Film / best of bristol
Best of 2018: Film
1. The Shape of Water
The best films of the year often get released in January simply because it’s awards season. Guillermo del Toro’s watery fantasy arrived on a tidal wave of hype and proceeded to live up to all of it, being at once a homage to the classic monster movies of his youth, a touching and tender inter-species love story, and a timely, unlaboured rebuke to the ascendant forces of intolerance and division.
2. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
is needed now More than ever
In a career packed with Coen brothers highlights, Frances McDormand has never given a better performance than she does in writer/director Martin McDonagh’s finest screen work to date: a blistering, richly characterised, black comedy of grief and revenge that pushes and pulls our sympathies for its characters, wrong-footing us each time we think we think we know where the story is going.
3. BlacKkKlansman
In a brilliant return to controversial form, Spike Lee tells the extraordinary true story of an African American detective who infiltrated the KKK. Hilarious, angry and passionate, it’s his best film in years.
4. A Quiet Place
We’ve had some great horror flicks this year, including Mandy (see below), Hereditary, Revenge and (parts of ) Suspiria, but the most unexpected treat was John Krasinski’s hugely imaginative, extraordinarily suspenseful and virtually silent monster movie, which deservedly crossed over to arthouse audiences.
5. Mandy
What’s not to love about a psychotropic heavy metal horror movie with the great Nicolas Cage at his most Nicolas Cagey? 2018 was a great year for connoisseurs of the Cagester. Sure, there was plenty of the usual crap, but he also starred in splendid bad taste horror Mom & Dad.
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