Before we begin talking about films in 2018, we've already saved you some trouble by snapping once and making the year's disappointing films disappear. Adios, Avengers Infinity War. So long, Solo. Arrivederci, Ready Player One.

Agree or disagree all you want, but our list of favorite 2018 films already has a ton of quality fare without those big-ticket entries. Like last year, we're mostly skipping the numbered list, especially since we are not a comprehensive film-review site. Our list, like our usual coverage, blends Ars' love of science, tech, data, research, huge beasts, faithful comic adaptations, and lasers. Let's dig in.

Killer docs

We begin with a category that can get lost in the year-end shuffle: documentaries. Some of the nation's best tech conferences and festivals include documentary screenings, so we were fortunate to catch quite a few stellar non-fiction films throughout 2018.

The staff favorite in this category is Science Fair, which our esteemed Jay Timmer reviewed from his relevant perspective as Ars' Senior Science Editor. Timmer, like other Ars staffers, appreciated how the film took high-level scientific initiatives and discoveries that deserve more attention, then wrapped them in relatable teen stories: growing up, fitting in, and surviving a high-stakes contest. As Timmer wrote in September:

Science Fair makes clear that its subjects are humane, working on things like simple testing for arsenic in water, a defense against Zika virus, or a better understanding of at-risk teens. And, in making that point, the movie drives home why science is so important and deserves to be valued more than it is by people other than the ones obsessed by it. The movie is funny, emotional, and touching, with a universal theme that just happens to have science as a background. And it's really, really good.

The filmmakers' access to [online celebrities] Shen and Li, as examples of "average" Chinese citizens turning into massive celebrities, does a lot to sell PRoD's story of how [the Chinese streaming site YY] deliberately games these stars' lives and output for maximum profits. "Only the platform is the winner," [one celeb's] agent says, and then he gestures to the two highest-ranked stars on an interface. "Two fucking losers." Eastern online services have always led the charge with in-game and in-app purchases, while Western games and apps have slowly ramped up their own use of them. PRoD's most compelling impact is in showing us exactly what could play out, for fans and creators alike, if the online economy falls headlong into a complicated tangle of content, money, popularity, and sense of inclusion.

Right behind that is SXSW's grand jury prize winner for its best documentary,. This film already feels a bit dated, since it focuses on China's live-streaming ecosystem circa 2015, yet it also feels prescient, since China is a few years ahead of the USA's video-streaming industry. As a result, this documentary's cult of personality has echoes of major YouTube- and Twitch-personality stories we've seen unfold over the past 18 months in the USA. As I wrote in March:

Post-Jeopardy!, Chu had no interest in resting on his new reputation and embracing the trivia lifestyle—rather, he decided to capitalize on his newfound fame and following by using it to fight back against online trolling and hate campaigns in the era of GamerGate and incels. Filmmakers Yu Gu and Scott Drucker, therefore, don't end up with a behind-the-scenes look at Trebek's temple; Who Is Arthur Chu? goes on to ask questions that are too complex for even Final Jeopardy. How does our identity impact the personas we grow into online? And what happens when the online persona becomes the dominant part of one's life?

Super sequels

Rounding out our documentary short-list is PBS', which you might mistake as a primer about what it takes to become an 11-time Jeopardy! champion. Instead, as our Nathan Mattise wrote in May , the film focuses on Chu's drive to fight back against online toxicity, inspired in part by how the Internet made him who he is today.

You'd be forgiven for skipping or overlooking the superhero film fray, especially when it comes to sequels. What surprises or excitement can be squeezed from the "mighty character meets surprisingly tough foe" trope? Yet this year somehow saw the big studios pulling off a number of sequel delights.

Pixar showed up in June with a much better Incredibles 2 than any of us expected. As I wrote:

Incredibles 2 wins by playing its established characters against each other in delightful ways, all while focusing Pixar's special-effects portfolio on new and exciting cartoon antics. In spite of some admittedly predictable plot beats and an all-too-tidy conclusion, Incredibles 2 juggles a lot of moving parts—multiple kinds of sibling rivalry, an intense husband-wife conflict, and a full deck of new tertiary heroes—without dropping any logic or momentum or feeling like a first-film carbon-copy.

Arguably, Marvel Studios' biggest surprise of the year came in the form of Ant Man and the Wasp, a film the studio sorely needed after Infinity War's combination of feeling too long, too short, and too logically broken. This sequel appears to capitalize on the vision that could have been in the original Ant Man had filmmaker Edgar Wright's plans for it not fallen through. As I wrote in July:

Michael Douglas finally gets a version of Dr. Pym to sink his teeth into, as we get to see him organically shift between determined hero and annoying curmudgeon. Laurence Fishburne tees him up beautifully in this regard as his sometimes-peer, sometimes-rival Dr. Bill Foster. And Paul Rudd is freed from the burden of explaining away an ex-con past, which lets him spend more on-screen time doing what he does best: getting a rise out of his on-screen partner. That comes in the form of laughs (with returning scene-stealer Michael Peña), aw-shucks heart (with Lang's daughter), and utter frustration (with another scene-stealer, Randall Park as a ragingly insecure FBI agent). As a result, Rudd's mix of stumbles, silliness, and determination gels together in far more convincing fashion this time.

Last but not least is Deadpool 2, the kind of sequel that didn't need to rock that series' boat very much to get on this list. It's good that Ryan Reynolds' sheer passion and will for this franchise showed up, because Reynolds had to do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the proceedings fun and funny enough to earn a year-end nod. As my review stated in May: