What are the best movies of 2018? Everyone asks in December, but we'd rather tell you them now with a rolling ranking, updated on the regular, featuring the best of the best movies that we 100% recommend. This is not a top 10 list. This is all the best movies of 2018. No mixed bags, interesting trainwrecks, or blockbusters that boast big box-office tallies. Just the true greats -- movies big, small, and from around the world. Your time is precious, and so is your money, but you need to see these 2018 movies. (And don't forget to check out The Best TV Shows of 2018 either.)
15. Roxanne Roxanne
Released: March 23 Cast: Chanté Adams, Mahershala Ali, Nia Long, Elvis Nolasco Director: Michael Larnell (Cronies) Why it’s great: The traditional musician biopic, with its rags-to-riches beginning and its fall-from-grace conclusion, is a genre that's always in need of a remix. Roxanne Roxanne, a stylish chronicle of Queensbridge rapper Roxanne Shante's rise to fame in the 1980s, isn't the most formally adventurous take on hip-hop's early days -- the "life on tour" scenes and a corny appearance from a soon-to-be-famous young rapper named Nasir feel like standard showbiz fodder -- but director Michael Larnell has an eye for period detail, an ear for needle drops, and enough patience to let his performers shine on (and off) the mic. With humor and wit, Adams keeps you invested in every aspect of Shante's journey, from her early battles with her disapproving mother (Long) to her harrowing fights with an abusive boyfriend Cross, played with tenderness and menace by Moonlight breakout Ali. Like Shante's best rhymes, it's a tale told with dazzling craft and unwavering confidence. Where to see it right now: Stream on Netflix (watch the trailer)
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14. Game Night
Released: February 23 Cast: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen Directors: John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Vacation) Why it’s great: Game Night is a movie that's easy to underestimate. The trailers and marketing made it look like yet another studio comedy in the post-Apatow mold, filled with improv-juiced banter, zingy pop culture references, and predictable emotional beats about battling middle-age ennui. It many ways, it is that movie, especially in its first 30 minutes, but as the high-concept premise kicks in -- basically, a group of charades-loving yuppies led by Bateman and McAdams's hyper-competitive couple find themselves in a violent ARG similar the one that terrified Michael Douglas in 1997's The Game -- the directors, who previously helmed 2015's Vacation remake and co-wrote the less amusing Bateman vehicle Horrible Bosses, reveal that they've put more work into designing the thriller elements of the story then you may have assumed. The slapstick sequences almost have the visual wit and spatial playfulness of an Edgar Wright movie, particularly as the movie speeds into its twist-filled conclusion. McAdams in particular sells each joke with a studied earnestness. Like the movie surrounding her, she attacks even the dumbest task with surprising rigor. Where to see it right now: Stream on Amazon Prime; rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)
13. Gemini
Released: March 30 Cast: Lola Kirke, Zoë Kravitz, John Cho, Greta Lee Director: Aaron Katz (Land Ho!) Why it’s great: In last year's Personal Shopper, Kristen Stewart played a young woman tasked with acquiring outfits, jewelry, and accessories for a celebrity, and eventually she found herself in the midst of a ghost story. Gemini, which stars Kirke as a personal assistant to Kravitz's famous actress, is set in the same wealthy universe of fame-adjacent underlings, but instead of taking a supernatural route it stumbles down the path of a a low-key stoner noir. (Like a less dude-centric take on Inherent Vice or The Big Lebowski.) Katz's version of a murder mystery in Los Angeles isn't sweaty or sunny. He envisions the city as a chilly, neon-drenched world of small transactions, petty squabbles, and the occasional violent outburst. It's the perfect backdrop for this sly comedy of careful negotiation. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
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12. The Ritual
Released: February 9 Cast: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton Director: David Bruckner (V/H/S) Why it’s great: In the increasingly digitized world, the woods are often presented as a place to escape to and the prospect of "getting lost" is seen as a chance for self-discovery. The Ritual, a horror film where a group of middle-aged men embark on a hiking trip in honor of a dead friend, understands the tension between natural beauty of the outdoors and the unsettling panic of the unknown. The group's de facto leader Luke (an understated Spall) attempts to keep the adventure from spiralling out of control, but the forest has other plans. (Maybe brush up on your Scandinavian mythology before viewing.) Like a backpacking variation on Neil Marshall's 2005 cave spelunking classic The Descent, The Ritual deftly explores inter-personal dynamics while delivering jolts of other-worldly terror. It'll have you rethinking that weekend getaway on your calendar. Where to see it right now: Stream on Netflix (watch the trailer)
11. A Quiet Place
Released: April 6 Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe Director: John Krasinski (The Hollars) Why it’s great: It's reasonable to be skeptical of John Krasinski's tastefully composed, PG-13 rated, Michael Bay-produced horror contraption. There was little in his previous two directorial efforts, the indies Brief Interviews With Hideous Men or The Hollars, that suggested Jim from The Office was a budding genre filmmaker. And yet: A Quiet Place is a top-notch roller coaster in the Spielberg-ian mold. After sound-hating monsters take over the planet, a husband (Krasinski) and wife (Blunt) live a life of extreme caution with their two children, protecting them in a carefully maintained world of hushed whispers and relative silence. As you'd guess, the monsters have other plans. The political allegory component of the story isn't particularly compelling -- it's been interpreted as a commentary on the hysteria of Trump era -- but as a movie about parental anxieties, it's steely and effective. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
10. The Commuter
Released: January 12 Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks Director: Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) Why it’s great: The last thriller from the team of Neeson and Collet-Serra was Non-Stop, a bracing and clever whodunit on an airplane. The pair are back in high-octane Agatha Christie mode with The Commuter, a mystery that begins with Farmiga's chatty passenger Joanna presenting Neeson's haggard ex-cop (and loyal transit-enthusiast of the title) Michael MacCauley with a bizarre hypothetical: If you could perform a seemingly insignificant task that would have disastrous consequences for another commuter in exchange for a generous financial reward, would you do it? It's a convoluted twist on Richard Matheson's "Button, Button" short story, which was adapted into a classic Twilight Zone episode and the bonkers Richard Kelley movie The Box, but Collet-Serra is less interested in the moral dilemma. Instead, he simply wants to strip the giant locomotive -- and his star's lumbering frame -- for parts, finding Hitchcockian tension in each padded seat, empty corridor, and nervy patron. It's action filmmaking as controlled demolition -- and the best train potboiler since Steven Seagal's Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Where to see it right now: Stream on Amazon Prime; rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)
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9. Hereditary
Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro Director: Ari Aster Why it's great: I consider myself a relatively seasoned horror moviegoer who doesn't get scared easily -- the "it's only a movie" mantra tends to work -- but Hereditary got under my skin in a big way. What makes this movie tick? It's all in the performances: The incredibly versatile Toni Collette, who first stunned horror audiences as the mother in The Sixth Sense, plays Annie, an artist who works from home constructing intricately designed miniatures of her own life. When her elderly mother dies, Annie's family, which includes Byrne as her distant husband, Wolff as her aloof son, and Shapiro as her troubled daughter, is thrown into a crisis. For its first 40 minutes or so, the film plays like a strange psychodrama in the vein of Michael Haneke, but then an unspeakable event occurs about halfway through and the tension skyrockets. Annie visits a friendly medium (Ann Dowd of The Leftovers) and begins to communicate with the dead. She sleepwalks and has terrifying nightmares; a supernatural force has descended upon the house. Aster directs the hell out of the movie's harrowing final stretch, which will likely leave some viewers scratching their heads, but Collette is the real MVP, throwing herself into a demanding role with unwavering commitment. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
8. Unsane
Released: March 23 Cast: Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple Director: Steven Soderbergh (Logan Lucky) Why it’s great: Following the easy-going camaraderie of his hillbilly heist comeback Logan Lucky, the newly un-retired Soderbergh is back to subverting genre expectations again with this mental health thriller. Reportedly shot through the lens of an iPhone, which gives the film a discombobulating and flat look, Unsane follows Sawyer Valentine (Foy) as she gets checked into a hospital's psych ward against her will and does battle with an insurance system that wants to drain her bank account with little regard for her wellbeing. (You could call it a quasi-sequel to Soderbergh's pharma-thriller Side Effects.) The reveals that come in the third act will leave some viewers shaking their heads in disbelief -- the story sets up narrative turns it doesn't follow through on -- but this isn't a movie looking to be reduced to a single twist or slogan. It's a story as layered, inscrutable, and prickly as Foy's commanding lead performance. You can't look away. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
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7. The Death of Stalin
Released: March 9 Cast: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin Director: Armando Iannucci (In the Loop) Why it’s great: The verbose, scatological insult comedy of Iannucci, the creator of HBO's long-running political satire Veep, somehow fits the backroom dealing of 1950s Soviet Union like a snug fur hat. When Stalin dies in the middle of the night, his middling underlings -- including Nikita Khrushchev (Buscemi) Georgy Malenkov (Tambor), and Vyacheslav Molotov (Palin) -- are left with organizing his state funeral and scurrying to consolidate power. The put-down's are as riotously funny as you'd expect -- "You smell like rendered horse, you burning asshole!" deserves a ceremonial medal -- but the silly physical comedy, particularly in the early scenes where the men discover Stalin's corpse, is even better. Iannucci remains a master of finding humor in the bleakest scenarios imaginable, exposing the petty human foibles behind history's greatest horrors. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
6. Zama
Released: April 13 Cast: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lola Dueñas, Matheus Nachtergaele, Juan MinujÃn Director: Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman) Why it’s great: Based on a 1956 novel by Argentinian writer Antonio di Benedetto, this poetically-rendered 18th century historical drama displays a wry understanding of how colonial power functions. Don Diego de Zama (Cacho) is an administrator for Spain's imperial interests, stationed in Paraguay, but he's always looking for a way out. To where? He's not entirely sure, and Martel wrings many bone-dry laughs out of his bumbling misadventures, which she frames with a surreal touch. (A shot late in the movie of a boat moving through green water looks like an image from a science-fiction film.) Like Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon or the novels of Thomas Pynchon, Zama uses irony to achieve mysterious (and occasionally maddening) moments of profundity. You don't always have a strong sense of where the story is going; instead, confusion becomes an essential part of the narrative's oddly enchanting, dream-like rhythm. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
5. Black Panther
Released: February 16 Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira Director: Ryan Coogler (Creed) Why it’s great: Coogler's deft balancing of a high-tech spy gadgetry, ceremonial palace intrigue, fantasy action mayhem, and subversive political critique is unparalleled in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe that Black Panther springs from. In the same way Creed, his propulsive and knowing reboot of the Rocky franchise, paid tribute to and upended boxing iconography, Coogler's take on superhero-dom is both pleasing and probing. Basically, he's got Soundcloud jokes, rhino battles, and takes on imperialism. The larger ideological conflict between the new king T'Challa (Boseman) and the American revolutionary Killmonger (Jordan) has been seen before in the pages of history books and comics, but it's never been given this type of eye-popping, brain-scrambling, heart-pounding blockbuster treatment. Where to see it right now: Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube(watch the trailer)
4. Annihilation
Released: February 23 Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson Director: Alex Garland (Ex Machina) Why it’s great: Writer Jeff VanderMeer's hallucinogenic, Kafka-like science-fiction novel proves to be fertile ground for filmmaker Alex Garland in this unsettling and surreal adaptation. Garland doesn't stick to the book's plot but he keeps the core concept: A team of women, including Portman's grief-stricken biology professor, venture into a quarantined territory of Florida known only as "Area X" to investigate a series of unexplained phenomena and disappearances. The journey quickly turns perilous and it becomes clear that group won't make it out alive. Working in the same white-knuckle register as John Carpenter's The Thing, the movie unnerves and stuns in equal measure. Refusing to provide the type of puzzle-box solutions viewers have been trained to look for, Garland leaves us with psychedelic images: grotesque animal hybrids stalking their prey, quizzical humans transforming into flowers, and shiny doubles performing interpretative dance moves. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it dares to dream in a language we can't quite comprehend. Where to see it right now: Streaming on Netflix outside the US, out on VOD/Blu-ray on May 29 (watch the trailer)
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3. First Reformed
Released: May 18 Cast: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles, Victoria Hill Director: Paul Schrader (Dog Eat Dog) Why it’s great: With this austere story of a pastor suffering a crisis of faith, writer and director Paul Schrader is back in familiar territory: His most acclaimed work as a screenwriter, 1976's Taxi Driver, was a violent, disturbing portrait of a man consumed with guilt, rage, and indignation at the state of the world. First Reformed, which finds Hawke's troubled man of the cloth Toller advising a young environmental activist and eventually becoming obsessed with his righteous cause, examines ideas Schrader has returned to over and over, but it's shot and edited in a more controlled, restrained stylistic register than his previous movies. He's using the toolkit he first studied as a critic in his book, Transcendental Style in Film, applying the approach of masters like Robert Bresson and Theodor Dreyer to contemporary anxieties, obsessions, and debates. It's a movie that seeks to, in Schrader's own words, "maximize the mystery of existence" and it accomplishes its mission with rigor and, in its final moments, shocking power. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
2. The Rider
Released: April 13 Cast: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Cat Clifford Director: Chloé Zhao (Songs That My Brothers Taught Me) Why it’s great: The gritty authenticity of The Rider, which casts real-life horse wrangler Brady Jandreau as an injured rodeo star trying to find his second act, is perfectly balanced by a yearning poetic quality that never feels cloying or manipulative. Zhao's camera captures Jandreau, his family, and his friends in moments of pain, contemplation, and relaxation, treating a trip to a treatment center or a shared joint with the same degree of curiosity. Everything matters and has weight in this study of masculinity and ego. It's a naturalistic vision of the West that's grounded in specific details, like the slow-and-steady work of breaking a horse. At the same time, Zhao gives the movie an almost old-fashioned sports movie narrative: Will Brady, a gifted and young athlete, ever ride again? If he doesn't follow his dreams, what remains? Why keep going? These are questions that gather existential power with each seemingly low-stakes scene. Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)
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