No. 1
Roma 2018
No. 1 - the Brooklyn Bridge comparison: a technical marvel he also felt something in, watched in a packed, crying theater.
The Big Picture · Rankings
The Top 10 Films of the Year | Discussion (Ep. 105)
December 7, 2018/ 78 min/ Sean Fennessey · Chris Ryan · Adam Nayman
Sean Fennessey, Chris Ryan, and Adam Nayman each count down their personal top ten films of 2018, comparing notes whenever a movie lands on more than one list.
26 films across 3 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Chris Ryan's top 10best to worst, as revealed on air
No. 2
Wildlife 2018
No. 2 - Paul Dano's directing debut. His 'Lady Bird' of the year - needed a moment alone after it ended.
No. 3
Burning 2018
No. 3 - tied with Nayman as the highest-ranked film either of them has. A movie that made him fall in love with movies in the first place.
No. 4
The Favourite 2018
No. 4 - made him laugh harder than anything this year outside Death of Stalin; loves the Weisz/Stone/Colman troika.
No. 5
Sicario: Day of the Soldado 2018
No. 5 - 'a doom metal song of a Hollywood blockbuster.' Admires its refusal to give the audience a moral handhold.
No. 6
Thunder Road 2018
No. 6 - Jim Cummings' indie built out of his own Sundance short. The eulogy that opens it floored him.
No. 7
Widows 2018
No. 7 - Steve McQueen's grimy answer to Ocean's Eleven; a heist movie about what people owe each other.
No. 8
Black Panther 2018
No. 9 - the best Marvel movie, thinks the Killmonger/T'Challa dynamic is the genre's best pairing since The Dark Knight.
No. 9
A Star Is Born 2018
No. 10 - the first hour as an achievement in old-school star-making, even if it can't sustain that through the whole runtime.
Adam Nayman's top 10best to worst, as revealed on air
No. 1
Zama 2017
No. 1 - Lucrezia Martel's Argentine colonial satire. Seen it three times; calls her one of the most singular filmmakers working.
No. 2
Let the Sun Shine In 2017
No. 2 - Claire Denis, Juliette Binoche. Reads as gentle but is, per Denis herself, one of her harshest films.
No. 3
Burning 2018
No. 3 - loved the screenplay above all: class, masculinity, and hunger all embedded in the writing itself.
No. 4
If Beale Street Could Talk 2018
No. 4 - Barry Jenkins' Baldwin adaptation. Singles out Brian Tyree Henry's jail monologue as maybe the scene of the year.
No. 5
Support the Girls 2018
No. 5 - Andrew Bujalski. Regina Hall's performance is his female lead performance of the year.
No. 6
Happy as Lazzaro 2018
No. 6 - Alice Rohrwacher, on Netflix. A gentle-seeming political allegory that turns into something else at the midpoint.
No. 7
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs 2018
No. 7 - the Coens' anthology film. A movie about mortality told across six wildly different registers.
No. 8
Bodied 2017
No. 8 - Joseph Kahn's battle-rap movie, produced by Eminem. 'Not the best movie of 2018, but the most 2018 of any movie.'
No. 9
First Reformed 2017
No. 9 - Paul Schrader, Ethan Hawke. The environmental-anxiety plot handled 'with a lot of grace.'
No. 10
Infinite Football 2018
No. 10 - a Corneliu Porumboiu documentary about a man trying to rewrite soccer's rules. The funniest thing he saw all year.
Sean Fennessey's top 10the picks he named on air, best to worst
No. 1
Minding the Gap 2018
No. 1 - Bing Liu's skateboarding documentary. The most moving thing he saw all year; ties it back to a Michael Moore film from 1998 shot in the same town.
No. 2
First Reformed 2017
Also on his list - keeps trying to get his wife to rewatch it with him.
No. 3
Black Panther 2018
Also on his list, distinct from Chris's ranking of it - drawn to how much intentional thematic weight Ryan Coogler smuggled into a studio tentpole.
No. 4
Mission: Impossible - Fallout 2018
The best action movie in years for him - saw it three times in theaters.
No. 5
Hereditary 2018
Ari Aster's follow-up he's most anticipating a career from; calls two sequences the year's most visceral filmmaking.
No. 6
If Beale Street Could Talk 2018
An elegant, powerful Baldwin adaptation - not out until December 14, so he's still sitting with it.
No. 7
Annihilation 2018
Alex Garland's loose adaptation of the VanderMeer novel - admires the bravery of it even where it doesn't fully land.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Comparisons and asides CreedCreed IIThor: RagnarokEx Machina28 Days LaterThe BeachDogtoothThe LobsterThe Killing of a Sacred DeerAlpsBarry LyndonThe Front RunnerWon't You Be My NeighborFahrenheit 11/9The Big OneBeau TravailWhite MaterialTrouble Every DayHigh LifeLa CiénagaThe Holy GirlThe Headless WomanBeing ThereForrest GumpGame NightOcean's ElevenA Quiet PlaceGet OutMary Poppins Returns
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The Walking DeadAtlantaSuccessionNathan For You
Podcasts and radio The WatchRinger FCShea's Villains podcastFresh Air