Category: list

13. Deadpool 2

Released: May 18
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz
Director: David Leitch (Atomic Blonde)
Why it’s great: There’s an obnoxious aside in Deadpool 2, the latest chapter in the ultra-violent (and ultra-smarmy) X-Men spin-off series, where Ryan Reynolds’s red suit-wearing anti-hero turns to the audience and says there’s a “big CGI fight scene coming up.” He’s not kidding — the Russian tin man Colossus brawls for a while with an animated villain I won’t reveal here — and that’s the irritating part of the gag: The filmmakers are just acknowledging a cliché instead of upending it! In the first Deadpoolmovie, the comedic “too much-ness” of the character was often used to cover up some perfunctory, uninspired action sequences. Luckily, the sequel, which centers around Deadpool’s efforts to save young Firefist (Dennison) from the clutches of badass time traveler Cable (Brolin), delivers sharper one-liners and more dynamic set-pieces, including a bloody X-Force raid that turns into a Rube Goldberg-like show-stopper for the luck-prone Domino (Zazie Beetz). The CGI battles, meta winks, and constant pop culture references can be exhausting, but there’s an entertaining 90-minute Shane Black-ish comic book movie lurking beneath all the clutter.
Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)

12. Beirut

Released: April 11
Cast: Jon Hamm, Rosamund Pike, Dean Norris, Shea Whigham
Director: Brad Anderson (The Machinist)
Why it’s great: This is a film made by seasoned professionals. Anderson is a big screen and TV veteran, and the movie’s screenwriter, Tony Gilroy, was responsible for Michael Clayton and the best entries in the Bourne series. The script for the 1980s-set Beirut, which follows a former US diplomat (Hamm) as he gets pulled back to Lebanon by shady intelligence officials to handle a tense hostage situation, was actually written in the early ’90s and sat on the shelf for ages. (If it feels like a vintage Blockbuster rental, that’s why.) The film’s politics are often glib and reductive — it doesn’t have a keen interest in the Lebanese people or the history of the region — but, if you like spycraft stories in the vein of John le Carré’s work, this is a briskly paced, occasionally clever thriller featuring a winning performance from Hamm, who has struggled to find the right star vehicle since the end of Mad Men. His character is a familiar type: a wounded, hard-drinking negotiator who can talk himself out of any situation. He’s only slightly less morally compromised than the CIA sharks he swims with. The pleasure comes from hearing Hamm turn Gilroy’s cynical, punchy dialogue into a sales pitch.
Where to see it right now: Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

11. Tomb Raider

Released: March 16
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu
Director: Roar Uthaug (The Wave)
Why it’s great: Not enough modern action movies have lengthy sequences where scrappy adventurers face down certain death as they rush to solve elaborate puzzles. It’s a problem. Luckily, Tomb Raider, the latest cinematic reboot of the long-running video game series centered around the gun-toting Lara Croft (played by Vikander here), has plenty of those scenes, along with a range of fun, thrilling, and invigorating non-puzzle detours. There’s a heart-pounding bicycle race through the streets of London, a disaster-movie worthy shipwreck on the high seas, a gravity-defying escape from an old plane perched on a waterfall, and a MMA-style brawl on a ladder strewn across a giant cliff-like hole. Does the melodrama connecting these set-pieces totally work? Not really — a second-act twist involving a bearded Dominic West is both predictable and baffling — but Vikander sells the preposterous plot with the same Oscar-winning gusto she brings to pondering ancient riddles. Maybe next time they’ll crack the whole code.
Where to see it right now: Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

10. Upgrade

Released: June 2
Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson, Benedict Hardie
Director: Leigh Whannell (Insidious: Chapter 3)
Why it’s great: As the writer behind first Saw movie and the Insidious series, Whannell has proven he knows how to dish out gruesome twists and find tension in spooky places. Upgrade, a thriller about a mechanic (Marshall-Green) implanted with a chatty microchip in his brain following a tragic accident, finds the filmmaker adding a bit of John Carpenter-esque social commentary to the mix, along with a healthy dose of Terminator-style action mayhem. The revenge aspect of the story is one-note and familiar — Death Wish and John Wick cover similar territory — but Marshall-Green’s lead performance is darkly funny and he brings a startling degree of vulnerability to the role. When the microchip takes control of his body, his limbs flail about like they’re being pulled by a digital puppet-master and the movie discovers a mischievously absurd tone. The shifts between Silicon Valley satire and body horror can be jarring, but it makes sense that a project this tricky would have a few bugs built into it.
Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)

9. Kickboxer: Retaliation

Released: January 26
Cast: Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Mike Tyson
Director: Dimitri Logothetis (Wings of the Dragon)
Why it’s great: It’s been almost three decades since Van Damme’s Kurt Sloan faced off against Tong Po in Thailand at the climax of 1989’s Kickboxer. After four sequels, the series was rebooted for the modern MMA era with 2016’s Kickboxer: Vengeance, which cast former stuntman Alain Moussi as the neck-snapping Sloane and gave Van Damme the role of fedora-wearing Master Durand. Kickboxer: Retaliation is the next entry in this super-formulaic but reliable series — reportedly, there’s another sequelcoming next year — and it’s a cut above your average direct-to-DVD slugfest, putting an emphasis on tightly choreographed fights and cleverly executed camera work. (There’s a ridiculous prison brawl that plays like a B-movie take on The Raid: Redemption.) The story inevitably runs out of gas by the time Sloan faces off against The Mountain from Game of Thrones in a lengthy, deadly bout at a muay thai temple, but it feels like a fair trade for all the bone-breaking chaos that comes early on. It’s hard work for an aging fighter to stay this spry.
Where to see it right now: Stream on Netflix; rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

8. Manhunt

Released: May 4
Cast: Zhang Hanyu, Masaharu Fukuyama, Ha Ji-won, Angeles Woo
Director: John Woo (Face/Off)
Why it’s great: Any movie with a Jet Ski chase gets an automatic spot on this list. Luckily, Manhunt, the frequently ludicrous chase thriller from action filmmaking master John Woo, is more than simply one good scene where grown-men pursue each other on personal water crafts. It also has motorcycle rampages, sword fights, gun battles, and a secret super-soldier serum that can turn a senior citizen into a grizzled, roided-out warrior. The pharmaceutical conspiracy plot about wrongly accused lawyer Du Qiu (Hanyu) running from noble detective (Fukuyama) is merely a way to connect all the pieces in this insanely elaborate, goofy puzzle. The film has been described as a greatest hits collection for Woo, a showcase for all his favorite narrative tropes (Convoluted backstories! Orphans!) and his visual tics (Slow-motion! Pigeons!), but it’s really more like a return-to-form record from an aging rock band: He knows what works and has delivered a slick, dutiful version of it. Manhunt can’t touch his Hong Kong classics like Hard Boiled or The Killer — and it’s not as gleefully absurd as his Hollywood work like Face/Off or Broken Arrow — but it’s an impressive hybrid with style to spare. (And jet skis!)
Where to see it right now: Stream on Netflix (watch the trailer)

7. Incredibles 2

Released: June 15
Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner
Director: Brad Bird (The Incredibles)
Why it’s great: After over a decade in hiding, Brad Bird’s Incredibles, a superpowered family of neurotic do-gooders, return for a sequel that takes a little while to get going but still delivers the visual goods. Following a pair of live-action blockbusters, including the ridiculously entertaining Tom Cruise vehicle Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, Bird’s animation comeback displays a commitment to making his action sequences as kinetic and thrilling as possible. There’s a train rescue mission led by Holly Hunter’s Elastigirl in this movie that would make James Cameron and George Miller weep. Unfortunately, some of the connective tissue that gets us from spectacle to spectacle is distractingly flimsy — Screenslaver, the masked villain of the movie, is a dud — but you might be so knocked out by the frenzied set-pieces that you don’t even notice.
Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)

6. Braven

Released: February 2
Cast: Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Zahn McClarnon, Stephen Lang
Director: Lin Oeding
Why it’s great: The main character in this movie is named “Joe Braven” and he’s played by Jason Momoa. That simple fact alone should convince you to watch this scrappy, low-budget action movie about a logger tasked with fighting off a heavily armed gang of drug dealers who stash some primo shit in his log cabin. If the protagonist had a less goofy name, the movie would still be effective — the director is a former stunt coordinator and he knows how to properly stage all the gunfights, bow-and-arrow deaths, and snowmobile chases — but the stupid grin that you get on your face every time someone says “Joe Braven” really elevates this throwback outdoors thriller. Momoa has the sturdy, low-key charisma of the best ’80s action heroes, and it’s a shame that the the laws of modern blockbuster-dom mean he’ll likely spend more time starring in CG monster throw-downs like Justice League when he could be snapping necks in gruff B-movies like Braven. In a just world, the Braven-verse would be rapidly expanding every year.
Where to see it right now: Stream it on Amazon Prime; Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

5. Ant-Man and the Wasp

Released: July 6
Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Michael Douglas
Director: Peyton Reed (Ant-Man)
Why it’s great: The first Ant-Man was a rambunctious and clever take on the familiar Marvel origin story, introducing audiences to shrinking superhero dad Scott Lang (Rudd) and his extended family of friends and reluctant crime-fighters. The sequel is an even funnier and sillier refinement of the first chapter, ditching some of the heavier elements and going all-in on the gags. Though other entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been filled with sitcom-ish banter — and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarokwas happy to deflate its own self-important genre trappings — this is the first one that really plays like a proper comedy. (It recalls Ghostbusters in the way it combines special effects and irreverence.) Rudd has a way of putting an absurd spin on even the most mundane lines, Peña again steals every scene he’s in, and Reed approaches the pint-sized action beats with the goal of upending viewer expectations. Luckily, it’s the rare blockbuster with charming human moments that doesn’t feel the need to overcompensate with scenes of mass destruction or constantly apologize for its modest scale.
Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)

4. A Quiet Place

Released: April 6
Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe
Director: John Krasinski (The Hollars)
Why it’s great: It’s reasonable to be skeptical of John Krasinski’s tastefully composed, PG-13 rated, Michael Bay-produced horror contraption, which also works as a sneaky action movie. There was little in his previous two directorial efforts, the indies Brief Interviews With Hideous Men or The Hollars, that suggested Jim from The Office was a budding genre filmmaker. And yet: A Quiet Place is a top-notch roller coaster in the Spielberg-ian mold. After sound-hating monsters take over the planet, a husband (Krasinski) and wife (Blunt) live a life of extreme caution with their two children, protecting them in a carefully maintained world of hushed whispers and relative silence. As you’d guess, the monsters have other plans. The political allegory component of the story isn’t particularly compelling — it’s been interpreted as a commentary on the hysteria of the Trump era — but as a movie about parental anxieties, it’s steely and effective.
Where to see it right now: In theaters (watch the trailer)

3. The Commuter

Released: January 12
Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows)
Why it’s great: The last thriller from the team of Neeson and Collet-Serra was Non-Stop, a bracing and clever whodunit on an airplane. The pair are back in high-octane Agatha Christie mode with The Commuter, a mystery that begins with Farmiga’s chatty passenger Joanna presenting Neeson’s haggard ex-cop (and loyal transit-enthusiast of the title) Michael MacCauley with a bizarre hypothetical: If you could perform a seemingly insignificant task that would have disastrous consequences for another commuter in exchange for a generous financial reward, would you do it? It’s a convoluted twist on Richard Matheson’s “Button, Button” short story that was adapted into a classic Twilight Zone episode and the bonkers Richard Kelley movie The Box, but Collet-Serra is less interested in the moral dilemma. Instead, he simply wants to strip the giant locomotive — and his star’s lumbering frame — for parts, finding Hitchcockian tension in each padded seat, empty corridor, and nervy patron. It’s action filmmaking as controlled demolition — and the best train potboiler since Steven Seagal’s Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.
Where to see it right now: Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

2. Black Panther

Released: February 16
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira
Director: Ryan Coogler (Creed)
Why it’s great: Coogler’s deft balancing of a high-tech spy gadgetry, ceremonial palace intrigue, fantasy action mayhem, and subversive political critique is unparalleled in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe that Black Panther springs from. In the same way Creed, his propulsive and knowing reboot of the Rocky franchise, paid tribute to and upended boxing iconography, Coogler’s take on superhero-dom is both pleasing and probing. Basically, he’s got Soundcloud jokes, rhino battles, and takes on imperialism. The larger ideological conflict between the new king T’Challa (Boseman) and the American revolutionary Killmonger (Jordan) has been seen before in the pages of history books and comics, but it’s never been given this type of eye-popping, brain-scrambling, heart-pounding blockbuster treatment.
Where to see it right now: Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

1. Annihilation

Released: February 23
Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson
Director: Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Why it’s great: Writer Jeff VanderMeer’s hallucinogenic, Kafka-like science-fiction novel proves to be fertile ground for filmmaker Alex Garland in this unsettling and surreal adaptation. Garland doesn’t stick to the book’s plot but he keeps the core concept: A team of women, including Portman’s grief-stricken biology professor, venture into a quarantined territory of Florida known only as “Area X” to investigate a series of unexplained phenomena and disappearances. The journey quickly turns perilous and it becomes clear that the group won’t make it out alive. Working in the same white-knuckle register as John Carpenter’s The Thing, the movie unnerves and stuns in equal measure. Refusing to provide the type of puzzle-box solutions viewers have been trained to look for, Garland leaves us with psychedelic images: grotesque animal hybrids stalking their prey, quizzical humans transforming into flowers, and shiny doubles performing interpretative dance moves. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it dares to dream in a language we can’t quite comprehend.
Where to see it right now: Rent on iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

Story by Thrillist.