OPINION: There are a huge amount of fantastic-looking movies coming out this year and many of them aren't on most people's radar just yet.
Sure, there's the first Avengers: Infinity War, Alex Garland's Annihilation and a Han Solo movie coming out - along with the Bumblebee movie and a third Fifty Shades for the more braindead cinema-goer - but there's much, much more than those to look forward to.
Here are 10 of the films you should be super excited about, but might not have even heard of yet.
The Kid Who Would Be King
This is the year we finally get Joe Cornish's follow-up to Attack the Block, arguably the best film of 2011. That saw a bunch of youngsters fighting off an alien invasion in South London - the new one sees a bunch of youngsters embark on an epic quest to thwart a medieval menace.
Halloween
This series suffered diminishing returns, like most horror franchises, but the new reboot is exceedingly promising. It has Halloween father John Carpenter's approval, for a start. Jamie Lee Curtis is back, for a second. But most importantly, it's written by Danny McBride and David Gordon Green, with the latter directing. It may seem weird, but I reckon these masters of comedy taking on a horror classic will knock it out of the park.
You Were Never Really Here
Film buffs would've heard about Lynn Ramsay's follow-up to We Need to Talk About Kevin when it won big at Cannes. The hypnotic trailer (above) features Joaquin Phoenix as a scowling hitman with a penchant for hitting people with hammers, being tasked with saving a girl from a sex-trafficking ring.
The Nightingale
Jennifer Kent created quite a stir with horror fans with her 2014 hit The Babadook and four years later, she's following it up with a revenge-thriller. Set in Tasmania in 1825, this follows an Irish convict who teams up with an Aboriginal tracker to find the men who killed her family.
Apostle
There are two action movie franchises born this decade that have truly elevated the genre: John Wick and The Raid. The filmmaker of the latter is Gareth Evans and his new film is a period-piece set in Wales, his home country. It follows a man rescuing his sister from a religious cult - hopefully with some very violent retribution involved.
Dragged Across Concrete
A lot of people missed it, but last year's Brawl in Cell Block 99 was awesome. It was the work of S Craig Zahler, who also gave us 2015's Bone Tomahawk and is back in 2018 with this action thriller. It's a police brutality-themed tale, starring Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn - perhaps not an enticing duo, but if you've seen Brawl in Cell Block 99, you'll be just as hyped as I am.
Suspiria
Remakes of horror classics never really work out well, but this one should. The source material is more of a visual experience than a narrative one, so a new version should be a new visual experience inspired by it. What's most exciting is who is doing it - Luca Guadagnino, director of the extraordinary Call Me by Your Name.
The Sisters Brothers
Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal together in any film would be exciting, but them joining forces under Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone, A Prophet) is especially so. Set in 1850s Oregon, this follows a pair of assassin brothers chasing down their gold-prospector target. Carol Kane, John C Reilly and Riz Ahmed also star
The Predator
Shane Black has had a fascinating movie career, which reached its most supremely Shane Black-ey moment with 2016's The Nice Guys. His reboot of the classic sci-fi action will apparently follow a bus full of PTSD-suffering veterans, who team up to take down the Predators, when a UFO sighting leaves them marked for death.
The Irishman
Martin Scorsese doing another gangster movie that features Joe Pesci coming out of retirement, along with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel? I'm all in. This is to be based on the true story of the disappearance of American labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Netflix is set to release it for streaming in 2019, but it should get a theatrical run this year.
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Daniel Rutledge is the digital entertainment editor of Newshub.
