As we looked back at 2018, each of the Mercury’s movie critics decided to highlight just one of our favorite movies of the year—movies that might not get as many awards or eyes as the most talked-about or financially successful films of the year, but movies that are still very much worth watching and rewatching.

---

In my imagination, You Were Never Really Here director Lynne Ramsay is smoking, arguing in a den with other directors and saying something in her Scottish brogue like, “You can’t end a film on a slurp sound? I can end a film on a slurp sound!” You Were Never Really Here is based on a short, fast-paced novel by Jonathan Ames about Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), a man with severe PTSD who wields a hammer as he hunts down pedophiles. I’m less interested in the subject matter of meting out heinous violence in exchange for heinous crimes (I’ve never been all that Hammurabi) than I am in Ramsay’s visuals and the masterful unfolding of the film’s score, by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Winner of Best Screenplay and Best Actor at Cannes, You Were Never Really Here received a standing ovation from the festival’s audience, and it’s easy to see why. Slurp! (dir. Lynne Ramsay, available via Amazon, iTunes, Movie Madness)

---

Read more of the Mercury’s award-winning* movies and TV coverage! For movie times, click here.

*Not actually award-winning