Black Panther, Spider-Verse, Daredevil and more top Rotten Tomatoes’ best-reviewed list for 2018

With the first two weeks of 2019 nearly in the bag, Marvel is still managing to collect accolades on the strength of its 2018 lineup of hits on both the big and small screens. Rotten Tomatoes’ just-released Golden Tomato Awards for the past year is flush with genre productions from Marvel and other studios — and it’s Black Panther that’s perched at the very top.

Ryan Coogler’s Wakandan adventure finished 2018 with a near-perfect 97 percent aggregate score on RT’s list of best-reviewed movies in wide release last year. It’s a list dominated by sci-fi, horror, and animation. Mission: Impossible — Fallout finished in a virtual dead heat, with a 97 percent “certified fresh” rating in second place, followed by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (4th place); A Quiet Place (6th); Paddington 2 (7th); and Incredibles 2 (8th). 

On the TV side, Cobra Kai debuted in the fourth spot among RT’s list of all best-reviewed new shows; while The Good Place finished third among all returning series.

Broken down by genre, Daredevil’s third-season swan song topped the list of best superhero shows, with The Flash, Legion, Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger, and DC’s Titans close behind. Doctor Who Season 11 was the highest-reviewed sci-fi show, followed by Westworld's second season and Outlander: Season 4. Spidey soars atop the animated movies list with Into the Spider-Verse, followed by Incredibles 2, Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Teen Titans GO! To The Movies.  

And on the horror front, Season 1 of The Terror finished just ahead of a pair of critically adored Netflix newcomers: The Haunting of Hill House and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The Walking Dead Season 9 and Castle Rock’s debut season round out the horror top five.

Browsing through RT’s top-scoring movies and shows, you may notice that some of the highest-rated ones aren’t anywhere to be found on the Golden Tomatoes list. That’s because the awards take into account how many reviews a film has gotten overall, with more reviews (in Black Panther’s case, 447 of them) weighting its score higher.

To check out all of Rotten Tomatoes’ best-reviewed list — and maybe rediscover that movie you’d meant to watch last year but never go around to — head on over to the Golden Tomatoes landing page.