The Best Movies of 2018, According to GQ Staff

As 2018 comes to a close, so too does one of the more remarkable 12-month windows in the history of film. That's not just hyperbole for the sake of an end-of-year list: the market is changing faster than ever, with Netflix increasing its stranglehold on the industry not just with cheap, flashy sci-fis, but also, now, hardcore awards contenders like Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, the Coen Brothers’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and Sandi Tan’s documentary masterpiece Shirkers.

It was also a year of audacious filmmaking debuts. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei’s Cam, and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You are just a few of the titles that illustrate what an exciting time it is for both people who watch movies and people who want to make them, no matter how esoteric or ambitious their voices may be. Simply put, it’s been a great year for film. Below are the GQ team's favorites of the bunch.

Black Panther

Marvel Studios movies are now an institution, but it wasn't until now, ten years after Iron Man, that the leaders in superhero cinema delivered something that could be labeled, without hyperbole, iconic: Black Panther. Its high-profile status as a blockbuster film that centered black talent in front of and behind the camera in a Hollywood landscape in which both things are rarities burdened it with expectation. Its crowd-pleasing, thoughtful execution—introducing us to the vibrant kingdom of Wakanda, giving us a tremendously charismatic villain in Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger, and genuinely quotable moments—delivered on that expectation and made it look easy. Should the Marvel Cinematic Universe crumble to dust tomorrow, Black Panther would still endure.—Joshua Rivera, GQ contributor

100% Fresh

There’s something unsatisfying about the critical consensus on Adam Sandler—the one where people wish he would do more work like Punch-Drunk Love and The Meyerowitz Stories instead of Netflix shlock like The Ridiculous 6. But Sandler wouldn’t be Sandler without the crap: the repressed-rage auteurist masterpieces only make sense in context, stuffed between mostly terrible, sometimes-funny films. 100% Fresh, Sandler’s Netflix stand-up special, is all context, focusing as much on the interstitial moments between jokes as it does on the jokes themselves—which are so weird, rambling, and tossed off as to be basically contextual themselves. It’s sweet, and a little angry, and very, very musical. And then, at the end, there’s a sung tribute to Chris Farley that moved me more than anything else I saw this year. It is the best and worst of Adam Sandler, all at once—which, it turns out, is pretty terrific.—Sam Schube, deputy style editor

Bad Times at the El Royale

When we first saw this movie, my partner said it felt like “if Tarantino had his own ideas” and I haven’t been able to come up with a better comparison. It’s one of those films you both want to watch and look at, and it’s campy and noir and ethereal and never crosses the line into overt pastiche. It also involves Chris Hemsworth dancing with his shirt open while eating a slice of pie. No, I don’t care what your sexual orientation is. It’s that now.—Jaya Saxena, GQ contributor

The Favourite

It's Yorgos Lanthimos's decadent ode to both power and, apparently, the British sitcom. Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz all have the time of their lives trading insults and backhanded compliments as morality and good sense fall increasingly by the wayside. Narratively, it's about two women's bids to become the most trusted servant to Colman's petulant yet beguiling Queen Anne, whose layers of trauma and excess would make for an excellent caricature within a lighthearted ahistorical movie. Instead, Colman turns in one of the best performances of the year, and Lanthimos emerges as one of the best storytellers, elevating The Favourite to something much more than the sum of its farces.—Tom Philip, GQ contributor

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

This Mr. Rogers documentary had me time-traveling to my childhood, made me think through the measure of a good life, and forced a stream of tears out of my eyes at 11 A.M. on a Monday morning. I don't think I could watch it again, honestly (I'm too sensitive!), but if you've not watched it, and experienced the pure joy and deep, deep goodness of Fred Rogers, you simply must. It'll be the most beautiful day in your neighborhood all year.—Brennan Carley, entertainment associate editor

Annihilation

A science fiction film that reminds you how truly strange and hostile the genre can be, Annihilation is packed with some of the most memorable cinematic imagery of the year. In following its cast of four women on a scientific expedition into the unexplained anomaly known as The Shimmer, the film bends and warps their understanding of the world and themselves, as a force beyond comprehension reshapes the flora and fauna within The Shimmer. That, in turn, folds their internal trauma into their external reality. Ambiguous without ever feeling cheap, Annihilation is a psychological thriller by way of environmental fable, and one of the most singular films to come out this year.—J.R.

First Reformed

"Less is more," as that old creative adage goes, and that certainly seems to be the approach Paul Schrader takes with his new effort, in which Ethan Hawke plays a priest torn between finding hope in a troubled parishioner, or indulging his growing despair. The film itself—confined within an oppressive 1.33:1 aspect ratio—slowly expands though, and led by Hawke's restrained and somehow also brutal performance, it reveals itself as one of the most shocking, desperate movies in years.—T.P.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

This could have been a straightforward romp through a scandalous criminal undertaking, but it winds up asking big questions about what we value and why. Some of that is through the direct nature of Lee Israel’s forgeries, and how much people are willing to pay for the idea that they’re holding something rare, whether it’s real or not. But most of it is just through a wonderful depiction of queer friendship and loneliness in a world that doesn’t value queer people.—J.S.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon lead the cast of this international spy caper, and deliver the strongest laugh-per-minute ratio of any movie this year. The Spy Who Dumped Me feels already weirdly overlooked or misjudged by critics, but it's the rare Big Budget Comedy that adds up to the sum of its parts. Plus it cements McKinnon is one of the funniest working actresses in Hollywood, and sets her up nicely for post SNL stardom. That's something we can all be thankful for this holiday season.—B.C.

Suspiria

Luca Guadagnino did not so much "remake" Dario Argento's giallo classic as he did use its loosest ideas to generate an unrecognizable-in-all-but-name new horror masterpiece. Tilda Swinton's headline-grabbing three acting roles rightfully got props, but Dakota Johnson's measured and slowly revelatory turn is a career best, as Susie Bannion slowly discovers the power at both the heart of the Helena Markos Dance Academy, and herself. —T.P.

Thoroughbreds

If the emerging theme of the year is “Eat The Rich,” it kicked off with Thoroughbreds, a film that appears to be about a sociopathic teen who has no problem killing her best friend’s asshole stepfather, but is really about the lengths we will go to to please the rich, and how we’ll still thank them for the opportunity even after debasing ourselves. I wish it had gotten more love when it was first released, so watch it again, and tell me who the real villain is.—J.S.

Widows

Brilliantly directed by Steve McQueen. Viola Davis in yet-another performance of a lifetime. Elizabeth Debicki showing every other actor how it is done. Deliciously villainous turns from our faves Brian Tyree Henry and Daniel Kaluuya. Liam Neeson turning up and delivering. Colin Farrell as a corrupt Chicago politician. And we haven't even gotten to Michelle Rodriguez (brilliant!) or Carrie Coon (a legend!) or Jacki Weaver (give her more work!) or Cynthia Erivo (a star is born!). I could go on and on for hours but... we already have.—B.C.

Monsters and Men

Shot with the intimacy of a talented documentarian, Monsters and Men presents us with a triptych of stories revolving around the police shooting of an unarmed black man in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood. In turn it follows a bystander who recorded the shooting, a conflicted black cop unsure of how to face the aftermath, and a young man moved to activism. Monsters and Men succinctly and humanely seeks to depict a comprehensive portrait of a distinctly modern tragedy. It's not a movie about answers, but about people moving through life knowing that they might not get them.—J.R.

Mission Impossible: Fallout

What price redemption? If you’re Tom Cruise, the bill is brutally simple: in order to regain his pre-Oprah’s-couch standing in public life, all he’s had to do is perform the most dangerous stunts he can possibly conceive of. It’s not a coincidence, I don’t think, that Cruise has basically returned to elite celeb status as he’s doubled down on defying death, and Fallout might represent the apex. Dude broke his ankle, and learned how to fly (and murder-spiral) a helicopter, and did a number HALO jump, and rode his motorcycle very quickly around Paris. That he did all of those things in service of a plot in a movie is bizarrely, hilarious, touchingly besides the point—and, maybe as a result, Fallout was also the best entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise in years. — S.S.

Sorry to Bother You

Sorry to Bother You makes most other movies look like flat-out cowardice. Anarchic, surreal, and unapologetically activist, Sorry to Bother You takes you to places you never see coming, setting fire to a world reshaped by capitalism run rampant—a world that's just a few inches removed from our own. Bolstered by a charismatic cast and a confrontational aesthetic, Sorry to Bother You takes its premise of a black man who finds success telemarketing with his "white voice," wraps it in a strangely permeable world, and casually fires off incisive and outrageous ideas with an ease and imagination that astounds as much as it leaves you uncomfortable. It's easily one of the most singular films to come out this year.—J.R.

A Simple Favor

This is arguably GQ Man of the Year Henry Golding's better of the two roles this year, and the best James Bond audition tape you could ask for. It's also, save for a slightly sagging middle section, one of the year's tightest and most thrilling films, with sharp performances from Anna Kendrick and the always-good (fight me) Blake Lively. It made me laugh out loud, its twists and turns kept me enthralled, it features an excellent Andrew Rannells cameo, and most of all? It was a delightful piece of escapism in a year in which that was sorely needed.—B.C.