In addition, in a stratagem I began last year, I’m going to include a Second 10 list of marvelous items too good not to tip the hat to:
“Birds of Passage”: From Colombia, a dazzling combination of bravura filmmaking, political awareness and a probing social conscience.
“Blinded By the Light”: Bruce Springsteen and Gurinda Chadha’s Bollywood moves are an irresistible combination.
“Bombshell”: Ripped from the headlines cinema at its best.
“Captain Marvel” and “Fast Color”: Two sides of the superhero coin.
“Dolemite Is My Name” and “Late Night”: Adult laughs are few and far between any year, so attention must be paid.
“Edge of Democracy” and “Sea of Shadows”: Two more docs, this pair giving dramatic heft to real-world problems in Brazil and underwater.
“Les Misérables”: France’s Oscar nominee balances edge-of-your-seat storytelling with criticism of a system that allows crushing poverty to survive and prosper.
“Peterloo”: Historical and contemporary, epic and intimate, political and personal, it’s both unlike Mike Leigh’s earlier work and the grand culmination of his career.
“Richard Jewell”: Clint Eastwood directs the hell out of this story of a real-life miscarriage of justice.
“The Two Popes”: Think of this as Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce doing a Vatican City version of “Going My Way.”
And before I go, I want to acknowledge my gratitude for a bumper crop of reissues: “Mr. Klein,” “Christ Stopped at Eboli,” “Paris Is Burning” and “Shiraz” shone as brightly as ever, and we were fortunate to have them on big screens one more time.