All right, new rules.

347 movies are eligible for the Best Picture Oscar for 2018. 34 of them received at least one Golden Globe nomination. I am choosing my Best Of selections from the remaining 313. (Check my math there – it was never my strong suit.) This is my annual exercise in recognizing the year’s great cinematic achievements that are less likely to get recognized by the purveyors of major awards. It’s an inexact science, I know. But I don’t make the rules. Well, actually, I do. But screw it. Enough explanation. On to the movies.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting)

Diggs and Casal starred in the intense portrait a young black man trying to overcome a past mistake in a world that is not especially forgiving when it comes to young black men. They leavened their story with humor, but did not fail to convey the raw emotional anguish and terror that are never far removed from their characters’ lives.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin (The Death of Stalin)

Adapted from the comic by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, director Iannucci and his co-writers craft a brilliant political satire, which captures the absurdity and confusion left in the wake of a dictator’s demise. With over half a dozen engaging characters and a dizzying swirl of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the screenplay never itself becomes confused, and always remains hilarious.

CINEMATOGRAPHY – Lukasc Zal (Cold War)

There’s just something about black & white. Zal, who was previously nominated for an Oscar for Ida, has won awards all over the world for his stunning visualization of Pawel Pawlikowski’s latest film, a tragic romance which moves from Poland to Paris to Berlin in the turbulent years following World War II.

SUPPORTING ACTOR – Tom Waits (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)

This may be cheating. Waits is only a “supporting” actor in the sense of screen time. He is actually the lead actor in the 4^th segment of Buster Scruggs, entitled ”All Gold Canyon.” He is onscreen and at the center of attention for the entire length of the short film, often alone. He does occasionally interact with an animal or another person, but this is a tour de force by Waits, playing an old prospector who is more at home with nature than with people, and for good reason. The Coen Brothers’ portmanteau features a number of stand-out performances, but Waits is most memorable.

Other notables: Simon Russell Beale (The Death of Stalin), Jonah Hill (Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot), Chris O’Dowd (Juliet, Naked), John Gallagher, Jr. (The Miseducation of Cameron Post)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Elizabeth Debicki (Widows)

I admit I have been a huge fanboy for Debicki ever since I saw her memorable turn as Lady Macduff in 2015’s Macbeth. In Steve McQueen’s caper thriller, she is one of the crew put together by ringleader Viola Davis to pull off a job and pay off a debt incurred by their deceased husbands. It is a powerhouse ensemble, and Debicki gets the most complex, nuanced part, seamlessly moving from naïve innocent to sex object to tough girl.

Other notables: Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale & Widows), Nina Moran (Skate Kitchen), Kate McKinnon (The Spy Who Dumped Me), Tatum Marilyn Hall (Night Comes On)

ANIMATED FILM – The Night is Short, Walk on Girl (Masaaki Yuasa)

This is an admittedly thin category. After the five Globe nominees, none of which were sensational, there simply aren’t very many animated movies left on the eligibility list. Fortunately, this bizarre, witty, anime offers enough color and creativity to offset its often opaque, surrealistic narrative.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM – Zama (Lucretia Martel)

I went back and forth on this one, because even after the five strong nominees, there are a wealth of excellent foreign language films on display this year. Zama has neither the tightest narrative nor the most exquisite imagery, but its total package lifts it higher than several other worthy movies. You will feel the humidity in Asuncion and the frustration of Don Diego de Zama as he waits for deliverance from his own personal purgatory.

Other notables: Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski), The Guilty (Gustav Moller), The Workshop (Laurent Cantet)

DOCUMENTARY – Free Solo (Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)

The Globes don’t give a documentary award so many of the frontrunners are eligible. On the other hand, a number of the year’s best documentaries were not submitted for consideration in the Oscar Best Picture race. So basically, this category is totally F’ed up. No matter. Free Solo was the best documentary I saw this year regardless of list affiliation. Chin and Vasarhelyi made the riveting climbing film Meru a few years back. This portrait of Alex Honnold, who scales impossible rock faces with nothing but his fingers and toes, is even better.

Other notables: Bathtubs Over Broadway (Dava Whisenant), The Price of Everything (Nathaniel Kahn), McQueen (Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui)

ACTOR – Jakob Cedergren (The Guilty)

Five years ago, Tom Hardy amazed people with his one man show Locke, which is mostly one unbroken monologue carried out by a man as he drives into an uncertain future. Cedergren has a similar challenge here, as a hot-headed police officer who is serving a suspension from active duty by manning an emergency line. He is itching to get back out on the street, and that may be one reason he becomes so personally invested in the story of an abused woman on the verge of drastic action. As he speaks to her on the phone, as well as to others involved in her situation, Cedergren runs a gamut of emotions, from boredom to frustration, from control to desperation, from arrogance to atonement. It is a masters class in performance, building to a shattering climax.

Other notables: Ben Dickey (Blaze), Calum Worthy (Bodied), Ethan Hawke (First Reformed), Nick Robinson (Love, Simon), John Cho (Searching), John C. Reilly (The Sisters Brothers), Anders Danielsen Lie (22 July), Ed Oxenbould (Wildlife), Daniel Gomez Cacho (Zama)

ACTRESS – Tie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (All About Nina) and Kelly MacDonald (Puzzle)

I just couldn’t choose. Two radically different performances. Winstead is a tortured grenade of damaged stand-up comedy, who uses her savage barbs as a form of self-medication. It is an open, gonzo display. MacDonald, on the other hand, is repressed suburbia, a wife and mother who lives to make others more comfortable. But her odd passion for doing puzzles unleashes the deeper persona hidden within. Both actresses reveal enormous intensity without ever seeming the slightest bit contrived.

Other notables: Joanna Kulig (Cold War), Toni Collette (Hereditary), Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace), Andrea Riseborough (Nancy), Regina Hall (Support the Girls), Viola Davis (Widows), Carey Mulligan (Wildlife), Marina Fois (The Workshop)

DIRECTOR – Debra Granik (Leave No Trace)

Debra Granik makes movies about a segment of American society that rarely gets screen time in 2019. She uses episodic, slice-of-life narratives that in the hands of a less skilled story-teller would meander and drag. Yet her voice is so authentic and her characters are so vibrant that her movies are consistently engaging, through joy and sadness, danger and adventure. Here, she gets outstanding performances from the young Thomasin McKenzie and the reliable Ben Foster as daughter and father living off the grid in the American northwest. Granik is one of the most important American filmmakers at work today. There is a small movement afoot to get her an Oscar nomination. It seems unlikely at this point, but if the Lumieres are looking down from celluloid heaven, let them shine some light here.

Other notables: Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), Chloe Zhao (The Rider), Crystal Moselle (Skate Kitchen), Lucrecia Martel (Zama)

PICTURE – First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

First Reformed came out early in the year and I’ve been waiting for something to surpass it. Nothing has. Not any of the Golden Globe nominees. Nothing. It is an intense reimagining of Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light with a desperate Ethan Hawke in the central role of minister barely holding onto his faith. It is highly topical and universal, the best movie about the struggles of religion since John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary.

Other notables: Blindspotting (Carlos Lopez Estrada), Bodied (Joseph Kahn), The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci), Game Night (John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein), Leave No Trace (Debra Granik), Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti), Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle), The Workshop (Laurent Cantet), and Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

TWO MOMENTS – SPOILER ALERT!

When I was in school, learning about movies, a very smart screenwriter told me something I have never forgotten. She said movies are about moments. Any great movie has a handful of indelible scenes or images that stay with you long after you’ve forgotten plot details. The movies that I found most riveting this year – First Reformed, Free Solo, The Death of Stalin – they all had multiple such moments. Zama, whose story often confused me, is so full of such moments that it grows in my estimation as other movies fade from memory. The two most indelible moments for me this year came at the end of two relatively modest films. Since they are final scenes, there is an element of SPOILER here, though both are rather small spoilers. Still, proceed only if you want to.

Aunt Lucy Comes to London at the end of Paddington 2. A simple moment of pure joy.

”I have a poem” at the end of The Kindergarten Teacher. A simple moment of utter devastation.

A whimsical bear makes a trans-Atlantic journey, and a small boy says four words sitting alone in the back of a police car. And both can reduce you to tears.

This is why we watch movies.