar. But in Roma Cleo teaches the rest of us how.
Gareth Higgins is an Irish writer and storyteller based in North Carolina. He is the founder of www.moviesandmeaning.com, and you can also find him at www.garethhiggins.net.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!
