There are 365 films that I watched for the first time in 2018, and a good chunk of those were released in 2018, so I have opinions on the quality of a few of them, and I thought I'd leave them here.
Before I start, I would like to say that, even though I saw dozens of 2018 films in 2018, I still missed several that have been highly acclaimed (and several more that are on everyone's 'worst' lists), or have not yet had the chance to see some because Australia gets everything last (seriously, If Beale Street Could Talk is one of my most anticipated movies that came out this year and it doesn't get released until next February here). If there's anything on here among the best that you think I missed, tell me, I'm always happy to watch new films and see where they take me.
The Best Movies that are actually 2017 movies but Australia gets everything last.
These are the movies that had wide release in 2017, were made eligible for awards in 2017, and ended up on everyone else's 'Best of 2017' lists, but didn't get to Australia until all of that happened. Each of these movies is fantastic, and absolutely deserving of a watch, but I didn't want to include them on the list of the best of 2018 because most of them could easily fit and I wanted that list to focus on movies that received wide release and recognition in 2018.
Call Me By Your Name
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water
Honourable Mentions
As always, there are movies that didn't quite make the top cut, and this year was especially difficult because of just how many really good movies came out this year; from wacky and provocative original concepts to examinations of careers that have influenced genres, writing, and culture, to some surprisingly excellent conventional work, this year has been chock full of good film, and though I don't feel these are the absolute peak, they are still some of the best movies given wide release in 2018.
Annihilation
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman
First Reformed
Leave No Trace
Sorry to Bother You
Upgrade
Won't You Be My Neighbour?
The 5 Best Movies of 2018
What that title doesn't tell you is that this is where my biases for Horror and Animation show themselves once more.
5. Mandy
I've watched this four times and I'm still not tired of it. The definition of style over substance (or, depending on your perspective, substance via style), with the most engrossing visuals, the most haunting soundtrack, and a career-defining performance from Nicolas Cage that show the very best of this incredible horror mood-piece.
4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
This movie could have earned a spot on this list for its animation alone, but the film is so much more than that. The sheer creativity of blending both the story and the animation with comic book style, as well as the emotional resonance with which the story expresses itself, puts this film close to the top of its genre, and similarly close to the top of this year's films.
3. Hereditary
Essentially proof that classically-styled horror can still work in this day and age, Hereditary is leaps and bounds ahead of what most of the genre is doing right now, combining the old with the new and really hammering home the concept of what horror is at its best: allegory for something else that's so real it's more uncomfortable than the actual horror.
2. Paddington 2
This is basically perfect, so see it. If you don't, you'll know the discomfort of a judgmental stare from a teddy bear.
1. Roma
I don't throw out the term 'masterpiece' lightly (unless I'm being hyperbolic, which I'm not in this case). It's the sort of thing that cuts to the heart of verisimilitude in the cinematic experience in a way few films do, and it is utterly enthralling because of it.
Dishonourable Mentions
Not every bad movie is the worst, and there's far less here than among the good movies, but these are still movies bad enough it felt worth mentioning them, but not quite so bad that I want them commemorated as part of the worst of the year.
Alien Predator*
Extinction
Lake Placid: Legacy*
Life Itself
Mute
The Titan
Truth or Dare
*These were both cheap B-movies so forgettable I almost forgot to put them on this list, so as bad as they are, I can hardly remember a thing about them, nor did I actually expect anything from them.
The 5 Worst Movies of 2018
I don't often like to be negative about movies, because they're such a magical means for us to tell stories and they've produced some of the most incredible visual experiences of my life; they're captured pieces of our imagination shown to the whole world to give us a chance to feel every emotion, from sheer delight to utter horror to complete fury. That said, some films fail at this spectacularly, and sometimes those terrible experiences are memorable enough to worth mentioning.
5. The Cloverfield Paradox
A cheap excuse to throw a million scary ideas at the wall and see if any of them stick couple with cynical name branding for easy recognition that's only worsened by the weak and pointless attempts to connect the events of the film to Cloverfield.
4. The Predator
A movie that might one day be good with a director's cut, but until then is one of the most painful examples of horrible editing I've ever seen, made all the worse in my experience by my adoration of the franchise and my hope for its future being dashed against the rocks of studio meddling.
3. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
On the other hand, this is what happens when a studio can't tell its writer to reign things in and that writer believes far too much in their own hype. The Crimes of Grindelwald is two hours of non-story designed to excite the audience for another movie that fails spectacularly because it's too concerned with hiding information from the audience for the sake of a few insanely stupid twists and doesn't seem to care for theme or characterisation.
2. Fifty Shades Freed
I don't feel like ice cream anymore.
1. Holmes and Watson
This was somehow both lifeless and aggressively unfunny, without single well-executed idea and painfully boring at almost all time; essentially the antithesis of good comedy in every way.
Published December 30th, 2018, Happy Birthday to me.
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