Best films 2018: the movies to watch in cinema and on Netflix this year

After 2017 saw cinephiles treated to quality films from Moonlight to La La Land, 2018 looks set to continue in this vein, with a host of ambitious, exciting projects in the pipeline.

Now that the awards season has officially drawn to a close, here is The Week’s pick of movies to look out for over the next 12 months.

Isle of Dogs

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Fans of the quirky and slightly surreal comedy-dramas of ultra-hipster director Wes Anderson will likely be awaiting with bated breath the imminent UK release of Isle of Dogs, Anderson’s followup to his 2014 smash hit The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Isle of Dogs boasts a star cast drawn from the Texan director’s arsenal of frequent collaborators, including Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Frances McDormand and F. Murray Abraham.

However, the complete cast list makes for a veritable who’s-who of Hollywood stars, with Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Greta Gerwig, Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson and even Yoko Ono taking their places in the Wes Anderson oeuvre.

The stop-motion animation tells the story of a young Japanese boy who goes in search for his dog after an outbreak of disease forces all canines to be exiled to a small island. The film is Anderson’s second foray into animation following 2009’s acclaimed adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox.

Release date: 30 March 2018

Deadpool 2

In a year “drenched with comic book movies”, writes Den of Geek, “this is the highlight on paper”.

The first Deadpool movie, released in 2016, was a cultural phenomenon - an extraordinarily profane, witty and subversive superhero adventure so successful it became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

Canadian star Ryan Reynolds reprises the role of Deadpool, although director Tim Miller left the project early on due to creative differences with the actor. Instead, John Wick director David Leitch will take charge.

However, with the same scriptwriters signed up and Josh Brolin added to the cast, the expectations remain extremely high for this explicitly not-for-kids sequel.

Release date: 18 May 2018

First Man

Less than a year shy of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, First Man - based on the book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James Hansen - tells the biographical story of Neil Armstrong, the legenary American astronaut who became the first man to set foot on the moon, in July 1969.

Ryan Gosling will star in the lead role, teaming up with director Damien Chazelle for the second time after 2016’s hit La La Land, for which the latter won the coveted Best Director Oscar.

And as if that pedigree wasn’t enough, Hansen’s acclaimed book is being adapted for screen by Josh Singer, who picked up his own Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for 2015 newsroom drama Spotlight.

Release date: 12 October 2018

Norway

Norway, slated for release late in 2018, will definitely not be a film for everyone, telling as it does the horrific real-life story of the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik.

On 22 July 2011, Breivik detonated a car bomb outside the government headquarters in Oslo before driving to the remote island of Utoya, where he opened fire at a Workers’ Youth League summer camp. The joint attacks killed 77 people, most of them teenagers and children.

Although few details have been made available about the project, veteran British writer-director Paul Greengrass is famed for his unflinching, intense portrayals of violence, such as the acclaimed but gut-wrenching 9/11 drama United 93, released in 2006.

The film, funded by Netflix, is reportedly being filmed in Norway, with Anders Danielsen Lie set to play Breivik.

Release date: 2 November

Widows

Never one to shy away from bold, confrontational cinematic statements, acclaimed British filmmaker Steve McQueen’s latest project, Widows, tells the story of four armed thieves who are killed during a robbery, prompting their surviving spouses to team up and try to finish the job.

McQueen, whose brutal historical drama 12 Years a Slave picked up the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2014, is co-writing the script with Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn, and has already enlisted some Hollywood heavyweights into the cast.

Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall and Michelle Rodriguez are all set to appear in the drama, which is based on a 1980s British miniseries of the same name.

Release date: 16 November 2018