Almost a year since the film’s LA premiere, the plaudits just keep coming for Black Panther, with Rotten Tomatoes now honoring the picture with the Golden Tomato Award for Best-Reviewed Wide Release Movie of 2018.
The honor goes to the movie with the highest “Adjusted Score” out of all the films that screened in 600 or more theaters last year – a feat that T’Challa’s solo debut accomplished with its impressive Tomatometer score of 97% based on 444 reviews. In second place is Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which also sits at 97% based on 376 reviews. Going from three to ten, the rest of the list is rounded out by BlacKkKlansman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, A Star Is Born, A Quiet Place, Paddington 2, Incredibles 2, Eight Grade and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?.
But going back to Black Panther, this latest award only further hammers in how Ryan Coolger’s latest feature is earning respect on a level previously unseen for an MCU movie, and you can expect the accolades to keep piling up over these next couple of months.
Though the film went home empty-handed from last weekend’s Golden Globes (much to the frustration of the fans), the very fact that it was nominated at all for the category of Best Picture – Drama is a first for the superhero genre, and a lot of folks are expecting equivalent recognition from the Academy when the Oscar nominations are announced on January 22nd.
At the same time, as Michael B. Jordan himself said last year, a few nods from the Academy would really just be the “amazing icing on the cake” after the phenomenal 2018 that Black Panther had. Either way, stay tuned for news on the sequel.
