Look, making a Best of Decade list is an impossibility. As the 2010s come to a close, we’ve been agonizing over this (long-delayed) list for half a year now and even had to take a break and put it away this summer when things got too contentious and overwhelming. And then there’s the notion of resonance and what really lasts and is released too late (Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is phenomenal, for example, but it’s not even released yet, and it’s just going to have to sit this one out).

Continue reading The 100 Best Films Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

After countless screenings, Q&A’s, red carpets, screeners, hand holding, for your consideration ads, talk show appearances and cocktail parties, between 160 and 190 contenders are going to be rewarded with Oscar nominations bright and oh, so unnecessarily early on Tuesday morning.  And almost just as many who didn’t hear their name called will try to get back to sleep knowing they no longer have to starve themselves for the February telecast.  Granted, this season hasn’t had the distraction of a historic presidential election or an industry-changing #MeToo movement, but have been controversies late in the game.

Continue reading Final 2018 Oscar Nominations Predictions: ‘Roma,’ ‘Burning,’ ‘A Star Is Born’ at The Playlist.

It’s not very controversial to say that Lee Chang-dong’s “Burning” is a remarkable film. Filled with some of the most beautiful imagery you’ll see in any movie (that dancing scene at sunset!), the slow-burn film is hard to put in one simple film box and is all the better for it. Is it a thriller? A relationship drama? A mystery? A character study? It’s all of the above and then some.

Continue reading ‘Burning’ Exclusive Music: Stream The Entire Score For One Of 2018’s Best Films at The Playlist.

The Playlist has never met a year we couldn’t exhaust with the endless examination, analysis, and decoding; it’s not that we love lists, it’s just in many banner years of cinema, there’s so much to pour over. 2018 was a stellar year for film and there were amazing movies to shout out, performances, new directors, breakout actors and actresses, documentaries, all kinds of new exciting talents and we genuinely can’t stop talking about them, honestly.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2018 You Didn’t See at The Playlist.

On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I look back at another strong year for cinema and compile our lists for the best films of 2018. We go through them rather quickly, as we’ve discussed most these films on previous episodes already. (Check the AYT back catalog here!) We also find time to highlight some of our favorite and/or most memorable moments in movies near the end. In between, we discuss a new release in theaters that made both our lists: Barry Jenkins‘ “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2018

Needless to say, we adore the film and think you should definitely see in theaters this year.

Continue reading Favorite 2018 Moments, Top 10 Films & Plenty Of Time To Gush Over ‘Beale Street’ [AYT Podcast] at The Playlist.

This has been a tumultuous, but rewarding, year for films. Despite all the hoopla that we are living in dire times for moviemaking, the last 12 months have proved the naysayers wrong yet again. In fact, every year it’s the same story. Film critics will lament a doom and gloom overview of the year at the movies, how Hollywood doesn’t produce original stories anymore, how the multiplexes are filled with reboots, sequels, and prequels galore.

Continue reading Jordan Ruimy’s Top Ten Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

It may not have been a stellar year, but it was more than satisfactory. Wait, did that disappoint you? Was that not bombastic enough? Well, fair warning, you may not want to read the rest of this rundown then.  Not every year is a “great” year for movies as some critics would like you to believe.  But 2018 was more than fine, and that’s a start.

Granted, there were some stunning performances that will be hard to forget over the past 12 months.

Continue reading Gregory Ellwood’s Top 10 Films Of 2018: ‘Cold War,’ ‘Climax,’ ‘The Favourite’ at The Playlist.

Making a Top 10 list at the end of the year is difficult. It’s also superfluous. So much time is spent cramming in last-minute films that you’ve missed throughout the year for the chance to put it on your list, when there are already many great films that you’ve spent at least half the year reflecting on and digesting. Tastes are fluid and ever-changing, and you may bump something off your list that you just watched, only to find that six months down the road that the shine on that film has worn off.

Continue reading Ryan Oliver’s Top 25 Films Of 2018 [Video] at The Playlist.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the shortlist for the 2019 Foreign Language Film Oscar today and, as expected, Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” and Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” easily made the list. The Netflix and Amazon Studios releases join seven other films that will be screened next month and pared down to the five nominees announced along with all the Oscar nods on Tuesday, Jan. 22.

READ MORE: Yalitza Aparcio Overcame Her Fear Of Water To Triumph In ‘Roma’ [Interview]

Six of the nine films were determined by voters in Los Angeles and overseas who were required to watch at least eleven of this year’s submissions.

Continue reading ‘Roma’ & ‘Cold War’ Lead Foreign Language Film Oscar Shortlist at The Playlist.

2018 saw the passing of a cinematography legend in Robby Müller, a regular collaborator of Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch, who with his work on “Paris, Texas,” “Down By Law,” “Dead Man” and Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” was responsible, perhaps more than anyone, for defining and expanding the aesthetics of the 1980s and 1990s arthouse. It is a sad note in a year that has been otherwise a banner year for the craft he perfected and elevated, and so as our small tribute, we dedicate our list of the Best Cinematography of 2018 to him.

Continue reading The Best Cinematography of 2018 at The Playlist.

As we post the year-end collection of publications’ Best of 2018, a few things become very clear. We begin to notice that some films appear almost on every list, and roughly in the same order. And we also are constantly surprised that some films pop up that are nowhere to be found in any other lists. This shows not only that the quality of films in 2018 is incredible, but also that there are just so many films that can be considered among the very best that this year had to offer.

Continue reading ‘Roma,’ ‘Burning,’ & ‘The Image Book’ Among Sight & Sound’s Top 20 Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Karma, they say, is a bitch. Yet it must be down to some cosmic law of balance that as terrible as things have been on a daily basis in other spheres of life, 2018 has been among the most remarkable years for cinema in recent memory. Maybe it’s that the instability and uncertainty of the zeitgeist has ignited channels of creative expression that might have remained dormant in more complacent times; maybe it’s that 2-hour breaks from the constant blithering nonsense that is being alive in 2018 are precious even if you’re watching the “Overboard” remake.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

North America’s critics’ groups honors are coming fast and furious and both Toronto and San Francisco announced their winners on Sunday.  Like the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, they both named Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” as Best Picture.  They two orgs only agreed on a few other honors.

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor” took the Documentary honor from each group and “First Reformed” earned Screenplay from both organizations (in Original from the San Fran critics and a tie or in general from the Canadians).

Continue reading Toronto & San Francisco Critics Also Anoint ‘Roma’ Best Picture at The Playlist.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association announced their year-end awards today and the big winner was “Roma” which took the Best Picture prize.  This is the second major win for “Roma” after taking the New York Film Critics Circle honor less than two weeks ago. Debra Granik earned some much-deserved kudos with a Best Director win for “Leave No Trace” while the expected winner, Alfonso Cuarón, took second.  

Continue reading ‘Roma’ Wins Best Picture From The Los Angeles Film Critics Association at The Playlist.

Trailer watching online has become something of a celebrity gossip sport. Will the ‘Avengers 4’ trailer arrive on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? Oops, it’s changed, sorry, it’s not arriving til Monday. First the trailer usurped the movie itself, and now the date of the trailer has usurped the trailer itself, which is of course just a commercial trying to convince you to see a movie which in some case is a piece of art and other times is a commercial for a larger film, bigger universe or next installment of what the studio really wants you to see.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movie Trailers Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Movie marketing can be a weird thing to celebrate, no doubt. Posters, trailer and all kinds of promotional materials are selling tools explicitly designed to captivate (dupe?) the broadest, biggest audiences into attending your movie. These materials are created to attract the most mouth-breathing-friendly flies which usually means, big, dumb, loud and in the case of many posters, a healthy dose of criminal Photoshop abuse. Sometimes that means an overwrought collage-diarrhea on a superhero poster where it appears that one character is inevitably flatulating out an explosion, or the designer is just visually impaired, and sometimes it’s just the most egregious concept of all time.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movie Posters Of 2018 at The Playlist.

As the end of 2018 rapidly approaches, it’s that time of year where some of the biggest names in film criticism release their top 10 lists. One of those lists that we always try to highlight is that of France’s Cahiers du cinéma. However, since the publication’s list focuses on films released in Franche in 2018, there are some projects that you probably won’t see on many other year-end lists.

First, you’ll notice that films like “Phantom Thread,” “The Post,” and “On the Beach at Night Alone” are all on the 2018 list, despite being released last year in the US.

Continue reading Cahiers du Cinéma Top 10 Of 2018 Honors Lars von Trier’s Latest As Well As French Film ‘The Wild Boys’ at The Playlist.

Recently, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences president John Bailey and Carol Littleton, a member of the Board of Governors, appeared at the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland. While the discussion varied greatly, you better believe that the members of the Academy were asked about the recently shelved idea for a “Popular Film” category. And despite what seems to be unanimous outrage from film fans and Hollywood-types alike, Bailey says that the idea is still on the table.

Continue reading Academy President Says 2019 Oscars Could Lead To A Resurrection Of Infamous “Popular Film” Category at The Playlist.

Everything comes in threes on this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, but that may not always be a good thing. Joe and I start things off with some thoughts on the newly released Swedish fairy tale film “Border” (Playlist review here). “Border” will expand to more theaters in the next few weeks. As will our two main films of discussion, “Burning” and “Suspiria.”

READ MORE: 20 Of The Best, Most Spellbinding Witch Movies

21st-century South Korean cinema has provided us with some landmark movies and several of the most exciting auteur voices working in the industry.

Continue reading Anti-Oscar Bait: There’s So Much More To Discuss About ‘Suspiria,’ ‘Burning,’ & ‘Border’ [Adjust Your Tracking Podcast] at The Playlist.

Despite a rather weak weekend for new wide releases, it was a terrific frame to release a horror film this weekend. Universal’s “Halloween” did drop 58% in its second week, but that’s not unheard of for horror, and the David Gordon Green-directed film still raked in another $32 million. This 2018 “Halloween” movie is already the highest grossing film of the series both domestically and worldwide and will soon even beat the original 1978 John Carpenter version when adjusted for inflation.

Continue reading ‘Halloween’ Kills The Competition Again; ‘Suspiria’ Scores The Biggest Arthouse Opening Of 2018 [Box Office] at The Playlist.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced the nations who have submitted entries for the Foreign Language Film Oscar this morning. This year there are 87 entrants for 2018 which is down from last year’s record 92, but still higher than the 85 contenders in 2016. African nations Malawi and Niger are participating for the first time.

There were few surprises on the list as most of the major competitors had already been announced by their respective countries.

Continue reading 87 Countries Officially Vying For Foreign Language Film Oscar at The Playlist.

When “Burning” showed at the Cannes Film Festival back in spring, everyone assumed it would win Palme d’Or, it was that well beloved. A psychological thriller focusing on relationships and emotions in poetic and captivating ways, many critics were amazed when the South Korean film did not claim the crown. Now, with Oscar season coming up, “Burning” might have a chance for a little more gold.

Directed by Lee Chang-dong (“Poetry,” “Secret Sunshine”), “Burning” is South Korea’s Official Oscar Entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Continue reading ‘Burning’ Trailer: Lee Chang-Dong’s Cannes Critical Darling Is A Mesmerizing Thriller at The Playlist.

In a surprise to no one, Mexico announced it was submitting Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” as the nation’s submission for the Foreign Language Film Oscar. This was a foregone conclusion months ago and was even more of a lock after the Netflix title earned rave reviews at the first three fall film festivals as well as took home the Golden Lion at Venice. Now the question is how much of an impact “Roma” can have in the other Academy Awards categories and who else is a player in Foreign Language Film.

Continue reading ‘Roma’ Is Mexico’s Foreign Language Film Entry But Who Else Is In the Mix? at The Playlist.

September is right around the corner which means a two-fold attack of movies. 1) the wealth of riches that arrives in the more-adult-themed awards season and 2) the overlapping films that appear first during the fall film festival circuit. So, our fall preview essentially doubles for both, a few films here and there missing due to lack of release dates yet. But yes, the Venice Film Festival starts this week, the Telluride Film Festival this weekend and following that a brief reprieve before the Toronto International Film Festival and then the genre-focused Fantastic Fest in Austin and artsy and prestigious New York Film Festival in late September and early October.

Continue reading 56 Must-See Films: The 2018 Fall Movie Preview at The Playlist.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the main selections for the 2018 New York Film Festival, and it won’t disappoint the city’s cinephile community.  It also confirms that barring a last minute addition or secret screening there are no world premieres at this year’s NYFF.  Then again, the fest is programming a significant number of Foreign Language Film contenders even if the homegrown selections are slight.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” Alfonso Cuarón‘s “Roma“ and Julian Schabel‘s “At Eternity’s Gate“ were previously announced as the opening, centerpiece and closing night films for this year’s fest.

Continue reading ‘If Beale Street,’ ‘Cold War’ & ‘Ballad Of Buster Scruggs’ Among Main NYFF 2018 Selections at The Playlist.