Justin Chang: Best Movies of 2018, as published by The Los Angeles Times
- Bisbee '17 — Robert Greene
- BlacKkKlansman — Spike Lee
- A Bread Factory — Patrick Wang
- Can You Ever Forgive Me? — Marielle Heller
- First Man — Damien Chazelle
- Gavagai — Rob Tregenza
- Hale County This Morning, This Evening — RaMell Ross
- Leave No Trace — Debra Granik
- Let the Sunshine In — Claire Denis
- Minding the Gap — Bing Liu
- Paddington 2 — Paul King
- A Quiet Place — John Krasinski
- Roma — Alfonso Cuaron
- The Sisters Brothers — Jacques Audiard
- Sorry to Bother You — Boots Riley
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman
- Thunder Road — Jim Cummings
- Where Is Kyra? — Andrew Dosunmu
- Wildlife — Paul Dano
- You Were Never Really Here — Lynne Ramsay
20 honorable mentions
- Burning — Lee Chang-dong
- First Reformed — Paul Schrader
- Zama — Lucrecia Martel
- Black Panther — Ryan Coogler
- Private Life — Tamara Jenkins
- If Beale Street Could Talk — Barry Jenkins
- The Rider — Chloé Zhao
- Western — Valeska Grisebach
- Shoplifters — Hirokazu Kore-eda
- Happy as Lazzaro — Alice Rohrwacher
- The Favourite — Yorgos Lanthimos
- Madeline’s Madeline — Josephine Decker
- Support the Girls — Andrew Bujalski
- Widows — Steve McQueen
- Hereditary — Ari Aster
- Eighth Grade — Bo Burnham
- Shirkers — Sandi Tan
- Amazing Grace — Sydney Pollack
- Vox Lux — Brady Corbet
- Annihilation — Alex Garland