‘Black Panther’ Confirmed As Best-Reviewed 2018 Comic Book Movie by Rotten Tomatoes

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has shared its top five best-reviewed live-action comic book or graphic novel-inspired movies for 2018, topped by Marvel Studios’ Black Panther.

The Ryan Coogler-directed blockbuster won a 97% certified fresh, making it the highest-rated for the year and Disney-owned Marvel Studios’ best scored production, topping 2008’s Iron Man (93%), 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming (both 92%), and 2012’s The Avengers (92%).

Armando Iannucci’s satirical The Death of Stalin — inspired by French graphic novel La Mort de Staline — places second at 96%, ahead of Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp (88%) and crossover epic Avengers: Infinity War (84%).

Placing fifth is Fox’s Marvel Comics adaptation Deadpool 2 (83%), the only superhero project not backed by Disney-Marvel on the list, which introduced Josh Brolin’s time-traveling mercenary Cable and Zazie Beetz’s fortuitous mutant Domino to the Ryan Reynolds-led franchise.

Sony Pictures Animations’ acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — which on Sunday won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature — is not included on the list, and instead tops Rotten Tomatoes‘ separate best-reviewed animated films category.

Black Panther, which earned more than $1.3 billion worldwide since its release last February to become the ninth highest-grossing film of all time, also reigns as the highest-grossing domestic earner for 2018.

The film, which stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o, is just the third movie to bypass the $700 million milestone at the domestic box office, making it the United States’ third biggest earning movie ever behind only Disney’s own Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936m) and James Cameron’s Avatar ($760m).

“We have high expectations, we spend a lot of money on these movies, we put a lot of time into these movies, we believe in them and expect them to do well that we can do another one. That it had the cultural impact it had is what is most meaningful,” Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige told MTV News at the 76th Golden Globes.

“This is my first time at the Globes. That Black Panther has the power to bring Marvel to the Golden Globes is pretty exciting.”

Feige called the cultural impact of the groundbreaking blockbuster “certainly the most important victory we’ve ever had.”

Following its Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture in the Drama category — making it the first-ever superhero film to be nominated in the Globes’ biggest category — Black Panther has since earned a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 2019 Writers Guild Awards for Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole and has placed on four shortlists at the upcoming 91st Academy Awards, where Disney submitted the film for consideration in numerous major categories.