28 films in 2018

Quite a bit of my film-watching this year has been influenced by participating in the London Graphic Novel Network's Film Clubs – which in practice meant revisiting some old favourites and writing about them for the first time (Annie Hall, Fight Club, The Dark Knight, Clueless). Very grateful to Joel for organising these and getting the debate going – it's always more fun when you have something to argue against.

Most of the other films I've watched this year are things that have popped up on Netflix amidst the heaps and heaps of dross on the platform. Do have to admire the range of stuff on offer, from high-end anime (The Garden of Words, A Silent Voice), Hollywood classics (Touch of Evil), foreign-language films (The Villainess, Tale of Tales) as well as original productions (Annihilation – although that wasn't very good). You can't dive very deep into each one of these pools, but there's enough to satisfy the casual viewer, which given the demands of work and life nowadays is unfortunately what I have become.

I do want to try to get to the cinema a bit more often in 2019, and not just to see the latest blockbuster (Avengers, Black Panther). Seeing Kore-eda's Shoplifters in a near-empty Picturehouse this week was a reminder that films don't need CGI spectacle to be worth seeing on a big screen.

New:

Hirokazu Kore-eda - Shoplifters [link]
Ron Howard - Solo: A Star Wars Story [link]
Joe & Anthony Russo - Avengers: Infinity War [link]
Ryan Coogler - Black Panther [link]
Mari Okada - Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms [link]
Alex Garland - Annihilation [link]

Old:

Woody Allen - Annie Hall [link]
David Fincher - Fight Club [link]
Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight [link]
Jean Rollin - The Iron Rose [link]
Yasujirō Ozu - Floating Weeds [link]
Shohei Imamura - The Eel [link]
Makoto Shinkai - The Garden of Words [link]
Paul Verhoeven - Total Recall [link]
Amy Heckerling - Clueless [link]
Orson Welles - Touch of Evil [link]
Paul Verhoeven - Robocop [link]
Juzo Itami - Tampopo [link]
Naoko Yamada - A Silent Voice [link]
Catherine Breillat - The Last Mistress [link]
Duncan Jones - Warcraft: The Beginning [link]
Lars von Trier - Nymphomaniac [link]
John Crowley - Brooklyn [link]
Jeong Byeong-Gil - The Villainess [link]
John Michael McDonagh - Calvary [link]
Matteo Garrone - Tale of Tales [link]
John Hughes - The Breakfast Club [link]
Jess Franco - Vampyros Lesbos [link]