The Best Films of 2018, So Far
With the long, hot holiday ahead, you may have a chance to catch up on moviegoing. Here are the top films that our chief critics, A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, are recommending so far this year:
‘First Reformed’
THE STORY This drama, written and directed by Paul Schrader, follows the Rev. Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke), an upstate New York pastor, as he comes undone after meeting a fervent environmentalist and his wife.
A.O. SCOTT’S TAKE “It is the portrait of a soul in torment, all the more powerful for being so rigorously conceived and meticulously executed.” The movie “feels like a fresh discovery. More than that: an epiphany.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s still in theaters. You can find tickets on this site.
‘Zama’
THE STORY Ostensibly the tale of Don Diego de Zama (played by Daniel Giménez Cacho), an 18th-century Spanish bureaucrat hoping, fruitlessly so far, for a transfer from a Paraguayan outpost, this is really an allegory about colonialism and power relations from the director Lucrecia Martel.
MANOHLA DARGIS’S TAKE The movie is “a cinematic marvel.” Ms. Martel, Argentina’s leading filmmaker, “has a wonderful eye and can generate tension as much from the arrangement of bodies in a frame and scene as from any spoken line.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s still in theaters. Here’s the full list.
‘The Guardians’
THE STORY The guardians are a mother and daughter (played by the real-life mother and daughter Nathalie Baye and Laura Smet) who are running their French farm while the men are away fighting World War I. Xavier Beauvois directed.
A.O. SCOTT’S TAKE This is “a historical drama that doesn’t lose itself in decorative period detail, a beautifully photographed chronicle of rural existence that refrains from picturesque sentimentality and grinding misery.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It is still showing in a few theaters, but a better bet might be ordering it when it becomes available on iTunes in August.
‘The Death of Stalin’
THE STORY The writer-director Armando Iannucci, best known for “Veep,” turns his satirical eye on Soviet-era political intrigue with a biting comedy about the various apparatchiks, including Khrushchev and Molotov, who use lies, threats and jokes to grab power after the event of the title. The stars include Steve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor (filmed before he was accused of and denied sexual misconduct).
MANOHLA DARGIS’S TAKE The movie is “a brilliantly arranged mix of savage one-liners, lacerating dialogue and perfectly timed slapstick” that is “by turns entertaining and unsettling, with laughs that morph into gasps and uneasy gasps that erupt into queasy, choking laughs.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s available to stream (here are options) and via V.O.D. on cable and satellite systems.
‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’
THE STORY This documentary from Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom”) looks at the career and legacy of the man behind “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
A.O. SCOTT’S TAKE Instead of trying to create a psychological study or explore secrets, the director “sets out to assess the meaning and impact of an onscreen persona. It is that emphasis — the earnest, critical attention to the public Mister Rogers and his legacy — that makes ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ feel like such a gift.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s still in theaters. Here’s the full list.
‘Leave No Trace’
THE STORY In this feature by Debra Granik (“Winter’s Bone”), a military veteran and his adolescent daughter (Ben Foster and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) are discovered living off the grid, but institutional efforts to integrate them back into society forever change them in different ways.
MANOHLA DARGIS’S TAKE “‘Leave No Trace’ invites you to simply be with its characters, to see and experience the world as they do. Empathy, the movie reminds you, is something that is too little asked of you either in life or in art.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s still in theaters. Here’s the full list.
‘Let the Sunshine In’
THE STORY From the director Claire Denis comes this portrait of a divorced Parisian artist (Isabelle, played by Juliette Binoche) with a string of failed relationships.
A.O. SCOTT’S TAKE “Ms. Binoche, effortlessly charismatic and ruthlessly unvain, has no investment in the character’s likability. She and Ms. Denis could not care less what you think of her. ‘Let the Sunshine In’ commits itself to taking Isabelle on her own terms. The challenge, for her and for the audience, is to figure out what those terms are.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s in some theaters and can also be found on V.O.D. Here’s more information.
‘Lean on Pete’
THE STORY This coming-of-age tale from Andrew Haigh follows Charley (played by Charlie Plummer), an impoverished teenager newly arrived in Portland, Ore., where, escaping an unstable home life, he finds refuge at the track and comfort with a horse named Lean on Pete.
MANOHLA DARGIS’S TAKE With “a cosmic dimension to some of the most beautiful passages,” the film’s “visual beauty can seem at odds with the story’s ugliness but is as necessary as it is welcome because it gives you something to hold onto even as Charley slips further, grubbing meals, fending off violence.”
READ the full review.
WATCH THE MOVIE It’s available to rent or own online. Here’s more information.
Related Coverage
‘First Reformed’ Asks, Can God Forgive Us? Its Director Has an Answer
The Best and Worst of Cannes, Maybe Coming to a Theater Near You
Summer Movies 2018: Here’s What’s Coming Soon to Theaters
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