Ah, good old 2018. Or not-so-good old 2018. Maybe it was a good year for you, or maybe not, but even if it was just okay, it’s probably far back enough now to be a little nostalgic. Also, it was a good year for cinema at least, even if some of the Academy Awards contenders might not have made that super clear.Green Bookwas the winner, for example, and maybe that movie is sometimes over-hated, but it’s also not quite amazing. Criticisms can also be thrown in the general direction ofBohemian Rhapsody, which was a by-the-numbers biopic that didn’t do amazingly well critically, but appealed to someQueenfans while also raking in a good deal of money at the box office.
But to focus on the good stuff, rather than the decent stuff that did surprisingly well in some regards, here’s a rundown of some genuine masterpieces that came out in 2018. You could argue that not quite enough time has passed for all of these to qualify as classics just yet, but things look promising in that regard; they’ll likely be considered just that one day.There are some mass-appeal blockbusters here alongside some smaller movies that aren’t quite as well-known, but deserve to be, especially if you’re interested in seeing the absolute best of what the year in question had to offer.
6’The Wolf House'
Directed by Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña
So to kick things off with one of those promised lesser-known 2018 masterpieces, here’sThe Wolf House, which might be a bit of a hard sell because it’s honestly horrifying and genuinely close to feeling like a feature-length nightmare. But it’s all supposed to be,since it’s a stop-motion horror filmabout a young woman who’s just escaped a cult, and finds herself seeking refuge in a very strange house, isolated in the woods. And from there, it’s just a series of unsettling images, sounds, and ideas alluded to, but never explained outright.
The lack of clarity on a narrative front doesn’t harmThe Wolf House,and instead serves to make the sense ofhorror here all the more effectively scary. The presentation also goes a long way in this regard, since there’s nothing else out there that looks and feels quite likeThe Wolf House. Even calling it a stop-motion film is underselling it, since it explores what looks like a real, physical space and continually finds unusual ways to have animated things navigate that environment. It’s the sort of thing that might well send you into a panic, especially when you have to switch all the lights off at night in your own house (wolf-related or otherwise), but hey, that’s kind of the sign of a good horror movie.
The Wolf House
5’Avengers: Infinity War'
Directed by Joe Russo, Anthony Russo
2018 was a good year for the MCU.Black Panthercame out near the beginning of the year and was a massive hit (as well as an Oscar contender, come the year’s end), and thenAnt-Man and the Wasp… okay, that one wasn’t great. But it could’ve been worse. Between those cameAvengers: Infinity War, which was probably the best the MCU had to offer for the year in question, and it’s also a contender for the best movie in the MCU regardless of the year of release. It ended up serving as something of a 10th anniversary celebration for the ongoing franchise up until that point, bringing back just about every significant character from movies past and uniting them against agenuine threat to the entire universe: Thanos.
Avengers: Infinity War was the culmination of many things, and it used the movies released earlier to be the best that it possibly could.
It was a marvel (ha) of a balancing act, having so many different moving pieces, characters, and tonal shifts throughout, butAvengers: Infinity Warended up feeling shockingly coherent, as well asshocking more generally speaking, owing to that ending.It was the culmination of many things, and it used the movies released earlier to be the best that it possibly could. 2019’s follow-up,Avengers: Endgame, was also a monumental release, and a very cathartic movie, butInfinity Warmight well beeven a little better than that one.
Avengers: Infinity War
4’Mission: Impossible – Fallout'
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Of all themany moviesTom Cruisehas starred inacross a career that’s spanned more than four decades,Mission: Impossible – Falloutis one of the very best. It’sthe sixth overall movie in theMission: Impossibleseries, and is probably the best candidate to be crowned as the greatest entry in the series to date. It brings back a primary villain from the previous movie, introduces another great antagonist, and also has plenty of supporting characters returning and playing a key part (besides Jeremy Renner), meaning, in hindsight, it could’ve almost been a good finale fortheMission: Impossiblefilm series.
The subsequent films certainly had their moments, though, as well aslots of scenes of Tom Cruise running, so it’s not disappointing that it didn’t end here or anything. Either way,Mission: Impossible – Falloutfeels like the best of whatMission: Impossiblecan be, andit has stunt sequences and action scenesthat really need to be seen to be believed. And they’re also the kind of set pieces you can watch time and again without getting sick of them. This movie just has it all, as far as modern-day action blockbusters go, and it makes the creation of such a monumental film look effortless.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
3’Hereditary'
Directed by Ari Aster
It’s hard to get horror fans toagree on what horror movies are amazing, so it’s inevitable that some people will call into question the suggestion thatHereditaryis a masterpiece, or even a near-masterpiece.What is or isn’t scary is ultimately subjective, so that probably has something to do with the lack of consensus. Also,Hereditaryis kind of odd and intentionally strange/alienating, so anyone expecting a specific kind of horror movie might well be surprised and/or put off by what they find here.
But if you’ve not seen it yet, what can you expect out ofHereditary? Well, something incredibly depressing, with the sadness here arguably hitting harder than any of the horror, and the horror is still extremely impactful nonetheless.Hereditaryis a movie about tragedy, grief, and a family being torn apart in a myriad of very upsetting ways. It has one of its most shocking scenes very early on, and so from that point onwards, there’s a sense that anything could happen, and nothing is safe. The resulting film ends up being a supremely anxiety-inducing one, and so if you like horror movies that are fun or schlocky, you probably won’t get that kind of thing out of this one. It’s both a drama and a horror film, and a very influential one for the world of horror beyond 2018, both when itcomes to other A24-produced/distributed horror moviesand even some not associated with said company.
Hereditary
2’An Elephant Sitting Still'
Directed by Hu Bo
On the topic of upsetting and depressing movies, here’sAn Elephant Sitting Still, which isn’t a horror movie likeHereditary, and is instead aslow-paced, contemplative, and oddly haunting drama. There is something eerie here, even without any scenes of in-your-face horror, and it does all this without anything that comes close to feeling complex on a narrative front. Essentially,An Elephant Sitting Stillis about several people in China who all face immense difficulties in their personal lives, though they all become motivated to seek out the titular elephant, who’s said to remain still and unaware of the surrounding world.
Maybeyou could call it arthouse, but that doesn’t feel entirely right, seeing as the drama here is approachable and perhaps even relatable. It’sa movie that feels starkly realistic, and it doesn’t pull punches while also never going so far as to be melodramatic or overwrought. It’s a difficult film to try and describe, and it’s also not an easy one to recommend, given how sad, slow-paced, and long it is (seriously,it clocks in at almost four hours). Butif you have the time and patience, it’s incredibly rewarding, proving to be the sort of art film that can shape the way you see the worldand the other people living in it.
An Elephant Sitting Still
1’Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'
Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
It’s not thatSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Versehas necessarily gotten better with time, or that it is now properly appreciated, as it was great in 2018 and remains a blast to watch in 2025. And it was well-received at the time, did pretty well financially, and scored a win for Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards. Butmaybe it’s a little better than perfection, somehow? Like, already pretty much perfect upon release, but now even more perfect? Does that make sense? Maybe not, but neither does the idea of this movie being so good.
It’s an animatedSpider-Manmovie, it has a potentially alienating and unique art style, and it’s technically another origin story, but all the risks it took by being those things paid off immensely.Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verseis the right blend of bold and extremely approachable, with everything in perfect harmony, and so many different emotions navigated throughout. It’sexciting, funny, self-referential, action-packed, and moving, all in the space of less than two hours, telling a complete story while still leaving room for sequels(the first of those follow-ups,Across the Spider-Verse, also proved to be great). It’s not just a great 21st-century superhero movie, but perhaps one ofthe all-time best superhero movies, and it stands out, to this day, as the greatest film released in 2018.
