In all actuality, making a list of the best movies of 2018 to cap off 2018 is misguided. We should really be looking back three years later to gauge the cultural impact that films have made on a grander level rather than compiling some group together to feed an insatiable need to fit into what qualifies as film criticism today.
That being said, here are 25 films that the group here at Cinematary have come up with.
There are a number of titles that should stand the three year window and still be impacting the cinematic stratosphere in that time (looking at you, First Reformed), but for the rest of them, who knows? Like, think about it for a minute, what happened in The Shape of Water? Outside of the fish sex, what happened that you remember? That won the Best Picture last year! It was on our top-10 list, too. And now, we just think of fish sex. Maybe that’s progress.
Impact is not gauged by gold, but forged through imitation and discussion. You see inklings of Mad Max: Fury Road in blockbuster movies today because it truly impacted filmmakers working today. Wes Anderson’s work may seem kitsch and obnoxious at times, but without it, we wouldn’t have the imagination of Paddington or this year’s sequel. We talk about Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Akira Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and many others because we remember their work and their impact.
It becomes more than just entertainment, but a touchstone of culture, which in turn gives voice to our connections with others.
Too bad none of them included fish sex in their work.
— Zach Dennis
# 25-11
25. Incredibles 2 (Brad Bird)
24. Madeline’s Madeline (Josephine Decker)
23. Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada)
22. The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci)
21. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack)
20. Burning (Lee Chang-dong)
19. A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper)
18. The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier)
17. Hereditary (Ari Aster)
16. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
= Mission: Impossible - Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie)
= BlackKklansman (Spike Lee)
= The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)
12. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)
11. Annihilation (Alex Garland)