Sightlines · reception
How Roma was received
2018 · Alfonso Cuarón · Roma on Sightlines
The arc
Arrived as an instant event — Venice Golden Lion, near-universal acclaim, three Oscars — and its stature has only settled upward, routinely landing near the top of best-of-the-2010s lists. The main thing that's changed is that its Best Picture loss to Green Book now reads as one of the Academy's most infamous recent calls.
What’s debated
The perennial fight: is it a transcendent memory-film or a gorgeous but distant art object — and was it diminished by being watched on Netflix instead of a big screen?
Its footprint
That opening shot of a plane reflected in soapy water on the driveway tiles became the film's signature image, endlessly screencapped and referenced. It's also the film that turned the Netflix-versus-theatrical fight into a full-blown Oscar-season culture war.
Where it stands
Instant canon — a fixture of 2010s best-of lists and a Letterboxd four-star-minimum consensus pick, the rare streaming-era film cinephiles treat as unimpeachable.
Did you know? Cuarón shot the film himself after longtime collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki became unavailable — and won the Best Cinematography Oscar for it, making him the first director to win that award for photographing his own film.