What began last month with Time film critic Stephanie Zacharek has now come full swing on entertainment outlets across the internet. Critics’ year-end lists — in which they honor the very best movies that the last twelve months had to offer and point the rest of us toward what we should be watching — are starting to pour in. Along with the critics and industry awards already well underway, we can start to get a sense of what the moviescape of 2018 really looks like.
2018 has already been a thoroughly exceptional year at the multiplex. From early-year sensations like Black Panther and Annihilation to out-of-left-field oddities like Sorry to Bother You and Hereditary, from omnipresent blockbusters like Avengers: Infinity War and A Star Is Born to Fall Oscar contenders like BlacKkKlansman and First Man, it seemed like you could hardly go wrong by picking a movie showing at random and going to see what all the buzz was about. And based on what we know about movies that have yet to release (either wide or at all), this embarrassment of riches will continue well into the holiday season.
We still have, for instance, If Beale Street Could Talk (which shows up at #8 on Ehrlich’s list), fresh-faced director Barry Jenkins’ long-anticipated follow-up to 2016’s Best Picture winner Moonlight. There’s also The Favourite (which showed up here at #12), Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ follow-up to the off-beat The Lobster (2016) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). Gravity (2013) director Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, which is seemingly topping most other critics’ lists, appears here at #17: notably coming in behind other Foreign Language hopefuls Burning and Shoplifters.
On the whole, Ehrlich’s list is a solid mix of populist crowd-pleasers, “genre” entries and prestige productions. Indie darling Eighth Grade, which catapulted writer-director (and former YouTube star) Bo Burnham and pint-sized leading lady Elsie Fisher to the top of a crowded field of talent many times their senior, came in here at a respectable ranking of 16. Horror was well-represented by the back-to-back combo of Suspiria (#14) and Hereditary (#13), as well as the manic Mandy at #10. The criminally underseen Widows (#11) and the predictably underwhelming Mission: Impossible — Fallout (#7) made sure that the action genre was well-represented. In fact, everything from westerns (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs at #21), Sci-Fi (Annihilation at #18) and cute-n-cuddly family comedies (Paddington 2 at, appropriately enough, #2) ensured that virtually everybody can find something to like on this year-end ranking.
Coming in at #1 was First Reformed, the Ethan Hawke-fronted crisis-of-faith drama about a middle-aged pastor trying to come to desperate terms with the Church’s complicity in ongoing global climate change and their willful refusal to act as stewards to the Earth. It is a powerful piece of cinema that is smart and challenging in ways that most movies simply aren’t equipped (or interested) in being. Although the end is sadly underwhelming — bound to leave most audience members disappointed by its resolute anticlimax — it is an exceptional work that might just earn writer-director Paul Schrader (of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull fame) some dark horse accolades at this year’s Academy Awards.
As ever, Ehrlich delivered his top 25 list (not to mention a host of honorable mentions, rounding the final list to a full forty films) in a stunningly edited video. Mostly set to Queen’s greatest hits (a playful nod to this year’s Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, which did not make the list) and intercut by a few different versions of A Star Is Born‘s The Shallow, the thirteen and one half minute video is a rapturous celebration of a year well-spent at the movie. Watch the video (or just read the list) here:
1 . First Reformed
2 . Paddington 2
3 . Madeline’s Madeline
4 . Shoplisters
5 . The Tale
6 . Burning
7 . Mission: Impossible — Fallout
8 . If Beale Street Could Talk
9 . Wildlife
10 .Mandy
11 .Widows
12 .The Favourite
13 .Hereditary
14 .Suspiria
15 .Support the Girls
16 .Eighth Grade
17 .Roma
18 .Annihilation
19 .Coda
20 .You Were Never Really Here
21 .The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
22 .Cold War
23 .Let the Sunshine In
24 .Minding the Gap
25 . A Star Is Born