20 Best Indie Movies Of 2018

4. First Reformed

Paul Schrader returns from the Hollywood doldrums with this nail-biting drama starring an Oscar-worthy Ethan Hawke as a Protestant minister facing an ethical, existential and spiritual crossroads.

Easily Schrader's best film in decades, First Reformed has all the angry vigour of a filmmaker many decades Schrader's senior, taking bold aesthetic and storytelling choices which deepen the rich characterisation of Hawke's Ernst Toller.

Amanda Seyfried meanwhile gives her strongest performance to date as a young woman whose husband Toller is counselling.

Smart and provocative, First Reformed feels at once like a classic 70s drama and something positively of-the-moment: an urgent film that's girded by the voice of an expert filmmaker.