Ranking All the 2018 Oscar Best Picture Nominees

It’s Oscar week!  The 90th Academy Awards air in one week and this is one of the most exciting years ever.  A number of categories are still up in the air, including the big one, Best Picture, and rightly so.  Of the nine nominees, I would be totally content with my top six winning.  Here is my ranking of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

 

 

 

9 – LADY BIRD (Great Gerwig)

The fact that this movie has the potential to win is mind-boggling.  This isn’t a bad movie, it’s a fine movie.  Greta Gerwig tells her life story in a cute high school comedy.  Save for a few good performances, particularly by Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, and Lucas Hedges, the movie really did nothing for me.  The biggest enigma is how Greta Gerwig snatched up a Best Director nomination.  I don’t get it, so I’ll just leave it at that.

 

 

8 – DARKEST HOUR (Joe Wright)

Like Lady Bird, this movie is fine.  However, one thing Darkest Hour does have going for it is the legendary performance by sure-fire Best Actor winner Gary Oldman.  Oldman is extraordinary playing Winston Churchill.  It’s a shame that the movie is relatively subpar beyond his performance.  Oldman’s performance carried Darkest Hour to a Best Picture nomination.

 

 

 

7 – CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Luca Guadagnino)

Call Me by Your Name is a beautiful, timeless love story.  It is a movie about first loves, forbidden loves, and lost loves.  Luca Guadagnino conveys this with sentiment and a backdrop as beautiful as the themes.  Led by a wonderful ensemble, this is a love story that will live on forever.

 

 

6 – PHANTOM THREAD (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Phantom Thread re-teams director Paul Thomas Anderson and actor Daniel Day-Lewis (in his final performance) for a movie that shows why they are both two of the best at their craft.  This is a dark, dense, whimsical story about love and ego.  Day-Lewis is sensational, as is Vicky Krieps as his strong willed love interest and Lesley Manville who is chilling play Day-Lewis’s sister.  This is a movie that requires multiple viewings and, like a lot of Anderson movies, has the feeling of being a classic years from now.  Prepare to be hypnotized.

 

 

5 – THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh)

One of the frontrunners is a morality tale about revenge, guilt, and humanity.  Led by a towering performance from Francis McDormand and the best ensemble of 2017 behind her, Three Billboards plays like the Midwestern step sister of Fargo (1995).  It shows the darkest sides of the human condition and how even the worst people can change.  Three Billboards is funny, dark, moving, and tragic and one of the year’s finest.

 

 

4 – THE SHAPE OF WATER (Guillermo Del Toro)

The Shape of Water‘s star is director Guillermo Del Toro.  The Best Director frontrunner owns every inch of this movie.  Every angle, and beat, every prop, everything about this movie is from the brilliant mind of Del Toro.  This is a twisted, gothic fairy tale that defines the limits of love.  The cast is great, the visuals are astounding, and the score and cinematography are sublime.  Del Toro has crafted one of his finest movies ever.

 

 

 

3 – THE POST (Steven Spielberg)

We don’t appreciate Steven Spielberg like we should.  Over the last decade, he has put out some of the finest movies of his career, which is crazy to think since his career is one of the greatest ever.  The Post is yet another great Spielberg movie and is the newest edition to his Constitution Series, following Lincoln, and Bridge of Spies.  Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep lead the charge in this look at journalistic integrity and making the right decision when all odds are against.  Spielberg is a true master of the craft and his latest career run just proves it even more.

 

 

2 – GET OUT (Jordan Peele)

What makes Get Out so special is it’s rewatchability.  Every time I watch this movie, I take away something new.  Whether it is appreciating another performance, noticing references from other films, or marveling at Jordan Peele’s masterful direction.  This is truly a genre defining masterpiece that plays as a horror movie, a psychological thriller, and a dark social satire that would slap a huge smile on my face if it wins Best Picture this year.

 

 

1 – DUNKIRK (Christopher Nolan)

Dunkirk was my number one movie of 2017.  I loved a lot of movies in 2017, but there was nothing like Dunkirk.  This is why we go to the movies.  It is cinema.  Nolan made a movie that is massive in scale, yet tight in story.  He throws on the frontline of World War II, showing us the lives of solders and civilians during the Battle of Dunkirk.  Nolan plays with time in a way I’ve never seen on screen before to show us this cold, brutal story.  A technical masterpiece in every way, Dunkirk pushes Nolan to a whole new level as a director and proves why he is arguably the very best in the game today.  Dunkirk is a masterpiece in every sense and my favorite movie from the 2018 Best Picture Nominees.

 

 

 

 

How would you rank the 2018 Best Picture nominees?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.