The final moments of Wildlife and A Star is Born involve an acknowledgment of the camera. In Wildlife, that moment is an arranged family photo that pays tribute to a non-existent family. In A Star Is Born, it’s a moment of grief and star-making, one in which something old is destroyed so that something new […]

Based on my own research. Films included only if they played theatrically. Corrections and additions are welcome (@ me). For comparison’s sake, here’s the 2017 edition.   Total wide releases (600+ theaters): 160 Sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, and franchises: 42 Based on novels, stories, legends, or video games: 33 Based on a true story (BOATS): […]

Jason Reitman is never as good as when he’s collaborating with screenwriter Diablo Cody; bonus points if the film in question stars Charlize Theron, as Tully does. This unexpectedly searing film alternates between tender drama and psychological terror, plumbing the depths of an exhausted woman’s (Theron) psyche to explore exactly what it means to be […]

If you’ve heard anything about Xavier Legrand’s Custody — admittedly, it’s possible you haven’t — it’s likely writer/director Xavier Legrand’s elevator pitch that his film “starts like Kramer vs. Kramer and ends like The Shining.” The logline can be taken quite literally, as the film starts with an extended courtroom scene between estranged spouses and ends […]

Probably because I was one myself once, I have little tolerance for movies that center on chest-thumping, self-pitying suburban teen boys. Meanwhile, I outright despise the glut of ’80s nostalgia that’s pervaded cinema and television for what seems like the last 20 years. It was therefore with heavy trepidation that I approached Summer of ’84. […]

The Commuter, Jaume Collet-Serra’s fourth collaboration with Liam Neeson, is a two-fisted Hitchcock riff with enough personality, humor, and righteous anger to stand out from the current crop of old-man action movies. While it may retread much of the same ground as the duo’s earlier Non-Stop (2014), it also refines the formula: the characters are […]

The filmmaking duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have consistently proven they know how to work within budget limitations to produce subtly chilling sci-fi/horror films that don’t rely on excessive gore or jump scares to get under an audience’s skin. This is especially true of The Endless, which they not only co-directed (in addition […]

Three Identical Strangers is not an airplane movie. I didn’t know that when I swiped past Rampage, Blockers and the one where Melissa McCarthy goes to college. By the time the plane landed, the seatback screen reset to stock footage of a pleasant-looking steward, and I got lost in the middle-distance of my tray table, […]

Writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa has proven to be a master of dread-filled horror with films like Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001), and in 2008 he stretched his creative legs to deliver the beautifully affecting family drama Tokyo Sonata. He shifted gears again this year to deliver an alien invasion tale like no other with Before We […]

It’s a weird truth that for an activity that’s over 150 years old, there are fewer than 10 movies about the only damn sport I care about, tennis. There are even fewer good ones, but this year, finally, we got a truly great one. Borg vs. McEnroe shifts effortlessly between the first Wimbledon match-up between […]

Andrea Riseborough did some terrific work in 2018, but my pick for her finest role is the title character in Nancy, an impressive indie debut from Christina Choe. Nancy has a lonely life as the sole caregiver for her ill mother (Ann Dowd). She works as a temp, spinning stories to her coworkers about her […]