Retrospective 2018- A Year in Film

After a difficult 2017 at the box office, 2018 saw the industry rally with a bumper year, topped by blockbusters like ‘Ready Player One‘, ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘ and ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘, while smaller fare like ‘I, Tonya‘, ‘Isle of Dogs‘ and ‘Hereditary‘ made it another eclectic year for film. On the supposedly more discerning cinematic front, the year kicked off with the customary awards circuit, with no one film dominating the proceedings but ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri‘ and ‘The Shape of Water‘ sharing the bulk of the wins, while Guillermo del Toro’s realist fantasy creature-feature romance took home the biggest prize at the Academy Awards.

As per usual comic-book goliaths and superhero blockbusters made the biggest run at the box office, with Marvel proving kings once again with ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp‘ and cultural phenomenon ‘Black Panther‘, and delivering the fourth highest grossing film of all time with ‘Avengers: Infinity War’.

2018 also saw great upheaval in the industry, as the fallout of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement ushered in the ‘year of the woman’, with females in Hollywood taking centre-stage to address years of injustice and expose awful behaviour from their male counterparts, resulting in big casualties in front of and behind the camera—as Hollywood once again reflected and influenced the course of Western society and American politics at the highest level.

FilmPhonic chronicles the people, events and films that have shaped the movie world in the last twelve months, let’s hope 2019 is at least as fruitful and eventful . . . but a little less scandalous.

January

Awards Season Scramble

Image sources: 20th Century Fox, Disney, Universal & Lionsgate

As usual the year opened with us Brits getting the chance to catch up with our cousins from across the pond with a look at several award contenders leading up to the Oscars in February, with UK audiences being treated to Martin McDonagh’s ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri‘ and Disney’s Mexican-set animation ‘Coco’, as well as Churchill biopic ‘Darkest Hour’ and Steven Spielberg’s biographical 70s journalistic drama ‘The Post’.

A varied month of more subtle fare was rounded of by films like sombre Western ‘Hostiles‘ and Richard Linklater’s reflective road dramedy ‘Last Flag Flying‘, as well as Ridley Scott’s troubled J. Paul Getty biographical drama ‘All the Money in the World’ and Alexander Payne’s diminutive sci-fi comedy/drama ‘Downsizing‘.

And the Award Goes To…

Golden Balls Time

Image source: Getty Images

January brought the first major stop on the awards season railway in the form of the 75th Golden Globe Awards for film and television, here are the notable movie winners this year;

Best Motion Picture – Drama

• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

• Lady Bird

Best Director- Motion Picture

• Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water

Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

• Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour

and

• Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

• James Franco for The Disaster Artist

and

• Saoirse Ronan for Lady Bird

Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in supporting role in a Motion Picture

• Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

and

• Allison Janney for I, Tonya

You can check out our breakdown of all the night’s movie winners here.

Those We Lost

As is unfortunately the case every year, 2018 saw some tough losses for the movie industry, so we pay tribute to some of those that the year took from us.

Image source: ABC, MGM, 20th Century Fox & Universal

January saw the passing among others of younger brother of a legend and American TV veteran Jerry Van Dyke (86) (Coach, The Middle) and veteran American actress Naomi Stevens (92) (The Apartment, Valley of the Dolls), plus veteran American actor Bradford Dillman (87) (Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Sudden Impact) and Oscar-winning Golden age star Dorothy Malone (92) (Written on the Wind, The Last Sunset).

February next page>

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