38 Hollywood & Acting Jokes: The 2018 “Infinity Snap, Shallow Notes & Quiet Ghouls” Edition

In 2018, Hollywood decided that endings don’t have to be happy—they just have to be spectacular. It was the year we learned that a purple giant with a jewelry obsession could actually win, that a rock star is born in a parking lot, and that a single Lego brick or a creaky floorboard is a death sentence. If you weren’t busy turning into dust, you were probably wondering if you could pull off Freddie Mercury’s mustache or if you should just stay silent for the rest of your life.

The 2018 Industry Top 10: “Dust, Rocks & Silent Screams”

1. The Thanos Snap: Why was the theater so quiet at the end? Because Marvel spent ten years making us love these characters just so a giant purple grape could turn 50% of them into expensive kitty litter.
2. A Star Is Born “Haaa-ah-ah-haaa”: Why was everyone singing in their cars? Because Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper proved that all you need for a hit movie is a nose-related compliment, a garage song, and a dog that stays loyal until the very end.
3. The Black Panther “Wakanda Forever”: Why was it a revolution? Because Marvel proved that a futuristic hidden city in Africa and a villain who actually had a point (Killmonger) were more interesting than another generic world-domination plot.
4. A Quiet Place Nail: Why did everyone stop eating popcorn? Because John Krasinski made a movie so silent that even the sound of someone opening a bag of Maltesers felt like a personal attack on the survival of the human race.
5. Bohemian Rhapsody Teeth: Why was Rami Malek wearing those? Because to play Freddie Mercury, you need the moves, the voice, and a set of prosthetics that make you look like you’re constantly trying to eat the microphone.
6. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Why did it look so different? Because Sony realized that the best way to do Spider-Man for the tenth time was to make it look like a comic book came to life and hit you in the face with pure style.
7. Mission: Impossible – Fallout Bathroom: Why was Henry Cavill reloading his arms? For a fight scene so intense that Cavill’s biceps literally grew their own biceps mid-punch, while Tom Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings and kept running.
8. Hereditary Tongue Click: Why was everyone terrified of 13-year-old girls? Because Toni Collette gave a performance so traumatizing that every mother in the audience decided to never, ever let their kids go to a party with a chocolate cake again.
9. The Favourite Duck Race: Why were the queens so weird? Because Yorgos Lanthimos proved that 18th-century royalty was mostly just throwing lobsters at people and having 17 rabbits in your bedroom.
10. Deadpool 2 Baby Legs: Why was Ryan Reynolds sitting on a couch? For a sequel that proved that the only thing funnier than Deadpool is Deadpool regenerating his lower half while looking like a very upset toddler.

The Full 2018 Acting & Industry Archive

11. The Roma Subtitles: Why the black and white? For a Netflix movie so beautiful it made everyone feel guilty about watching it on their phones while eating a sandwich.
12. The Green Book Fried Chicken: Why Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali? For a movie that proved that racism can be solved if you just share a bucket of KFC in a turquoise car.
13. The Crazy Rich Asians Wedding: Why the water? For proving that if you’re rich enough, you can walk down an aisle that is literally a river while everyone wears $2 million in jewelry.
14. The Halloween “Get to the Chopper” (Wait, No): Why Jamie Lee Curtis? For proving that Laurie Strode has spent 40 years preparing for a rematch, and Michael Myers really should have just stayed in the bus.
15. The Venom “Tater Tot”: Why Tom Hardy? For a movie where the lead actor talked to himself in a lobster tank, proving that Hardy is at his best when he’s 50% man and 50% alien slime.
16. The BlacKkKlansman Call: Why John David Washington? For a true story so unbelievable that Spike Lee had to remind us at the end that the world is still just as crazy as it was in the 70s.
17. The Aquaman Shirtless: Why Jason Momoa? For proving that a man can talk to fish and ride a seahorse as long as he looks like a human mountain with tattoos.
18. The First Man Silence: Why Ryan Gosling? For proving that going to the moon is 90% vibrating in a tin can and 10% being the quietest man in the universe.
19. The Mary Poppins Returns Feet: Why Emily Blunt? For proving that she is “practically perfect in every way,” even if she’s competing with the ghost of Julie Andrews.
20. The Solo: A Star Wars Story Dice: Why the origin? For a movie that answered questions nobody was asking, like “Where did Han Solo get his last name?” and “How does a Wookiee play Dejarik?”
21. The Incredibles 2 Jack-Jack: Why the wait? For a 14-year sequel that proved the real superhero is a mom with stretchy arms and a baby that can turn into a demon or a laser-pointer.
22. The Bird Box Blindfold: Why Sandra Bullock? For making everyone in 2018 try to walk around their house with a scarf over their eyes, leading to thousands of stubbed toes.
23. The Ocean’s 8 Met Gala: Why the sandwich? For proving that a heist is much classier if it involves Anne Hathaway being meta and Cate Blanchett wearing a green velvet suit.
24. The Grinch Coffee: Why Benedict Cumberbatch? For a remake that suggested the Grinch isn’t evil—he’s just a lonely guy who really needs a better therapist and some decaf.
25. The Vice Makeup: Why Christian Bale? For the annual tradition of Christian Bale gaining 40 pounds and disappearing into a historical figure (this time Dick Cheney) until we forget what he actually looks like.
26. The Widows Gym Bags: Why Viola Davis? For proving that if your husband dies in a heist, you should just finish the job yourself with a group of very stressed-out suburban women.
27. The Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Volcano: Why the island? For a sequel that suggested the best place for dinosaurs is a creepy mansion in Northern California where they can be auctioned off to villains.
28. The Suspiria Dance: Why Dakota Johnson? For a remake that proved that ballet is even more dangerous than we thought, especially if the instructors are literal witches.
29. The Bumblebee Nostalgia: Why the VW Bug? For the movie that finally realized that Transformers are better when they’re cute and set in the 80s instead of just being giant piles of exploding scrap metal.
30. The Game Night “Glass Table”: Why the dog? For proving that a murder mystery party is only fun until someone actually gets shot and you have to perform surgery with a bag of chips.
31. The Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again: Why Cher? For a sequel that proved you don’t need Meryl Streep for the whole movie if you have a helicopter, a grandmother, and “Fernando.”
32. The Ralph Breaks the Internet Princesses: Why the loungewear? For a scene that proved Disney princesses are much more interesting when they’re wearing hoodies and complaining about their lives.
33. The Meg Shark: Why Jason Statham? For a movie that asked: “Can a prehistoric shark eat a billionaire?” and the answer was “Yes, but not if the Statham is there.”
34. The First Reformed Glass: Why Ethan Hawke? For a movie that made everyone feel very concerned about the environment and very worried about Ethan Hawke’s health.
35. The Searching Desktop: Why John Cho? For proving that you can film a whole movie on a computer screen and it’s still more thrilling than most $100 million action films.
36. The Tag Reality: Why the cast? For a true story about grown men who have been playing the same game of tag for 30 years, making every adult male in 2018 feel like a failure for not having better friends.
37. The Mowgli Darker: Why the mo-cap? For Andy Serkis’s version of the jungle that was so realistic and grim that children wanted to go back to the singing bear version immediately.
38. The 2018 Final Industry Vibe: Why the “Snap”? Because it was the year the cliffhanger returned to Hollywood, the year streaming (Netflix) finally sat at the Oscar table, and the year we realized that half of everything we love could vanish in a second.