Better late than never, right? I actually would’ve postponed this, but my cut-off for this is before the Academy Awards, so unfortunately, I didn’t get to see a few films (Vox Lux and Capernaum, in particular) because they just weren’t available to me at the time of me writing this. I saw a grand total of 238 releases in 2018, which is still plenty to go from. 2018 has been a bit of a rough year for me personally, but it was a great year for films, and I’m excited to share the ones that resonated with me the most.
As you saw in the title of this, I’m listing 50 movies – plus some honorable mentions in a bit – and I’m listing them in alphabetical order. Why 50, and why alphabetize, you may ask? For one, narrowing all the movies I really liked down to a mere 10 like most folks is an impossible task for me, and I find that while other lists are great to look through, there is a same-y quality to them, and I want to be given the chance to branch out and shine a light on some films that would’ve been left out on smaller lists. I didn’t want to rank the films because – again – bit of an impossible task, and it’s one that feels completely arbitrary, and pointlessly pits films against one another. Also, the ranking could easily change if I were to see other films from this year that I missed, or if a film doesn’t stick with me as much over time as I would’ve anticipated, which would bug me just on a personal level, so I never really got the appeal, and I wanted to do things differently here.
And one more thing, given the nature of how streaming rights and licensing goes, there’s always a chance some films won’t be available where I say they are, or maybe they show up in other places in the future. A good resource to use if you want to find where to watch movies is JustWatch.com, which tells you all the places you can see any given movie.
Apologies for the extended caveat, just wanted to get some stuff out of the way.
Now, for the honorable mentions (because apparently 50 is still not enough) and in no particular order: Have A Nice Day, Alpha, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Leave No Trace, A Bread Factory, A Prayer Before Dawn, Mortal Engines, Cargo, Tully, Angels Wear White, Thunder Road, A Futile And Stupid Gesture, Hold The Dark, Cold War, Lust Stories, and Jinn.
Alright, here we go!
A Simple Favor
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
I had no idea Paul Feig had something like this in him. Having been known basically for Freaks and Geeks, and his female led comedies, it’s cool to see him apply his particular lens to a sleazy, sexy, stylish thriller. And boy, what style! It’s a crime that this didn’t receive any recognition for its brilliant costume work, but at least it managed to attract an audience. The performances are pitch perfect, successfully combining broad wit and lurid intrigue. The writing is sharp, sophisticated, and it effortlessly taps into that voyeuristic mindset as it brings one wild reveal after another. It’s a trashy movie, but it looks like a million bucks. I really hope we see more movies like this from Feig because this is his best work since Spy.
Annihilation
Review: N/A Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
It’s wonderful to see Alex Garland grow into one hell of a filmmaker, especially after his impressive debut with Ex Machina back in 2015. With Annihilation, he really cements himself as one of the great sci-fi storytellers right now. He captures the feeling of seeing something out of this world in an incredibly effective way. There are many moments in this film that have stuck with me ever since I saw it in the theater back in late February. It deeply connected with me on both an emotional and visceral level, which I haven’t experienced in a sci-fi movie in a while. This is another movie that wasn’t treated fairly by its distributor, in this case, Paramount, and as a result fell through the cracks when it came to the general audience, but this is a film that I feel we’ll be talking about for a long time.
Apostle
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Netflix
You can always count on Gareth Evans to deliver some truly gnarly filmmaking, and Apostle is no exception. However, he doesn’t rely on the tricks that he is now famous for, instead using his skill to craft a horror film that evokes 70s Euro-folk horror with a splash of Clive Barker nastiness in the final half hour. The frenetic camera work serves to keep you in a constant state of anxiety and paranoia as you watch Dan Stevens stumble his way through a strange cult. There’s certainly plot elements you’ve seen before, but what makes this work as well as it does is its level of commitment and lack of restraint. Evans is not messing around here, and I am here for it. If The Raid 3 is not meant to be, then I’m glad to see that he can still bring it regardless of genre.
Aquaman
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Still in a wide theatrical release, check your local listings.
Speaking of commitment, Aquaman is the most unapologetically ball-to-the-wall superhero movies ever made; one that combines elements of pulp adventures, war epics, family and romance melodramas, and sword-and-sandal fantasies, all of which are tied to an irreverent and charming lead that is on a personal journey of discovering his people and his place in the world. What a big, weird, wonderful movie! I’m in awe of what James Wan and his team have accomplished here, and I love their totally unironic adoration of the character and his world, which really made all the difference in the world, in terms of riding steady on its very specific wavelength. I don’t what the success of this means for the future of DC movies, but I honestly don’t care, this was a blast.
Bad Times At The El Royale
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
More like Amazing Times At The El Royale, am I right? I’ll admit, I didn’t expect Drew Goddard’s follow up to Cabin In The Woods to be a genre-bending neo-noir set in the late 60s that repackages certain genre staples into a contained thriller centered on themes of identity, perception, manipulation, and truth, which can all be interpreted as a reflection of cinema itself. It’s an indulgent film, but that indulgence is earned; the performances are all excellent, the filmmaking is rich, and the tension is brilliantly handled. I can’t wait to see what Goddard does next because if his two efforts as a writer and director are of any indication, he’s operating on a completely different level, and it’s exhilarating to witness.
BlackKklansman
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
It’s a testament to his skills as a filmmaker that Spike Lee’s most accessible, mainstream, and “white people friendly” film to date is still an angry, pointed, and layered indictment on the current political landscape that also serves as a dissection of racism through the lens of pop culture representation from The Birth Of A Nation in 1915 to the Blaxploitation boom of the 1970s. There are criticisms that are understandable and perfectly valid, but I found to the noticeable light and borderline comedic touch, as well as some of the more cathartic moments to be all the more necessary because it presents a hopeful outlook that I think we, as a society, need at this particular moment. Lee has always been able to tap into the cultural zeitgeist in compelling ways, and this is no different.
Black Panther
Review: N/A Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD, Netflix
I vividly remember coming out of Fruitvale Station at this dollar theater in Charlottesville back in 2013, wiping the tears off my face, and I immediately knew that Ryan Coogler was someone to keep an eye on. Lo and behold, Creed came out a couple years later, and it was incredible, and now with Black Panther being the huge critical and financial hit that it was, I feel like this must’ve been what it was like to see great filmmakers from back in the day come into their own as a total visionary powerhouse. There’s a lot that’s been said about Black Panther, and I don’t think I have much to add other than it really is one hell of an achievement, and even if you’re someone who doesn’t care for superhero films, this is the one that will absolutely stand the test of time.
Bodied
Review: N/A Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: YouTube Premium
I was lucky enough to see this at AFI Fest in 2017 with a packed crowd, and the energy was so immediate, so explosive, so intoxicating, that I still have a little buzz in me over a year later, and I haven’t even gotten around to re-watching it! It’s a hilarious and white knuckled battle rap satire that examines the power of speech and the consequences that come with expressing it. A lot of people will certainly come out and praise how “un-PC” it is, but the film is far more smarter than that, and actually confronts that kind of impulsive, thoughtless attitude that certain kinds of free speech advocates often have. The director, and co-writer, Joseph Kahn, has a lot to say, and while the film sometimes veer into sloppiness, he makes sure to grab you by the collar, and pull you in so you hear every word of it.
Border
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Home Media/Digital release expected on February 26th.
This is one of those movies that is nearly impossible to describe. Not necessarily because it’s too complicated, but because you don’t want to give away any of the surprises that this seemingly unassuming Swedish film has in store. Even telling you what genre it is feels like a bit of a spoiler. It’s beautiful and ugly, it’s sweet and haunting, it’s moving and grim, it’s a film full of contradictions. Yet, it all somehow works. Watching the film was an unforgettable experience, which kept me at a constant state of shock and awe. I couldn’t believe what I was looking for much of the film, but it was thankfully never at the expense of taking me out of it. In a perfect world, the director, Ali Abbasi, and star, Eva Melander, would be big awards contenders, but it’s not a perfect world, which the film is about in several ways. Just see it.
Bumblebee
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Still in a wide theatrical release, check your local listings.
I said it in my review, and I’ll say it again here, I have zero attachment to this franchise. I don’t even have any particular animosity towards the Michael Bay films, even if it’s only because of my general fascination with his style. I never saw the shows, played with the toys, read the comics, or played the games, yet I was so effortlessly engaged and charmed by Bumblebee. I’m a sucker for the “child and their dog/metaphor for dog” stories, which makes this the second one on this list, and this is a wonderful execution of that formula. I was endeared by the characters, I was invested in their relationships, the 80s nostalgia doesn’t feel cynical, and the action is well done and driven and informed by character. It’s good fun, in a very classical sense, and it’s nice to see that done this well.
Burning
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Now on VOD, while DVD/Blu-Ray scheduled for March 5th.
Lee Chang-dong’s mystifying new film is a slow film, it’s a long film, and it leaves you in a place where you have to really think about what you saw. It might sound boring to your average moviegoer, but it’s actually one of the more engrossing films I’ve seen in all of 2018. There is never a dull moment, either because the filmmaking is just that impressive, or the actors are just doing a wonderful job at these constantly evolving character dynamics, or the nature of the story itself keep throwing you off guard, to the point where it practically hops from one genre to another, while still remaining a thematically and tonally cohesive piece. It’s a hard film to describe to anyone who hasn’t seen it, but know that it just needs to be seen, it needs to be experienced; your patience will be rewarded.
Creed II
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Digital release is on February 12, and DVD/Blu-Ray hits stores on March 5th.
The lack of Ryan Coogler’s presence is certainly felt, but the Rocky franchise has never really been about a singular voice in the director’s chair as much as it has been about keeping the characters lovable and engaging, which Creed II most definitely continues. Like a long running soap opera, but with significantly more face punching, I find myself deeply invested in these characters and their relationship to one another, and that is what keeps me hooked. Seeing them bring a level of subtlety and nuance to a character like Ivan Drago is something I never would’ve imagined seeing if you were to ask me a decade ago. Everyone from Michael B. Jordan to Tessa Thompson to Sylvester Stallone to Dolph Lundgren is excellent here, and I’m eager to see where their stories go.
Den Of Thieves
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
Yes, that Gerard Butler movie from January. It’s so odd. It’s in one aspect, super trashy and vulgar action movie with no likable characters, but it’s also wildly ambitious, it’s deeply committed to its ugliness, and the characters are pretty compelling pretty much despite themselves. It’s on a wavelength similar to Bad Boys II, but it plays things just a tad more low key and atmospheric. I didn’t expect the film to be as patient as it was, taking its time with all the characters, but it comes together really well. Butler’s character is incredibly entertaining, and it’s kind of role I’ve seen some describe as “the one he was born to play,” and I wouldn’t argue with that. It’s not a movie I’d recommend to everyone, but it definitely worked for me.
Destroyer
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: Still in a limited theatrical release, check your local listings.
This film struggled to connect with a lot of people, from what I observed, and I can certainly see why. While something like Den of Thieves can be ugly and crude, it still strives for entertainment. Destroyer takes the ugliness of crime and violence, and dives into the headspace of a deeply flawed character, and what you get is something that is…not very fun. However, Karyn Kusama directs this with a focused ferociousness that took my breath away at several points. Nicole Kidman’s transformation is unreal, taking the classic hard boiled protagonist, and filtering it through a modern, distinctly feminine rage that oozes off the screen. It’s a thrilling film; it packs a seriously mean punch, and when it was over, I was eager to see it again.
Eighth Grade
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
Eighth Grade is destined to be one of the very best films that you only see once. Bo Burnham and his star, Elsie Fisher, are so good at capturing the distinct awkwardness of early teen years that it’s legitimately terrifying to witness at times. The reactions that I, as well as many moviegoers, had were visceral and deeply felt, as if you’re body is screaming at you to leave. We’re so used to coming-of-age films being nostalgic for a simpler time, and the film acts as a splash of water and a slap to the face of that notion. It’s a film made with love and no judgement for the way the young characters live their lives, and it feels so refreshing. It’s an assured debut that that I hope signifies more greatness to come for Burnham and Fisher.
First Man
Review: Click Here! Trailer: Click Here!
Currently Available On: DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD
Thinking back on my initial response, which you can see in my review, it’s a bit surprising to see this film on here. However, Damien Chazelle’s latest film lingered with me for so long after I saw it. I couldn’t get certain moments out of my head, and other sequences that may have initially left me cold, are suddenly bringing a tear to my eye. I already admired the film from a technical standpoint, but I’ve grown to love its quietly melancholic heart at the center. It’s easy to dismiss Ryan Gosling for doing the soft spoken stoicism that we’ve seen him do before, but there are so many things he does here that seem insignificant at the moment, but will end up haunting you long after watching it. It’s a beautiful story about loss and death and human ingenuity, which takes the epic, and makes it deeply personal.