Retro Lists! Best Films of the Year: 1998

A year or two back I retrospectively began to post up my best of the year film lists on Dark Eye Socket; they are currently complete from 2000 to 2010. (Scroll down the right-hand side of the blog page and click on 'top tens' under 'labels'.) In the run up to the 2011 film lists in Dec/Jan I'll be sporadically posting up my film picks from 1999 all the way back to 1990. (1989 and earlier may have to just remain a mystery... for now, anyway.)

As with the earlier posts it's purely to maintain a record of them online, for personal posterity, and for the general perusal of anyone so inclined to scroll through them. As ever, the films are dictated by UK release date (all were, by-and-large, released here between Jan. 1st and Dec. 31st 1999). The conspicuous absence of certain significant or key titles may mean that either, a) I saw the film in question and didn't rate it highly enough, or b) I didn't see it and still have it to look forward to. Hurrah for cinematic longevity. But, of course, as is always the case in these matters, the list could all change in a week, a month, a year as, when and if I see more films from 1999 in future.

But for now, here are My Ten Selections for Best of 1998:

01. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami)

02. The Hole (Tsai Ming-Liang)

03. Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino)

04. Live Flesh (Pedro Almodóvar)

05. Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven)

06. Love and Death on Long Island (Richard Kwietniowski)

07. The Kingdom (Lars von Trier)

08. Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov)

09. Love Is the Devil (John Maybury)

10. Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Five more, in no order:

Cube (Vincenzo Natali)
A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes)
Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma)
Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai)

Male & Female Acting of the Year:

* Homayon Ershadi Taste of Cherry
John Hurt Love and Death on Long Island
Robert Forster Jackie Brown
Derek Jacobi Love Is the Devil
Steve Martin The Spanish Prisoner

* Pam Grier Jackie Brown
Julianne Moore Boogie Nights
Toni Collette Velvet Goldmine
Sigourney Weaver The Ice Storm
Susanne Lothar Funny Games