Final sort of past year's film & tv

Using Metacritic’s list of 100 best films of 2018, I weigh in with my own comparative list, which you may note pointedly excludes most of the Oscar “Best Picture” nominees.  Now that they're all available on one streaming channel or another, I fall back on my traditional distinction between “Exhortations” (which I urge you to see) and Recommendations (which I advise you to see), and try to rank them by urgency of endorsement, with some calibration of likeability and importance, and maybe a little special pleading.

Exhortations

Roma (#1)

Shoplifters (#3)

The Rider (#7)

The Tale (#15)

Private Life (#50)

Cold War (#11)

Eighth Grade (#14)

Leave No Trace (#22)

Paddington 2 (#20)

Free Solo (#52)

Recommendations

First Reformed (#38)

Summer 1993 (#67)

Wildlife (#80)

Bisbee ’17 (#32)

The Guardians (#68)

Lean On Pete (#75)

Burning (#12)

The Death of Stalin (#18)

Black Panther (#25)

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (#28)

Support the Girls (#36)

They Shall Not Grow Old (#6)

Amazing Grace (#2)

Minding the Gap (#5)

Tea with the Dames (#37)

As for television, my best of the year is not predicated on date-of-release calendar, but rather on all the shows I’ve watched over the past year that I would recommend, ranked and categorized loosely into hour-long drama (or documentary) series and half-hour comedies, with a sidebar on must-see British comedy.  Watch and enjoy. 

Drama

Succession

Better Call Saul

America to Me

When They See Us

Harlots

Gentleman Jack

The Deuce

Howards End

Unbelievable

The Victim

Call My Agent

A Very English Scandal

Comedy

Russian Doll

Better Things

Glow

Ramy

High Maintenance

End of the F***ing World

Best of the Brits

Fleabag

Catastrophe

Mum

Detectorists

Doc Martin
The Great British Baking Show

W1A

Please Like Me

Gavin & Stacy

Upstart Crow

You will find commentary (and further links and info) on all these in my previous posts.