The Most Underappreciated Movie Gems Of 2018

There were a lot of great movies in 2018 and although it was a solid year for Stan Lee's creations (RIP), not all of 2018's awesome flicks featured legendary Marvel characters.

You've probably checked out Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Deadpool 2, and you may have even caught some non-Marvelous films like Incredibles 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, or the Lady Gaga-powered remake of A Star Is Born. Good grief, you could have even watched the non-franchise hit (gasp!) A Quiet Place. But a lot of great films might have flown under your radar. We're here to help. From cinematic adaptations of true stories to ambitious sci-fi, from animated flicks about dogs to animated flicks about superhero sidekicks, these films didn't get enough hype. Some of them address rather serious subjects, while others involve zombies, creatures from another dimension, and superheroes jonesing to transcend sidekick status.

Here are the most underappreciated movies of 2018.

One of the great tricks of parenthood is that kids generally think Mom and Dad know what they're doing. Once you get older, you realize parents are generally just figuring it out as they go along.

In Tully, Charlize Theron's Marlo is a pregnant mother of two, one of whom has a developmental disorder that doctors have not been able to diagnose. Once her third child, Mia, is born, she becomes seriously overwhelmed. Her husband, Drew (Ron Livingston), is nice enough, but spends more time playing video games than helping her with the kids. So she takes up her rich brother's offer of hiring a "night nanny" to care for the baby at night. It's a game changer for her. She soon develops a tight bond with the night nanny, Tully (played by Mackenzie Davis). We'll leave it at that.

Theron, as she often does, prioritized performance over vanity, putting on 50 pounds for the role, and it seems like the type of role that Oscar voters love. Sadly, it fizzled at the box office, earning less than $10 million in its first six months.

Which was worse: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or Justice League? Who cares? The Justice League's best cinematic moment thus far was easily in Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, where they scold the Titans — Robin, Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, and Beast Boy — for not taking superheroing seriously enough. Superman (voiced by Nicolas Cage, in one of the film's many inside jokes: he was slated to play Superman in a Tim Burton-directed film that never happened) calls them "goofsters," while Halsey's Wonder Woman points out their penchant for fart jokes. (There are some good poop jokes in the film as well.) Then there's Lil Yachty's Green Lantern, who makes a crack about DC's disastrous 2011 Green Lantern movie. It's a superhero movie that has fun making fun of superhero movies. It's simplistic enough for kids, but with enough inside jokes for older comic book fans.

Great cameos abound: Jimmy Kimmel voices Batman, Michael Bolton plays a singing tiger, and Stan Lee accidentally stumbles into the film, making one of his last cameos. But the movie's true joy is watching Robin's ridiculous attempts at getting his own movie, even going "Back In Time" — to the Huey Lewis song — to interrupt other superhero origins in order to eliminate the competition. But what's really bonkers is that this movie didn't even do as well as Peppermint at the domestic box office, and Peppermint was just awful.

Eighth Grade is a film about a girl finishing eighth grade ... that most eighth graders won't be able to see because of its R rating. If you're older and it's been a while since middle school, you'll instantly be taken back as the universal anxiety and awkwardness wash over you. If you're younger and you dealt with middle school or junior high during the social media era, you'll recognize even more: As one viewer said, "It is so absolutely perfect in the way it gives a voice to its main character [Kayla Day] and the people in her life," noting that it nailed some important details, even down to the bookmarks in Kayla's web browser.

Elsie Fisher's Kayla is an awkward tween who has almost no friends and makes motivational YouTube videos that hardly anyone watches. The only person who wants to talk to her is her single dad — who of course, she mostly ignores. Her struggles to get through the day will resonate with anyone who's been there, but it also has a bit of sweet optimism about the future. Ninety-nine percent of critics liked the movie per Rotten Tomatoes, but it only grossed $13.5 million in its first four months. This poster child for awkward eighth graders could also be a poster child for underappreciated films.

Science fiction used be a niche, designed to appeal to the brainiest film-goers. These days, sci-fi movies are aimed at the widest possible audience. But while cerebral films in the genre are scarce these days, there have been a few rewarding exceptions: 2016's Arrival, 2014's Ex-Machina, and 2011's Another Earth come to mind. Add Annihilation to that list. Natalie Portman stars as Lena, a college biology teacher with a personal reason for going on a secret expedition into a mysterious meteor landing zone in Florida where the laws of nature don't apply. The all-female expedition team doesn't get along — this isn't a feel-good flick — but the film provides them all with reasonable back stories. It's a visually beautiful and haunting sci-fi film with action and adventure that also explores heartbreak, depression, and guilt. Portman is excellent, as is Tessa Thompson (when is she not?) as scientist Josie, also on the expedition. If you complain about soulless special effects movies and you want something better, you ought to be supporting this one.

With Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Carrie Coon, Robert Duvall, Liam Neeson, and Jon Bernthal, Widows easily boasts the cast of the year for 2018. But the movie's strength lies not only in its movie stars, but in its wild story and excellent directing (courtesy of Steve McQueen). 

Veronica, Linda, and Alice (Davis, Rodriguez, and Debicki, respectively) are strangers to each other, connected by the fact that their husbands were killed by the police while trying to pull off a robbery. It turns out their husbands stole money from a powerful and dangerous man who now hits the wives with the debt, so they have to come up with $2 million in a month. Luckily, Davis' late husband (Neeson) left a notebook with plans for a $5 million heist. Problem solved, right? Of course not. You don't want to know any more than that before going to see the film.