Richard Brody of The New Yorker said, "2018 has been a banner year for movies, but you'd never know it from a trip to a local multiplex—or from a glimpse at the Oscarizables.
Several of the year's best movies, such Shirkers and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, are being released by Netflix at the same time as (or just after) a limited theatrical run.
Others, which barely qualified as having theatrical releases (one theatre for a week), are now available to stream online, on demand, and are more widely accessible to viewers (albeit at home) than films playing at thousands of multiplexes.
Yet an impermanence, a threat of disappearance with the flick of a switch, hangs threateningly over independent films that are sent out on streaming.
Black Panther, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Incredibles 2, and Aquaman have each grossed over $1 billion, making them among the highest-grossing films of all time, with Incredibles 2 becoming the 2nd highest-grossing animated film of all time.