2018 in Films

Format adapted from Charles François, who I still hope will one day rediscover his cinephilia and start hanging out with myself and the Skandies crew again. It’s been ten years since he last used it and I hereby declare it in the public domain.

Combine the first two columns for a list of films released in 2018, and the last two columns for films seen in 2018. Ordering is preferential when ratings are identical.

Seen Previously
Movies I saw in 2017 {or before} that were released in the U.S. in 2018. Films not yet released but currently scheduled for this year are indicated by a (→).
Seen in 2018
Movies I saw shortly before, during or after their 2018 U.S. run. Asterisks (*) indicate films seen prior to their actual release. TV-only "runs" (arbitrarily deemed eligible) get a (†).
To Be Released
Movies I saw in 2018 which are still awaiting a U.S. release. Those known to have lined up distribution are indicated by a (→). Production {year} is listed if film is more than two years old.

A For All Time

A- Event

B+/A- Near Great

B+ Must See

*Burning (Lee) 77
In My Room (Köhler) 76
Under the Silver Lake (Mitchell) 76
*Support the Girls (Bujalski) 74
The Grand Bizarre (Mack) 74
The Last Race (Dweck) 73
Private Life (Jenkins) 73

B/B+ Warmly Recommended

Game Night (Daley, Goldstein) 72
Sunset (Nemes) 71
Thoroughbreds (Finley) 71
Sorry to Bother You (Riley) 70
*Cold War (Pawlikowski) 70
Lean On Pete (Haigh) 70
*24 Frames (Kiarostami) 69
Blaze (Hawke) 69
PROTOTYPE (Williams) 69
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? (Wilkerson) 69

B Recommended

Too Late to Die Young (Sotomayor) 68
*Leave No Trace (Granik) 68
Let the Corpses Tan (Cattet, Forzani) 68
Who We Are Now (Newton) 68
Night Comes On (Spiro) 67
The Rider (Zhao) 67
Black Panther (Coogler) 67
Her Smell (Perry) 67
Claire's Camera (Hong) 67
Life and Nothing More (Méndez Esparza) 66
Hotel by the River (Hong) 66
*The Favourite (Lanthimos) 66
Seder-Masochism (Paley) 66
*Beirut (Anderson) 66
*Roma (Cuarón) 65
*Sadie (Griffiths) 65
BlacKkKlansman (Lee) 65
*Three Identical Strangers (Wardle) 65
Amateurs (Pichler) 64
The Green Fog (Maddin, Johnsons) 64
Anna's War (Fedorchenko) 64
*Shoplifters (Kore-eda) 64

B-/B Recommended with Mild Reservations

*Good Manners (Rojas, Dutra) 63
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coens) 63
This Is Our Land (Belvaux) 63
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (Ross) 63
American Dharma (Morris) 63
The Death of Stalin (Iannucci) 63
Annihilation (Garland) 62
Those Who Are Fine (Schäublin) 62
Dragged Across Concrete (Zahler) 62
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (Loveridge) 62
In Fabric (Strickland) 61
*Where Is Kyra? (Dosunmu) 61
*Eighth Grade (Burnham) 61
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Heller) 61
Werewolf (McKenzie) 60
Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Dumont) 60
Dim the Fluorescents (Warth) 60
*The House That Jack Built (Von Trier) 60
*306 Hollywood (Bogaríns) 60

B- Recommended with Strong Reservations

*The Guilty (Möller) 59
The Factory (Bykov) 59
Mission: Impossible—Fallout (McQuarrie) 59
Dark River (Barnard) 59
The Endless (Benson, Moorhead) 59
First Reformed (Schrader) 58
*Lover for a Day (Garrel) 58
Pendular (Murat) 58
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Persichetti, Ramsey, Rothman) 58
Peterloo (Leigh) 58
Isle of Dogs (Anderson) 58
Rojo (Naishtat) 57
Avengers | Infinity War (Russos) 57
*Overlord (Avery) 57
*Bisbee '17 (Greene) 57
A Quiet Place (Krasinski) 57
Incredibles 2 (Bird) 57
*If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins) 56
Loro (Sorrentino) 56
*Galveston (Laurent) 56
Outside In (Shelton) 56
*Summer 1993 (Simón) 56
*Mary and the Witch's Flower (Yonebayashi) 56
Ant-Man and The Wasp (Reed) 56
Dogman (Garrone) 55
Hereditary (Aster) 55
Piercing (Pesce) 55
Greta (Jordan) 55
The Bleeding Edge (Dick) 55
*Journey's End (Dibb) 55

C+/B- On the Fence, Leaning Forward

Western (Grisebach) 54
The Commuter (Collet-Serra) 54
Ray & Liz (Billingham) 54
Asako I & II (Hamaguchi) 54
Your Face (Tsai) 54
Hidden Man (Jiang) 54
*Ray Meets Helen (Rudolph) 53
Ash Is Purest White (Jia) 53
*American Animals (Layton) 53
Wildlife (Dano) 53
3 Faces (Panahi) 53
Unsane (Soderbergh) 53
Asher (Caton-Jones) 52
The Captain (Schwentke) 52
*The Seagull (Mayer) 52
Golden Exits (Perry) 52
Donbass (Loznitsa) 52
Paddington 2 (King) 52
Ready Player One (Spielberg) 52
*Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (Van Sant) 52
Transit (Petzold) 51
Zama (Martel) 51
*Hearts Beat Loud (Haley) 51
Widows (McQueen) 51
Non-Fiction (Assayas) 51
A Family Tour (Ying) 51
Souvenir (Defurne) 51

C+ Take It or Leave It

Tea With the Dames (Michell) 50
Pass Over (Lee) 50
*White Boy Rick (Demange) 50
*In Between (Hamoud) 50
A Private War (Heineman) 50
The Prayer (Kahn) 50
A Faithful Man (Garrel) 50
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (Neville) 50
Halloween (Green) 49
Gemini (Katz) 49
Tully (Reitman) 49
Everybody Knows (Farhadi) 49
Shock Waves—Diary of My Mind (Meier) 49
*Happy as Lazzaro (Rohrwacher) 48
Minding the Gap (Liu) 48
Mammal (Daly) 48
The Wild Pear Tree (Ceylan) 48
Let the Sunshine In (Denis) 48
A Star Is Born (Cooper) 47
*You Were Never Really Here (Ramsay) 47
Climax (Noé) 47
*Searching for Ingmar Bergman (Von Trotta) 47
*Beast (Pearce) 47
*Assassination Nation (Levinson) 46
*Bad Samaritan (Devlin) 46
*Stan & Ollie (Baird) 46

C/C+ On the Fence, Leaning Backward

*The Front Runner (Reitman) 45
The Workshop (Cantet) 45
*Monrovia, Indiana (Wiseman) 45
*Rodin (Doillon) 45
*Pope Francis—A Man of His Word (Wenders) 44
The Trial (Loznitsa) 44
Girls of the Sun (Husson) 44
Nelly (Émond) 44
*Juliet, Naked (Peretz) 43
*Ghost Stories (Dyson, Nyman) 43
The Command (Vinterberg) 43
*Loving Pablo (León de Aranoa) 43
Our Time (Reygadas) 42
Jupiter's Moon (Mundruczó) 42
*Mandy (Cosmatos) 42
*A Prayer Before Dawn (Sauvaire) 42

C Pass

Mom & Dad (Brian Taylor) 41
*Before We Vanish (Kurosawa) 41
Meeting Gorbachev (Herzog, Singer) 41
*What Will People Say (Haq) 41
First Man (Chazelle) 41
High Life (Denis) 40
Godard Mon Amour (Hazanavicius) 40
*The Third Murder (Kore-eda) 40
Knife + Heart (Gonzalez) 40
*Operation Finale (Weitz) 39
Suspiria (Guadagnino) 39
*Please Stand By (Lewin) 39
Victory Day (Loznitsa) 39
*At Eternity's Gate (Schnabel) 38
*Paul, Apostle of Christ (Hyatt) 38
*The Guardians (Beauvois) 38
The Day After (Hong) 37
Graves Without a Name (Panh) 37
*Capernaum (Labaki) 37

C- Ugh

The Image Book (Godard) 36
The Party (Potter) 36
Retrospekt (Rots) 35
*The Happy Prince (Everett) 35
Green Book (Farrelly) 34
*Ismaël's Ghosts (Desplechin) 34
The Death & Life of John F. Donovan (Dolan) 33
Mrs. Hyde (Bozon) 33
The Outsider (Zandvliet) 33
Grass (Hong) 32
*Double Lover (Ozon) 32
The Banishment (Zvyagintsev) {2007} 31
The Dead Man and Being Happy (Rebollo) {2012} 31
Clara's Ghost (Elliott) 29

D+ Double-Ugh

Maya (Hansen-Løve) 26
*Gotti (Connolly) 25

D Bomb

Caniba (Paravel, Castaing-Taylor) 8

F Burn the Negative

Walk-outs Channel Surfing

A Ciambra (Carpignano)
Angels Wear White (Qu)
Araby (Uchôa, Dumans)
Ava (Foroughi)
Azougue Nazaré (Melo)
Bilal's Stand {2010} (Sharrief)
Black Mother (Allah)
Blindspotting (López Estrada)
Blood {2013} (Rudnitskaya)
Bodied (Kahn)
Border (Abbasi)
A Bread Factory (Wang)
The Cakemaker (Graizer)
Chris the Swiss (Kofmel)
The Citizen (Vranik)
Cocote (Carlo de los Santos Arias)
Complicity (Chikaura)
Consequences (Stante)
Crazy Rich Asians (Chu)
Custody (Legrand)
The Destiny of Lesser Animals {2011} (Albright)
Diamantino (Abrantes, Schmidt)
Djon África (Reis, Miller Guerra)
Drift (Wittmann)
Fugue (Smoczynska)
Gabriel and the Mountain (Barbosa)
The Giant (Nyholm)
Good Luck (Russell)
*The Great Buddha+ (Huang)
Have a Nice Day (Liu)
I Am Not a Witch (Nyoni)
In the Last Days of the City (Said)
The Last Family (Matuszynski)
The Load (Glavonic)
Love After Love (Harbaugh)
Love, Simon (Berlanti)
Madeline's Madeline (Decker)
Makala (Gras)
The Man Who Feels No Pain (Bala)
Manto (Das)
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (Surya)
*Milla (Massadian)
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Akhavan)
Mountain {2015} (Kayam)
My Favorite Fabric (Jiji)
*Narcissister Organ Player (Narcissister)
1985 (Tan)
*Notes on an Appearance (D'Ambrose)
Oh Lucy! (Hirayanagi)
*On Her Shoulders (Bombach)
1% (McCallum)
Our House (Kiyohara)
Our New President (Pozdorovkin)
*The Price of Everything (Kahn)
Rafiki (Kahiu)
*RBG (West, Cohen)
Revenge (Fargeat)
Rogers Park (Henry)
Scaffolding (Yair)
Scary Mother (Urushadze)
Shirkers (Tan)
Sir (Gera)
A Skin So Soft (Côté)
Stealth {2006} (Baier)
The Stone Speakers (Drljaca)
Summer Survivors (Kavtaradze)
*Sweet Country (Thornton)
The Tale (Fox)
The Task (Ledare)
The Trouble With You (Salvadori)
A Violent Life (De Peretti)
Vox Lux (Corbet)
We the Animals (Zagar)
Woman at War (Erlingsson)
Yardie (Elba)

Incomplete Mishap/Bad Timing