15 most memorable and overlooked films of 2018

We look at the films released this year and honor those that might have slipped under your radar or gave us a good time at the theater.

As a film critic I see a lot of movies in a given year. As of right now, my Letterboxd shows I’ve watched 250 movies this year alone. I don’t see everything. Anything egregiously terrible looking usually gets ignored by me because, as I say, life’s too short to waste on bad movies. But in-between all the movies we talk about regularly during awards season there are the features that get lost in the shuffle, and that’s what we’re trying to honor in this list. Not everything is an indie darling. In fact, a few of these movies were outright blockbusters.

By that same token, many blockbusters aren’t on this list (sorry, Avengers). This list also doesn’t contain every movie that will end up on my best of the year list. But it is a great way for me to honor the moviegoing experiences where I felt something. These are the movies I hope people make time for at some point, because they’re amazing.

I do want to throw out a few honorable mentions that were cut for space: the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary, RBG, just barely missed this list. I also hoped to include the hotel documentary Always at the Carlyle as well as the foreign language film Summer 1993. Also, don’t forget the L.A. noir/murder mystery Gemini, which is well worth your time.