I'll make separate ones for TV/anime/cartoons etc and for video games later if nobody else subsequently does.
I didn't watch nearly as many movies this year as I wanted to and I won't have much opportunity to go to the theater for a while, so consider Annihilation, Mandy, You Were Never Really Here, Terrified (a buzzy Argentinian horror movie exclusive to Shudder, a streaming service I don't have), and especially Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse my potential honorable mentions.
5. A Quiet Place
I saw a couple of solid horror films this year -- I've warmed up a little to Hereditary from my initial "this is derivative, overhyped schlock" reaction -- but outside of the other two on this list, none stuck with me quite like A Quiet Place. It may not be quite as dreadfully terrifying as other picks, and I'm aware that it went through a massive hype backlash, but it does so much right that I have to recognize it. It eschews all exposition and nearly all dialogue, masters the audio side of things so momentously that its silent moments quieted theater audiences, and in favor of the demons and ghosts and serial killers that the West is oh-so-fascinated with, it focused on the too often neglected field of monsters -- ambiguously extraterrestrial monsters, but monsters nevertheless. The performances are great (especially from the deaf actress playing the daughter), the sign language shows a great amount of careful research and training, and it works as an entirely self-contained narrative. I'll take this over the next sanded-down Exorcist rehash any day.
4. Apostle
I've had some misgivings toward director Gareth Evans, but his The Raid movies are a must-see for any action fan, whatever their flaws. And with him writing an intense horror film starring Legion's incredible Dan Stevens, we got more of that old Raid style with a fresh new coat of crimson paint. Apostle (available on Netflix) is a demented, blood-soaked blend of cult thriller and sort-of action-horror film, throwing Stevens' character into a methodical mystery investigation that eventually descends into a storm of bone-crunching brutality and supernatural hijinks. Not all of it works, but it's a damn great time when it does.
3. Mission Impossible: Fallout
Everyone saw it, and everyone who saw it already knows. This is a damn spectacular blockbuster action movie, more so for Tom Cruise's obscene dedication to shattering his aging body for our entertainment than any filmic aspects (Henry Cavill is surprisingly fun, too). Every action scene shines with polish, especially the spellbinding three-way fistfight in the bathroom and the climactic helicopter chase / cliffside brawl. I don't love it quite as much as I wish I did, mainly because some of the scenes go on for so long that they wore out their welcome and I started to become unengaged (the motorcycle chase being the biggest offender), but it's definitely MI firing on all cylinders, and I'll always love a big-budget action movie that favors practical stunts.
2. Halloween
Long-delayed sequels that ignore everything except the first movie are nothing new to horror franchises -- Halloween H20 already got there, lest we forget. But they're usually not this good. After decades of pale imitators that soaked the increasingly desensitized audiences in buckets of blood while ignoring the subtlety and tension building that made the pioneering slasher film great, the new Halloween did the impossible: it made me afraid of Michael Myers again. It's a horrifically brutal film, but it depicts the violence in such a way that the elaborate kills we've long come to slasher movies for are actually chilling and, y'know, scary (the long tracking shot where he gets back to Haddonfield and just starts weaving in and out of houses methodically wasting people is truly special). Combine that with an exceptional return for Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode and some solid supporting players, and the cat-and-mouse game actually succeeds at being interesting on both sides again. There's a late-story twist that doesn't really hold together, and I wish the ending were much more conclusive for how well the story winds toward it, but otherwise, it's easily right behind the original in my franchise ranking.
1. Avengers: Infinity War
I don't care if you think this movie sucks because it doesn't stand on its own, I don't care if you're a film student who's terrified that recognizing this movie's successes will spell the death of the small-budget film industry, I don't care if you have no concept of "stakes" beyond "X won't die / won't stay dead", I don't fucking care if you think this is a lame choice because it's a big blockbuster and big blockbusters shouldn't be the #1 of anything. I don't care. Avengers: Infinity War climbed to my expectations, casually blew them away with a snap of the fingers, and kept on climbing. It's the pinnacle of Phase 3, arguably the best run of movies Marvel has put out yet, and it feels like the grand summation of everything good about the MCU. The heroes have compelling arcs, Thanos is so great that he's essentially the protagonist of the film, there's exceptional action scenes and quiet, poignant emotional scenes in tandem, and the ending is so iconic that I don't even need to write anything about it (beyond the fact that -- yes, even though everyone knows it will be fixed -- I'm never going to forget "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good"). Even if Endgame winds up sucking, god forbid, this entire Marvel experiment will have been worth it just for Infinity War.
Best Film Character/s: 1. Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War), 2. Annie Graham (Hereditary), 3. Laurie Strode (Halloween), 4. Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (Black Panther)
B-B-Bonus Categories!
Most Disappointing Movie - Incredibles 2
I almost gave this to Black Panther, which ended up just being a middle-of-the-road Marvel movie with tons of wasted potential and a mountain of unearned "it's a Shakespearean masterpiece / Killmonger was the real hero" articles, but I've simultaneously softened a bit to that movie on rewatch and found a better pick.
Incredibles 2 is yet another completely by-the-numbers Modern Pixar movie masquerading as a 12-years-late sequel to one of the best superhero movies of all time. It's got a hidden "twist villain" whom you'll spot within their first scene (and who never even scrapes the highs of the original's Syndrome), distills every character to their pre-development personalities to use them in a much less nuanced character arc (or worse for Bob, who goes from an active and supportive father to someone who's apparently never tended to his kids for the sake of stay-at-home-dad luls), lacks any kind of tension or stakes, abandons the unique hybrid superhero / spy flick aesthetic to be just another superhero flick, and overall feels radically less ambitious than its predecessor despite the much more advanced technology. Putting the focus on Elastigirl is a great idea, but from the overly apologetic opening to the anticlimactic finale, this movie's a fuckin snooze.
Most Instantly Forgettable Movie - Venom
Hey, they made a Venom movie. Remember when that happened? Me neither. Fucking Aquaman's a thing, and I actually forgot until I was typing this up that Venom came out.
Worst Movie - Slender Man
Fuck. This. Shit. The Slender Man movie made 4 years after the Slender Man craze mostly died (and which I've fully reviewed) accomplishes exactly one thing: it induced a hollow madness in me not unlike those stalked by the titular entity. Good gods, I can't remember the last time I watched a movie so slow, dull, and empty. It grinds and grinds and grinds on, occasionally interrupting its tedium with a tired stalk-and-sometimes-kill scene that doesn't so much alleviate the boredom as make it more noticeable, until it finally, mercifully decides to end so hastily and anticlimactically that it almost seems humiliated with itself. Slender Man is the worst kind of bad: the kind you can't even laugh at because you're too busy staring at your watch from around the pistol lodged in your jaw. It's dreadful beyond words.
Now post ya own picks!