Well, there it is. In what feels like a mere blink of an eye since we were doing this last year, the December issue of Empire is getting ready to hit the shelves. That means it’s Review of the Year time – but before we reveal the goodies you’ll find in the mag (and believe us, goodies is the word), it’s time to start counting down our Top 20 Films of 2018. Yes, already.
The Empire team submitted their personal top 10s, which were fed into a giant spreadsheet of doom that spat out a list of thrilling, tender, epic, intimate, meticulous, masterful movies. As ever we’re using UK release dates here, if you can cast your mind back to the Oscar lot that hit the big screen at the very start of the year (and mostly received late 2017 releases in the US). And yes, we will be updating the online list in December in case any extra late entries sneak in.
At 20, I, Tonya skates to victory with its sympathetic portrayal of an athlete previously demonised for decades, closely followed by Lynne Ramsay’s intoxicating You Were Never Really Here at 19. Debra Granik’s long-awaited Winter’s Bone follow-up Leave No Trace is camping out on the fringes of the list at 18. Bringing everyone to tears with a song in its heart is Pixar’s latest classic Coco at 17, followed at 16 by Pawel Pawlikowski’s achingly beautiful Cold War.
In at 15 is Annihilation, Alex Garland’s mesmeric follow-up to Ex Machina, with the good boys and girls of Isle Of Dogs, Wes Anderson’s return to stop-motion animation, trotting slightly ahead at 14. Making an appearance at number 13 (and also in our recurring nightmares) is Ari Aster’s fearsome horror debut Hereditary. Alfonso Cuaron’s touching and emotional Roma is in at 12, sandwiched next to yet more bloody exploits with Panos Cosmatos’ cosmic hypno-horror Mandy settling at number 11.
It’s an incredible collection of films – and we haven’t even touched the Top 10 yet. Head this way for the next chunk of the list, and keep an eye out for more details about Empire’s Review of the Year issue in the coming days.
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