Every year, IndieWire asks film critics from all over the world to vote in our annual Critics Poll. IndieWire published the results in every cateogory earlier this month (see them here) and can now debut the full ranking of the top 50 best films of 2018, as chosen by the 232 film critics who participated in this year’s poll. Click through the gallery for the full ranking.
Julian Schnabel’s experimental dive into the last months in the life of Vincent Van Gogh is bolstered by career-best work from Willem Dafoe in the title role. The actor is in the thick of the Oscar race for his performance, which also nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.
Paul Dano’s directorial debut “Wildlife” has been a film critic favorite ever since it earned breakout acclaim at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival at the start of the year. The film stars Carey Mulligan as a wife who struggles to find her own indentity after her husband (Jake Gyllenhaal) leaves the home to fight wild fires.
A late addition into the Oscar race for Best Animated Feature, Sony Animation’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” quickly became a category frontrunner as it won over critics left and right. The film won top animation honors from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
Jacques Audiard’s English-language debut “The Sisters Brothers” was a box office bomb, which was especially upsetting given the critical acclaim given to its star-studded cast: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Riz Ahmed. The film won Audiard the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival.
Rungano Nyoni won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer for this coming-of-age story about a young girl in a local village who is accused of witchcraft.
John Krasinski revived his career as a director with this near-silent horror movie about a world in which monsters attack when any noise is made. The director and his co-lead (and real-life wife) Emily Blunt earned rave reviews for their inventive approach to the genre.
Lars von Trier’s polarizing serial killer drama “The House That Jack Built” earned both walkouts and standing ovations at the Cannes Film Festival. Matt Dillon stars as a serial killer reflecting on some of his favorite kills. The film is as shocking as it is thought-provoking.
Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s family drama set during the early days of illegal drug trading in Colombia is the country’s official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy recently announced “Birds of Passage” has made the shortlist for a nomination.
Robert Greene returned this year with another genre-bending documentary, this time focusing on a small mining town that turned away 1200 immigrant miners 100 years ago. The director worked with locals to recreate the events from the past in the present, creating a one-of-a-king retelling.
Alice Rohrwacher earned acclaim at Cannes for her fable “Happy as Lazarro,” which centers on the unlikely friendship between a good-hearted peasant and a young nobleman cursed by his imagination.
Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake shocked audiences at the Venice Film Festival and became one of the year’s most polarizing offerings among film critics. Guadagnino regulars Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton star.
Filmmaker Travis Wilkerson rips out the roots from his family tree in “Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?,” which investigates a racist murder committed by his great-grandfather.
Andrew Haigh’s tender coming-of-age story stars Charlie Plummer as a young boy who finds his purpose in life through a bond with a struggling racehorse. The drama is a searching, violently unsentimental tale about all the things we can do to save each other and all of the things we can’t.
Four years after winning the Palme d’Or with “Winter Sleep,” Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returned to more acclaim with “The Wild Pear Tree.” The drama stars Aydın Doğu Demirkol as an inspiring writer who returns home and must confront the debts of his father.
RaMell Ross’ “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” has been a critical favorite all year long, recently winning the Gotham Award for Best Documentary. The title made the Oscar shortlist for the same category.
Ali Abbasi’s fantasy drama was unfortunately left off the Oscar shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film, but critics continue to champion it as the year’s most wild and oddly relatable love story/fairy tale hybrid.
Nicolas Cage earned some much-needed critical raves by starring in the lead role of Panos Cosmatos’ instant cult classic “Mandy.” The film, memorably featuring the final score of Jóhann Jóhannsson, is a wild descent into a hellish cult.
Claire Denis and Juliette Binoche were at their irresistable best in “Let the Sunshine In,” a romantic drama about a Parisian artist and divorced mother looking for love in all the right and wrong places. Denis will return in 2019 with “High Life.”
The critical darling of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Josephine Decker’s “Madeline’s Madeline” was hailed by IndieWire as one of the best indies of the 21st century. Credit goes to Decker’s multi-layered storytelling and a unforgettable breakthrough performance by Helena Howard.
Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” may be facing backlash from numerous angles, but that hasn’t stopped it from gaining critical support. The film won the National Board of Review award for Best Picture and Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen).
Orson Welles returned to theaters in 2018 with “The Other Side of the Wind,” his final film completed with help from producer Frank Marshall, the team at Netflix, and more. After debuting at Venice, the film hit the film festival circuit hard and earned raves from some of Welles’ most unorthidox filmmaking ever.
Regina Hall was named Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle thanks to her sensitive lead work in Andrew Bujalski’s “Support the Girls.” The amount of fleeting optimism Hall injects in between every line and action is nothing short of breathtaking.
Armando Iannucci left his Emmy-winning HBO series “Veep” to work on the satire “The Death of Stalin,” and the move paid off as critics fell hard for the ensemble comedy.
Steve McQueen crafted a crowd-pleasing heist thriller with serious socioeconomic undertones in “Widows,” featuring stellar work from a female-fronted ensemble that includes Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, and Elizabeth Debicki.
Finally returning after “The Savages,” writer-director Tamara Jenkins proved she is one of the most essential voices in indie film with her Sundance sensation “Private Life,” featuring never-better performances from Paul Giamatti and the amazing Kathryn Hahn.
Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant are both expected to earn Oscar nominations for “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” the emotional and prickly biopic of Lee Israel from the gifted director Marielle Heller.
Ryan Coogler’s Marvel superhero epic “Black Panther” is the highest-grossing film of the year in the U.S. with a gross of $700 million. The film delivered sensational action sequences with a political edge the Marvel Cinematic Universe has never seen before.
Tom Cruise risked it all to deliver the highest-grossing and most critically acclaimed “Mission: Impossible” movie yet. “Fallout” has the breakneck pace of a train flying off the tracks, but it’s held together through Cruise’s one-of-a-kind charisma and director Chirstopher McQuarrie’s incredible staging of action.
Alex Garland went big for his follow-up to the beloved science-fiction indie “Ex Machina.” With “Annihilation,” Garland recruited Natalie Portman to tell an ambitious meditation on the nature of self-destruction, both natural and man made.
“First Man” didn’t gain traction at the box office, but it dazzled critics with its visceral filmmaking (thank you, Oscar winner Damien Chazelle) and an internally alive lead performance from Ryan Gosling.
Ari Aster was the talk of Sundance with his horror sensation “Hereditary,” starring Toni Collette as a mother who descends into a nightmare of grief. As the family gets pulled down with her, Aster delivers one of the best horror films ever made.
Bing Liu crafts a coming-of-age film in real time in his remarkable documentary “Minding the Gap.” Filming his two friends and himself over the course of 12 years, Liu brings the footage together in a beautiful film about parallel struggles, sacrifices, and failures.
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s “A Star Is Born” has been a critical smash hit ever since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year. The film is nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress.
Paul King’s “Paddington” returned for a sequel full of more adorable lessons and a positively awesome Wes Anderson-ian feel. In age of bloated sequels, “Paddington 2” felt like a miracle.
Wes Anderson returned to the world of stop-motion animation for the first time since “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and delivered another gorgeous creation with “Isle of Dogs,” featuring a top-notch voice cast of usual collaborators like Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, and more.
Joel and Ethan Coen won Best Screenplay honors at the Venice Film Festival for their Western anthology movie “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” Featuring six separate stories, the film started out with a lukewarm response but has grown over the last several months into a critical favorite.
Some movies are so uncompromising in their visions that they create a whole new category. So it goes with writer-director Boots Riley’s zany debut, a sensational racial satire that’s also a broader statement on capitalism as a whole.
Making his feature directorial debut, Bo Burnham conveys all the highs and lows of being a teenager in his cringing and remarkable “Eighth Grade.” The film wouldn’t work without its star, which Burnham found in Elise Fisher, one of the year’s breakout performers.
Debra Granik is famous for launching Jennifer Lawrence’s career with “Winter’s Bone,” and in a just world the amazing Thomasin McKenzie will follow a similar path after “Leave No Trace.” Granik’s emotional father-daughter drama stars McKenzie opposite Ben Foster, and it doesn’t leave a dry eye in the house.
Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider” blends reality and fiction and tops it off with a lyrical cinematic voice that represents some of the most authentic and emotional filmmaking of the year. Real-life rodeo star Brady Jandreau plays a variation of himself as he must overcome a life-threatening injury and decide if horse riding will continue to define his life.
“If Beale Street Could Talk,” Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” follow-up, turns James Baldwin’s legendary words into cinematic poetry. With its lush colors and entrancing faces that speak volumes in few words, “Beale Street” is a mesmerizing burst of creative passion.
Lynne Ramsay and Joaquin Pheonix are a visceral dream time in “You Were Never Really Here,” Ramsay’s furious meditation on violence and how violent acts ripple into the psyche.
Lucretia Martel’s 17th century drama “Zama” centers around a Spanish officer awaiting his transfer to Buenos Aires. As the officer continues to wait, Martel lapses time into itself while proving she is one of the most accomplished voices in directing.
Spike Lee reignited his blood-boiling political voice with “BlacKkKlansman,” winner of the Cannes Grand Prix. John David Washington stars as a black detective who infiltrates a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. While the film’s premise gives it natural humor, Lee packs a wallop of a punch in his ability to make this period piece feel dangerously timely.
Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival with “Shoplifters,” which easily features the richest ensemble of characters in the movies this year. A story about the true meaning of family, “Shoplifters” balances its good-hearted characters with their unethical decisions.
Paweł Pawlikowski won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival with “Cold War,” a bleak and unforgettable romance based on the story of his own parents. Joanna Kulig lights up the screen as a woman who is tormented and enlivened by a decades-spanning romance.
Yorgos Lanthimos has come a long way since his “Dogtooth” days, and yet nothing about his naughty surrealist style has been compromised along the way. “The Favourite” is a twisted black comedy set in the British royal court of the 18th century.
Combining forces with Haruki Murakami by adapting his short story “Barn Burning,” Lee Chang-dong develops a haunting, beautiful tone poem about working class frustrations, based around the experiences of a frustrated wannabe writer Lee (a superb, understated Ah-in Yoo) who thinks he’s found an escape from his loneliness when he encounters a lively woman from his past.
Paul Schrader’s best movie in years stars Ethan Hawke as an upstate New York priest who faces a crisis of faith as he attempts to help out a pregnant woman and learns of an ecological conspiracy behind his church’s main benefactor. The movie’s taut, suspenseful narrative remains in the confines of its protagonist’s perspective as his grip on reality slowly comes unraveled.
Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” is the great masterpiece of 2018. In addition to topping IndieWire’s 2018 Critics Poll, the film has been named the best movie of the year from numerous critic groups, including the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.