Dear Readers,
Dear Readers,
I feel like a bit of a failure. First, my personal top 5 films of the year are just a carbon copy of my top 5 from the Toronto International Film Festival. Also, more than half of the films on my overall list don’t have reviews on the site yet (by me or anyone else). Then there’s the fact I only saw four foreign films all year – and they all made my Top 10. Worse yet, in my chase for what’s new, I did a terrible job getting through the canon of great classic films and didn’t watch a single movie made before 1983. Yet my overall film intake was on pace from previous years (164 this year vs. 162 in 2017), so it’s not like the abundance of TV I consumed replaced all my watch time. Still, I’m going to include my TV diet for the year below in attempt to try and round this out, and also take solace in the fact I’m probably just better at curating what I watch (me and TIFF both!).
Top 10 Films of 2018
- Roma
- First Man
- Shoplifters
- A Star is Born
- Border
- The Guilty
- A Quiet Place
- Hereditary
- The Death of Stalin
- Three Identical Strangers
Better Than They Needed to Be
Den of Thieves
CAM
Set It Up
Inexplicably Underseen
Red Sparrow
Annihilation
Tully
Overrated Everywhere Else
Halloween
Isle of Dogs
Beautiful Boy
Unapologetically Awesome
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Mandy
Black Panther
Didn’t Disappoint
Deadpool 2
Sicario: Day of the Solando
Mary Poppins Returns
Extra Special Indies
Adventures in Public School
First Reformed
Eighth Grade
Wasted My Time Watching
The Predator
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Game Over, Man!
This Year I Finally Saw (and Loved)
Risky Business (1983)
Bull Durham (1988)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Rounders (1998)
The Firm (1993)
TV SERIES Watched in 2018
Name of Show, Season #, (Episodes in Season)
Amazon Prime
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, S1, S2 (8 + 10)
Jack Ryan, S1 (8)
Homecoming, S1 (10)
The Man in the High Castle, S1 (10)
The Looming Tower , mini (10)
Netflix
The Haunting of Hill House, mini (10)
Manhunt: Unabomber, mini (8)
Ozark, S2 (10)
GLOW, S2 (10)
American Vandal, S2 (8)
BBC Original (on Netflix)
Bodyguard, mini (6)
Collateral, mini (4)
Foreign Language TV (on Netflix)
Money Heist, S1, S2 (13 + 9)
Narcos: Mexico, S1 (10)
Dark, S1 (10)
HBO / Crave
Escape at Dannemora, mini (7)
Succession, S1 (10)
Barry , S1 (10)
Westworld, S2 (10)
Billions, S3 (12)
Killing Eve, S1 (8)
The Handmaid’s Tale, S2 (10)
Insecure, S1 (8)
Letterkenny, S1 (6)
AMC / Paramount / FX
The Assassination of Gianni Versace, mini (10)
Better Call Saul, S4 (10)
The Little Drummer Girl, mini (6)
Waco, mini (6)
Atlanta , S2 (11)
Baskets, S3 (10)
Canadian / Other Cobra Kai, S1 (10)
Baroness von Sketch, S1 (10)
Nirvana the Band the Show, S1 (8)
OTHER
Fell Off Mid-Stream
The Sinner, mini
Jessica Jones, S2
Kidding, S1
Insatiable, S1
The Rookie, S1
Wormwood, mini
Star Trek: Discovery, S1
The Good Place, S2
One and Done (watched pilot episode only)
Counterpoint
Maniac
The Romanoffs Sharp Objects
Pose
Wild Wild Country
The End of the Fucking World
Trust
Altered Carbon
Unscripted Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, S5 (12)
Who Is America?, mini (7)
James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction, mini (6)
Yours truly,
Christopher