Pastors, Skaters, Lady Gaga: Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson on 2018’s Best Films

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Today on The Scene we’ll look back on the movies of 2018. I’m joined by CFR editor Jose Solís, who covers film for us, and by Alissa Wilkinson, the film critic at Vox; her writing has also appeared in Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Vulture, The Atlantic and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Prior to joining Vox, Wilkinson was chief film critic for Christianity Today. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and a 2017-18 Art of Nonfiction writing fellow with the Sundance Institute. She is also an associate professor at The King’s College in NYC, and co-author, with Robert Joustra, of How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World.

Together, looking back on film in 2018, we’ll reflect on the movies that were most memorable to us, and general themes we noticed from throughout the year. We start with First Reformed, and the powerful way it confronts themes of faith, the environment and martyrdom. From there we’ll consider 2018’s best documentaries, such as Minding The Gap, and complex, female-driven films like Roma or The Favourite — where women ran the show in spite of male incompetence all around them. (While there are no outright spoilers in our conversation, we occasionally describe central conflicts or plot points in some of these films.)

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