From Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" to Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another," many of the best and most popular movies of the year spotlighted political and culture war themes.

In movies like “Eddington,” “Sinners,” “Wake Up Dead Man” and others, filmmakers have at last wrapped their heads around how to explain this period.

No movement, on the right or left, is dominant for more than one or two election cycles, much less forever. This country exists on a swinging pendulum of ideas where coalitions come together and then break apart, where philosophies gain supporters, burn out, and get discarded — only to be refashioned by new nomenclature and technology.