Top 30 Documentary Hits of 2018

Each day a different year in review topic. Here's Glenn Dunks...

Documentaries had one of their biggest years on record in 2018. In fact, the upper realms of non-fiction at the North American box office started to look like what the foreign-language charts once looked like. There was at least one major cross-over smash, several very impressive eight-figure grossers, a selection of not insignificant titles that did over one-million, and a long list of niche titles that did business anywhere from respectable to disappointing depending on expectations and release size. The year even started strong for docs with 2017 hits Bombshell the Hedy Lamarr Story and Faces/Places continuing to earn tidy sums buoyed by word of mouth and an Oscar nomination respectively.

My column Doc Corner will continue in 2019 so here’s hoping the new year offers just as bountiful a crop. It's been good to see documentaries reaching the mainstream, zeitgeist conversation.

TOP 30 DOCUMENTARIES FOR 2018
Domestic Box Office Grosses Only - Figures as of February 17th, 2019. 🔺 = the film is still in theaters

Click to read more ...

2018: All Creatures Great and Small

Each day a different year in review list...

We're all animal lovers here at TFE, so we asked contributors and friends to talk about their favourite non-humans from the year's movies. 

To show love to all Film Experience readers, whether you be a cat or a dog person, we dedicate this list to two extraordinary creatures: That elusive cat in Burning, who may or may not be a figment of our imaginations but sure feels real since we can't shake him, and Bradley Cooper's own dog Charlie playing Jackson Maine's dog in A Star is Born. Like Lady Gaga, Charlie is essentially playing himself and like Lady Gaga he's doing it fabulously. Where's his Oscar buzz?

Not every memorable screen animal was covered in the following list -- our apologies especially to that tragically outmatched racoon in Incredibles 2 -- so do add to it in the comments. Here are our seven favourite beastly movie stars of 2018...

Click to read more ...

18 Beautiful Examples of Co-Star Chemistry in 2018

Year in review list mania each day. Here's Nathaniel...

This is our fourth year of highlighting that unpredictable spark between actors that can elevate a movie whether the movie is able to catch up or not (see previously installments for '15, '16 and '17, if you're so inclined).  If only we could bottle these formulas but the thing about great chemistry is that it can't ever be fully recreated even if old movies during the studio system teach us that the same pairing can at least generate similar energy again. Why Hollywood doesn't still try to repackage successful combos of actors (rather than just all the brand do-overs) remains an unsolved mystery 

Herewith the most beautifully realized relationship energy of the year...

18 [TIE] Ben Foster & Thomasin McKenzie, Leave No Trace 
AND Josh Hamilton & Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade (Single Father/Teenage Daughter)
There's a lot to recommend in both films, two sleeper arthouse successes this year, but neither film would have the same emotional resonance without that authenticity of feeling in the central duet. Marvel at the way Hamilton looks at or speaks to Fisher, for example, perpetually impatient to be let in on her interior life, but also nervous about intruding on her journey and walling her off yet further. Equally impressive is the difficult balancing act McKenzie plays as both dutiful daughter and emotional caretaker for her troubled father, as she grows ever more restless to escape him without losing him. What a quartet of performances...

Click to read more ...

Coal in our stocking. 'Worst' of the Year

Each day a different year in review list. Here's Nathaniel R...

2018 was unpleasant in so many real life ways that grousing about unpleasant things within our favorite escape hatch from reality seems ungrateful. By and large, we love the movies here at TFE and I think I speak for most of the team in saying that we can all pretty much find something to love even in the worst ones. Nevertheless, allow me a quick exorcism of the things I disliked the most this year to get them out of my system. A very important caveat though: As my own boss I can skip whichever films I have no interest in or which receive intense critical drubbings. Therefore my "worsts" are rarely the worsts and sometimes not even terrible just unsatisfying, if you catch the drift. But these films and performances just didn't work for me or actively discouraged benefit of the doubt.

Much kvetching after the jump...

Click to read more ...

100 Most Popular Foreign Films of 2018 + the Oscar Hopefuls!

Our year in review party begins TODAY. A different list each day! Here's Nathaniel R...

Time for an annual look back at subtitled fare in cinemas. As with 2017 and the year before India, China, Mexico, and South Korea dominate with a smattering of Oscar contenders and random other countries faring much less well in the American marketplace. Much of the imbalance is due to dedicated distributors who saw a underserved market and focus specifically on it. Here in Manhattan, it's interesting to watch how this plays out. Generally speaking some big multiplexes reserve one or two screens for super specific distributors (Bollywood and mainstream Asian features for example are often at the Empire in Times Square which has 25 screens). Meanwhile the traditional "arthouse theaters" continue to rely on the decades-long practice of programming festival hits, docs, and arthouse style cinema which leans heavily European with a few buzzy Asian titles thrown in; in other words they're Oscar-aligned in their tastes.

For the purposes of the following list we skipped documentaries and animated films to keep the list more focused (and avoid arguments about dubbed versions or whatnot). The numbers are pulled from Box Office Mojo.

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2018
Domestic Box Office Grosses Only - Figures as of March 2nd, 2019

The $1 Million Plus Club
(The Success Stories) 

01 Padmaavat $11.8 (India) Jan 25th
This lux nearly 3 hour medieval epic is about an ambitious Sultan who becomes obsessed with a beautiful Queen. Available to stream on Amazon Prime.

02 Sanju $7.9 (India) June 29th
Biopic of a famous controversial actor. Available to stream on Netflix.

Click to read more ...