The Board Dot's Favorite Movies of 2018 - Results

[Xamnam]

#1. The Favorite - 459 points

#2. Annihilation - 414 points

#3. Sorry to Bother You - 407 points

#4. Roma - 342 points

#5. Hereditary - 312 points

#6. First Reformed - 310 points

#7. Paddington 2 - 277 points

#8. You Were Never Really Here - 244 points

#9. Eighth Grade  - 233 points

#10. Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse - 215 points

#11. If Beale Street Could Talk - 214 points

#12. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - 200 points

#13. Game Night - 199 points

#14. Shoplifters - 197 points

#15. The Death of Stalin - 179 points

#16. Avengers: Infinity War - 175 points

#17. Black Panther - 172 points

#18. A Star Is Born - 167 points

#19. Minding The Gap - 164 points

#20. Support the Girls - 152 points

#21. The Rider - 133 points

#22. Cold War - 132 points

#22. Widows - 132 points

#24. Mission Impossible: Fallout - 127 points

#25. BlacKkKlansman - 113 points

#26. Mandy - 103 points

#27. First Man - 100 points

#28. Won't You Be My Neighbor? - 91 points

#29. A Quiet Place - 86 points

#30. Apostle - 74 points

#31. mid90s - 74 points

#32. Burning - 72 points

#33. Blockers - 67 points

#33. Suspiria - 67 points

#35. Incredibles 2 - 62 points

#36. Bad Times At The El Royale - 58 points

#37. Private Life - 56 points

#38. Ant Man - 55 points

#38. Halloween - 55 points

#38. Isle of Dogs - 55 points

#41. Madeline's Madeline - 45 points

#42. Can You Ever Forgive Me - 44 points

#43. Thunder Road - 41 points

#44. The Miseducation of Cameron Post - 40 points

#44. The Ritual - 40 points

#46. Upgrade - 38 points

#47. The Endless - 37 points

#47. Thoroughbreds - 37 points

#49. Andre the Giant - 36 points

#50. Three Identical Strangers - 35 points

#50. Vox Lux - 35 points

#52. Leave No Trace - 34 points

#52. Vice - 34 points

#54. Shirkers - 32 points

#55. The Old Man and the Gun - 30 points

#56. Solo - 26 points

#56. Unfriended: Dark Web - 26 points

#58. Cam - 25 points

#58. Mirai - 25 points

#60. Duck Butter - 24 points

#60. RBG - 24 points

#60. Skate Kitchen - 24 points

#63. Border - 23 points

#63. Christopher Robin - 23 points

#63. On the Basis of Sex - 23 points

#66. American Animals - 22 points

#66. Green Book - 22 points

#68. At Eternity's Gate - 21 points

#68. Heavy Trip - 21 points

#68. Love, Simon - 21 points

#68. The Grinch - 21 points

#72. Boy Erased  - 20 points

#72. Den of Thieves - 20 points

#72. The Sisters Brothers - 20 points

#75. Blaze - 19 points

#75. Rampage - 19 points

#77. Creed 2 - 18 points

#77. Deadpool 2 - 18 points

#77. Free Solo - 18 points

#77. Super Troopers 2 - 18 points

#81. Bohemian Rhapsody - 17 points

#81. Calibre - 17 points

#81. Mary Poppins - 17 points

#84. Crazy Rich Asians - 15 points

#84. The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling - 15 points

#86. Blindspotting - 14 points

#87. TAG - 13 points

#87. Venom - 13 points

#89. Bumblebee - 12 points

#89. Hearts Beat Loud - 12 points

#91. The First Purge - 11 points

#91. Tully - 11 points

#93. A Simple Favor - 9 points

#93. Ideal Home - 9 points

#93. Ready Player One - 9 points

#96. Aquaman - 8 points

#96. Bird Box - 8 points

#98. Capernaum  - 7 points

#98. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - 7 points

#100. The Meg - 6 points

#100. Tomb Raider - 6 points

#100. We The Animals - 6 points

#103. Mom & Dad - 4 points

#104. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote  - 3 points

#105. Ben Is Back - 1 points

#105. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot - 1 points

[Xamnam]

Your rollout appetizer:

Almost Rotten: We have one film with a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, the breakpoint between Rotten and Fresh.

Not Quite as Good: Our #1 of this year scored five points lower than last year's, Get Out.

Not Quite as Bad: However, #2 scored eight points higher than last year's, The Shape of Water. In addition, #50 scored five points higher than last year's, Jumanji.

Every Year, We Die a Little More: 21 lists this year, down from 26.

Second Verse, Same as the First: Two movies were ranked on 18 of the submitted lists, something only The Shape of Water did last year. Neither are ranked #1.

Tastemaker Extraodinare: Goodson, who was the solo top ranker for his #1-5 films.

Watch Fewer Movies: Wretched shows up as the top ranker on six films, albeit sharing the ranking on one.

Sure, Give Xam a Headache and Make Him Re-do the Rankings: Most unique title entries goes to The / Ballad of / Buster Scruggs.

You're All Wrong: Seven films received only one #1 vote.

...Noble Attempt: Two films received only one #30 vote: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, and Ben is Back.

Board Approved: The lowest the #1 film was ranked was 16th.

[Xamnam]

#50. Vox Lux
Total points: 35
RT Rating: 60%
Highest List Rating: chvrchbarrel - #4



"Yes, we understand this woman endured an unspeakable tragedy as a child and was exploited throughout her youth, but as written by Corbet and interpreted by Portman, Celeste is an irredeemable, shrill, often cruel and nearly empty shell." - Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

#50. Three Identical Strangers
Total points: 35
RT Rating: 96%
Highest List Rating: chvrchbarrel - #5



"Yet Wardle doesn’t do the perversity and the social resonance of this reveal justice, failing to differentiate the brothers from a few Wikipedia-friendly bullet points. Imagine David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers if it were leached of its terrifying psychological stagnancy and fused with a rapid-fire CNN story." - Chuck Bowen, Slant

#49. Andre the Giant
Total points: 36
RT Rating: 95%
Highest List Rating: postfontaine - #12



"Like the wrestling promoters who struggled to find a way to sell Andre, the film’s producers struggle to craft a compelling narrative because of the simple fact that everyone seemed to like him a whole lot, thanks to his gentle nature and willingness to help sell other wrestlers in the ring (so long as they weren’t mouthy like Randy “Macho Man” Savage, whom Andre apparently despised)." - Matt Bonesteel, The Washington Post

#47. Thoroughbreds
Total points: 37
RT Rating: 86%
Highest List Rating: munkivelli - #15



"But by its epilogue, which involves a character recounting a dream they had (oh boy), its mealy-mouthed attempt to draw a line between its titular prized horses and these supposedly well-bred, dead-inside teen girls, is just as much a pose as the rest of the film. The metaphor never tracks, but the clear hope is that it’s vague enough to be mistaken for evocative." - Emily Yoshida, Vulture

#47. The Endless
Total points: 37
RT Rating: 93%
Highest List Rating: Wretched - #5



"The strangest sensation I had while watching the film was that Benson and Moorhead were tricking the viewers, precisely like the cults do when preaching some crazy ideology. Apparently, they have been successful, but I’m glad I didn’t follow the flock in this illusory worship of a cinematic artifice." - Filipe Freitas, Always Good Movies

#46. Upgrade
Total points: 38
RT Rating: 87%
Highest List Rating: Timbo - #10



"As a movie, it’s the cinematic equivalent of paint-by-numbers: competent, attractive even, but take a single step closer and the lines peek through. There’s no need to pay money to go see Upgrade: If you select it on a plane and sleep through 60% of it, you’ve seen it in its entirety." - Dana Schwartz, Entertainment Weekly

[sthubbins]

The Andre doc was not good

Wanted to see Thoroughbreds

[Xamnam]

It was actually quite hard to find a criticism of that Andre doc that was not just about what archival footage was available.

[Deleted]

The Andre doc was super rushed at the tail end, but otherwise it was fine.

[concertgoer]

I really wanted Vox Lux to be good, but it fell a little flat. The second act was kind of a mess and the ending was bad.

[Xamnam]

#44. The Ritual
Total points: 40
RT Rating: 72%
Highest List Rating: Sleeping - #3



"But Barton's grating dialogue (actual line: "Your ritual begins tonight"), and thin characterizations, make "The Ritual" the most disappointing kind of bad horror movie: the kind that's too smart to be this dumb." - Simon Abrams, RogerEbert.com

#44. The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Total points: 40
RT Rating: 87%
Highest List Rating: Sleeping - #1



"It’s puzzling at best, and vulgar at worst, to turn such a raw, urgent, and ongoing abuse into a movie that works so hard to coddle its audience with tired coming-of-age tropes and moments of easy emotional release. Why bother?" - Jeffrey Bloomer, Slate

#43. Thunder Road
Total points: 41
RT Rating: 97%
Highest List Rating: monasterymonochrome - #3



"Regardless of his capable acting skills, Cummings never impressed me deeply to the point of making me feel sorry for him. I would have become more sympathetic to his disgrace if not slightly irritated with his periodic moaning." - Filipe Freitas, Film Threat

#42. Can You Ever Forgive Me
Total points: 44
RT Rating: 98%
Highest List Rating: wanny - #6



"The movie, though set in the 1990s, is a perverse mirror of the millennium’s immorality. That’s how McCarthy can play this role using the same straight face with which she has conducted a career exploiting the female misbehavior and slatternliness that ought to be a scandal for the #MeToo era." Armond White, National Review

#41. Madeline's Madeline
Total points: 45
RT Rating: 87%
Highest List Rating: goodson - #3



"Letting the audience determine the meaning of her aesthetic choices, Decker shows little interest in creating meaning herself." - Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

[Deleted]

Feb 22, 2019 9:15:05 GMT -6 concertgoer said:

I really wanted Vox Lux to be good, but it fell a little flat. The second act was kind of a mess and the ending was bad.

it almost didnt have an ending at all.

but i liked most of the second half and wanted way more of Portman going off on people.

i thought it was mostly good but just lacked some development that would've propelled the whole "terrorism and pop music" parallel a little further. 

[wanny]

Wow 42 for Forgive Me? Come on

[sthubbins]

the only thing I know about Madeline's Madeline is that Richard Brody thinks everything about it is better than every other movie

[Xamnam]

#38. Isle of Dogs
Total points: 55
RT Rating: 90%
Highest List Rating: wanny - #10



"It is exhausting to watch, and probably especially exhausting for children — who are not its target audience anyway. Anderson’s hipster audience is a special breed that has evolved into a generation of “snowflakes.” Animals of this class are especially good at castigating anyone who gets in the way of their privilege; their self-estimation is based in narcissism." - Armond White, National Review

#38. Halloween
Total points: 55
RT Rating: 79%
Highest List Rating: chvrchbarrel - #9



"Yet for all its promising pedigree, Green’s Halloween—the 11th installment, if you count the hick-horror remakes by Rob Zombie—is as chained to franchise formula as every pale imitation that’s come before it. This is just another inferior sequel, albeit one that cannily presents its by-the-numbers retread as affectionate homage." - A.A. Dowd, AV Club

#38. Ant Man
Total points: 55
RT Rating: 88%
Highest List Rating: Timbo - #16



"Watching these flicks is like being a Scientologist: You gotta be level OT VIII just to understand the exposition. For “Wasp,” if you missed “Civil War,” or have forgotten the plot, it doesn’t hold up as a stand-alone movie." - Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

#37. Private Life
Total points: 56
RT Rating: 93%
Highest List Rating: munkivelli - #10



"The drama strains to achieve psychological resonance, but the characters’ conflicts, stretched between breezy satire and fiery passion, trace narrow grooves of plausibility; scenes of painful turmoil play like skillful script readings rather than life events." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker

#36. Bad Times At The El Royale
Total points: 58
RT Rating: 75%
Highest List Rating: Wretched - #8



"Whatever he’s trying to say over the course of a whopping 140 minutes, it gets lost in the swirl of overambitious narrative devices. I’d venture that he’s trying to make a comment about redemption, except so few characters are redeemable." - Mara Reinstein, US Magazine

[concertgoer]

Feb 22, 2019 9:25:16 GMT -6 wanny said:

Wow 42 for Forgive Me? Come on

Yeah definitely should be in the top 20

[Deleted]

Feb 22, 2019 9:29:40 GMT -6 concertgoer said:

Feb 22, 2019 9:25:16 GMT -6 wanny said:

Wow 42 for Forgive Me? Come on

Yeah definitely should be in the top 20

It was only on three lists - most people didn't see it yet. 

[Xamnam]

Feb 22, 2019 9:29:40 GMT -6 concertgoer said:

Feb 22, 2019 9:25:16 GMT -6 wanny said:

Wow 42 for Forgive Me? Come on

Yeah definitely should be in the top 20

Only three people listed it in their top 30. 

[sthubbins]

"The movie, though set in the 1990s, is a perverse mirror of the millennium’s immorality. That’s how McCarthy can play this role using the same straight face with which she has conducted a career exploiting the female misbehavior and slatternliness that ought to be a scandal for the #MeToo era"

Armond's mind is too powerful. We don't deserve him.

[Xamnam]

We should definitely start bringing back the word slatternliness.

[Xamnam]

#35. Incredibles 2
Total points: 62
RT Rating: 93%
Highest List Rating: teekoh - #5



"She sounds too much like a member of the #Resistance. (Hunter’s voice is shrill, lacking that affecting twang when she memorably warned Lex Luthor, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, “I grew up on a farm; I know how to wrestle a pig.”)" - Armond White, National Review

#33. Suspiria
Total points: 67
RT Rating: 65%
Highest List Rating: Wretched - #3



"This scene is prelude to the climactic extravaganza of a blood-drenched, shakey-cam dance orgy meant to summarize female craziness through Argento’s theme of personal and global desecration. (The “nasty women” theme of the Women’s March was never so appropriate.)" - Armond White, National Review

#33. Blockers
Total points: 67
RT Rating: 83%
Highest List Rating: xamnam - #10



"Much of this is amiable in the moment, but the movie lumbers from set piece to set piece with only the barest of plausible connecting threads. The film’s sense of physical comedy is woeful, relying more on the suggestion of humor than competent blocking or editing." - Dusty Somers, Seattle Times

#32. Burning
Total points: 72
RT Rating: 94%
Highest List Rating: goodson - #5



"One person’s “slow-burner” is another’s slog. This high-concept/ low- performance art film is so far out my wheelhouse that I spent more time staring at the clock above the TV than the image on it." - Scott Marks, San Diego Reader

#31. mid90s
Total points: 74
RT Rating: 77%
Highest List Rating: Neader - #8



"Hill comes somewhere in between Scorsese’s and Tarantino’s pop-smarts; so it is his lack of understanding — the smug, self-satisfied simplification of the songs that underscore Stevie’s life — that is offensive." - Armond White, National Review

[concertgoer]

I still need to see Burning.

[munkivelli]

oh bollocks...i completely forgot about Thunder Road...that would have been in my list. Too late now for this, but I'll have to modify my Letterboxd list to include it.

[thebosma]

Feb 22, 2019 9:48:24 GMT -6 munkivelli said:

oh bollocks...i completely forgot about Thunder Road...that would have been in my list. Too late now for this, but I'll have to modify my Letterboxd list to include it.

Follow me bruh

[Xamnam]

Feb 22, 2019 9:48:24 GMT -6 munkivelli said:

oh bollocks...i completely forgot about Thunder Road...that would have been in my list. Too late now for this, but I'll have to modify my Letterboxd list to include it.

I realized as I was posting that I somehow missed Thoroughbreds in mine. :/

[munkivelli]

Feb 22, 2019 9:49:52 GMT -6 thebosma said:

Feb 22, 2019 9:48:24 GMT -6 munkivelli said:

oh bollocks...i completely forgot about Thunder Road...that would have been in my list. Too late now for this, but I'll have to modify my Letterboxd list to include it.

Follow me bruh

sure...what's your handle?

[thebosma]

Feb 22, 2019 9:53:26 GMT -6 munkivelli said:

Feb 22, 2019 9:49:52 GMT -6 thebosma said:

Follow me bruh

sure...what's your handle?

Same as here!

[munkivelli]

Okay, updated my list on letterboxd to include Thunder Road... letterboxd.com/siremobunny/list/top-41-films-of-2018-according-to-me/

feel free to follow me via that link, if you use letterboxd

[Xamnam]

#30. Apostle
Total points: 74
RT Rating: 78%
Highest List Rating: Wretched - #4



"By the time “Apostle” arrives at its big reveal, the movie has veered off on so many tangled pathways that the ending can’t resolve them all. Instead, it provides a single, ethereal image that hints at the more imaginative possibilities lurking somewhere inside this bloody mess." - Eric Kohn, IndieWire

#29. A Quiet Place
Total points: 86
RT Rating: 95%
Highest List Rating: xamnam - #6



"Contemporary journalists routinely disgrace their formerly valiant profession to the point that you can’t help but worry that these awful people procreate and then dread the vindictiveness — the selfish commitment to social privilege — that they teach to their kids." "But would Krasinski dare defend the NRA against the childish anti-gun sentiment of teenage media hero David Hogg?" "His lame horror-movie premise, in which post-apocalyptic society is besieged by unexplained monsters who attack at any loud sound, remains an insufficient, and insipid, allegory for the societal controversies of abortion and gun control." - Armond White, National Review

#28. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Total points: 91
RT Rating: 98%
Highest List Rating: chvrchbarrel - #6



"It also brushes by any details of Rogers’ life which suggest a more complex or flawed individual, such as his sometimes seemingly megalomaniacal devotion to his “mission” or his pressuring a gay cast member to stay closeted. Despite his bland, wholesome image, there are enough hints of a better portrait that could have been made of Rogers to render this one a disappointment." - Dan Schindel, The Film Stage

#27. First Man
Total points: 100
RT Rating: 87%
Highest List Rating: BitteOrca - #1



"What does it say about post-2016 American pop culture that First Man offers the coldest depiction of matrimony on film? (Criterion might as well cancel its new release of Ingmar Bergman’s overwrought Seventies TV series Scenes from a Marriage.)" - Armond White, National Review

#26. Mandy
Total points: 103
RT Rating: 91%
Highest List Rating: goodson - #2



"Mandy progresses into a hopelessly incoherent third act that doesn't even remotely justify the lumbering and magnificently tedious nature of everything preceding it - with the end result an art-house exercise in often infuriating self-indulgence." - David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

[Deleted]

oh shit i didnt see other people voted for apostle. yay!

[munkivelli]

I need to watch Apostle and The Ritual

[Deleted]

Feb 22, 2019 10:07:46 GMT -6 munkivelli said:

I need to watch Apostle and The Ritual

imho Apostle is a legit quality film that i would love to see in a theatrical format at some point

The Ritual was v fun  

[Xamnam]

#25. BlacKkKlansman
Total points: 113
RT Rating: 96%
Highest List Rating: munkivelli - #5



"Social satirist Lee relies on sophomoric sarcasm, displaying the profanity-laden bitterness of a street bum with a media pundit’s frame of mind. That’s how he botched the still-urgent subject of war-torn Chicago, in Chi-Raq; and how he now, in BlacKkKlansman, shifts gears from Stallworth’s personal narrative to an unhinged blame-game aimed at President Trump, using Michael Moore–style slanted “documentary” footage of the Charlottesville fiasco as if hot-topic propaganda were sufficient to reflect the complicated range of feelings and argument currently roiling the U.S. and the world." - Armond White, National Review

#24. Mission Impossible: Fallout
Total points: 127
RT Rating: 97%
Highest List Rating: wanny - #4



"What does this installment’s doomsday plot say about our culture (obsessed with paramilitary and civilian violence) and our politics (obsessed with controlling government oversight)? The fawning media never bothers to ask Cruise whether his intentions are apolitical. Besides, the movies say more than he could explain or justify about peddling a globally addicting drug." - Armond White, National Review

#22. Widows
Total points: 132
RT Rating: 91%
Highest List Rating: goodson - #4



"All this unoriginal “plot” is pretext for McQueen’s exploitation of social vulnerabilities. It’s the same dishonesty as in The Sopranos, which excused criminal wives as blameless, and The Wire, which excused blacks as innate miscreants. In the progressive art world, gender and ethnic reprobates are heroes who reveal Western society’s corruption." - Armond White, National Review

#22. Cold War
Total points: 132
RT Rating: 93%
Highest List Rating: iasm - #2



"At a mere 84 minutes, Cold War seems both too short and too long. The script (by Pawlikowski, Janusz Glowacki, and Piotr Borkowski) is elliptical and nearly devoid of psychological insight." - Mark Jenkins, NPR

#21. The Rider
Total points: 133
RT Rating: 97%
Highest List Rating: concertgoer - #4



"...a character, an identity, and a life story that remain flimsy and undeveloped, because Zhao preferred to shape a familiar dramatic structure in which simple conflicts and simple resolutions take the place of mental complexities. The failure of “The Rider” to see Brady in his intellectual and experiential specificity, to render him as interesting as the dramatic shell in which Zhao places him, is a failure of directorial imagination." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker