The Best Film of 2018

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2019)

As of writing this, I've seen over 50 films from 2018. While a lot of them were great, Annihilation was the best one I've seen. It was terribly overlooked and became one of my favorite films almost instantly. It was a larger budget Sci-Fi movie that had things to say, but still let the audience come to their own conclusions.
Alex Garland is one of the best Sci-Fi writers of the 21st century, having written great films like 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Never Let Me Go and his directorial debut, Ex Machina is one of the leaders in the new era of high concept Sci-Fi.
I'll start with the acting. Natalie Portman has her best performance since Black Swan here, with a lot of alone time on screen. While a lot of people have a problem with Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance, I think it made sense in the context of the film. The rest of the supporting cast was great, particularly Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez.
The technical aspects here were amazing. The special effects, especially the scene where Oscar Issac cuts that dude open is great as well as the effect of Lena's clone. The mix of CGI and set designs were interesting and cool and the score was phenomenal, especially during the climax of the movie.
Finally I have to phrase the general atmosphere and themes of the movie. A sense of dread starts almost immediately here, and really intensifies as it goes. The bear scene is deservingly being praised as one of the most stress inducing scenes in a long time but watching everything that takes place in the lighthouse is also mesmerizing. With that amazing score blaring it's impossible to turn away from the stunning sight on the screen.
There are a lot of themes that are discussed in this movie, from the subjects of cancer, genetic change, starting over, paranoia, and the one I mostly take away from it, moving on from your past. Anyone who watches this film will come away with a new or different understand of what the film is trying to say.
This movie isn't perfect. Others have mentioned little plot holes which can be explained as them going crazy in the shimmer and Sheppard's death is ruined since your told she is dead 5 minutes into the movie (on it's own not bad but the fact that her fate is a mystery for a small portion of the movie, there was a lot of tension taken out of it.) But it's not hard to overlook the few flaws this film has and see it as a great, original, interesting Sci-Fi movie that I think will go down as a cult classic, and is the best movie of 2018 IMO.