Already halfway through the year and we have experienced some grand films (still need to check out Paul Schrader’s supposed masterpiece First Reformed). Such a reassuring fact since a lot of people proclaimed cinema to be dead a year ago or so. We have witnessed art house masterpieces, horror films that won’t soon be forgotten, and blockbuster films that proved to have big topics on their minds and a beating heart. But the best of the best so far this year were films that made their characters approach something that was guaranteed to frighten and shake some to their core on their way to discovering truths, even if they were hard to handle. Here are the Best Movies of 2018 … So Far, presented in alphabetical order with an additional ten honorable mentions.

I was so excited pooling together my list of the best horror movies of 2017. Pretty quickly the list went upwards of 20 films. 2017 was a remarkable year for horror both critically and at the box office. Andy Muschietti’s IT broke records and finished 6th in yearly box office returns. Jordan Peele captured the zeitgeist of America with his debut film, the instant classic, Get Out. Even M. Night Shyamalan re-emerged as a viable hitmaker with Split, which featured both an acclaimed performance by James McAvoy and a twist ending worthy of watercooler talk. And then there’s Guillermo del Toro, who reimagined 1950s monster movie Creature from the Black Lagoon as a Cold War era romantic drama and created my favorite movie of the year with The Shape of Water. It occurred to me as I was making the list that a Top 10 Horror Movies list would be very similar to my Top 10 Movies of 2017. So rather than listing the obvious choices, I’m going to list some hidden gems and lesser-known horror films that were overshadowed in an awesome year for the genre.

See below for my Not-So-Obvious Top 10 Horror Movies of 2017.

And so another year of movies has come to a close, and like most people, I would say it was a pretty great year at the box office. And as I look over my list of movies of 2017, I see I reached 77 films watched. And for those who are new to my posts, that includes any movie I saw for the first time, so the easiest and first cut as I whittle down my list to ten movies, is to get rid of the older movies. That mostly consists of the movies that I see during the Best Picture Showcase every year. And as a quick refresh, you can check out my top ten list at the halfway point here .

At that point we were just finished with the summer movie season and we just dipping our toes into the Oscar season. It’s that time of the year where we get to see if the popcorn movies can survive the serious and dramatic movies. I will say that there are a few Oscar worthy movies I did not get a chance to see, partly due to the fact that I go to the Best Picture Showcase every year, and don’t want to have to sit through a bad movie a second time. Will Logan remain at the #1 spot, and would any of the #5-10 survive? Before we get to my final 10, I would like to mention a few movies that fall in the honorable mention and were ones I went back and forth on whether it was worthy of making the final cut.

Each year that goes by I feel I see less and less films in the theaters. Between work, overtime, and all the activities of two children there just isn’t as much time and money as there used to be. I normally make a mad dash after Oscar nominations are released to see all the award contenders. Luckily, Netflix and other streaming devices have simplified life and become the source for some huge films. Two of my favorite films of the year were made possible via Netflix and Amazon. My list, like many other critics, contains several “superhero” films, but I think if nothing else, 2017 became the year where great “superhero movies” just started becoming “great movies.” Consider of the 5 major studio superhero-themed films I saw this year (sorry, not sorry Justice League), Wonder Woman ranked fifth.

Below are my Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2017″¦

The best of cinema this year dwelled on loss. It isn’t a subject many flock to the theaters for, but it proves to be a subject worthy of many good films and a few great ones this year. Loss can be overused and melodramatic. Loss can also be depressing. There is a niche of films, though, that use this subject with an exact purpose: to overwhelm its audience with emotion and to cause us to ruminate on what we just watched.

The loss of a father in Columbus provokes a relationship that could last a lifetime. The loss of a sibling in Personal Shopper could impact a soul for a lifetime. A ghost in A Ghost Story has lost his life and has the misfortune of seeing life zoom by others, witnessing them losing what they love. And in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a mother’s loss ignites a strand of violence that cannot be altered. Below are more films dealing with loss.

Here are my Top 30 Movies of 2017…