Here’s some good news: 2018 is a fantastic year for movies. So good in fact that a midyear Top 10 just wouldn’t cut it. To help you catch up on the best theatrical releases of the past six months, we’ve compiled an even bigger list than that, with selections for a variety of tastes and audiences of all ages.
In ascending order, here are the 15 best films released between January 1 and June 30, 2018.
2 Honorable Mentions: the gripping romantic drama Disobedience, and the stylish, unexpected and just plain fun R-rated comedy Game Night, both of which happen to feature stellar work from Rachel McAdams.
15. Incredibles 2
Brad Bird is a wizard, and we’re lucky to have him. His irreverent-yet-sunny spirit shines brighter than ever in the Parr family’s long-awaited second outing. Of course, this thing obliterated its share of summer box office records: thanks to Bird’s singular way with movement, Incredibles 2 is more heart-stoppingly exciting than most action movies around, and it’s funnier than nearly any comedy you’ll see this year. It’s understating it to say this movie has something to offer audiences of all ages; Incredibles 2 provides anyone who watches it with a prolonged feeling of giddy bliss. Maybe one day Bird will become the first director in animation to get an Oscar nod.
Related: The 10 Most Incredible Reasons We Love the Parr Family
14. Tully
The third collaboration of director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody [their second with star Charlize Theron after Young Adult], Tully was marketed as a feel-good comedy about settling into the challenges of motherhood. It isn’t that, really. Cody’s inspired script about a 26-year-old nanny (Mackenzie Davis) who seems to appear out of thin air to make life easier for an overloaded mom (Theron) is committed to a lack of easy sentimentality, and it has a surprise or two up its sleeve. Tully is a provocative and unflinching look at postpartum depression, and the big laughs all come from an honest place. It really makes us want more from this risk-taking creative team.
Related: 10 of the Best Movies Ever Made About Mental Health
13. Black Panther
It took decades for Marvel’s King of Wakanda to finally appear on the big screen, and that ever-impressive MCU machine couldn’t have delivered Black Panther at a more perfect time. T’Challa isn’t the most interesting character in his own movie (he’s upstaged by Michael B. Jordan‘s conflicted, compelling villain Killmonger), and for that reason Black Panther doesn’t reach the emotional highs of Wonder Woman at its best. Still, Black Panther is a cut above most films in the genre even if it never fully transcends. It is a cultural landmark, and it’s super difficult to remember the last time a blockbuster of this scale had such a striking, singular sense of visual identity. Oscars attention in technical categories–especially production design–would be highly warranted.
12. Paddington 2
As of this writing, Paddington 2 is technically the most critically acclaimed movie in the history of the universe according to Rotten Tomatoes. Paul King‘s follow-up to the 2014 global hit sees the marmalade-obsessed bear tangled up in a crime caper, and it really is completely great. Paddington is aimed at children, and it’s so smart and skillfully made it never once has to wink or throw in an innuendo to keep grown-ups engaged. Like Babe, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and other classics, Paddington 2 knows children are smarter than lesser kids’ movies give them credit for and just tells a proper story. King also delivers a potent, timely message about kindness that’s perfectly measured.
Hugh Grant‘s gleefully uninhibited turn as a self-obsessed actor is something you didn’t know you needed in life until now, and as an added bonus the climactic train chase of Paddington 2 gives Snowpiercer a run for its money in terms of white-knuckle thrills. What splendid entertainment.
11. Love, Simon
Don’t let the comfort food packaging fool you too much; this quietly radical, sweet, naturally moving and tremendously performed dramedy is, in its way, an all-timer. Seventeen-year-old Simon Spier (Nick Robinson)’s coming-out story generated a rare A+ CinemaScore from test audiences, and word of mouth has been pretty much euphoric. Coming out is never easy, and Greg Berlanti‘s accessible, often hilarious movie about it is cherished.
10. Hereditary
Ari Aster‘s slow-burn freakout about a family disintegrating in the wake of an unspeakable loss is the most savagely, mercilessly terrifying [not to mention utterly hopeless and pitch-black] English-language supernatural thriller in years. It doesn’t have the stunning psychological depth of The Babadook and it’s not as suspenseful as The Witch, but this is nevertheless a key addition to this golden age of horror we’re living in. Oscar talk has begun, and should continue, for Toni Collette. Hers is a layered, mighty and sometimes shockingly hilarious performance that ranks among the best ever in the genre.
Related: Toni Collette Compares Hereditary to In Her Shoes
9. The Death of Stalin
Steve Buscemi has never been nominated for an Oscar. Just let that sink in for a moment. Hopefully that will change in response to his titanic turn as Nikita Khrushchev in Veep creator Armando Iannucci‘s blood-soaked ensemble farce about the Soviet power struggle in the wake of the titular dictator’s demise. The Death of Stalin isn’t as laugh-til-you’re-exhausted funny throughout as the best episodes of Veep, but it’s hugely satisfying, blistering and substantial big screen entertainment–and a cast like this is the reason the Best Ensemble category at the S.A.G. Awards exists.
8. Lean on Pete
In a cinematic landscape full of ginormous tentpoles, the defiantly low-key, glacially-paced style of Andrew Haigh is such a pleasure to soak in. The first American Western by a foreign director on this list [there are two], this adaptation of Willy Vlautin‘s novel features a breakout turn by Charlie Plummer as an abandoned teen boy who embarks on a perilous trek from Oregon to Wyoming with an abused quarter horse. Even if it’s unexpectedly chilly and harsh, Lean on Pete is another big win along the filmmaker’s outstanding track record.
Review: Lean on Pete is a Spellbinding Study of Trauma
7. Annihilation
Alex Garland‘s brazenly grim and uncommercial science fiction horror exploration of self-destruction might be the year’s greatest puzzle film—darker, riskier and ultimately more satisfying film than his Oscar-winning Ex Machina. The thriller about five spiritually broken female experts exploring a mysterious sector immune to the laws of nature is worthy of the repeat viewings it demands–in fact, it just gets better as it lingers in the mind. If anything, the characters are perhaps a bit underwritten. Fortunately, our heroine is played by Natalie Portman, who is–as always– ust pure dynamite, no stranger to elevating material.
6. Leave No Trace
Debra Granik‘s first narrative feature since Winter’s Bone shot Jennifer Lawrence into the stratosphere, Leave No Trace showcases extraordinary, unshowy awards-worthy work from Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as a father and daughter uprooted from a simple existence off-the-grid in the forests of Oregon.
This is one of the year’s most emotionally turbulent films, yet it carries a PG rating. That’s a testament to Granik’s storytelling abilities. Leave No Trace offers provocative, respectful and vital insights about contemporary America. It sneaks up on you, and these characters stay with you.
5. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Even Fred Rogers’ most dedicated fans might be caught off guard by the searing emotional kick of Morgan Neville‘s masterful, judiciously edited documentary about the icon’s mission of goodness. When it’s over, you’re left shaken, thinking about all the connections you’ve made on this journey we call life, and how much they mean to you. That’s exactly what Rogers would have wanted.
Related: Fred Rogers’ Legacy of Goodness Comes to Life in Won’t You Be My Neighbor
4. A Quiet Place
It’s such a rare and special thing when a horror movie is so effective and suspenseful it scares us out of our wits, pins us to our seats and alters our heart rates. Just as remarkable is a family drama that touches the heart in an honest way without schmaltz or manipulation. John Krasinski‘s elegantly constructed and flawlessly acted A Quiet Place is all of this, and that’s why this thing was a Hollywood classic from the moment it hit screens.
The near-silent picture about a family of four in hiding after the world has been invaded by gigantic, [ingeniously designed and totally frightening] alien spiders simply must receive attention from the Oscars in the categories of sound mixing and editing. This is groundbreaking stuff, on the same level of the sound work in last year’s Baby Driver.
This is [PG-13, gore-free] popcorn horror for a general audience done to absolute perfection. But it’s better than that. It’s richer, smarter and stranger than that.
Related: 5 Reasons Audiences and Critics Love A Quiet Place
3. First Reformed
Here is a thriller so crackling, so expert, made with such complete control of the medium it feels like the screen might burst into flames at any moment. Ethan Hawke perhaps gives his most astonishing performance to date as a pastor having a snowballing crisis of faith in Paul Schrader‘s glorious return to form. The nerve-shredding climax, down to a keenly selected song in the background, echoes the immortal spirit of Night of the Hunter. And that jaw-hit-the-floor what just happened?! ending is pretty much everything you could want out of a film and more.
Schrader’s oeuvre is sprinkled with masterworks, and First Reformed might go down as his defining work. It really is that good.
2. You Were Never Really Here
And here is one of the finest, most unusual crime movies you will ever watch. Let’s be honest: one of the main draws of this genre has always been the violence. Well, here the incomparable gifts of writer/director Lynne Ramsay and Joaquin Phoenix combine to show us that what’s going on in someone’s head–the violence of the human mind–can be even more electrifyingly cinematic. Ramsay takes Jonathan Ames‘ hardboiled novel about a hitman with his own code of ethics as a jumping-off point, completely altering the third act to suit her deeply introspective approach.
Review: You Were Never Really Here Is One Of The Best Crime Movies You Will Ever See
1. The Rider
A work as lyrical and profound as Moonlight, Chloé Zhao‘s The Rider also calls to mind last year’s best film, The Florida Project, because it’s a vividly cinematic study of characters too often overlooked by Hollywood.
While making her previous feature in South Dakota, Zhao met Brady Jandreau, a gifted horse trainer and rodeo star who suffered a near-fatal head injury, ending his competition days forever. The Rider weaves fact and fiction into an unforgettable statement about worth and purpose, dreams and reality. It’s a bottomless trove of emotional riches–it could even change the way you look at the world.
The Rider is the perfect movie for us right now, deeply and honorably rooted in contemporary Americana–yet timeless, and universal. It’s hard to imagine there will be a better film this year.
Do you agree with our list of the Top 15 Movies of 2018 So Far? Think we missed one? Let us know in the comments!
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