Year-End Lists

Stephanie Zacharek: Ten Best Movies of 2018, as published by Time Magazine

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013]

1. Roma
   Alfonso Cuaron
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
   Morgan Neville
3. First Reformed
   Paul Schrader
4. Eighth Grade
   Bo Burnham
5. The Favourite
   Yorgos Lanthimos
6. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
   Marielle Heller
7. A Star Is Born
   Bradley Cooper
8. If Beale Street Could Talk
   Barry Jenkins
9. Bohemian Rhapsody
   Bryan Singer
10. Paddington 2
    Paul King

Honorable Mentions

• At Eternity’s Gate
  Julian Schnabel
• McQueen
  Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui
• Blindspotting
  Carlos López Estrada
• The Hate U Give
  George Tillman Jr.
• Christopher Robin
  Marc Forster
• Shoplifters
  Hirokazu Kore-eda
• BlacKkKlansman
  Spike Lee
• Hearts Beat Loud
  Brett Haley
• The Sisters Brothers
  Jacques Audiard
• Widows
  Steve McQueen
• The Old Man & the Gun
  David Lowery

Elizabeth Lund: 5 Best Poetry Collections of 2018, as published by The Washington Post

[see also 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
  Terrance Hayes
• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• New Poets of Native Nations
  Heid E. Erdrich
• So Far So Good
  Ursula K. Le Guin
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith

The Washington Post: 10 Best Books of 2018

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2021 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 10 Best Books of 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020 • Best Books of 2019 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • The 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The Ten Best Books of 2014 • Top 10 Books of 2013 • The 10 Best Books of 2012]

• Good and Mad

  The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
  Rebecca Traister
• The Library Book
  Susan Orlean
• The Line Becomes a River

  Dispatches from the Border
  Francisco Cantú
• The Maze at Windermere
  Gregory Blake Smith
• On Desperate Ground

  The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle
  Hampton Sides
• One Person, No Vote

  How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
  Carol Anderson
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• A Place for Us
  Fatima Farheen Mirza
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan

National Book Award: Fiction 2018

[see also Fiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2023 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2022 • Fiction 2021 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2018 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2013 • Nonfiction 2013]

Winner

• The Friend
  Sigrid Nunez

Finalists

• A Lucky Man
  Jamel Brinkley
• Florida
  Lauren Groff
• Where the Dead Sit Talking
  Brandon Hobson
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai

Longlist

• Gun Love
  Jennifer Clement
• The Boatbuilder
  Daniel Gumbiner
• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Heads of the Colored People
  Nafissa Thompson-Spires

National Book Award: Nonfiction 2018

[see also Fiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2023 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2022 • Fiction 2021 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2019 • Fiction 2018 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2013 • Nonfiction 2013]

Winner

• The New Negro

  The Life of Alain Locke
  Jeffrey C. Stewart

Finalists

• The Indian World of George Washington

  The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation
  Colin G. Calloway
• American Eden

  David Hosack, Botany and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
  Victoria Johnson
• Heartland

  A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
  Sarah Smarsh
• We the Corporations

  How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
  Adam Winkler

Longlist

• One Person, No Vote

  How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
  Carol Anderson
• Directorate S

  The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
  Steve Coll
• Brothers of the Gun

  A Memoir of the Syrian War
  Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple
• The Tangled Tree

  A Radical New History of Life
  David Quammen
• Call Them by Their True Names

  American Crises (and Essays)
  Rebecca Solnit

National Book Award: Poetry 2018

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2013]

Winner

• Indecency
  Justin Phillip Reed

Finalists

• Wobble
  Rae Armantrout
• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
  Terrance Hayes
• Ghost Of
  Diana Khoi Nguyen
• Eye Level
  Jenny Xie

Longlist

• feeld
  Jos Charles
• Be With
  Forrest Gander
• Museum of the Americas
  J. Michael Martinez
• Lo terciario
  Raquel Salas Rivera
• Monument

  Poems New and Selected
  Natasha Trethewey

The Washington Post: 100 Notable Books of 2018, Fiction and Nonfiction

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2021 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 10 Best Books of 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020 • Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • The 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The Ten Best Books of 2014 • Top 10 Books of 2013 • The 10 Best Books of 2012]

Fiction

• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine
  Kevin Wilson
• Cherry
  Nico Walker
• Children of Blood and Bone
  Tomi Adeyemi
• Circe
  Madeline Miller
• Conscience
  Alice Mattison
• Crudo
  Olivia Laing
• The Female Persuasion
  Meg Wolitzer
• Flights
  Olga Tokarczuk
• Florida
  Lauren Groff
• French Exit
  Patrick deWitt
• Girls Burn Brighter
  Shobha Rao
• The Great Alone
  Kristin Hannah
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• How to Be Safe
  Tom McAllister
• If You Leave Me
  Crystal Hana Kim
• The Immortalists
  Chloe Benjamin
• The Incendiaries
  R.O. Kwon
• Killing Commendatore
  Haruki Murakami
• The Kiss Quotient
  Helen Hoang
• A Ladder to the Sky
  John Boyne
• Lake Success
  Gary Shteyngart
• The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
  Denis Johnson
• Love and Ruin
  Paula McLain
• The Mere Wife
  Maria Dahvana Headley
• A Million Drops
  Víctor del Árbol
• The Music Shop
  Rachel Joyce
• My Sister, the Serial Killer
  Oyinkan Braithwaite
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• November Road
  Lou Berney
• Only Child
  Rhiannon Navin
• The Pisces
  Melissa Broder
• The Poet X
  Elizabeth Acevedo
• Red Clocks
  Leni Zumas
• A River of Stars
  Vanessa Hua
• The Shakespeare Requirement
  Julie Schumacher
• The Shape of the Ruins
  Juan Gabriel Vásquez
• The Silence of the Girls
  Pat Barker
• Still Life with Monkey
  Katharine Weber
• Strike Your Heart
  Amélie Nothomb
• That Kind of Mother
  Rumaan Alam
• Theory of Bastards
  Audrey Schulman
• Transcription
  Kate Atkinson
• Upstate
  James Wood
• Warlight
  Michael Ondaatje
• What We Were Promised
  Lucy Tan
• When Katie Met Cassidy
  Camille Perri
• The Winter Soldier
  Daniel Mason
• You Think It, I'll Say It
  Curtis Sittenfeld
• Your Duck Is My Duck
  Deborah Eisenberg

Nonfiction

• 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die

  A Life-Changing List
  James Mustich
• Air Traffic

  A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America
  Gregory Pardlo
• All You Can Ever Know
  Nicole Chung
• Amity and Prosperity

  One Family and the Fracturing of America
  Eliza Griswold
• The Apprentice

  Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy
  Greg Miller
• Bad Blood

  Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
  John Carreyrou
• Because We Are Bad

  OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
  Lily Bailey
• Becoming
  Michelle Obama
• Beneath a Ruthless Sun

  A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found
  Gilbert King
• Boom Town

  The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-Class Metropolis
  Sam Anderson
• Calypso
  David Sedaris
• Chesapeake Requiem

  A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island
  Earl Swift
• The Corrosion of Conservatism

  Why I Left the Right
  Max Boot
• Directorate S

  The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
  Steve Coll
• Dopesick

  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America
  Beth Macy
• Eager

  The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
  Ben Goldfarb
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• Fear

  Trump in the White House
  Bob Woodward
• The Girl Who Smiled Beads

  A Story of War and What Comes After
  Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
• Heavy

  An American Memoir
  Kiese Laymon
• A Higher Loyalty

  Truth, Lies, and Leadership
  James Comey
• How Democracies Die
  Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
• How to Change Your Mind

  What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
  Michael Pollan
• How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
  Alexander Chee
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

  One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
  Michelle McNamara
• The Known Citizen

  A History of Privacy in Modern America
  Sarah E. Igo
• The Lies That Bind

  Rethinking Identity
  Kwame Anthony Appiah
• A Life of My Own
  Claire Tomalin
• Look Alive Out There
  Sloane Crosley
• Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

  The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce
  Colm Tóibín
• The Mirage Factory

  Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles
  Gary Krist
• Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret
  Craig Brown
• Presidents of War
  Michael Beschloss
• The Poisoned City

  Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy
  Anna Clark
• Political Tribes

  Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations
  Amy Chua
• Questioning Minds

  The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner
  Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner
• The Real Lolita

  The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World
  Sarah Weinman
• Rising Out of Hatred

  The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist
  Eli Saslow
• Russian Roulette

  The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump
  Michael Isikoff and David Corn
• The Schoolhouse Gate

  Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind
  Justin Driver
• Smoketown

  The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance
  Mark Whitaker
• The Souls of Yellow Folk
  Wesley Yang
• The Spy and the Traitor

  The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
  Ben Macintyre
• These Truths

  A History of the United States
  Jill Lepore
• Tigerland: 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing
  Wil Haygood
• We the Corporations

  How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
  Adam Winkler
• What Truth Sounds Like

  Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America
  Michael Eric Dyson
• Why Baseball Matters
  Susan Jacoby
• Winners Take All

  The Elite Charade of Changing the World
  Anand Giridharadas
• The Wizard and the Prophet

  Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World
  Charles C. Mann