Favourite Films of
2018
Merry Christmas,
everyone! 2018 didn’t shape up to be a particularly great year for movies,
quickly made evident when I struggled to even assemble a top ten list of favourites.
Last year, I had a few honourable mentions in addition to my top ten, but this
year, I couldn’t even pick ten. So, here are my top nine movies of 2018!
9. Annihilation
Ex Machina was one
of my favourite films of 2015, so Alex Garland’s follow-up was something I was
really looking forward to. Though it was disappointing in a number of ways, it ultimately
made for one of the more memorable theater-going experiences I had this year.
The visuals were unique and beautiful, the score was haunting, and the themes
were intriguing. It also had probably the scariest scene of any movie in 2018,
with a mutant bear monster that stuck in my mind long after the credits rolled.
8. Hereditary
“From the studio that brought you The Witch” was how Hereditary
was positioned to audiences, and though it was similarly slow-paced, it wasn’t
really anything like The Witch. I
definitely liked The Witch a lot
more, but Hereditary was well-crafted
and terrifying in its own way, with some truly shocking deaths, horrifying
imagery, and well-timed scares. Toni Collette gave one of the best performances
of year, and while the very end was a bit questionable, the rest of it was a
disturbing-but-entertaining time.
7. Blockers
I haven’t seen a truly hilarious comedy in many years, but Blockers is easily the funniest comedy I’ve
seen in a long time, and it’s actually well-acted, well-written, and well-paced.
The premise is like an inverted American
Pie, with more from the parents’ perspective, but it still managed to pack
in many great character moments, clever gags, and one scene in particular
churned my stomach as much as it made me howl with laughter. For what it was, Blockers was a very funny, underrated
movie.
6. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
I didn’t expect the sixth Mission: Impossible to be one of my favourites of the year, even
though with every new installment, they seem to get better. Fallout was arguably the best one yet,
and while I don’t agree with other critics who said it was the best action movie
since Mad Max: Fury Road, it definitely
is an expertly-designed action-spy-thriller, with multiple edge-of-your-seat
action sequences and Tom Cruise doing what Tom Cruise does best.
5. Bohemian Rhapsody
Speaking of not expecting a movie to be among my favourites
of the year…a movie about Freddie Mercury and Queen? I wasn’t even that big of
a Queen fan, but there was just something about this music biopic that really
sucked me in. The combination of great music and great performances had me
captivated, and even though it was pretty by-the-numbers as far as these kinds
of movies go, that didn’t take away from how awesome the music was, or how good
Remi Malek was as Freddie Mercury.
4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Other than Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man, I’ve seen every Spider-Man
movie in theaters (even the crappiest ones), but who could have expected an
animated feature starring several versions of the character to be among the
greatest Spider-Man movies to date? Into the Spider-Verse is genuinely
funny, well-animated, filled with memorable characters, and it has the best
Stan Lee cameo ever, plus one of the best end-credit scenes ever, too. Even
though I didn’t fully love it, I have to respect just how well-written and
directed it was. But I also really did enjoy it.
3. Creed II
The first Creed
was an unexpectedly powerful and emotional progression of the Rocky franchise, and Creed II is practically everything I
wanted to see out of a sequel to it. The trials and tribulations Adonis Creed
goes through are gripping from beginning to end, the villain is better than the
previous movie, and the fights are even more intense. Though I don’t think it’s
quite as good of a movie overall as the first Creed, this sequel still had me fist-pumping and wanting to run a
marathon after watching.
2. Avengers: Infinity War
So we’re 19 movies deep into the MCU, having seen all of the
heroes go on numerous adventures, but then here comes along Thanos, a villain
who became a household name overnight, because he beat the world’s mightiest
heroes, in what is undeniably a massive achievement in the world of comic book films.
It’s far from perfect, but Infinity War
told a sprawling narrative that shouldn’t have worked nearly as well as it did.
Here’s hoping Avengers: Endgame
offers a satisfying conclusion, but even if it doesn’t, Infinity War will likely stand for many years to come as a new
benchmark in team-focused superhero movies.
1. Isle of Dogs
There was only one movie I saw in 2018 that locked me into
the screen from the first frame to the last, and stayed in my mind for months
after I saw it: Wes Anderson’s Isle of
Dogs, a stop motion adventure that follows Anderson’s other stop motion
feature, the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, Fantastic Mr. Fox, from nearly a decade earlier. Fantastic Mr. Fox is easily one of my
favourite stop motion films, and Isle of
Dogs is, I think, even better. It’s extremely funny, unique, and incredible
to look at. The characters are all really memorable and interesting too,
despite not being real, and not being human. The main reason I’m putting Isle of Dogs as my favourite movie of
the year is because I saw nothing else quite like it, and it stands on its own
as being a perfectly-crafted piece of entertainment.
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