I put this list off for a few days because a lot of good 2018 movies hit streaming services right at the start of January (or were still there from earlier but now I had time to get to them) and I thought I might find something I wanted to add to this list. However, with apologies to Roma, Support the Girls and Annihilation, I’ve decided to keep my list as it was.

Honorable Mentions: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Incredibles 2, Bad Times at the El Royale – All three are really good movies that probably deserved a spot on my list. But when considering my ten favorite movies of the year, I went with personal enjoyment over other considerations.

10. Mortal Engines – I can’t look at someone with a straight face and say that I think Mortal Engines is strictly better than any of the movies in the my honorable mentions. However, I know that I enjoyed watching it so much more than them that I am giving it the last spot on my list.

9. Mission Impossible: Fallout – Not the best in the series, but there are so many outstanding sequences. MI is the best spy movie franchise.

8. BlacKkKlansman – A brilliant look at race in America and propaganda, and the outward similarities in the black power and white nationalist movements despite how different their goals and places in society, highlighting how fundamentally gross the white nationalists are.

7. Widows – Perfect pulp with something more on its mind. It has a lot of great actors elevating already pretty good material.

6. Aquaman – A wild romp that never knows when to say enough. It just keeps tossing on more and more.

5. Black Panther – A great combination of a fantasy epic and a superhero movie that more than deserved every bit of its success.

4. The Favourite – Just piles of perfectly biting and witty dialogue as people vie for power and access to power.

3. Blindspotting – A thoughtful and sympathetic drama that deftly explores notions of race and identity.  It not easy to describe in one or two sentences.

2. The Death of Stalin – This movie manages to be both amazingly funny and amazingly dark. It looks into the pitch black hearts of the vultures who tried to grab power after the death of Stalin and turns their deadly machinations into a farce. It is nearly perfect.

1. Sorry to Bother You – This showed up on hulu and I watched it again. It is still amazing. I love just about everything about it.