If we’re friends on Facebook or you follow me on Instagram and watch my stories, you already know I love going to the movies.
I devoured Moviepass in its brief prime, and I have AMC’s A-List, which means I get to see up to three movies a week for $20 a month. Basically, if you plan on seeing two movies a month, you should have A-List, too.
Because I love lists, and really love making them, here are the movies I’ve seen so far this year ranked from worst to best. Counting a few Netflix movies, the list comes in at 29, to date.
My goal is to see another 40-50 movies before awards season concludes, so this list will likely change a lot. Some of those on the list might shift up or down later this year based on repeated viewings or because something better has been released.
Without further ado:
29) Mile 22
Holy smokes is this one terrible, which kills me because I really like director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor, The Rundown). The premise is cool. The story is bad. The editing is atrocious. The abrupt cliff-hanger ending. Ugh.
28) Tau (Netflix)
Cool story becomes boring. Shoutout to Gary Oldman as the AI.
27) The Predator
So bad, I’ll watch it again just to laugh. The story got butchered in reshoots and it literally makes no sense. I want to see the original vision. Shoutout to Sterling K. Brown for going all in and giving a great bad guy performance.
26) Life Itself
Oscar Isaac’s performance and the transitions as people age is great, and the only reason I didn’t make it the worst movie of the year. The story concept was bold, but the execution fell way short. And its a super heavy story. Shoutout to Olivia Wilde for being Olivia Wilde.
25) Sicario 2: Soldado
Sicario was one of my top 5 movies in 2015. This one was OK, until the final 20-30 minutes. Sorry Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro. Also writer Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River) bombs for the first time. All that said, if the third one embraces the absurd and goes the young hitman route, it could be fun.
24) Mute (Netflix)
This one hurt. Love director Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and actors Justin Theroux and Paul Rudd, but damn this one disappointed.
23) Bad Times at El Royale
Borderline great for the first half then the wheels come off. Loved the set design and the performances by Jeff Bridges, John Hamm and Dakota Johnson. Shoutout to Cynthia Erivo for a breakout-worthy performance.
22) Operation Finale
What the hell was Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley doing speaking British when he played a German Nazi leader? That killed me. Oscar Isaac is Oscar Isaac in this one.
21) Den of Thieves
I can’t believe this movie is this high. It so badly wants to be Michael Mann’s Heat, but falls way short. Still an entertaining cop popcorn flick that kept me entertained for two and a half hours.
20) A Quiet Place
I don’t get the hype. Emily Blunt is great. The premise is dumb. You can’t make a noise or monsters attack. As if two kids weren’t enough they decide to have a baby who won’t understand the rules of survival for years. The coolest scene was at the beginning when they cross the bridge and the kid starts playing with the space shuttle. John Krasinski’s directing work is really good. He’s like Ben Affleck minus the alcoholism. Both became famous as actors, but are better directors. Shoutout to Stranger Things Demogorgons for getting the roles as the monsters.
19) Hereditary
Toni Collette gives an award-worthy performance. It does have a good “What the Fuck!” moment. I didn’t find the movie scary, and I really disliked the ending. Shoutout to Ari Aster’s direction and Pawel Pogorzelski’s cinematography within the house.
18) Unsane
Claire Foy carries this one. The way she dissolves into a role is worth watching every time. It’s Steven Soderbergh trying his best to do a Brian dePalma movie while filming the movie with iPhones. The climax felt rushed. Shoutout to Jay Pharoah for his small, important performance.
17) White Boy Rick
There’s some pacing issues, but Matthew McConaughey shines as does Richie Merritt in the title role. I expect to see a lot of good stuff from Merritt down the road.
16) Halloween
It’s not a great movie. There’s some plot holes. The story is basically a recycle job of the original, but dammit it’s fun and a worthy sequel to what I consider the best horror movie of all time.
15) Blind Spotting
One of the most creative movies I’ve seen this year. It’s a comedy-drama about an Oakland man on parole with three days remaining on his sentence when he witnesses an officer involved shooting that jeopardizes his friendships. The climactic scene is one of my favorites of the year. Timely. Shoutout to best friend screenwriters and lead actors Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. (I feel like this one might move up after another viewing.)
14) Juliet, Naked
I loved the Nick Hornby book. I love Ethan Hawke. This is a great adaptation, and a rare R romantic comedy that delivers without raunch. Rose Byrne and Chris O’Dowd steal this one. We need more mainstream movies like this one.
13) Hold the Dark (Netflix)
I’m all in on director Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room, Blue Ruin). In his first big budget film he delivers a batshit crazy story with beautiful cinematography. A boy’s mother claims her son has been eaten by wolves, and she asks naturalist writer The shootout scene alone pushed this one a few spots higher. It’s wild. I’m a huge fan of open endings that allow the viewer to wrap it up in their mind. This one gets even better with repeated viewings.
12) You Were Never Really Here
In a year when Joaquin Phoenix delivers multiple times, this is arguably his best performance to date. Dark, gritty, cinematic with minimal dialogue. Director Lynne Ramsey (We Need to Talk About Kevin) delivers yet again.
11) The Sisters Brothers
Not your typical Western. It’s a story about the Sisters brothers played by Joaquin Phoenix and John C Reilly (maybe his best performance to date) in pursuit of a chemist played by Riz Ahmed in his best performance to date. Jake Gyllenhaal rounds out the cast with all delivering great performances in the first English language film directed by Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone, A Prophet). Also features an outstanding score by Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat.
11) Black Panther
The lone comic book movie I’ve seen this year. Despite the bad CGI in action sequences and the fact I wanted Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger to come out on top, I really enjoyed this one. Director Ryan Coogler (Creed, Fruitvale Station) continues to impress. He’s going to be huge. Still a contender for soundtrack of the year. It’s incredible. Shoutout to Letitia Wright for her performance as Shuri, which is my favorite character in this one.
9) Tully
The only movie I’ve actually kind of reviewed this year. It made me really appreciate how much women do after giving birth. Charlize Theron is outstanding. No surprise there, yet I feel she’s somehow underrated, especially when you watch her in Atomic Blonde then this one. Director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Young Adult, Juno) delivers on what might be writer’s Diablo Cody’s best effort to date. (He also has The Contender about Gary Hart’s presidential run coming soon.) Bonus points for them getting Mark Duplass to play a jerk. Shoutout to Mackenzie Davis, who is one of my favorites.
8) BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee is back! It features a breakout performance by John David Washington, who sounds just like his dad, Denzel. Adam Driver is outstanding (again). It’s good to see Topher Grace in something. When Spike Lee is on his game, he’s one of the best in the business. I really enjoyed the story, but felt the ending wasn’t needed. Shoutout to Terence Blanchard for the trademark amazing Spike Lee movie score.
It’s based on the true story of a group of college kids attempting to steal an original James Audubon Birds of America book from their college library. It’s the most expensive book in the US locked in a case in a secured room. The thieves research heist movies to help create their plan. In what is one of the coolest aspects of the movie, director Bart Layton intertwined the actors performances with interviews with the real men. I was on the edge of my seat during this one. Shoutout to Barry Keoghan, who could be this generation’s Dustin Hoffman.
6) Annihilation
Having read the book before the movie, I was concerned how they could pull it off in a movie. While there are some big changes, it works well. Natalie Portman (my all-time favorite actress), Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tessa Thompson deliver great performances. Coincidentally this is Oscar Isaac’s highest ranking movie and he’s asleep for most of it. Director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) is one of our best scifi directors and writers. It’s one of the best visual movies of the year. The score by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow is among my favorites of the year.
5) First Reformed
Ethan Hawke is my favorite actor. This is his best performance to date, and hopefully earns him a lot of trophies. It’s written and directed by Paul Schrader, who is best known for writing the Taxi Driver script. Hawke’s Toller is a pastor of a small historic church that serves as a tourist destination more than a house of worship.
Among the few congregates is Mary (Amanda Seyfried) who is concerned about her husband Michael (Phillip Ettinger), who is a radical environmentalist. He begrudgingly accepts counseling from the pastor. Along the way Hawke’s Toller writes his thoughts in a journal that he plans to destroy in a year. What unfolds is one hell of a story. The ending will be among the most divisive this year. First Reformed deals with faith and politics in a way that had me thinking for days after watching it.
4) Sorry to Bother You
Of all the movies listed, this one is the craziest. It’s a comedic story that takes place in an alternate Oakland and deals with very real socio-economic issues. Cassius, played by Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta), takes a telemarketing job where he quickly learns using a white voice will help him excel. His rise comes amidst a turbulent time for the company that divides Cassius from his friends, including his artist girlfriend, Detroit, played by the awesome Tessa Thompson. Musician-turned-director Boots Riley takes a very creative, surreal Michel Gondry-like approach to filmmaking. Armie Hammer is great in a role as the company founder/CEO, who has really weird, big dreams for the future of his company. Once he appears in the film, shit gets real crazy.
3) A Star is Born
Hollywood’s musical darling of the year is a tragic love story carried by an incredible Lady Gaga performance. Bradley Cooper is also great on screen, proving the more than a year of vocal training paid off. Obviously the soundtrack helps bolster the fourth telling of this story. I didn’t think any would be as good as Black Panther, but here we are. (Shoutout to Jason Isbell for writing “Maybe It’s Time.”)
The movie also marks Cooper’s first time directing. It feels like he learned how to do it from Clint Eastwood. There’s nothing spectacular in the camera work. When it comes to the concert scenes, the focus is too often on their faces and not giving us a full scope of the performances. (The supporting band members at least deserved a bit more screen time.) That said, there are four performances where this doesn’t occur and they only further prove it could have been even better. Those are Jackson’s first performance, Ally’s bar performance (the way he looks at her when she’s on the bar!), her SNL performance (WTF?!?) and the final scene.
There are some pacing issues. Also it’s a bit surprising that in the cultural moment we’re in, the story has Ally living with and doing chores for her dad, then falling in love with a man who wants to control her career and can’t handle her getting famous, while she blindly listens to a terrible manager. (Like Jackson, I cringed at her SNL performance that felt more like something a teen would do.) One of the only times we see her stand up for herself is when she quits her day job. I feel like this could have been handled better.
Yet here it is at No. 3. That’s because the great (mainly Gaga) outweighs those minor complaints. A lot of credit should also go to the supporting cast. I won’t be surprised if this cleans house during awards season. It should easily win best comedy/musical at the Globes. Shoutout to Cooper for casting Greg Grunberg and Ron Rifkin to create a mini Alias reunion.
2) Mission: Impossible - Fallout
I love Tom Cruise. The man can run from and toward danger like nobody else in Hollywood history. The dude is 56 years old and still doing his own stunts, including a motorcycle chase, numerous high altitude jumps of 25,000 feet, hanging from helicopters, hanging from cliff walls and jumping across rooftops. It was the last one that broke his ankle and delayed filming. (Note: I believe the Academy Awards should recognize stunt work before they give an award for most popular movie.)
It’s crazy that these Mission Impossible movies keep getting better after two decades. Sure nearly every movie is Cruise’s Ethan Hunt being targeted by his own government, while the real bad guy tries to terrorize the globe. But dammit it’s so much fun to watch the story unfold. Fallout is funnier than previous entries and is the first to really tie in to previous storylines, which helps propel this series to new heights. (If you haven’t seen MI:Rogue Nation, it’s required viewing to fully get this story.) I’m excited to see where the story goes with Vanessa Kirby’s White Widow and Rebecca Ferguson’s Isla Faust. Also, there should be a Hollywood 30 for 30 on Jeremy Renner choosing to leave the series for the Avengers movie he didn’t even appear in (according to stories I’ve read). His decision changed the course of the series, and it worked.
Credit to Oscar-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie, who has handled both writing and directing for the last two MI movies. I’m a big fan of Michelle Monaghan, so I was thrilled to see her return to the series after appearing in MI:3.
Mainstream summer popcorn movies can be both highly entertaining and be a high quality product. This series shows that. Also, I never thought it would surpass Bond, but it has.
Shoutout to Henry Cavill for the scene where he prepares to punch a baddie through a bathroom stall and locks and loads his fists. I now do that when I’m fired up and ready to go eat a lot of wings.
1) First Man
Let me preface this by stating any movie that deals with NASA space missions will always get my money and likely always be near the top of an annual list. I’ve now seen it twice, both times on IMAX.
First Man tells the story of Neil Armstrong’s NASA career that ultimately leads to him becoming the first man to walk on the moon with Buzz Aldrin following closely behind. (Middle school history refresher!) Armstrong is played by Ryan Gosling, who has two styles of acting. There’s the flirty wisecracking outgoing Gosling that is a bit of an asshole, and then there’s the stoic Gosling who comes off as an asshole. First Man features stoic Gosling. Throughout the movie we see a man who internalizes everything with two big moments where he crosses the emotional spectrum. There is a scene early in the movie where Gosling surpasses Matthew McConaughey in the race for best spaceman crying scene.
I’ve always been fascinated by space travel. I believe astronauts to be the coolest, most badass, luckiest people on Earth. They get to leave the planet and go into space. I’m so damn jealous. Had I won the lottery I would have asked Richard Branson and Elon Musk to send me into space to at least orbit the planet for a couple of days. I’d have given all the winnings minus $3 million to charity in return for the trip. If I died launching into space or in space or on the return, that would be fine because I can’t think of a better way to go.
That said, death and the possibility of death hangs heavy in this movie. Armstrong and his wife, Janet, lose their toddler daughter early in the film. Armstrong’s response is to return to his work. As the space race continues through the decade, multiple astronauts die leading to an incredible montage featuring Leon Bridges covering Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon” as the nation wavers on the mission to get to the moon.
There are a few times in the movie where we see Armstrong facing major life and death situations. Despite obviously knowing he lived through each one, I still found myself feeling anxious. Credit goes to director Damien Chazelle, best known for his Oscar-winning efforts in La La Land and the brilliant Whiplash. Chazelle opted to film First Man using 16mm film giving it a more authentic period feel. It’s almost as if it’s an old movie featuring today’s actors. It also works brilliantly in the claustrophobic confines of the cockpits throughout the movie. Chazelle opted for IMAX cameras for the lunar landing and it results in a breathtaking climactic scene.
This movie wouldn’t be what is without the award-worthy performance of Claire Foy as Janet Armstrong. While her husband is quiet and calculated as he obsesses over his work, she’s the emotional force in the family. The scene when she tells Neil he has to talk to his sons before his Apollo 11 mission will be used for her nomination reel. The way she morphs into the role is incredible.
Shoutout to the incredible supporting cast performance of Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit and everyone else.
The movie has the feels of Terrence Malick, Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan. It’s no coincidence about the latter as Chazelle purposely chose set designer Nathan Crowley, who worked on Interstellar, to assist Chazelle in this space drama. The scenes at the Armstrong household have a similar feel to Malick’s Tree of Life. The space sequences are reminiscent of those found in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddesy, which also served as an inspiration for Nolan’s work in Interstellar.
It’s those space scenes that wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful without the incredible score of Justin Hurwitz, who has worked with Chazelle on every project. Since seeing the movie, I’ve listened to the entire score non-stop. It’s a huge step forward for the young composer.
It’s also a giant leap for Chazelle, who is only three movies into what looks to be a legendary career. His work on this movie is tremendous. It’s sad that before it’s release, First Man unsurprisingly became politicized when conservatives complained about there not being a scene showing Armstrong and Aldrin planting the flag in the moon. (It’s shown twice on the moon.) There were claims the movie is not patriotic enough, despite “USA,” the flag and many more elements of American pride being displayed prominently throughout the movie. There’s also Kennedy’s famous moon speech.
Gosling added fuel to the fire when he said Armstrong didn’t see himself as an American Hero. In many interviews, Armstrong said he didn’t deserve the praise as he was one of 400 people who made the mission successful.
The fact that a movie about one of our country’s greatest feats that ultimately unified the country and further proved American excellence in science has been politicized is another sad example of where we are as a society. It’s not what solely hurt the box office returns, but it did damage to one of the year’s greatest cinematic gems that will go down among the best movies of its kind.
First Man is a crowning achievement in 2018 cinema that explores the toll it took on numerous people in a pivotal moment in our history.
While the space missions create breathtaking cinematic moments, in the last half of the movie there’s a scene that stuck with me. We see Neil and Janet dancing in their living room. It’s a rare moment where their love for each other is shown in the film. Neil’s work is briefly pushed away for him to enjoy a moment with his wife. The set design is perfect. The cinematography is flawless. “Lunary Rhapsody” plays over the scene.
It’s just two humans who have dealt with great loss embracing each other and enjoying a happy moment amongst the craziness enveloping their country.