The 30 best films of 2018

We don’t know about you, but we’ve had a crack­ing time at the movies this year. From eye-catch­ing first fea­tures to time­ly doc­u­men­taries to stag­ger­ing lost mas­ter­works, there’s been no short­age of cin­e­mat­ic treats to savour over the past 12 months. As per last year’s list, we’ve care­ful­ly select­ed and ranked our 30 favourite films that were released either in the UK or US in 2018, exclud­ing a hand­ful of titles which were lumped in with the 2017 awards sea­son. Check out the full list below, and share your per­son­al top 10 with us @LWLies. We’ll see you in 2019 for more great movies.

What we said: ​“Giv­en the con­tri­bu­tion the orig­i­nal film should have had to Singapore’s inde­pen­dent film move­ment, it feels trite to com­pare the look of the Shirk­ers footage with Amer­i­can pro­duc­tions that emerged since its ear­ly ​’90s shoot. But San­di Tan open­ly brings up such com­par­isons her­self, describ­ing how Shirk­ers, as this spir­i­tu­al force, sent her dis­tress sig­nals dur­ing the years where she’d want­ed to for­get the whole thing.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“With a hefty dose of ultra­vi­o­lence in the form of mind-bog­gling set-pieces involv­ing bat­tleax­es and chain­saws, Mandy has the same styl­is­tic look and feel as Craig S Zahler’s recent gore-fests Bone Tom­a­hawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, but the­mat­i­cal­ly it’s clos­er to a mood­i­er, LSD-trip­ping cousin of David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“This dead­pan noir rounde­lay does away with the detail that doesn’t mat­ter – the skin, the tex­ture, the god­damned hair fol­li­cles – and is mil­i­tant­ly selec­tive about, per Mar­tin Scorsese’s dic­tum, what is in and what is out of the frame. It’s an impres­sion­is­tic idea of what a place should look like, and the smoothed-over, gueril­la-style ani­ma­tion tech­nique offers a per­fect mir­ror of the story’s down-and-out milieu.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Steve McQueen does what he does best, cre­at­ing a ful­ly-realised world con­tain­ing com­plex and com­pelling char­ac­ters while once again demon­strat­ing his styl­is­tic flair. Intri­cate mir­ror shots and one par­tic­u­lar­ly can­ny con­ver­sa­tion in a car are stand­out set-pieces, as McQueen presents mod­ern-day Chica­go as a city built on cor­rup­tion and exploitation.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“This is a rare bird in con­tem­po­rary block­buster cin­e­ma, a star vehi­cle that adds up to more than the sum of its high-gloss, pre­ci­sion-tooled parts. Where the fran­chise has tend­ed to lean too heav­i­ly on Cruise in the past, the sixth instal­ment feels like a gen­uine team effort.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Anni­hi­la­tion wears its fem­i­nist cre­den­tials light­ly, but it does call atten­tion to the intrin­sic link between wom­an­hood and nature through some strik­ing sym­bol­ic imagery, a dark tun­nel lead­ing to a womb-like cham­ber being the most explic­it exam­ple. Fer­til­i­ty, death and rebirth are recur­ring motifs in this cool­ly affect­ing exis­ten­tial para­ble, and shots of cells divid­ing and mutat­ing in micro­scop­ic detail allude to the way that bod­i­ly and men­tal trau­ma can deep­en and spread if left untreated.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“The film takes great plea­sure in adapt­ing the com­ic book aes­thet­ic to the screen in a way that hasn’t real­ly been attempt­ed since Ang Lee’s Hulk 15 years ago. It’s full of artis­tic flour­ish­es that pay homage to the form, with tran­si­tions that look like pages flip­ping, lib­er­al use of pan­els, writ­ten sound effects and ono­matopoeia (look out for the ​“bagel!” sound effect), yel­low cap­tion box­es, and freeze frames that echo splash pages – all of which burst into the film fol­low­ing Mile’s spider-bite.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly brought us films about lone­ly ghosts and a young boy’s rela­tion­ship with a gen­tle drag­on, David Lowery’s lat­est fea­ture proves his wide-rang­ing tal­ent as a film­mak­er, but also under­lines an impor­tant com­mon theme con­nect­ing his work: the unique pow­er and poignan­cy of sto­ry­telling. Like a bowl of chick­en noo­dle soup when you’re ill, or a loved one wait­ing with a smile at the air­port arrivals hall, The Old Man & the Gun is a balm for the soul.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Although Black Pan­ther is an ori­gin sto­ry, it neat­ly avoids get­ting bogged down in estab­lish­ing back­sto­ry, using an inven­tive open­ing cred­its sequence and just a few flash­backs to set the scene. Ryan Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole man­age to estab­lish a whole new cast in record time while mak­ing you care about them too. It func­tions per­fect­ly as a stand­alone movie, one that feels thrilling­ly unshack­led from the con­straints of the MCU.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“A bright, bold assem­blage of threads, thoughts, images and ideas are pro­posed, and a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of per­spec­tives are pre­sent­ed. Hale Coun­ty This Morn­ing, This Evening is an act of ampli­fi­ca­tion and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion. It defines the pre­cepts and plat­i­tudes of south­ern black life. Through fram­ing and edit­ing, small moments are imbued with a sense of spir­i­tu­al grace, and the entire­ly mun­dane is recal­i­brat­ed as the sublime.”

What we said: ​“Hirokazu Koree­da has found a stel­lar cast for his mot­ley crew, with unques­tion­ably strong per­for­mances through­out, but Ando is par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing as Nobuyo. A com­plex young woman old before her time, she wears a near-con­stant expres­sion of amuse­ment, always try­ing to do the best for peo­ple even if it means telling them things they don’t want to hear.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Fred­er­ick Wiseman’s bit­ing humour shines through with­out utter­ing a direct word, bury­ing pol­i­tics beneath the sur­face. How­ev­er, the lat­ter scene is more deter­mined to derive respect for peo­ple whose jobs require astound­ing patience – the calm­ness of a man inform­ing some­one that uni­corns don’t exist is almost as inspir­ing as his abil­i­ty to prove this by trans­lat­ing its ear­li­est record­ed use from Mid­dle English.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Spike Lee’s astute­ness both as a social com­men­ta­tor and a film­mak­er lies in his abil­i­ty to enter­tain while mak­ing you think. In BlacK­kKlans­man, he pays homage to var­i­ous blax­ploita­tion-era touch­stones as a means of cel­e­brat­ing black art and cul­ture, specif­i­cal­ly in the con­text of its emer­gence and evo­lu­tion as a form of resis­tance. He also states in no uncer­tain terms that Amer­i­ca has always been in the busi­ness of sell­ing hate.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“The pris­tine Bul­gar­i­an coun­try­side is tinged with melan­choly as the work­ers start alter­ing the course of the riv­er, just as the vir­gin soil of clas­sic west­erns appears full of bro­ken promis­es today since mod­erni­sa­tion even­tu­al­ly killed off the cow­boy way and the Amer­i­can Dream seems like noth­ing more than that – a dream.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“In its design, Megasa­ki itself inhab­its both past and future – it is an auda­cious study in Japan­ese futur­ism, and it’s easy to spot the influ­ence of Hayao Miyaza­ki and Aki­ra Kuro­sawa in the elab­o­rate graph­ic ani­ma­tion sequences and the use of a soul­ful gui­tar melody bor­rowed from the latter’s 1948 noir Drunk­en Angel. Rather than feel­ing deriv­a­tive, Isle of Dogs feels like an impas­sioned and sin­cere response to the work of these mas­ter filmmakers”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Claire Denis isn’t sim­ply mak­ing a movie about the dif­fi­cul­ties – both exter­nal­ly imposed and dredged up from with­in in response – for women on or past the thresh­old of mid­dle age to find, reclaim, or ful­ly dis­avow ​“true love”, which is itself a rich and orig­i­nal theme. She sub­jects her hero­ine (and, some might sug­gest, pro­ject­ed alter ego) to an analy­sis of how and why she makes her choices.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Part rela­tion­ship psy­chodra­ma, part ghost sto­ry, part explo­ration of inher­it­ed mad­ness, Hered­i­tary is a film which refus­es to par­lay into a set def­i­n­i­tion of hor­ror, which is its twist­ing, slip­pery strength. It begs to be rewatched, recon­sumed and res­ur­rect­ed so that some part of its spi­ralling weird­ness might become more familiar.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“What the Coens have cap­tured here is not just a series of colour­ful snap­shots of their country’s past, but a per­fect evo­ca­tion of its people’s dreams and iden­ti­ty, of the shared mind­set that was instilled dur­ing those chal­leng­ing yet ulti­mate­ly pros­per­ous post-Civ­il War years. This is a film about America.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“A sto­ry about des­per­a­tion, humil­i­a­tion and the strange world of celebri­ty cor­re­spon­dence fraud, Marielle Heller’s film feels like a depar­ture from her debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl, but is fur­ther evi­dence that she is the real deal. With a not-quite sepia tone to her vision of ear­ly ​’90s New York, Heller cre­ates a lone­ly world for her char­ac­ters to inhabit.”

Read our first-look review

What we said: ​“To say this was worth the wait is the under­state­ment of the cen­tu­ry. Orson Welles made this sinewy, pul­veris­ing provo­ca­tion with the inten­tion of renew­ing and rein­vig­o­rat­ing the medi­um of cin­e­ma. To think what would’ve hap­pened had this been com­plet­ed in its day, we might not even be stand­ing here. It feels like a gild­ed gate­way to new cre­ative pas­tures, exist­ing only due to finan­cial under­writ­ing from Net­flix and a mag­i­cal sal­vage job.”

What we said: ​“Touch­es of ​’90s nos­tal­gia raise a smile but nev­er feel campy or over-the-top. Flan­nel shirts, a Clinton/​Gore bumper stick­er, Cameron attempt­ing to swipe a Breed­ers cas­sette – these details place the film in a spe­cif­ic peri­od, but they don’t date it. Desiree Akha­van paints a vivid por­trait of life as a gay per­son in a post-Stonewall world, before LGBT rights came into their own and the inter­net pro­vid­ed found fam­i­lies for queer peo­ple everywhere.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Burn­ing is the full pack­age, tan­gling with old school genre while also rip­pling with lit­er­ary por­tent and offer­ing a stark pic­ture of eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty in South Korea. When boiled down, the film feels like an indict­ment of class stric­ture, and even Haemi’s choice of lover seems to dou­ble as a bina­ry deci­sion for cosy squalor or fast-tracked upward mobility.”

Read our first-look review

What we said: ​“With a lean run­time of 85 min­utes, Lynne Ram­say has shaved all pos­si­ble fat from the bone, leav­ing behind only the raw, sinewy morsels. A lin­ger­ing moment of soft­ness amid the chaos shows Joe fuss­ing over his friend’s cat, pro­vid­ing a glimpse of some­thing gen­tle peek­ing out from behind the brute force, but the moment is fleeting.”

Read the full review

What we said: “‘There is more than one real­i­ty,’ exclaims a suc­cess­ful local writer in the film’s key exchange, one of the many cir­cuitous con­ver­sa­tions that serve as The Wild Pear Tree’s struc­tur­al back­bone. Nuri Bilge Cey­lan approach­es these ide­o­log­i­cal con­fronta­tions with an ele­gant prag­ma­tism, before frac­tur­ing them with poet­ic grace notes.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Beale Street looks beau­ti­ful too, from strong pro­file shots which frame con­ver­sa­tions, to the cos­tume design (Tish sports a beau­ti­ful pale yel­low cape for much of the film). Bar­ry Jenk­ins demon­strates his under­stand­ing of time and place, but also the roman­tic nature of mem­o­ry – the sun always seems to shine a lit­tle brighter when Tish recalls her time with Fonny.”

Read our first-look review

What we said: ​“The title of Debra Granik’s stun­ning new film res­onates in a num­ber dis­tinct ways. Ini­tial­ly it seems as if it’s qui­et­ly con­cerned with the idea of exist­ing off the grid, cul­ti­vat­ing a life untouched by com­mer­cial­ism, tech­nol­o­gy and the cap­i­tal­ist scourge which pro­motes waste­ful­ness through in-built obso­les­cence. As its des­per­ate­ly sad sto­ry devel­ops, that title takes on a more mys­te­ri­ous hue.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“There’s some­thing extreme­ly per­son­al about Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. So much so, the expe­ri­ence of watch­ing it feels like spy­ing on a con­fes­sion­al booth as Schrad­er – who was so near­ly a man of the cloth him­self – talks to God. The vet­er­an film­mak­er has been a bit off his game in recent years, but in return­ing to the spir­i­tu­al ter­ri­to­ry which has fas­ci­nat­ed him as a writer and film schol­ar for decades, he’s cre­at­ed some­thing tru­ly special.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“The lat­est and pos­si­bly great­est film from Denmark’s mer­ry prankster is a hor­ror con­fes­sion­al rid­dled with saucy decep­tions and grandiose myth-mak­ing. This absurd­ly macabre tale is deliv­ered from the van­tage of the analyst’s couch, where actions are loaded with sym­bols, sym­bols are loaded with mean­ing, and mean­ing is then wiped out with a few care­ful­ly deliv­ered bon mots. It is a com­pendi­um of grim atroc­i­ties which puts faith in the view­er to appre­ci­ate both irony and allegory.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“To watch Alfon­so Cuarón’s Roma is to see a man scour­ing the archives of his mind. This is film as a voy­age of dis­cov­ery. Each image feels like the result of synaps­es fir­ing, of deep research, of con­ver­sa­tions and con­nec­tions and naked self-expres­sion. In past tri­umphs like Grav­i­ty, Chil­dren of Men or even Har­ry Pot­ter and the Pris­on­er of Azk­a­ban, Cuarón has been hap­py to leave the gor­geous smudges of his fin­ger­prints on the work. Here, he does every­thing in his pow­er to retain a pris­tine purity.”

Read the full review

What we said: ​“Even though the film is set cen­turies ago, there’s some­thing futur­is­tic, maybe even post-apoc­a­lyp­tic, about the fraz­zled, com­i­cal­ly unfair world that Lucre­cia Mar­tel man­u­fac­tures. Zama is an unex­cep­tion­al man, a drone in many respects. Yet Mar­tel is supreme­ly empa­thet­ic in her depic­tion of this per­son who is tempt­ed by self­ish impulse but reject­ed by the world around him.”

Read the full review

Now share your per­son­al Top 10 with us @LWLies