#Best movies in theaters now 2018 plus

So intimate and real are these scenes that you forget the cameras are there. There are long stretches of The Rider that are wordless, where characters are alone with themselves, or their horses, or just silent together. Its two churches represent two equally problematic extremes in contemporary Christianity, and Schrader’s film challenges audiences-especially Christian audiences-to embrace the tensions and costliness of faith rather than conveniently adapting it to one’s own disposition. Featuring a career-high performance by Ethan Hawke as a misanthropic pastor of a dying Dutch Reformed church, First Reformed is a “tale of two churches,” as I wrote in my TGC review. It’s the sort that pokes and prods in areas that need to be poked and prodded one that lingers in memory in unsettling but ultimately constructive ways. It’s a messy and disturbing film, but one befitting our messy and disturbing moment in American culture (and American Christianity). Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is not easy or particularly enjoyable.

#Best movies in theaters now 2018 plus

I’ve included my 10 favorites from 2018, plus 15 honorable mentions and 10 recommended documentaries.

The films I highlight below are part of that second commitment, and I commend them to you with the important asterisk that viewers should research and consider a film’s content before they watch it, recognizing that even excellent films can be unwise options for some viewers (R-rated films are noted below). But I’m also committed to highlighting films and filmmakers whose creative visual storytelling, by common grace, displays the good, true, and beautiful in ways that should be celebrated. I’m committed to calling out the bad ideas of otherwise well-made and widely acclaimed films, like last year’s best picture winner, The Shape of Water, which I critiqued for its di sturbing, perverse sexual ethics. What if Christians became known as the moviegoers who were not only the most able to spot and critically engage with wrongheaded and worldly ideas, but also the moviegoers whose bar of artistic excellence and appreciation for innovation were the highest? In my own criticism I have tried to do both. In a world rife with cheap media distraction and soul-crushing consumerism, audiences-especially Christian audiences-must be more discerning than ever, not only in the quantity but also in the quality of what they watch.