Not the best film released by Marvel Studios in 2018 (that distinction belongs to Avengers: Infinity War) but the most important film.
Black Panther certainly checks a lot of the boxes that the Academy looks for before it stoops to honor a blockbuster, and everything from the film’s incredible box office success (it outgrossed Infinity War domestically, but not worldwide) to its achievement in diversity both in front of and behind the camera make it a movie that we easily could see the Oscars putting on a pedestal and honoring with a Best Picture nod.