Those of us who write about the cinema often reach the last month of the calendar and proclaim, “this was a great year for film.” In all seriousness, 2018 was something truly special for the cinematic arts. There was diversity like we’ve never seen before, although there is still much to be done. Narrowing down a top 10 list for 2018 was one difficult task. Therefore, for 2018, we’re going to 20!
The Movie Mensch proudly presents our top 20 of 2018 and it is a varied list on many fronts—reflective of the population who pays to go see these pieces of moving art.
You can probably guess a few lauded films that made our list, simply from our movie reviews and the headlines these flicks have garnered over the last 12 months. Movie journalists have done nothing but sing the praises of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, so it is hardly a surprise that the Gravity Oscar winner’s latest makes our list. The only question will be: Is it number one? If not, where does it land?
I’m proud to say that there are plenty of surprises on my best of list for 2018. There were some major risk takers making movies this year and it is with great pleasure that those flicks make our top 20 of 2018. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, The Movie Mensch presents the top 20 of 2018.
20. Borg vs. McEnroe
When Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe met in the Wimbledon Finals of 1980, their match would go down as one of the best in tennis history. But, how did each man get to that point and what went through their heads while they were fighting for their tennis lives during that fateful June afternoon in London? Borg vs. McEnroe explores what occurs when two giants of a sport on a collision course, actually collide. Yes, it’s combustible.
Sverrir Gudnason blew me away as Borg and Shia LaBeouf turned in the performance of his career as the bombastic McEnroe. For folks who enjoy a good tennis movie (and there are not that many) or anyone who appreciates the art that is the cinema, Borg vs. McEnroe does something extraordinary. What the result was, most of us know. Yet, filmmaker Janus Metz has us so riveted and lost in his story that often questions are raised as to how this all played out! Think about that… it’s uncanny. The triumph of this film belongs with every soul who had any part of bringing it to life. Watching this film is one of those movie moments where time stands still while witnessing its brilliance. We all know who won that epic match, but in the end of Borg vs. McEnroe, the real winner is us.
19. Hereditary
First of all, if Toni Collette is not nominated for Best Actress for her work in Hereditary, it will be one of the biggest snubs in Oscar history. She stuns as a mother trying to keep it together after her mother passes away. Before long, things get really weird, really fast. People approach her and comment on her mother. These are folks she has never met before.
Meanwhile, Collette’s daughter, played by Millie Shapiro in a remarkable turn, appears a bit more haunted than usual. Odd things are happening around her as well, i.e. pigeons slamming into windows while she sits in class, gazing at it completely unfazed. Hereditary is not merely a scare-fest that haunts, it hits the audience firmly in the heart. Writer-director Ari Aster has produced a film that gets under our collective skin. I saw the film a half a year ago and still to this day, the mere thought of it brings the chills. Oh, and Collette, has never been better and more riveting. Yes, that is saying something.
18. A Simple Favor
A Simple Favor has numerous things going for it that are simply stellar. Paul Feig’s noir-ish thriller that expertly marries camp, social commentary and guilty pleasure does so to perfection. Anna Kendrick is sublime as Stephanie Smothers, a New York suburban single mother whose son asks for a play date from the most glamorous and mysteriously elusive mother at their elite school, Blake Lively’s Emily Nelson. The two become fast friends and Smothers’ vlogger suddenly has a BFF, something she’s longed for for years. Then, Nelson disappears. Vanishes. Smothers is destroyed, yet Nelson’s husband, Sean Townsend (Henry Golding), simply believes that this is another one of his wife’s desperate pleas for “me time” where she takes off, only to return days, maybe a week later at the most. This time, she doesn’t return… at all. Police get involved and this thing starts to look like a murder.
Director Feig turns in another extraordinary piece of work in the most un-Feig-like film of his career. I mean, this is the guy who gave us Bridesmaids! Everything about A Simple Favor works. It’s slick. It’s humorous and it features two leads working at the top of their game. We’ve never seen Kendrick like this and Lively continues her hot streak. All involved are brilliant and the twists and turns that comprise Feig’s finest are just jaw-dropping. Miss this gem? Run, don’t walk… and witness a film with simple in the title, that is anything but.
17. Mission Impossible: Fallout
Not only is Mission Impossible: Fallout one of the best action movies of the last decade, it is one of the best flicks of 2018 in any genre. Movies that have many, many entries in their franchise, usually don’t get better with age… much less on its sixth installment. Look at Halloween or Star Trek! That is certainly the case with Tom Cruise and his Mission Impossible. He’s been playing Ethan Hunt for two decades now and his latest turn is its greatest.
As is well known, Cruise does about 90-percent of his own stunts and if there is something that MI films are known for—it’s pushing the stunt envelope. Based on the action alone, Fallout is sensational and a thrill a minute featuring action sequences that will drop your jaw to the floor, on multiple occasions. Yet, there is also the dramatic element that is superior. The stakes have never been higher. Due to a mistake Hunt made in the field, a madman is loose with an atomic bomb. Can’t get much higher, stakes-wise, than that, no?!
Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie has crafted an action film that does the rarest of things—it connects its audience emotionally to the characters, something that is too often overlooked. Therefore, when the stakes are so high, as they are in Mission Impossible: Fallout, the tension is increased exponentially. One of the most extraordinary experiences in the movie theater in 2018 was witnessing our IMF team do what they do—which is thrill us to no end in the most powerfully exhilarating of manners.
16. Annihilation
Writer Alex Garland has given us out-of-this-world stories—from Ex-Machina, Never Let Me Go to 28 Days Later. His latest writing-directing effort (a follow-up to his directorial debut that was Ex-Machina) takes us to landscape where a foreign entity has taken over a small slice of the globe. What it is is anyone’s guess. Likely alien, but no one is 100-percent sure. When Natalie Portman’s biologist finds her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), coming home from a mission to this mysterious area that no one else survived, it raises more questions than answers. He is not himself, for starters, and the scientist in Portman’s Lena (not to mention as his wife) needs answers. She leads a team for a top-secret expedition into the mysterious zone where one thing is certain—the laws of the natural world as we know it do not apply.
Based on the book by Jeff VanderMeer, Garland masterfully brings it to the silver screen. He has crafted a world filled with mystery and terror. You have to love a movie that leaves you guessing, and Annihilation is that movie and so much more. The performances are pitch-perfect. The cinematography is haunting at the minimum and downright terrifying at the maximum. Oh, and the cast is sensational—including Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Gina Rodriguez.
15. Blindspotting
When director Carlos López Estrada takes that Oscar stage sometime in the future to accept his Best Director award, history will show that it was Blindspotting that started it all. The film follows 72 hours in the life of Oakland resident Collin (Daveed Diggs). He has three days remaining on his probation and thanks to his surroundings, his best friend Miles (Rafael Casal) and our society’s ever-present police brutality… to say those days will be challenging is a gross understatement.
Why Blindspotting works so well is that it uses a commonly used storytelling method to get its point across. It entertains while it enlightens. The film is one of those priceless entertainment parcels with a message that might not be the most popular thing to have front in center in our escape that is witnessing films. It tackles the issues of gentrification, lack of opportunities for peoples of color and the poor as a whole, police brutality and how the system is stacked against so many who find that hope is the minutest of concepts. Estrada delivers that all to the audience, who take it to heart all while being simultaneously amused and awakened to a reality that many don’t want to realize.
14. Searching
Searching chronicles the hell that a father goes through when his daughter fails to return home from a late-night study group with her friends. John Cho is David Kim and his daughter, Pamela Nam Kim (Sara Sohn), he learns, is leading a life that is nothing like he thought. What makes Searching so truly special is how the film was shot and viewed by the audience. It’s storytelling is achieved all using webcams, smartphone cameras and social media, which adds layers to the suspense, mystery and haunting hell that is a father desperately Searching for his little girl.
The Kim family has had enough tragedy. David’s wife, and Pamela’s mom, died when she was quite young. He’s raised her the best he can over the last several years and believes in his heart that he has an incredible relationship with his little girl. When she disappears, he learns that entire relationship is a facade. Or is it? Writer-director Aneesh Chaganty has delivered one of the most original films of 2018. One thing is for sure, parents everywhere will be looking at their children’s social media pages with a raised eyebrow after witnessing this movie marvel.
Cho is sensational and let’s hope that this flick puts him firmly on the A-list of actors who should be carrying movies on their shoulders. Debra Messing is fantastic in a supporting role as the cop charged with investigating Pamela’s disappearance. But, let’s be real. Searching is Cho’s moment to shine and he is blindingly brilliant.
13. Tully
Director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody have delivered a love letter to motherhood with Tully that is unlike any maternal-based movie we’ve ever seen. If you ask anyone who is a mother, they will tell you that the talented tandem of Cody and Reitman have nailed it. The highs, the lows, the desperation and the beyond blissful joy that is motherhood is all there in their film. Tully arrived in early 2018 and has me hoping that the Academy doesn’t forget about this modern masterpiece.
Charlize Theron is a force of nature as Marlo. She has several kids already and is pregnant expecting another. She is sleep deprived. She is stressed, and she may be coming apart at the seams. Her husband Drew (Ron Livingston) is there in every way possible. But, at the end of the day—as is so the case in real life—when kids want their mommy, there is only so much of Marlo to go around.
Tully is one of those pictures where the less you know about it before witnessing its mesmerizing movie magic the better. So, without giving anything else away, let’s just say this—Tully is a work of art that will change you. It will alter how you view your mother, the maternal folks that are in your life and even the institution of motherhood as a whole. Don’t be surprised if one is moved to pick up the phone and call one of those “moms” on your list after the credits have rolled to say thanks for doing your part to keep our society moving forward.
12. A Quiet Place
For the second time on our countdown, we have an actor making his directorial debut who not only does a sensational job with his first-time helming, but also stars in a manner that is worthy of the “best of the year” moniker. John Krasinski stuns as Lee Abbott, all while he directs his wife Emily Blunt (who stars as his onscreen wife, Evelyn). The world has been invaded by creatures that when they hear you, they kill you. That’s a problem for everyone the globe over. In Krasinski’s landscape, A Quiet Place is an intimate endeavor. The film focuses on what this global catastrophe means for one isolated family.
The Abbotts are doing their best. They have found a way to live their lives in silence and survive. Thing is, Evelyn is pregnant and at some point, that is likely to create an enormous amount of noise… or will it?
Every moment in Krasinski’s dazzling debut crackles with tension, all while a thread is woven throughout and that is love. This family has tons of it, and it is what sustains them when it may seem like trying to survive this new normal is a doomed endeavor. The way the rookie helmer crafts crescendos and tranquil terror, it comes off as if he has been excelling at that part of the creative process for decades. Blunt turns in a performance that is Oscar worthy. It is one part tragic, one-part inspiration and all emotionally consuming. Fitting, as that is exactly how I would describe the entire experience that is A Quiet Place.
11. If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins stunned us all in the most beautiful of ways with his Best Picture winning Moonlight. He returns and doesn’t shy away from an enormous challenge—adapting James Baldwins’ beloved If Beale Street Could Talk for the big screen. He scores enormously with his casting. KiKi Layne is a revelation as Tish and Stephan James makes an enormous announcement of talent as Fonny. They are in love and despite the depressed surroundings of early 70s New York City. The film bristles with the most compassionate of color palettes—thanks to Jenkins’ innately artistic eye.
Tish learns she is pregnant, and the timing could not have been worse. Fonny is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Yet, through Jenkins’ sensational screenplay, we are overcome with an enormous amount of hope due to that elusive concept called love. Her family will rally, led by an Oscar worthy turn by Regina Hall as her mother, Sharon.
Jenkins does something extraordinary with his If Beale Street Could Talk. The storyteller presents a film set in a time that is decades prior, yet sadly it illustrates that when it comes to race relations in our country, little has changed. There are still far too many black men in prison, as compared to other races. There are still far too few opportunities for all peoples of color in the inner city (and rural areas for that matter). Yet, there is a moment in the film where Hall’s Sharon talks about this life that is about to enter the world. None of the above matters, in truth. This child is a product of love and everyone involved in the baby’s life needs to rise to the occasion to ensure that it can have its best life. The idea that in the end, love will carry us through is not new. But through the terrific talent of Jenkins (and Baldwin), it takes on a much more significant power. As such, no one who experiences If Beale Street Could Talk will ever be able to shake it.
10. Eighth Grade
Eighth Grade is the most astounding of announcements by both the writer-director, Bo Burnham, and its breakout star, Elsie Fisher. No film captures the awkwardness and uncertainty of this time in one’s life as well as this revelation of talent. Fisher gives us a character that we just want to give the biggest of hugs to and let her know that it will all work out in the end. Burnham, somehow, manages to capture not only the gawkiness of that time period (oh, to be 13 again… not!), but does so in a manner that transcends era.
Yes, things have changed with technology. But the evolution of the human being, from child to adult, will always be riddled with the same bumps in the road. Eighth Grade encapsulates that most unique of times with the biggest of embraces and the most triumphant of piercing tributes.
9. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Do we need another Spider-Man movie? Well, if they are anything like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the answer is a resounding and absolute yes.
Produced by the dynamic duo that is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the animated film is the most comic book of comic book movies that has ever been made. It pulsates with vibrancy and vivaciousness. This is a world with multiple Spider-Mans and it is so true—the more, the merrier.
Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) gets bit by a radioactive spider and yes, we’ve heard this story before. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse makes light of this fact and has a ball with it. There are several Peter Parkers, a Spider-Woman (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), a noir Spider-Man (Nicolas Cage!) and even a Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). It will take all of them to save the day in this dimension-bending thrill ride.
By the close of the credits, do not be surprised if you want this world to continue. After living in it for almost two hours, the desire to not have it end will be palpable. That is the ultimate compliment to any film, especially a comic book movie in our comic book movie saturated world.
8. Black Panther
Not only is Black Panther one of the best superhero movies of all-time (if not the best—that is a discussion for another day!), it is one of the best films of 2018. Ryan Coogler’s epic tale of the son of Wakanda, explores the powerfully resonant themes of destiny and standing up for what’s right, but also possesses a royal intrigue sizzling storyline that would make Shakespeare proud. Chadwick Boseman is T’Challa (and of course, Black Panther—who we first met in Captain America: Civil War), who ascends to the throne of his nation. There is some palace intrigue, that always makes for chilling cinema. Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), shows up as we learn that he is also a candidate for the throne as T’Challa’s brother. It doesn’t end well.
What makes Black Panther so special is that it is on an enormous scale that this web is woven, yet it is one of the more intimate of Marvel stories. It is firmly about family, embracing one’s heritage and the importance of protecting ones nation from outside forces that can only wish it ill.
Coogler’s vision (he co-wrote the screenplay as well) is as vivid as it is magically awe-inspiring. The cast is first rate and grabs the viewer from its opening sequence through its thrilling conclusion. What else is astounding is how, with Marvel, this is not a film that is crafted in a vacuum. Somehow, it ties in to every other element that is building towards the titanic conclusion that is Avengers: End Game. Yet, Black Panther stands all on its own in the most riveting and revolutionary ways.
7. A Star is Born
It’s incredible to think that Bradley Cooper turned in the performance he did in A Star is Born, all while serving as the film’s director… and it was his first time behind the camera! Not only that, but Cooper ushered in an Oscar worthy turn in a big part debut from Lady Gaga as Cooper’s aging rocker’s love interest. The duo have priceless chemistry and are endearingly adorable.
It’s also a challenge to take a film that has been remade four times now, and not only make it relevant to today’s musical landscape, but also our highly evolved cinematic tastes. Everyone involved hits it out of the park in a way that will stick to your soul for an eternity. A Star is Born could not have a better title because it is apt beyond belief. It impeccably describes Cooper’s arrival as a director and Gaga’s landing as an Oscar favorite.
6. Paddington 2
Writer-director Paul King has taken the adorable literary figure that is the very beary Paddington and has crafted a film series—based on Michael Bond’s beloved children’s books—that is sublime. When Paddington hit theaters in 2014, it was a surprise of the most sentimentally ornate kind. His follow-up, Paddington 2, is an utter delight on so many levels. It’s hard to know where to start lauding this film that deserves Best Picture consideration because it is that good. Seriously.
Ben Whishaw voices the marmalade loving bear and delivers a vocal performance that makes you just want to leap through the screen and give that little guy a huge hug. This time out, while trying to get his beloved mama a birthday present worthy of her awesomeness, he is mistakenly charged and jailed for larceny. Yes, Paddington goes to jail! But, only in the miraculously marvelous mind of King could the prison time of a stuffed bear serve as a launching pad for the most heartwarming, hilarious and endearing films of the year.
Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville return and are terrific, as always, but it is two new additions to the Paddington family that send this flick into the stratosphere. Hugh Grant, who plays our antagonist, and Brendan Gleeson, who dazzles as Knuckles McGinty. The latter is the chef who Paddington befriends in prison. The pair have an utter blast. That old saying, that if the performers are having fun so too is the audience, has never been truer for a motion picture.
5. Vice
Dick Cheney is about a divisive political figure as history has given us—well, pre-Donald Trump. Vice chronicles his rise from aimless lost soul who spent more time drinking than thinking, to the most powerful Vice President this nation has ever seen—for better or worse… well, pretty much all worse. There could no better person to bring this story to the silver screen than Adam McKay, the man who delivered The Big Short, that scathing indictment of the fiscal crisis of 2008.
Christian Bale stars as Cheney and shows again why he is one of our most astute and chameleon-like actors whose work seems to know no bounds of brilliance. An all-star case supports Bale, including Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush and Tyler Perry as Colin Powell.
Vice is entertaining, enthralling and yes, enlightening. It also serves as the most searing of history lessons, impeccably illustrating that old phrase, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Bale brings Cheney to life and although many may see him as a villain, the actor humanizes him. It is in that humanization that we see something that is evil disguised as pure patriotism, power as a drug more addictive than cocaine and a blinding neon sign warning that the American public needs to hold those who oversee our government to the highest of standards of honestly, pureness of heart and above all else… realizing that the nation’s citizens are the boss, not subjects.
4. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
It is the rare documentary that not only tops best-of lists for docs, but also best-of movie lists. The story of Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, is that movie. It is a powerful, emotionally charged trip down memory lane chronicling Mr. Rogers, the man who entertained and educated our youth in four different decades.
Director Morgan Neville has crafted a perfect doc that not only illustrates why Rogers’ work was so important, so radical and so rich, but also how the man who went to seminary school changed the way people see each other and themselves. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is not simply a nostalgic trip, but it serves as a haunting reminder that our society is seriously lacking someone like Rogers right now. It is a time when it could be argued we need it the most. As someone who was raised watching his magical, yet crazily simplistic program, the emotive response from the documentary is about as powerful as any film has delivered this year. Period.
3. Green Book
Green Book comes from Peter Farrelly, yes… that Peter Farrelly—the co-director of There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber. He delivers a based on a true story sentimental charmer that chronicles the 1960s-set friendship of an African American classical pianist who embarks on a tour of the deep south with his Italian-American driver. Viggo Mortensen delivers dynamite as the richest of characters in Tony Lip. He could have been a stereotype and instead is as layered and rich as they come.
Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is Dr. Don Shirley and yet again the actor is poised to find his name called when Academy Award nominations are announced next month. The trio of titanic talent—Farrelly, Ali and Mortensen—have come together to deliver movie audiences one of the greatest cinematic experiences of the year. Don’t be surprised if this simultaneously light-hearted and commanding film wins Best Picture.
2. Roma
What didn’t Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón do with his passion project, the gloriously beautiful and mesmerizing Roma? He wrote it. He directed it. He even served as the film’s cinematographer! The black and white tale of a maid working in Mexico City for a wealthy family in the 1970s delivers all the feels, and even a few that you probably didn’t know you had. Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio in a role that will undoubtedly be nominated for Best Actress) has no children of her own, but as the live-in maid for a family, she has plenty of love delivered to her from the kids who are in her charge.
Cleo learns she’s pregnant and the pregnancy (that basically goes through the entire narrative of Cuarón’s most intimate and gorgeous work) is just one aspect of this Spanish language experience that should become one of the first films to score a Best Picture nod along with a Best Foreign Film nomination when Oscar nominations are revealed next month.
On the outside, Roma seems a bit simplistic. Not too much happens, but that is a façade. As he did with Gravity, Cuarón crafts characters that are layered in the most beautifully impressive way. What else emanates from his latest is the fact that it is—at its core—a simple story, yet it is told in the most epic of ways.
1. BlackkKlansman
Spike Lee took the true tale of Ron Stallworth and its 70s centric story of a black Colorado Springs detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, and made it as pertinent to today’s headlines as it was when it took place. John David Washington rocks as Stallworth, while Adam Driver delivers yet again as his partner. Between the two of them, they managed to triumphantly take down the KKK when so few law enforcement officials were even be able to make a dent.
Stallworth worked the KKK on the phone, while Driver’s Flip Zimmerman does the undercover work on the ground. With Lee’s magic touch, the film pulsates with power and is ever present when the headlines of today become eerily timely for a film chronicling race relations of 40 years prior. The ensemble is electric. Lee’s direction is divine. BlackkKlansman is bodaciously brilliant.
Honorary mentions: The Hate U Give, Isle of Dogs, Love, Simon, Sorry to Bother You, The Front Runner, Widows, First Man, Crazy Rich Asians, Shock and Awe, The Incredibles 2, A Kid Like Jake, The Death of Stalin, Bohemian Rhapsody, Upgrade, Will You Ever Forgive Me?, Destroyer and First Reformed.