The best movies of 2018 (so far)

[Nergal]

 

What are the best movies of 2018? Everyone asks in December, but we'd rather tell you them now with a rolling ranking, updated on the regular, featuring the best of the best movies that we 100% recommend. This is not a top 10 list. This is all the best movies of 2018. No mixed bags, interesting trainwrecks, or blockbusters that boast big box-office tallies. Just the true greats -- movies big, small, and from around the world.

Your time is precious, and so is your money, but you need to see these 2018 movies. (And don't forget to check out The Best Movies of 2017 either.)

6. Mute

Released: February 23
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Seyneb Saleh
Director: Duncan Jones (Moon)

Why it’s great: Jones spent 16 years mulling over this science-fiction thriller, and the result is a meandering noir that fails as a mystery (though it tries), but soars as an emporium of graphic futurism, character quirk, and bizarre plot deviation. It's the best coffee table book you can watch on Netflix. Leo (Skarsgård), an Amish bartender who lost his trachea in a boating accident, but refuses on religious grounds to receive the implant that could revive his voice, is hunting down "Cactus" Bill (Rudd), an ex-military surgeon and single dad looking to get the hell out of Blade Runner-y Berlin, who may have kidnapped his girlfriend with the help of Duck (Theroux) is lackey with pedophilia problems. That's a lot of movie. Jones ducks in and out of his oddball world, full of technological advancement and cultural regression, and the rush comes with each flip of the comic book page. The truth is Mute is a movie with nothing to say, except "look" -- and it works.

Where to see it right now: Stream on Netflix

5. The Road Movie

Released: February 2
Director: Dmitrii Kalashnikov

Why it’s great: Nearly every Russian that owns a car owns a dashboard camera due to the country's corrupt law enforcement and laws that delegitimize first-hand accounts of accidents. Of course, there's a silver lining to dash-cam lifestyle: an influx in shocking, stupid, and surreal videos that have may their way to YouTube. These clips -- high-speed chases, violent disputes, flipping flatbed trucks, cars high-tailing it through natural disasters, comets blasting through the sky -- form the basis of Dmitrii Kalashnikov's exhilarating, found-footage documentary, which stitches dash-cam footage together in a way that revels in the potential terrors that await an everyday commute and paints a specific portrait of Russian life behind the wheel.

Where to see it right now: In theaters

4. Mary and the Witch's Flower

Released: January 18
Cast: Ruby Barnhill, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi (When Marnie Was There)

Why it’s great: The announcement of famed animator Hayao Miyazaki's retirement in 2013 sent tremors through the Japanese animation industry -- could his Studio Ghibli, "the Disney of the East," and the medium as a whole go on without him? Ghibli producer Yoshiaki Nishimura didn't wait to learn the answer, breaking out with several animators to form Studio Ponoc. Luckily the company's first feature, based on The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart, packs all the imagination, color, and speed of Miyazaki's previous work, but with a YA spin. The gawky teenage experience is fully realized with Mary, who stumbles into a witching college only to be mistaken for "the chosen one." Fluffier than Spirited Away or The Wind Rises, Mary and the Witch Flower still continues Ghibli's tradition of vibrant fantasy storytelling paired with honest explorations of youth, English dub be damned.

Where to see it right now: In theaters

3. Black Panther

Released: February 16
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira
Director: Ryan Coogler (Creed)

Why it’s great: We live in a depressing world where an Afrofuturistic James Bond spy movie that crescendos to a Lord of the Rings-like battle between man and armored rhinoceroses would not get an automatic $150 million greenlight from one of the major movie studios. No, the only way that movie's getting made is if it's the 18th installment of a comic-book mega-franchise. Black Panther is part of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe," but it's the most advantageous of the bunch, sidelining Easter eggs and Avengers setup for the ravishing, robust culture of the hidden African nation of Wakanda. The movie strings together car chases, spear duels, laser shootouts, and encounters with the aforementioned rhinos, and Ryan Coogler -- backed by a brimming soundtrack of drums, chants, and Kendrick Lamar -- pulls them off. But the joy of Black Panther is the friction between history and progression, and a consequentialist logic that gives weight to the standoff against king T'Challa (Boseman) and the don't-give-a-fuck Killmonger (Jordan). Lupita Nyong'o and Danai Gurira's as Black Panther's warrior operatives are like cherries atop the sundae, if the sundae had two scoop-sized cherries in the bowl. Did we mention this movie is a blast?

Where to see it right now: In theaters

2. Western

Released: February 16
Cast: Meinhard Neumann, Reinhardt Wetrek, Syuleyman Alilov Letifov, Veneta Frangova
Director: Valeska Grisebach (Longing)

Why it’s great: You will not find cowboys, Indians, bandits, heroes, scuffles, shootouts, or 10-gallon hats in this bluntly titled drama, yet the pillars of the Old West prop up the somber journey of man caught between two pastoral worlds. Meinhard (Meinhard Neumann), a weathered man-for-hire, bridges the gap between his people, a group of xenophobic German construction workers building a hydroelectric plant along a Bulgarian river, and the locals that regard them as intruders thanks to years of lingering, post-war animosity. With a clear sense of the genre, Grisebach finds her John Ford backdrops in the dawn-lit hills of Bulgaria, her Clint Eastwood in the crags of Meinhard's stoic face, a classic conflict in territorial brutality, and horse riding in... horse riding. Yes, Western is a Western, but Grisebach's Euro lens strips down the fanfare to tell a raw story about the common man.

Where to see it right now: In theaters

1. Annihilation

Released: February 23
Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson
Director: Alex Garland (Ex Machina)

Why it’s great: A few days -- or has it been weeks? -- into an explorative hike across "Area X," an area of Florida coastal land encased in an iridescent, seemingly extraterrestrial phenomenon known as The Shimmer, Dr. Ventress (Leigh) admits to her team of fellow scientists that it isn't exactly a suicide mission. "Almost none of us commit suicide," she says. "And almost all of us self-destruct." Among the ill-fated crew is Lena (Portman), through whose eyes we witness the DNA-altering effects of The Shimmer, and whose bones we feel the emotional heft required for anyone to submit themselves to its wilderness. Stoic yet radiant, Alex Garland adapts Jeff VanderMeer's popular novel as zoological horror-adventure wound around a Möbius strip and fires off questions about humanity with little interest in scientific answers. Lena's husband disappeared into the same unknown... and then returned, changed. Why? The wonders of the world are at Garland's disposal, as well as Portman's natural intensity, as he navigates this surreal, scary, and surprisingly sonic story, one of the great science-fiction films of the decade.

Where to see it right now: In theaters, but streaming on Netflix outside the US starting March 12