20 Best Indie Movies Of 2018
10. American Animals
A brilliantly subversive depiction of the infamous 2004 library theft at Kentucky's Transylvania University, American Animals is helmed by documentary filmmaker Bart Layton (The Imposter), who creates anything but a typical heist film.
Incredibly melding a regular dramatic format with documentary asides from the real-life subjects - and even colliding the two together in one hilariously meta moment - this is another sharp riff from Layton on the unreliability of human memory.
It would've been easy for the gimmickry to overshadow the drama at the core, but thankfully Layton has an equal handle on his focal cast - namely a terrific Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, and Ann Dowd - and their well-drawn characters.
Unafraid to go to some grim places while nevertheless mining the absurdity of its central low-stakes heist, American Animals is an instant cult classic.