Childish Gambino, Lady Gaga and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' among 2018's great pop culture moments

No rankings, no categories: We've reached the end of another supercalifraglisticexpialodocious year in pop culture, and these are the films, shows and videos that stood out.

<b>The golden age of horror continues: </b>“A Quiet Place” was a surprise smash hit in the spring for Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. “Mandy” was a gory, psychedelic feather in Nicolas Cage's cap. “Halloween” reunited Michael Myers with Jamie Lee Curtis and box office success. But best of all, Ari Aster's masterful debut feature “Hereditary” put an unhinged Toni Collette at the head of a most dysfunctional family with a dark secret. It all adds up to yet another great year for horror films - the past decade has been a revolutionary one for the genre.

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Netflix's Oscar gambit:</b> The streaming service with a penchant for bad original movies had a breakthrough last year with four-time Oscar nominee “Mudbound,” and this year may prove to be even more lucrative: Alfonso Cuarón's “Roma” and the Coen brothers' “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” are two of 2018's most highly acclaimed films, and both could be nominated for best picture. The former marries Cuarón's breathtaking, widescreen, black-and-white photography to a small, personal story about a nanny in Mexico City. The latter is a six-story anthology that plays like the Western version of “Black Mirror,” a dark meditation on death. (That said, the first segment is among the funniest 15 minutes I've ever seen.) Netflix subscribers can watch both films right now.

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The London foot chase in “Mission: Impossible - Fallout”:</b> Tom Cruise jumps out of an airplane, gets thrown from a motorcycle and pilots a helicopter in Ethan Hunt's sixth big-screen adventure. None of those feats compare to Hollywood's most famous stuntman using his feet in a dazzling sequence that begins in a church, continues over several rooftops, survives its star's broken ankle (for real - director Christopher McQuarrie left the shot in the film) and ends with Hunt hanging off the bottom of an elevator as buff baddie August Walker (Henry Cavill) reveals a devastating ace up his sleeve. Editor Eddie Hamilton and composer Lorne Balfe deserve a share of the praise.

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The resurrection of “Jesus Christ Superstar”:</b> NBC aired a thrilling live concert version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera on Easter Sunday, and less than a month later Chicago-area audiences could see a spectacular, single-set production of it at the Lyric Opera. Both featured memorable portrayals of the title role; NBC had pop crooner John Legend, and the Lyric had stage veteran Heath Saunders, who played guitar during his stunning rendition of the show's signature number, “Gethsemane.”

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“This is America”:</b> This music video by Childish Gambino, aka “Atlanta” star Donald Glover, contained the most bracing, exciting filmmaking of 2018, an indictment of America's perception of black people that is righteously angry and incongruously joyous. Director Hiro Murai's four-minute masterpiece stands tall in a year that saw fascinating feature films about race from Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”) and Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You”).

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“Riverdale” goes back to the '90s:</b> The CW's deliciously absurd teen soap opera based on the “Archie” comics reached its meta-peak in the third season's fifth episode, “The Midnight Club.” The show's young actors portrayed their characters' parents in a flashback episode packed with more pop culture references than a typical Widescreen column. I could hardly believe my eyes when Lili Reinhart, who plays Betty, transformed into the younger version of Madchen Amick's Alice; she looked just like Amick did in her “Twin Peaks” days. I could hardly believe my ears when the cast performed Dokken's theme song from “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.”

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“We're far from the shallow now”:</b> You had already seen it in the trailers and the music video, but Lady Gaga's emotional performance of “Shallow” in “A Star is Born” hit even harder when you saw the movie. Her voice and director Bradley Cooper's camera perfectly capture the euphoria of a long-suffering singer experiencing her first taste of stardom. When I was done wiping the tears away, I thought the rest of the movie couldn't possibly live up to that moment. I was right - though I suspect many reading this would disagree.

<i> Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. Follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.</i>