Best Films of 2018

Metacritic makes an annual list of the top films of the previous years based on top-10 lists produced by various film critics. This is an aggregation based on lists produced by 334 critics:

FILMS MENTIONED ON MOST CRITIC TOP 10 LISTS - 2018

Movie and Metascore		# 1st Place	# 2nd Place	# Other	Points
1	96 Roma	65	33	77.5	341.5
2	85 First Reformed	22	15	101	199.5
3	90 The Favourite	13	15	89.5	161
4	90 Burning	13	10	69.5	130.5
5	90 Eighth Grade	13	8	70	129
6	87 If Beale Street Could Talk	8	10	76.5	123.5
7	88 Black Panther	6	6	73	107.5
8	87 Hereditary	7	7	68	103.5
9	83 BlacKkKlansman	3	4	82.5	100.5
10	93 Shoplifters	8	8	55.5	96.5
11	88 Leave No Trace	4	10	61	95
	79 Annihilation	7	13	45.5	95
13	84 You Were Never Really Here	5	6	64.5	92.5
14	87 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	5	10	54	92
15	92 The Rider	7	6	57.5	91.5
16	88 A Star Is Born	7	9	49.5	89
17	80 Sorry to Bother You	4	4	54.5	76.5
18	90 Cold War	5	3	48.5	71
19	84 Widows	3	2	54	70
20	88 Paddington 2	6	4	38	65
21	79 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs	3	3	45.5	61.5
22	87 Can You Ever Forgive Me?	1	7	41	60
23	89 Zama	7	4	29.5	59
24	86 Mission: Impossible – Fallout	2	1	48.5	58
25	81 Mandy	5	2	35.5	56
26	77 Blindspotting	6	3	30.5	55
27	85 Support the Girls	1	4	39.5	52
28	93 Minding the Gap	1	8	31	51
	84 First Man	1	2	42	51
30	78 The Other Side of the Wind	6	3	26	50.5

I've now seen 20 of the 30 listed films. My rankings would be (roughly):

Tier I Outstanding: top award choices

Roma
BlackKKlansman
First Reformed

Tier 2 Very good: strong consideration for awards

The Favourite
If Beale Street Could Talk

The Rider

Eighth Grade
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Cold War
Shoplifters
First Man

Tier 3 Well above average, but flawed in some way

Leave No Trace
Annihilation
Burning
Blindspotting

You Were Never Really Here

A Star is Born
Sorry to Bother You
Support the Girls
Widows
Black Panther

Paddington 2
Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Minding the Gap
MI Fallout
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse


This list is not very precise as most of these films are truly very good and worth viewing. Everything through First Man reflects top-notch film-making. Those listed afterwards are also good, but most have one or more flaws that made them less interesting to me.

Despite saying I probably would not see it, my wife and I watched Paddington 2 in 2022 after seeing The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in 2021. The latter film references the former and we heard good things from our oldest daughter. It was fine. 

Tier 4 Skip it

The Other Side of the Wind 

Orson Welles's final film was not very good and perhaps should not have been released after all. A lot of the acting was terrible and I wanted it to end long before it finally did. There were some beautiful shots from the film-within-a-film, but mostly I kept thinking about how much I liked Chinatown. John Huston's presence brought that to mind. 

I'll update this list with highlighted additions after this post first appears.

Of the 10 films I've missed as of the original post, it's unlikely I'll see Paddington 2.

These are the others in alphabetical order. I'll move them up as I see them:

Hereditary
Mandy
Zama

Regular readers will note that I've dropped First Man a bit since my end-of-year ratings. On any given day, I might feel slightly differently about film rankings within the different tiers. A lot of the films my spouse and I have seen in early 2019 have superior acting performances with great storytelling. 2018 was a good year for film.

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