The Best Movies of 2018

Director: Jon M. Chu

Stars: Constance Wu, Henry Golding

Crazy Rich Asians centers around Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a Chinese-American woman from a working-class family who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend (Henry Golding) and discovers he’s from one of the wealthiest families and is one of the most eligible bachelors in Asia. When his entire society—and especially his disapproving mother—says she’s not good enough, Rachel has to decide what it’s all worth to her.  

In terms of box office performance, Crazy Rich Asians more than lived up to the hype. It’s the highest-grossing romcom of the last decade, a feat no one [read: Hollywood execs] would expect from a film with a predominantly Asian cast. In terms of acting, the noms the cast is getting on the awards circuit are all well deserved. But in terms of story, it’s solid—certainly no worse than its predecessors in the genre. —Dria Roland

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Stars: Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby

It’s hard to diagnose why people weren’t turning out in droves to see The Hate U Give, in which stars Amandla Stenberg and Russell Hornsby deliver some of the finest performances of the year. Perhaps it’s because the film could be lazily characterized as an “issues movie” when the story is more universal than that.

Essentially, The Hate U Give is a powerful coming-of-age story in which unexpected tragedy forces a girl to decide who she is. Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter (Stenberg) is caught between two worlds—the affluent prep school where she’s one of few black students and has a white boyfriend, and the hood her father (Hornsby) doesn’t want to leave. When Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend, it puts her at odds with every community she’s been trying to navigate. The stakes only get higher as Starr grapples with her identity and whether she has any real power to effect “justice.”

It’s a gut-wrenching film that leaves no emotion intact, and that rare cinematic experience alone is worth the price of your ticket. —Dria Roland

Director: Jonah Hill

Stars: Sunny Suljic, Lucas Hedges, Na-kel Smith

In his directorial debut, Jonah Hill crafted a gorgeous love letter to, well, the mid-’90s. It was hyper-specific to his mid-’90s, aka chock full of skateboarding through the streets of California while listening to hip-hop. The film follows a boy (portrayed by Sunny Suljic) looking to escape his troubled home life by saddling up with a clique of skaters who are just as (if not more) troubled than he. It’s a coming-of-age story that nails its subject matter and finds the heart at the bottom of the empty pool. —khal

Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Stars: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams

Game Night shouldn’t be as good as it is. On the one hand, moviegoers need hilariously silly, adult comedies. On the other, not too many films like that are allowed to look this dope; Daley and Goldstein were affixing cameras to all kinds of drones and wheels, making parts of this comedy about one weekly game night getting WAY too crazy look as stylish as your favorite action film. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams shine as the married couple who, at first, don’t realize how deep they are into the shit, only to panic (and persevere) as the night gets exceedingly insane. It may have gotten too swerve-happy in the third act, but it’s definitely worth it. —khal

Director: Alex Garland

Stars: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson

The Shimmer looks like the liquid you make bubbles with, but instead of it being innocent fun for children and adults alike, the soap in Annihilation will slowly change the DNA of everything it touches until it evolves or dies. I’m still not sure what happens at the and or if there’s going to be a sequel. What I do know is that this movie is a mindfuck and was fun as hell to watch—it’s what movie theaters were made for.

Natalie Portman puts on a stellar performance as she tries to figure out what happened to her husband (played by Oscar Isaac) after he returned from a stint in the Shimmer. She then decides to go in herself, and this is where the movie turns into a horror show complete with bumps in the night and monsters eating people. Once you go into the Shimmer, it connects onto your DNA and you’re forever changed, whether you make it out or not. The same can be said for anyone who watches this movie. —Angel Diaz

Director: Susan Johnson

Stars: Lana Condor, Noah Centineo

Based on the 2014 novel of the same name, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before sits at the top of the large heap of romcoms Netflix dropped in 2018. Of course the girl who writes (then locks away) letters to the objects of her affection has those same letters mailed to the objects of her affection; it’s a film. A film that feels like something John Hughes would’ve been dropping in 2018. Well, assuming he would’ve cast the brilliant Lana Condor as the lead. It’s an honest look at teen romance that should be studied more than, say, that damn Sierra Burgess movie.  —khal

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Stars: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz

This is Yorgos’ ASTROWORLD, basically. He’s had weirder (Dogtooth) and more challenging (Killing of a Sacred Deer) work. He may even have better (The Lobster and, to be honest, Dogtooth again). But The Favourite is reverse-engineered to be a crowd pleaser, one that retains his core formula—a truly unique mix of pitch-black comedy, off-beat humor, awful, equally morally reprehensible people, and just all-around weirdness—and packages it in a more palatable premise than, say, droll man must find love or risk morphing into a crustacean.

This is a period piece, plain and simple, strategically released at the time of year when Oscar-bait period pieces are par for the course. Only, in this version of 18th-century Britain, the lords and ladies vogue and hurl barbwire-lined banter back and forth like tennis. Emma Stone is one of our generation’s greatest talents, and she’s finally found a screen partner on her level of late in Yorgos troupe member Rachel Weisz. Suspenseful, hilarious, squirm-inducing. The most *fun* you’ll have during Oscar season. Don’t sleep. —Frazier Tharpe

Director: Steven Caple Jr.

Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson

Director Steven Caple Jr. had a difficult job in crafting Creed II. Somehow, he had to follow Ryan Coogler’s brilliant spin-off, 2015’s Creed, while giving fans the long-awaited grudge match between Adonis Creed and Viktor Drago. Adonis was battling the son of the man who killed his father, while Viktor was fighting to avenge his father’s loss, which changed the course of his family’s journey in the decades since Rocky Balboa whooped him. In a film that has heart, turnt montages, and Tessa Thompson channeling her inner fka Twigs, Caple Jr. convincingly added to the Rocky canon while perfectly setting up the future of the Creed universe. —khal

Director: Spike Lee

Stars: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace

Nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and three from the Screen Actors Guild, BlacKkKlansman is the kind of commercial and critical success that has eluded legendary director Spike Lee for a few years. It might have seemed like open season for his protégés right now, but the 30-year vet sent a statement that he’s not ready to fade to black. With strong leading performances and a script that’s slick and humorous, BlacKkKlansman was as entertaining as it was political—a tone Lee practically invented.

Based on actual events, BlacKkKlansman is set in the early ’70s as the Colorado Springs Police Department hires its first African-American officer, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington). Gutsy and eager for a win, Stallworth infiltrates the KKK and recruits his Jewish coworker Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) for help. There’s fun in seeing how the unlikely duo pull it off, but any feelings of triumph are upended by the film’s emotional ending, in which Lee draws parallels between the KKK back then and white supremacists in Charlottesville today. The comparison isn’t subtle at all, but that again is his trademark—he’s never stopped telling America to wake up. —Dria Roland

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Stars: Tyne Daly, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Tom Waits

The Coen Brothers already come to the party with a cache of acclaimed films behind them, including Fargo and The Big Lebowski. They know how to bridge darker comedy with stellar filmmaking, garnering Oscar noms and critical praise over the years. In The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which features six unconnected vignettes that take place (more or less) in the Wild West, we get to see the Coens’ given the ability to flex in ways only a Netflix check could allow them to. The opening vignette is pure Coen, with some amazing songs blending seamlessly with the ultraviolence of the time. Throughout, we get some depressing, real-life situations that could only spring from that period, and the endings are both tragic and satisfying. Another solid addition to the Coens’ growing catalog of American cinema. —khal

Director: David Lowery

Stars: Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek

For his swan song, Robert Redford plays a character that only Robert Redford could (should?) portray. The Old Man and the Gun is based on an intriguing 2003 New Yorker article of the same name about a man who spent decades perfecting the art of robbery. The film finds the Old Man towards the end of his career, leading a band of rabble-rousing old dudes on a string of robberies across the country. Redford’s charm is on full display, both in the way he speaks to the tellers and how he courts Sissy Spacek. The film wins you over from the jump, and builds to one dazzling sequence, in which we see how the Old Man orchestrated his multiple prison escapes (one that uses a scene from Redford’s 1966 film The Chase to perfect effect). It’s an awesome way for Redford to close his career as an actor, with a film that highlights what made him the actor he became.  —khal

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Manette

Scottish director Lynne Ramsay brought forth another film that delves deep into grief and guilt while being dumb light on things like story and dialogue. That leaves a lot of room for ART, which the Joaquin Phoenix-driven tale is full of. Phoenix stars as Joe, a suicidal ex-FBI agent who rescues trafficked girls. It’s probably best remembered as “the Joaquin Phoenix film with the hammer,” but don’t let the trailer fool you: This is much more about Phoenix trying to find something to live for after a life full of pain and aggression. As a rumination on what goes on in the minds of the suicidal, this film works like a beautiful piece of cinema. Just know that it’s deeper than its paper-thin plot. —khal

Director: John Krasinski

Stars: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds

In an era in which mainstream releases are something like 97 percent superhero movies, remakes, reboots, reimaginings, or some other kind of serialized cinema, we have to make sure to stand up and clap harder for the unicorn—an original (gasp) idea that isn’t tethered (what!) to any type of franchise? Inevitably, though, people go to a festival, get a little bit too gassed, and, the next thing you know, Baby Driver is purported to be a modern-day Heat.

Thankfully, John Krasinski’s triple-threat labor of love—he directed, stars, and punched up the script—measures up, and it’s another slam dunk for the horror genre, which is enjoying a long-overdue GSW moment, so it’s a double win. Is it anything more than a taut, well-crafted Twilight Zone episode? No, and it doesn’t need to be. The kids are endearing, the premise holds up, Emily Blunt predictably washes her husband, and the final 25 minutes boasts one armchair-gripping set piece after another.

On the other hand, that box office haul quickly prompted sequel talk for a movie that works perfectly as a one-and-done (that ending, especially). Sorry in advance, A Quieter Place, but you’re already part of the problem. —Frazier Tharpe

Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Stars: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry

As a person who’s grown old enough to experience a decade-plus of stellar comic book films, I’d say my time spent as a comic book reader has been rewarded many times over. Even so, a film like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse can still dazzle. Watching the film feels like reading one of the many Spider-Verse sagas on acid. Words splash across the screen, colors fly and quips bounce off of each of the multiverse Spider-People at a dizzying speed. Some might hate that we haven’t gotten a proper live-action Miles Morales on-screen, but being able to see Miles—an Afro-Latino teen who gets the powers of the Spider while also being a graf-head who casually speaks Spanish without subtitles—should warm the hearts of many who feel underrepresented, especially in comic book films. The fact that Sony then does justice to the source material so elegantly, to the point that we are going to be getting sequels and spin-offs, has us excited for the future of this branch of the Spider-Verse. —khal

Director: Aneesh Chaganty

Stars: John Cho, Debra Messing

One of the year’s more innovative thrillers, Searching is the story of a father, David Kim (John Cho), searching for his missing teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La), told almost entirely through computer screens. The audience follows along as David attempts to uncover the details surrounding Margot’s disappearance by contacting her peers and combing through her social media with the help of Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing).

Searching explores both the advantages and disadvantages of modern technology in crime investigations, as well as in our interpersonal relationships, without ever being high and mighty. Between the refreshing storytelling style and director Aneesh Chaganty’s examinations of characters both primary and secondary, notably David’s brother, Peter (Joseph Lee), the film will draw you in and test your tolerance for plot twists and turns. —Carolyn Bernucca

Director: Panos Cosmatos

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough

I first watched Mandy at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night. I had been smoking all day, and after probably several weed naps, I had all this energy, so I figured I’d check out that weird Nic Cage movie everyone kept telling me about. I was not ready for what was about to happen to my brain.

Mandy is the art of cinema in its highest form. It’s the reason we go to the movies: to be entertained. The arthouse visuals—deep red and blue hues, the lighting on the gore, the pace—mixed with the midnight horror movie tone, really made Mandy an easy watch, even in the middle of the night. It’s actually the perfect film to watch in the wee hours of the morning.

Director Panos Cosmatos and the acting god who is Nic Cage should get on their DiCaprio/Scorsese shit. Cosmatos should makes a Mandy universe like Star Wars and Marvel are doing. The world needs to see more cult bike gangs dressed like the Legion of Doom. —Angel Diaz

Director: Boots Riley

Stars: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler

There is very little that hasn’t been said already about Boots Riley’s directorial debut, Sorry to Bother You, but the one thing that bears repeating is that you need to see it. Set in Oakland, California, the film is a surreal borderline nightmare that deals with very real themes, primarily the evils of late-stage capitalism. Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is down on his luck, living in his uncle’s garage with his girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson). When he finally lands a gig with telemarketing company RegalView, he learns to use his “white voice” to make more sales. I can’t say anything else without spoiling the entire plot, but I promise that you won’t see any of it coming.

Stanfield is phenomenal as Cassius, who struggles with the moral dilemma of rising in the ranks of RegalView while wanting to support Detroit and Squeeze (Steven Yeun) as they attempt to unionize. Also outstanding are Thompson, as socialist icon Detroit, and Armie Hammer and Kate Berlant, who fully lean into the cringeyness (that’s putting it lightly) of their characters. It’s a hilarious and harrowing commentary you have to see to believe. —Carolyn Bernucca​​​​​​​

Director: Bo Burnham

Stars: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson

Eighth Grade is one of those films I wish I had when I was a teen instead of the shitty after-school specials that camp’d up the pain of childhood. Elsie Fisher plays Kayla, who’s trying to survive her last week of eighth grade. She has a YouTube page where she give advice; sadly, she’s possibly the last person to be giving advice. She’s big on trying to put herself out there but doesn’t know the first thing about what she should be doing to get friends or attempt to get a boyfriend, and ends up causing more trouble for herself in the long run.

It’s a film that knows its character, who like many of us is trying to live up to what we perceive to be a happy life based on what’s on our Instagram timelines. It’s a cautionary tale that pre-teens and teens should be devouring before diving head first into these “grown” situations. We sympathize with Kayla because, even if we hate to admit it, we’ve all been Kayla. It ends up being OK, but these are tales we should be getting in health class, before the shit truly hits the fan.  —khal

Director: Coralie Fargeat

Stars: Matilda Lutz, Kevin Janssens, Vincent Colombe, Guillaume Bouchède

With the #MeToo movement truly getting a spark from the outing of decades’ worth of sexual harassment and abuse by men in powerful positions, it comes as no surprise that we’d see revenge fantasies focused on sexual assault coming to light. Revenge comes from French director Coralie Fargeat and tells the tale of a woman who, literally left for dead after being raped by one of her lover’s hunting buddies, goes on a rampage, hunting the hunters in the middle of the desert. Highly stylized, and at times ultra gory, this film can get a bit too fanciful for its own good, but there’s a ferocious revenge story taking residence in this madness that makes this a must-watch for true lovers of cinema. —khal

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Stars: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira

Easily one of the most magnificent watches of the year, what Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is what Netflix should aim for when courting Hollywood directors. I know Cuarón would prefer for Roma to be seen in a theater, but I was still able to enjoy it on a Samsung flatscreen just as much as I would’ve in a more classic setting. Catching it on Netflix actually made my viewing experience better because the family maids Cleo and Adela (played by Yalitza Aparicio and Nancy Garcia, respectively) often speak Miztec, an indigenous Mexican language, so I was able to rewind shit I missed.

My guy Alfonso not only did his thing with the direction, cinematography, and editing, he made this sound like a 135-minute ASMR video. You can hear everything in this film: water dripping, planes flying overhead, birds chirping, candy wrappers crinkling, dogs barking, etc. The world passes by as Cleo tries to go about life as a live-in maid for a middle-class family whose lives are falling apart. Roma is truly a beautiful experience from beginning to end. —Angel Diaz

Director: Paul Schrader

Stars: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles

When it comes to faith and religion, the problem is that all you’ve got is faith. No one has ever come back from whatever happens to us in the afterlife to be like, “Fam, this is how it goes down.” If you consider that unsatisfying, that people can spend their whole lives chasing something they’ll never have the real answer to, you might be in the right headspace to understand Ethan Hawke’s commanding performance in A24’s First Reformed.

Journaling a year in his life, Hawke’s Toller finds himself at a point where he’s unsure of his religion when it comes to the ways of the world, via his own health or how the earth will literally survive what we’ve done to it. The film climaxes during a massive anniversary of his church, with Toller truly at a crossroads, trying to understand life and his place in it, and, most times, the answers aren’t pretty.

You won’t come out of this film with any absolutes or real understanding of what this life is holding for you at the end, but, really, that’s the point. Cinema is supposed to help present questions that, if we’re lucky, we get to ponder throughout a film, as well as during the end credits. First Reformed does that and more. True cinematic excellence. —khal

Director: Anthony and Joe Russo

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Josh Brolin, Zoe Saldana, Chris Pratt

After 10 years of build-up, Marvel’s vision for an interconnected cinematic universe finally came to fruition with Avengers: Infinity War. Billed as the biggest crossover event of all time, the blockbuster brought together various heroes from across the MCU to do battle with Thanos. It was an epic concept and an even more epic moviegoing experience. Ripped from the pages of the comics, the film saw the characters fans grew up on and watched come to life over the past decade fight side by side with the fate of the universe at stake. Making up for the lack of quality villains, Infinity War proved that Thanos was that dude and he was worth waiting for. Cold, calculating, and cockdiesel enough to knock the Hulk out, the Mad Titan was everything we feared he’d be and forever changed the movie landscape with one snap of his Infinity Gauntlet-clad fingers.  —Anslem Samuel Rocque

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Stars: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth

It’s rare when a new version of a movie is better than the original. 2018’s Suspiria was able to expand upon some of the ideas laid out in Dario Argento’s 1977 original. Now, before y’all get all uppity, hear me out.

Argento’s Suspiria is a work of art. The score, written by Italian rock band Goblin, is its own character in the film, Argento’s direction and the way he played with light makes the film feel like you’re in a dream, and the gore is very ’70s horror. However, Suspiria ’18 is almost an hour longer, allowing director Luca Guadagnino to flesh out plot points like the backstory of the psychoanalyst (one of three characters played by Tilda Swinton) and the motives of the witches teaching at the dance school.

What really makes this version better, though, is the dance scene during the first half of the film. Susie (played by Dakota Johnson) contorting the body of another girl trying to escape the witches’ maniacal grasps in another room that’s full of mirrors is by far one of the most chilling scenes in horror movie history. There are also nods to the original in the form of swift ’70s-style camera pans and the dialogue’s campiness. The only real knock I have is that Thom Yorke’s score falls short of creating an atmosphere of sound for the viewer in the same way Goblin did, but either way, horror is officially back. Hopefully it’ll be for good this time. —Angel Diaz

Director: Ari Aster

Stars: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne

Sometimes, to get a truly effective disruption going, you need to bring in an outlier. Alex Wolff told me recently that Hereditary director Ari Aster, here helming his directorial debut, said on the first day that he actually kind of hates horror movies and find them silly. Enter a film dripping in dread from frame one that gleefully tosses you some of the genre’s well-worn tropes just to subvert them so hard it feels like punishment for assuming you knew what was up. Think you have a general sketch of what Aster plans to do with Precocious Kid 101 Milly Shapiro? Aight, bet.

What’s dope is how Hereditary would be a fire indie flick about parental burdens and generational guilt even without seances, headless corpses, and possessed motherfuckers scurrying across ceilings. But unlike some indie horrors, which like to trade cerebral and emotional plot developments for jumps, Hereditary serves it to us both ways. By the balls-to-the-wall insane third act, we’re so invested in the Graham family drama that the twists—of both the narrative and neck-snapping varieties—hit that much harder. It’s Ordinary People meets The Exorcist. Even a horror purist would have to dap Ari Aster for pulling that off. —Frazier Tharpe

Director: Lee Chang-dong

Stars: Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jeon Jong-seo

Some films, you end up enjoying and forgetting by the time you hop in your Uber on the way back home. Others tend to sit with you, making you question what you watched and if the end result was actually what you thought it was. Burning, the latest film from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong, is firmly the latter.

Burning follows Lee Jong-su, an awkward man who reacquaints himself with Hae-mi, a childhood friend who he’s not seen in years. After becoming friendly enough to get intimate, she dips to Africa, leaving Jong-su to feed a cat of hers. When she returns, she introduces Jong-su to a new friend, Ben (Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead fame). Ben’s an interesting character; at one point, Jong-su calls him “the Great Gatsby,” which fits Ben and his peers. As Jong-su gets to know Ben, and gets jealous of his relationship with Hae-mi, he finds that Ben seems to be harboring a secret.

Mind you, this all happens within the first hour or so of the film. The other 90 minutes find Jong-su spiraling in a world of confusion, trying to figure out who or what Ben is, and what his relationship with Hae-mi truly is. It’s a story that doesn’t rush to show its cards, and even when it does reveal its hand, it’s hard to tell if you’re getting the full picture. It’s a satisfying end to a tale that’s told precisely, with intriguing conversation and beautiful visuals. Modern cinema at its finest. —khal

Director: Barry Jenkins

Stars: KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina Hall

Following up the Oscar-winning Moonlight is a feat that many directors couldn’t manage. Barry Jenkins isn’t many directors. With If Beale Street Could Talk, Jenkins brings one of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel to the screen, showcasing why he’s one of today’s most promising directors.

The film follows the novel, highlighting the growing love affair between Tish (KiKi Layne in a breakout performance) and Fonny (Stephan James), which seems to be coming to a head around the same time Fonny is (falsely) accused of rape. Tish realizes she’s pregnant while he’s incarcerated, and the film follows her pregnancy running alongside the battle to get Fonny proper representation, fighting his case, and looking back at their brief courtship.

Jenkins, who wrote the screenplay for Beale Street during the same 2013 summer he wrote Moonlight, crafts some truly compelling scenes. The first takes place in an apartment, with the families of Fonny and Tish coming together for a toxic meeting about their respective situations. The second, which has struck a chord in many, finds Fonny’s friend Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry) describing the plight of a recent parolee in a scene that’s etched Henry in stone as one of today’s most brilliant character actors. When Jenkins isn’t capturing black pain on camera, he’s showing black beauty in ways Hollywood has failed to display in the eons since the moving picture has been in use.

It’s hard to tell if AWARDS SZN will be kind to Beale Street; at the time of this writing, it already received three Golden Globe nominations (Best Picture - Drama, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Regina King, who deserves all of the awards). It’s an important film when you think about the trouble black people have with the law. It’s an examination into what happens when the system fails black folk, which it’s doing to this day, and even if it wins none of the awards for cinematic excellence, Jenkins has told a story that is so vital to being black in America, and that is a much more satisfying feat. —khal

Director: Ryan Coogler

Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira

#BlackPantherSoLit was a trending topic almost two years before the film was even in theaters. Clearly there was considerable hype surrounding Black Panther, but that was only the beginning. Upon its release, the film quickly became a global box-office smash with massive cultural impact, proving that the anticipation was well deserved.

More than just presenting people of color with a superhero who looked like them, director Ryan Coogler was able to create a world that reflected the full beauty of the African diaspora and reinvigorated the superhero genre in the process. To top it all off, there was actually a solid script that included strong female characters, a sympathetic antagonist, and an origin story that was free from the typical constraints of fitting into a larger cinematic universe. It was one of those rare instances in which social media was correct, because Black Panther really was so lit. —Anslem Samuel Rocque

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Stars: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson

To talk about Mission: Impossible - Fallout, we have to talk about its most important scene. No, it isn’t Henry Cavill (having so much fun with a great director and a great script!) reloading his arms like Mossberg shotguns in a visceral, gritty bathroom brawl that should go down as one of the best action fight scenes ever filmed. It isn’t Tom Cruise para-jumping out of an airplane, which he did himself and also something like 90 times just to get the shot right. It isn’t even the climactic HELICOPTER fight. All of those scenes basically mandated that you see the movie in IMAX—this is moviemaking as anachronism: a true-blue movie star filming stunts that just won’t play the same in your living room. Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise recently filmed a video from the set of their next movie about the horrors of the dreaded Motion setting that comes auto-enabled on every HD TV (an issue not just aimed at technology-daft parents... you’d be surprised by how many people aren’t aware of this scourge!). Clearly, they care. 

But the most important scene—the one that says everything about why this movie is so fucking good, why it’s so high on this list and others, and why the Mission series is the most consistent and thus best action franchise ever made—comes late in the film. It’s banal, compared to every other stunt in this movie. It is, simply, Tom Cruise skipping across rooftops in hot pursuit of a mark. Then, on one particularly long jump, he slips. The first shot tracks him for the jump, and when we cut, it’s to a camera on the rooftop as he hobbles up and off camera, still in dogged pursuit. In that moment, the fourth wall is as shattered as Tom Cruise’s ankle or foot or tendon or whatever. Tom injured himself in the stunt, but kept going, and that shot is what made it into the final cut. Tom Cruise, by all accounts, has no home to go to anymore. He’s as dedicated to giving you the best product, the most kick-ass entertainment, as Ethan Hunt is to stopping a nuclear bomb because it’s all he has. So he takes helicopter flying lessons in real life. He dives out of planes more times than actual skydiving instructors have. He breaks a leg for the shot and stays so firmly in character that it’s still the best shot to use. Like my man David Ehrlich said earlier this year, give this man a fucking Oscar [nomination]. —Frazier Tharpe

Director: Bradley Cooper

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Sam Elliott

Let me start off by saying I am a sucker for a good, over-the-top, barely believable love story. The Notebook? Love it. Titanic? Saw it seven times in theaters. Pearl Harbor? Team Rafe. Casablanca? The airport scene. Needless to say, I was counting down the days until I could sit in a theater and fawn over Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper falling madly in love.

A Star Is Born has every making of a Hollywood blockbuster: an A-list cast, a big budget‚ and a soundtrack so fantastic it can stand alone. But this film goes beyond those general hallmarks. It’s a film with depth and heart. A Star is Born centers around a deeply loving but oftentimes tumultuous relationship between an already famous (and addicted) bad boy singer (Cooper) and an aspiring musician (Lady Gaga). The storylines showcase not only their love for one another but also the multiple layers of addiction, the pressures of an unrelenting music industry, fucked-up family dynamics, and the delicate line one walks while trying to maintain individuality in a codependent relationship.

Both Cooper and Gaga deliver stellar performances, but it’s Cooper’s portrayal of troubled rock ‘n’ roll singer Jackson Maine that truly stands out (and deserves all the Oscars). He is completely believable—there is pain and darkness lying beneath his eyes. His body language is somber and sluggish, reflecting years of silent (and not-so-silent) struggles. He delivers his lines in a deep, raspy voice, and speaking of his voice, the man can sing. Cooper took 18 months of vocal lessons, and it shows; his solo tracks, as well as his duets with Gaga, are music to our eyes (and ears). All aforementioned elements come together to create a complex, dynamic character you find yourself rooting for.

In a time of comic book cinema, constant Disney remakes, and Netflix-produced series, A Star Is Born is the most us hopeless romantic blockbuster lovers have been given in a minute. In the words of Jackson Maine, “Take it in.” —Katherine Calvert

Director: Steve McQueen

Stars: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya

An Oscar-winning writer-director. An A-list cast—and not just magazine cover A-list, but awards season staples A-list. A city upended by generations of class division and corruption, made all the more volatile by a contentious political election. A black wife grieving her late white husband, unsure of who she is without him or where she goes next. Once I told you that the co-writer/director was the guy who won a statue for 12 Years a Slave, you’d assume this was more dour awards-bait, the kind of film snobs wax poetic about, the kind that’s dubbed “important” before all else.

What if I also told you the movie features approximately two car chases, two shootouts, two heists, Liam Neeson barking orders and brandishing assault rifles, and the Cool Kids cameo’ing just to get murdered by Daniel Kaluuya? Taut, intelligent, funny, thrilling, suspenseful, thought-provoking, Widows is everything at once, a hybrid of ornate, Oscars-attuned craftsmanship married with blockbuster, crowd-pleasing sensibilities. 

The premise: When a band of thieves is murdered, the responsibility to carry out their next job falls to their wives. Crime bosses, corrupt politicians, and Kaluuya flexing his range as a sociopathic, well-read, uber-violent enforcer loom on the sidelines. In lesser hands, this could’ve been a campy, new in-flight entertainment classic. In more pretentious hands, it could’ve been boring. Instead, Widows is either the smartest popcorn movie of the year or the most action-packed smart movie. It’s a throwback to the days when the industry’s greatest talents didn’t have to choose between awards bait or franchise fare. The blockbusters were the stacked-cast intelligent thrillers whose existence didn’t depend on IP or box office. Widows’ middling box-office returns imply both audiences and the marketing departments aren’t sure what to do with that anymore, yet. Hopefully the Oscars do better than the Globes and give it the attention it deserves.

Viola Davis, a restrained torrent of fury and rage, is as great as ever. Colin Farrell oozes white privilege magnificently. Elizabeth Debicki shines in a true-blue breakout role. Brian Tyree Henry proves why he’s one of the greatest thespians out in a mere handful of scenes. McQueen, alongside co-writer Gillian Flynn (of Gone Girl/Sharp Objects fame) are show-offs with their gifts for pacing (the opening introduces us to every character, the inciting incident, and the premise all in five minutes), playing with audience expectation (an interracial marriage is, refreshingly, a matter-of-fact scenario until it suddenly isn’t, because race rearing its head is inevitable), and technical innovation (a tracking shot on the hood of a car says everything you need to know about the movie’s class themes with one camera swivel).

Widows isn’t just the best movie of the year. Hopefully it’s a blueprint for the future. —Frazier Tharpe