Top 25 Movies of 2019
I've done these end-of-the-film-year blog posts since 2016, and I have to say, 2019 may have been the best year of the bunch. Sure, as always there were a handful of major disappointments (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Joker, The Lion King), but overall 2019 was supremely satisfying. I even had to bump my typical top 20 to a top 25 this year!
Superhero movies continued to reign supreme in 2019, with one taking Avatar's mantle as highest-grossing movie of all time. Acclaimed new horror directors of the last few years came back with sophomore films and did not disappoint (Midsommar, The Nightingale, The Lighthouse, Us). Foreign films found their way onto my list more than in past years, reflecting the increasing influence of international cinema on American filmgoers. Streaming services like Netflix appear to have finally earned enough clout to be taken seriously by the film establishment, garnering Oscar nominations for The Irishman, Marriage Story and The Two Popes. Finally, considering how many well-received films this year centered on issues of class and wealth inequality (Knives Out, Parasite, Joker, Hustlers, Us, Ready or Not), 2019 might have been the year Hollywood went full-on eat-the-rich.
The silver lining of our increasingly-precarious world seems to be that the stranger and scarier things get, the better our movies become. So here's hoping 2020 continues to be an absolute living nightmare like 2019!
Ready or Not - Class warfare, but delightful!
Midsommar - A formally stunning and thematically rich follow up to Hereditary which explores grief and pagan ritual to bone-chilling effect
Brittany Runs a Marathon - Forgoes the outright glorifying of weight loss to explore the deeper questions behind body image and self acceptance. Also quite funny!
Little Monsters - A charming Edgar Wright-tinged zombie comedy. Lupita is the Scream Queen of 2019!
The Art of Self Defense - Finally answers the question: “What if Yorgos Lanthimos made Fight Club?”
Dolemite is My Name - Delightful return to form for Eddie Murphy with a star-making turn by Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Long Shot - A political rom-com that actually works as a comedy thanks to a surprisingly funny Charlize Theron
Rocketman - Like Bohemian Rhapsody but good! Taron Egerton sings! And is so so great!
Ford v Ferrari - James Mangold’s excellent sports movie that is maybe A LITTLE too long
Harriet - A powerful story well-told, built on a stunning performance from Cynthia Erivo
Hole in the Ground - A by-the-numbers demon-child story that succeeds because of its performances and coherent tone.
The Report - A competently-made political thriller, based on an infuriating true story and featuring a riveting performance from Adam Driver.
Good Boys - So charming! Raunchier than any tween comedy I’ve seen but nowhere near exploitative.
Someone Great - A winning, authentic romantic comedy anchored by a sharp script and lovable performances.
Shazam - The DCEU found the fun!
Captain Marvel - A bit shaggy in execution, but the emotional core is rock solid.
25. The Irishman (9/10)
“We can be sorry, even when we don’t feel sorry.”
Gangster movies are not inherently interesting to me, and on paper a 3.5 hour gangster movie sounds like purgatory, but Martin Scorsese has a way of infusing even his crime movies with soul. The Irishman serves as an apotheosis for the acclaimed director’s oeuvre, reflecting on the moral implications of a life lived in violence. It is long, but it’s also remarkably shot, sharply written and stunningly performed, especially Joe Pesci’s Russel Bufalino.
24. Ad Astra (9/10)
“We’re all we’ve got.”
Brad Pitt manages to keep this sad-man-alone-in-space story intriguing throughout its runtime, even while it explores its lofty themes with a creepingly deliberate pace. This Kubrickian anti-faith parable has a lot on its mind, and a few things on its heart, too. I may not agree with Ad Astra’s secular humanist worldview, but I did find the journey visually arresting and thoroughly compelling. Plus, even as a Christian I can find value in the film’s admonition that we ought not be so heavenly-minded that we’re of no earthly good.
23. Hustlers (9/10)
"The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules."
With the likes of Cardi B and Lizzo in the mix, Hustlers makes the stripping world look fun, until it suddenly, and definitively, is not. Few stories of economic insecurity are this stylish, or this specific. Writer/director Lorene Scafaria’s crime thriller is fun even while it’s poignant, sympathetic in tone and posture even while it indicts its morally dubious characters. Scafaria’s humanistic approach reminds us that we don’t have to condone to understand. Also, if you’d told me when 2019 rolled around that I’d be whinging over the Oscars’ failure to recognize a Jennifer Lopez performance, I doubt I’d have believed you. But here we are.
22. The Two Popes (9/10)
“Mercy is the dynamite that blows down walls.”
There’s something midrashic about The Two Popes. Tradition and reform are both given voice, and faith exists somewhere in between, in the wrestling. By some miracle, the stakes of this film never feel abstract or inaccessible, because the philosophical and theological conflicts at its heart are always grounded in the friendship between two honest-to-God human men. It helps that each of the pontiffs is played by a legendary actor in peak form. Anthony Hopkins is predictably brilliant as the conservative stalwart Pope Benedict XVI, but Jonathan Pryce has the slight edge, turning in a particularly inspired performance as the reform-minded Pope Francis.
21. Blinded by the Light (9/10)
“The writers I admire make a difference. They tell the world what they need to hear.”
While promoting The Big Sick, comedian/actor Kumail Nanjiani drew attention to how infrequently American media portrays Muslims having fun (riding roller coasters, eating ice cream, normal human stuff). And even in the year of our Lord 2019, his insights were tragically accurate. That’s why, while Blinded by the Light’s inspirational true story might feel trite or naive in moments, its existence is already revolutionary if only for the relatable, utterly sympathetic Muslim family at the film’s center. The story’s familial drama is universally accessible, and its characters understandable even while they frustrate. Any restless American teen could see himself in the teenage protagonist Javed, just as any blue collar dad in the heartland might relate to the motivations and shortcomings of his overbearing father. And in that way the medium is the message: Art can bridge worlds. Bruce Springsteen lyrics can speak to a Pakistani kid from England, and when that Pakistani kid learns how to tell his story, it can open hearts and change minds.
20. Pain and Glory (9.5/10)
“Love is not enough to save the person you love.”
The name is apt. There is such pain in Pedro Almodovar’s semi-autobiographical opus about an aging director making amends with his heroin-addicted leading man. The Spanish filmmaker’s poignant script and lush visuals ensure the titular pain never feels like a slog, and Antonio Banderas is at once subtle and heartbreaking as Almodovar’s surrogate. Ultimately, Dolor y Gloria is a sobering delight which offers insight on such facets of life as: childhood sexual awakening, addiction, aging and illness, reconciliation and lost love. These insights are the hard-won sort that can only be seen in hindsight, and I am grateful for them.
19. Toy Story 4 (9/10)
“Sometimes change can be good.”
*spoiler alert for Toy Story 4 and Avengers: Endgame*
Did Woody and Captain America have the same resolution to their character arcs? Finally choosing romance and self-fulfillment over duty to their community after years of faithful service because they realized it was time to move on? If so (and I believe I’m onto something here), what an emotionally sophisticated moral for a "kids' movie"! I didn't need another Toy Story after the third, but if we were bound to get one, I'm glad its raison d'etre was to tell such a mature, rich and nuanced story.
18. Us (9/10)
“We’re Americans.”
Watching Jordan Peele’s second horror masterpiece in a row (after 2017’s Get Out), I couldn’t get the words of the Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn out of my head: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Us reminds us that we are inexorably linked by shared humanity to those we demonize, neglect or abuse. Dehumanizing the mysterious “other” will only ever harm us all in the long run. Peele’s sophomore effort is also just a spooky, twisty thrill-ride. Lupita Nyong’o gave the performance of the year but, like Toni Collette in last year’s Hereditary, she was overlooked by the Academy because of its absurd bias against horror.
17. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (9.5/10)
“That was the best acting I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”
I have two versions of this review, one snarky and one sincere, to highlight a slight tension I feel with this film in particular and Tarantino’s catalogue in general:
Snarky: Ahhh Old Hollywood, where men were men, and women were nymphs with butts and feet.
Sincere: I really liked this movie! The kinship between Hollywood’s two male leads is the sweetest relationship in any Tarantino movie. Tenderness and intimacy in male friendship is underrepresented in cinema, so to see it from one of the industry’s most explicitly masculine filmmakers (and two of its more masculine stars) is more than welcome. Plus, I love how the film takes its time to breathe and luxuriate in its scenery. Brad Pitt driving through the streets of Los Angeles is one of my favorite scenes of the year. Sure, the controversies surrounding Tarantino’s ostensibly penultimate film are not without merit, but for my part I found it quite moving. Top-tier Tarantino for me.
16. 1917 (9.5/10)
“I hoped today might be a good day. Hope is a dangerous thing.”
As I said in my review of Christopher Nolan’s 2017’s war epic Dunkirk, war movies are not typically my thing. As a Christian pacifist I have a hard time seeing war as between “good guys” and “bad guys,” which is precisely how most war films frame their conflict. Dunkirk more or less skirts this problem, first because if any war in recent history had a “good” side it was World War II, and second because it narrows its focus from THE WAR to a single, against-all-odds survival mission. This year, Sam Mendes’ heir-apparent to the Oscar throne 1917 has a tougher row to hoe, as World War I’s legacy has more to do with futility than glory. Still, Mendes’ approach is much the same: to narrow the focus. In fact, the acclaimed director doubles down on this impulse, honing in on just two soldiers, limiting the scope of the story to their perspective, even shooting the entire film to look like one shot as it follows them on their mission. Other notable films have utilized this single-shot approach (Hitchcock’s Rope, Iñárritu’s Birdman), to better and worse affect, but with 1917 it feels like so much more than a gimmick; it actually underlines the futility and absurdity of the War while keeping the stakes intimate. It’s more about the triumph of the human will over adversity than the triumph of one nation-state over another. It also succeeds unequivocally as a peerless technical achievement and a moving piece of character work.
15. The Farewell (9.5/10)
“Chinese people have a saying: When people get cancer, they die.”
The genius of The Farewell, Lulu Wang’s autobiographical tragicomedy of manners, is that it manages to ground big-picture cultural differences in intimate exchanges between well-intentioned loved ones (squaring with my storytelling conviction that the universal is the particular and vice versa). The film is also a touching picture of how families carry each other’s burdens, for better and for worse. Awkwafina acquits herself quite well as a dramatic actress in the lead role, and Zhao Shuzhen is an instant star in her first screen credit as the lead’s dying grandmother. Wang’s script and direction drip with authenticity and pathos. This is one of the best movies of the year and the Oscars did it dirty.
14. Waves (9.5/10)
“Love is kind. Love is not rude. It doesn't boast. Love also forgives wrong.”
I work with high schoolers, and some of my favorite kiddos are the wrestling boys. They gave me the hardest time for my first month on the job, calling me “Eric” as a bizarre power move to assert their dominance over me, but since then I’ve managed to win their trust. This has earned me the privilege of walking alongside them through both their triumphs and their failures. They are, each of them, tender, passionate and good at heart, with a capacity for sweetness, and one for complete bone-headedness. Trey Edward Shults’ third feature Waves (after Krisha and It Comes at Night) manages to capture all the nuance, tragedy and glory of this age, as it follows a young black wrestler from a well-to-do family who pushes himself beyond his limits until it begins to wear on his body and relationships. Shults’ story and direction evoke the absolute chaos of adolescence and the strain that can place on even the most well-intentioned families. Warning: the first half of this film will have you clenching your jaw, squeezing your fists and bemoaning that THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT, but if you stick it out, the second half will open your heart again to remind you that everything is grace, after all. Waves is both deeply spiritual and profoundly human, a masterful balancing act.
13. Uncut Gems (9.5/10)
“This is how I win.”
I can’t think of another actor with a track record like Adam Sandler’s. Who else can spend years in a row making some of the worst movies ever put to film, only to occasionally make something touching, sophisticated, even masterful? Who else has such an endless supply of goodwill that, no matter how much garbage he produces, he will still be allowed to partner with great filmmakers and deliver awards-worthy performances when it suits him? The 2010’s were not exactly a banner decade for the SNL alum, but he did manage to churn out two pitch-perfect performances, first in Noah Baumbach’s 2017 indie dramedy The Meyerowitz Stories, and most recently in the Safdie Brothers’ crime thriller, Uncut Gems. While certain audiences found the film divisive (my aunt hated it), critics almost unanimously hailed it as a return to form for Sandler and a uniquely thrilling experience. Chicago critic Josh Larsen compared it to holding your breath for a full minute. For my part, I found Uncut Gems incredibly compelling, especially for its moral musings I’d liken to the book of Ecclesiastes. Indeed, for jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner (Sandler), all the excess in the world may prove ultimately ephemeral, vanity of vanities, a cosmic shrug. Plus, I can’t believe The Weeknd and Kevin Garnett agreed to play themselves in this thing.
12. The Lighthouse (9.5/10)
"BAD LUCK TO KILL A SEABIRD!"
This is a hard movie to unpack because, to put it plainly, it’s weird as hell (which is why I love it). The only way I can think to frame my review is to tell you some things I expected going in, and some things that caught me completely off-guard. A few vague spoilers ahead.
Things I expected:
- Authenticity and meticulous period detail from writer/director Robert Eggers (who brought the same laser-focus to 2016’s The VVitch)
- Brilliant character work from Willem Dafoe
- Abiding strangeness
- Stunning cinematography
Things I did NOT expect:
- Robert Pattinson harnessing an energy reminiscent of a young Daniel Day Lewis
- A striking and impossible-to-ignore sexual charge, verging on the homoerotic, throughout
- A minute-long monologue in which one character invokes the wrath of a sea god to punish the other for besmirching how he prepares their lobster dinners.
11. Honey Boy (9.5/10)
“Why won’t you hold my hand?”
Shia Labeouf has had almost as fascinating a career trajectory as Adam Sandler. After rising to prominence on the Disney Channel, he was a welcome (if unremarkable) presence in a few big franchise movies, until he made a heel-turn and started flexing his acting chops in audacious, challenging indie films. All the while Shia battled some serious demons (addiction, mental illness) in as public a venue as anyone can. But we knew all that before. What we didn’t know (but might’ve suspected) is that, on top of it all, Shia was carrying unprocessed trauma from an absolute shit-show of a childhood. That’s what we learn in Honey Boy, a mesmerizing autobiographical exploration of how the actor’s childhood traumas have reverberated into his adulthood, sabotaging any present attempts at success and happiness. Labeouf actually wrote the script as part of his treatment after an alcohol-fueled arrest found him in court-mandated rehab. He even plays his own father in the film (opposite rising star Noah Jupe playing a version of the young Shia), and the performance is one of the year's very best and most unsung. It’s a totally unique cinematic experience, and one of two movies this year that heralded a comeback for one of Hollywood’s most talented young actors.
10. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (9.5/10) - My favorite under-seen gem of the year was The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Co-written and directed by newcomer Joe Talbot, the film follows Jimmy Fails (playing a version of himself), a young black man clinging to his old family home despite having lost ownership to a wealthy white family years earlier. Together, Jimmy and his best friend Monty (stand-out Jonathan Majors) struggle to carve out a place in the world for themselves as the city of their memory, the city they love, gentrifies around them. The story may hit some familiar beats around coming of age and longing for home, but the tone and aesthetic, while indebted to the likes of Barry Jenkins, feel refreshing and distinctive. Lush, sensitive and heartbreaking, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a cathartic exploration of culture, family, friendship and the stories that shape us.
9. Booksmart (9.5/10) - Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut appears at first glance to be a run-of-the-mill teen sex comedy (albeit one starring girls, which already sets it apart from the pack), but Booksmart has quite a bit more going on beneath the surface. This movie subverts expectations left and right, always to the end of crafting richer characters, heartier laughs and more emotionally compelling stakes. Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird) and Kaitlyn Dever (Netflix's Unbelievable) star as high school overachievers and longtime best friends who discover on the eve of their graduation that their popular, partying peers got into the same prestigious colleges they did, and so elect to spend their last night of high school hopping from party to party, making up for lost time. The two leading ladies are so matched in skill and have such a natural chemistry that I’d watch any number of movies they star in together. Apparently Wilde had them live together for the duration of the shoot, and it absolutely shows in their on-screen sisterly bond. More than anything, I treasured how Booksmart loves its characters, even the ones who’d be flattened out and played for cheap laughs in other teen comedies. Finally, the lesson that we ought to take it easier on ourselves, and on each other too, is a welcome one for 2019, 2020 and beyond.
8. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (9.5/10) - Fred Rogers was a complicated, flesh-and-blood man who learned how to practice radical presence for and with millions of America’s children, for decades, in ways which will no doubt ripple throughout time and space for generations. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood does a remarkable job capturing both his idiosyncrasies and his glories. It is a story worthy of a great man’s legacy, and Tom Hanks pulls off an absolute miracle playing the real-life saint. He gives an embodied, authentic performance that leverages Hanks’s own charm and clout without eclipsing Rogers’ memory or mannerisms. My friend Sam and I were talking about the movie recently, and he helped me see how it portrays Mr. Rogers as a pastor to America’s youth, one who, without ever “preaching” or proselytizing, managed to hold space for people, particularly children, and take care of their souls. This has been a profound encouragement to me, as it has helped me reframe my work in public schools as a kind of pastoring. I may not be using my theology degree to preach the Christian Gospel, but I do have the opportunity to help children know they are loved, just as they are. Which, it turns out, is not such a bad use for my degree. After all, that’s what Mr. Rogers used his theology degree for.
7. Little Women (10/10) - Greta Gerwig makes movies that mean something. They’re stylistically meticulous, smartly written and full of pathos, but they’re also about morals, and family, and womanhood. They manage to be poignant without being preachy. I’d neither seen nor read Little Women prior to watching this iteration, but I feel like I’ve known these characters for years. Maybe a lifetime. It’s easy to love them because they so clearly love one another, with all their quirks and imperfections. Every performance in this movie is rich, nuanced and stunning. (THE) Meryl Streep is among the least impressive, but only because the cast is so uniformly great and Meryl’s role relatively small. Saoirse Ronan is predictably superb as protagonist Jo March, and ought not be overlooked for the heavy lifting she does here, but the show-stealer is Florence Pugh as Amy March. She’s believably ornery and passionate, playing 13 and 20 with comparable authenticity, without ever being grating. She also handles the period dialogue best of all the cast.
6. Parasite (10/10) - Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja) is a visionary filmmaker at the absolute height of his powers, and Parasite is his masterwork. Expertly-paced, brilliantly written, beautifully shot and affectingly performed, the film also features effortless characterization and non-didactic yet utterly compelling thematic material around class struggle (one of a handful of great movies about class in 2019). As a relative newcomer to foreign film, I’ve never felt so absolutely gripped by a film in a language other than my own. Parasite is funny, horrifying, suspenseful, and thought-provoking, often at the same time. It is one of the year’s best, no question, and if the Academy knew what it was doing it would stand a serious chance of winning this year’s top award.
5. Marriage Story (10/10) - Oddly, divorce movies tend to resonate with me, and account for some of my very favorites (Kramer vs. Kramer, The Squid and the Whale, The Last Five Years). For whatever reason, and to the befuddlement of my married friends, I find myself compelled, even gripped by movies that effectively portray the dissolution of a marriage. Maybe it’s that I come from a broken home myself, who knows? In any case, 2019 delivered an instant classic in the divorce-movie subgenre, and one that appears to have been made specifically to delight me. Written and directed by one of my absolute favorite auteurs Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, The Squid and the Whale, While We're Young, The Meyerowitz Stories), Marriage Story achieves the impossible on multiple levels. It’s a story about divorce that recognizes how painful the process can be but also that there is hope on the other side of it. It’s honest about its characters’ flaws and foibles, without outright vilifying either parent. It features a karaoke performance of “Being Alive” from Stephen Sondheim’s Company which manages to be one of the most poignant scenes of the year. I don’t know how Baumbach pulled it all off (perhaps by drawing on some of his own experiences). Unsurprisingly, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are both absolutely gripping here, perhaps the best I’ve ever seen them. Their Oscar nominations are richly deserved. Plus, Baumbach and collaborator/real-life partner Greta Gerwig both released acclaimed, best picture-nominated movies this year, so that's kinda neat.
4. Peanut Butter Falcon (10/10) - Releasing a few months prior to Honey Boy, Peanut Butter Falcon was 2019’s first herald of the Shia-ssance. And Mr. Labeouf really is tremendous in this unconventional road trip comedy. He brings a sweet kind of brokenness to his role as a grieving drifter, ostensibly channeling the trauma and dysfunction of his own life during these last few years. Opposite Labeouf is newcomer Zack Gottsagen, playing a young man with Down's Syndrome who escapes the supervision of his case worker Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) to seek out a wrestling school run by his favorite professional wrestler (Thomas Haden Church). He pairs up with Labeouf’s Tyler and the two form a brotherly bond as they travel together. Peanut Butter Falcon is a tender, intimate, and frequently hilarious exploration of the grace of the unexpected. It reminds us that while life can be hard, and cruel, sometimes sweetness finds us where, when, and from whom we least expect it. And even if we veer off the path, we might just get baptized.
3. Knives Out (10/10) - While I may have loved 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it was certainly not without its haters, many of whom found its jokes unfunny and its narrative muddled. The film’s writer/director Rian Johnson (also responsible for Brick, The Brothers Bloom and Looper) answered this backlash by making Knives Out, a crowd-pleasing, undeniably hilarious and narratively airtight throwback to murder mysteries in the Agatha Christie vein. To finish wearing down our defenses he enlisted a star-studded cast featuring the likes of Daniel Craig, Michael Shannon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Christopher Plummer and LaKeith Stanfield. If his own films are any indication, Johnson (Rian, not Don) must be quite the cinephile, a man so intimately familiar with genre tropes and cliches that he can satisfy them while deconstructing or subverting them to infuse life into even the stalest genres. I’m not convinced any other working filmmaker could've made an old-school murder mystery feel so of-the-moment, with such political savvy and class consciousness. Parenthetically, how can you see Ana De Armas and Chris Evans standing next to each other and not be bisexual? Asking for a friend.
2. Jojo Rabbit (10/10) - I am grateful to be alive at the same time as Taika Waititi, a filmmaker who possesses both a totally off-the-wall sense of humor and a deep well of empathy. He’s the master of tonal imbalance, bouncing wildly between absurd humor and utter heartbreak a dozen times in the same movie, even the same scene (he pulled off the same trick in my favorite film of 2016, Hunt for the Wilderpeople). That dance may not work for all, and when applied to such sensitive material as fascism and ethnic cleansing, I understand why some viewers might feel ill-at-ease, but once Jojo Rabbit hits its stride it overflows with more heart and humor than just about anything else this year (with the possible exception of Peanut Butter Falcon). All the film’s performances are noteworthy, especially newcomer Roman Griffin Davis as the plucky Hitler Youth protagonist, and Scarlet Johansson playing his daffy mother. Oh, and Leave No Trace’s Thomasin McKenzie as a Jewish girl hiding from the Gestapo. Also Sam Rockwell, playing his umpteenth bad-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold. Plus Archie Yates as Jojo’s best non-Hitler friend and the film’s strongest comedic presence. And finally, Waititi himself playing Adolf Hitler, channeling both absurdity and menace in equal measure. What a story for our moment, about fighting the effects of radicalization with love and courage. When the credits rolled, and a quote by the poet Rilke came up on the screen, I sobbed.
1. Avengers: Endgame (10/10) - My favorite movie of 2019 has also proved the hardest to write about, by far. I think that’s because Avengers: Endgame feels like so much more than a single movie. It’s more of a culminating event, one the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building toward since 2008’s Iron Man. How could any one film possibly live up to the hype, anticipation and narrative weight of eleven years and twice as many films? Ask the Russos, because they stuck the landing in a way J. J. Abrams could only imagine. Endgame may not be the objective best movie I’ve ever seen, but it is certainly the most movie I’ve ever seen. Three hours of action set pieces, time travel, edge-of-your-seat “HELL YEAH!” moments, tearful goodbyes, franchise-best acting for virtually the entire cast, and a narrative resolution that I can only describe as satisfying. That’s my whole review in a nutshell: satisfying. I don’t have much more to say, except that while I love Martin Scorsese, and liked The Irishman quite a bit, to suggest that it is cinema and Endgame is not is silly and arbitrary. Cinema can be a lot of things, a fact I hope you’ve seen reflected on this list. Thanks for reading.
Superhero movies continued to reign supreme in 2019, with one taking Avatar's mantle as highest-grossing movie of all time. Acclaimed new horror directors of the last few years came back with sophomore films and did not disappoint (Midsommar, The Nightingale, The Lighthouse, Us). Foreign films found their way onto my list more than in past years, reflecting the increasing influence of international cinema on American filmgoers. Streaming services like Netflix appear to have finally earned enough clout to be taken seriously by the film establishment, garnering Oscar nominations for The Irishman, Marriage Story and The Two Popes. Finally, considering how many well-received films this year centered on issues of class and wealth inequality (Knives Out, Parasite, Joker, Hustlers, Us, Ready or Not), 2019 might have been the year Hollywood went full-on eat-the-rich.
The silver lining of our increasingly-precarious world seems to be that the stranger and scarier things get, the better our movies become. So here's hoping 2020 continues to be an absolute living nightmare like 2019!
Honorable Mentions:
Spider-Man: Far from Home - As fun a follow up to Avengers: Endgame as one could imagine, and certainly better than we deserve. THAT MID-CREDITS SCENE Y’ALLReady or Not - Class warfare, but delightful!
Midsommar - A formally stunning and thematically rich follow up to Hereditary which explores grief and pagan ritual to bone-chilling effect
Brittany Runs a Marathon - Forgoes the outright glorifying of weight loss to explore the deeper questions behind body image and self acceptance. Also quite funny!
Little Monsters - A charming Edgar Wright-tinged zombie comedy. Lupita is the Scream Queen of 2019!
The Art of Self Defense - Finally answers the question: “What if Yorgos Lanthimos made Fight Club?”
Dolemite is My Name - Delightful return to form for Eddie Murphy with a star-making turn by Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Long Shot - A political rom-com that actually works as a comedy thanks to a surprisingly funny Charlize Theron
Rocketman - Like Bohemian Rhapsody but good! Taron Egerton sings! And is so so great!
Ford v Ferrari - James Mangold’s excellent sports movie that is maybe A LITTLE too long
Harriet - A powerful story well-told, built on a stunning performance from Cynthia Erivo
Hole in the Ground - A by-the-numbers demon-child story that succeeds because of its performances and coherent tone.
The Report - A competently-made political thriller, based on an infuriating true story and featuring a riveting performance from Adam Driver.
Good Boys - So charming! Raunchier than any tween comedy I’ve seen but nowhere near exploitative.
Someone Great - A winning, authentic romantic comedy anchored by a sharp script and lovable performances.
Shazam - The DCEU found the fun!
Captain Marvel - A bit shaggy in execution, but the emotional core is rock solid.
The List:
25. The Irishman (9/10)
“We can be sorry, even when we don’t feel sorry.”
Gangster movies are not inherently interesting to me, and on paper a 3.5 hour gangster movie sounds like purgatory, but Martin Scorsese has a way of infusing even his crime movies with soul. The Irishman serves as an apotheosis for the acclaimed director’s oeuvre, reflecting on the moral implications of a life lived in violence. It is long, but it’s also remarkably shot, sharply written and stunningly performed, especially Joe Pesci’s Russel Bufalino.
24. Ad Astra (9/10)
“We’re all we’ve got.”
Brad Pitt manages to keep this sad-man-alone-in-space story intriguing throughout its runtime, even while it explores its lofty themes with a creepingly deliberate pace. This Kubrickian anti-faith parable has a lot on its mind, and a few things on its heart, too. I may not agree with Ad Astra’s secular humanist worldview, but I did find the journey visually arresting and thoroughly compelling. Plus, even as a Christian I can find value in the film’s admonition that we ought not be so heavenly-minded that we’re of no earthly good.
23. Hustlers (9/10)
"The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules."
With the likes of Cardi B and Lizzo in the mix, Hustlers makes the stripping world look fun, until it suddenly, and definitively, is not. Few stories of economic insecurity are this stylish, or this specific. Writer/director Lorene Scafaria’s crime thriller is fun even while it’s poignant, sympathetic in tone and posture even while it indicts its morally dubious characters. Scafaria’s humanistic approach reminds us that we don’t have to condone to understand. Also, if you’d told me when 2019 rolled around that I’d be whinging over the Oscars’ failure to recognize a Jennifer Lopez performance, I doubt I’d have believed you. But here we are.
22. The Two Popes (9/10)
“Mercy is the dynamite that blows down walls.”
There’s something midrashic about The Two Popes. Tradition and reform are both given voice, and faith exists somewhere in between, in the wrestling. By some miracle, the stakes of this film never feel abstract or inaccessible, because the philosophical and theological conflicts at its heart are always grounded in the friendship between two honest-to-God human men. It helps that each of the pontiffs is played by a legendary actor in peak form. Anthony Hopkins is predictably brilliant as the conservative stalwart Pope Benedict XVI, but Jonathan Pryce has the slight edge, turning in a particularly inspired performance as the reform-minded Pope Francis.
21. Blinded by the Light (9/10)
“The writers I admire make a difference. They tell the world what they need to hear.”
While promoting The Big Sick, comedian/actor Kumail Nanjiani drew attention to how infrequently American media portrays Muslims having fun (riding roller coasters, eating ice cream, normal human stuff). And even in the year of our Lord 2019, his insights were tragically accurate. That’s why, while Blinded by the Light’s inspirational true story might feel trite or naive in moments, its existence is already revolutionary if only for the relatable, utterly sympathetic Muslim family at the film’s center. The story’s familial drama is universally accessible, and its characters understandable even while they frustrate. Any restless American teen could see himself in the teenage protagonist Javed, just as any blue collar dad in the heartland might relate to the motivations and shortcomings of his overbearing father. And in that way the medium is the message: Art can bridge worlds. Bruce Springsteen lyrics can speak to a Pakistani kid from England, and when that Pakistani kid learns how to tell his story, it can open hearts and change minds.
20. Pain and Glory (9.5/10)
“Love is not enough to save the person you love.”
The name is apt. There is such pain in Pedro Almodovar’s semi-autobiographical opus about an aging director making amends with his heroin-addicted leading man. The Spanish filmmaker’s poignant script and lush visuals ensure the titular pain never feels like a slog, and Antonio Banderas is at once subtle and heartbreaking as Almodovar’s surrogate. Ultimately, Dolor y Gloria is a sobering delight which offers insight on such facets of life as: childhood sexual awakening, addiction, aging and illness, reconciliation and lost love. These insights are the hard-won sort that can only be seen in hindsight, and I am grateful for them.
19. Toy Story 4 (9/10)
“Sometimes change can be good.”
*spoiler alert for Toy Story 4 and Avengers: Endgame*
Did Woody and Captain America have the same resolution to their character arcs? Finally choosing romance and self-fulfillment over duty to their community after years of faithful service because they realized it was time to move on? If so (and I believe I’m onto something here), what an emotionally sophisticated moral for a "kids' movie"! I didn't need another Toy Story after the third, but if we were bound to get one, I'm glad its raison d'etre was to tell such a mature, rich and nuanced story.
18. Us (9/10)
“We’re Americans.”
Watching Jordan Peele’s second horror masterpiece in a row (after 2017’s Get Out), I couldn’t get the words of the Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn out of my head: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Us reminds us that we are inexorably linked by shared humanity to those we demonize, neglect or abuse. Dehumanizing the mysterious “other” will only ever harm us all in the long run. Peele’s sophomore effort is also just a spooky, twisty thrill-ride. Lupita Nyong’o gave the performance of the year but, like Toni Collette in last year’s Hereditary, she was overlooked by the Academy because of its absurd bias against horror.
17. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (9.5/10)
“That was the best acting I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”
I have two versions of this review, one snarky and one sincere, to highlight a slight tension I feel with this film in particular and Tarantino’s catalogue in general:
Snarky: Ahhh Old Hollywood, where men were men, and women were nymphs with butts and feet.
Sincere: I really liked this movie! The kinship between Hollywood’s two male leads is the sweetest relationship in any Tarantino movie. Tenderness and intimacy in male friendship is underrepresented in cinema, so to see it from one of the industry’s most explicitly masculine filmmakers (and two of its more masculine stars) is more than welcome. Plus, I love how the film takes its time to breathe and luxuriate in its scenery. Brad Pitt driving through the streets of Los Angeles is one of my favorite scenes of the year. Sure, the controversies surrounding Tarantino’s ostensibly penultimate film are not without merit, but for my part I found it quite moving. Top-tier Tarantino for me.
16. 1917 (9.5/10)
“I hoped today might be a good day. Hope is a dangerous thing.”
As I said in my review of Christopher Nolan’s 2017’s war epic Dunkirk, war movies are not typically my thing. As a Christian pacifist I have a hard time seeing war as between “good guys” and “bad guys,” which is precisely how most war films frame their conflict. Dunkirk more or less skirts this problem, first because if any war in recent history had a “good” side it was World War II, and second because it narrows its focus from THE WAR to a single, against-all-odds survival mission. This year, Sam Mendes’ heir-apparent to the Oscar throne 1917 has a tougher row to hoe, as World War I’s legacy has more to do with futility than glory. Still, Mendes’ approach is much the same: to narrow the focus. In fact, the acclaimed director doubles down on this impulse, honing in on just two soldiers, limiting the scope of the story to their perspective, even shooting the entire film to look like one shot as it follows them on their mission. Other notable films have utilized this single-shot approach (Hitchcock’s Rope, Iñárritu’s Birdman), to better and worse affect, but with 1917 it feels like so much more than a gimmick; it actually underlines the futility and absurdity of the War while keeping the stakes intimate. It’s more about the triumph of the human will over adversity than the triumph of one nation-state over another. It also succeeds unequivocally as a peerless technical achievement and a moving piece of character work.
15. The Farewell (9.5/10)
“Chinese people have a saying: When people get cancer, they die.”
The genius of The Farewell, Lulu Wang’s autobiographical tragicomedy of manners, is that it manages to ground big-picture cultural differences in intimate exchanges between well-intentioned loved ones (squaring with my storytelling conviction that the universal is the particular and vice versa). The film is also a touching picture of how families carry each other’s burdens, for better and for worse. Awkwafina acquits herself quite well as a dramatic actress in the lead role, and Zhao Shuzhen is an instant star in her first screen credit as the lead’s dying grandmother. Wang’s script and direction drip with authenticity and pathos. This is one of the best movies of the year and the Oscars did it dirty.
14. Waves (9.5/10)
“Love is kind. Love is not rude. It doesn't boast. Love also forgives wrong.”
I work with high schoolers, and some of my favorite kiddos are the wrestling boys. They gave me the hardest time for my first month on the job, calling me “Eric” as a bizarre power move to assert their dominance over me, but since then I’ve managed to win their trust. This has earned me the privilege of walking alongside them through both their triumphs and their failures. They are, each of them, tender, passionate and good at heart, with a capacity for sweetness, and one for complete bone-headedness. Trey Edward Shults’ third feature Waves (after Krisha and It Comes at Night) manages to capture all the nuance, tragedy and glory of this age, as it follows a young black wrestler from a well-to-do family who pushes himself beyond his limits until it begins to wear on his body and relationships. Shults’ story and direction evoke the absolute chaos of adolescence and the strain that can place on even the most well-intentioned families. Warning: the first half of this film will have you clenching your jaw, squeezing your fists and bemoaning that THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT, but if you stick it out, the second half will open your heart again to remind you that everything is grace, after all. Waves is both deeply spiritual and profoundly human, a masterful balancing act.
13. Uncut Gems (9.5/10)
“This is how I win.”
I can’t think of another actor with a track record like Adam Sandler’s. Who else can spend years in a row making some of the worst movies ever put to film, only to occasionally make something touching, sophisticated, even masterful? Who else has such an endless supply of goodwill that, no matter how much garbage he produces, he will still be allowed to partner with great filmmakers and deliver awards-worthy performances when it suits him? The 2010’s were not exactly a banner decade for the SNL alum, but he did manage to churn out two pitch-perfect performances, first in Noah Baumbach’s 2017 indie dramedy The Meyerowitz Stories, and most recently in the Safdie Brothers’ crime thriller, Uncut Gems. While certain audiences found the film divisive (my aunt hated it), critics almost unanimously hailed it as a return to form for Sandler and a uniquely thrilling experience. Chicago critic Josh Larsen compared it to holding your breath for a full minute. For my part, I found Uncut Gems incredibly compelling, especially for its moral musings I’d liken to the book of Ecclesiastes. Indeed, for jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner (Sandler), all the excess in the world may prove ultimately ephemeral, vanity of vanities, a cosmic shrug. Plus, I can’t believe The Weeknd and Kevin Garnett agreed to play themselves in this thing.
12. The Lighthouse (9.5/10)
"BAD LUCK TO KILL A SEABIRD!"
This is a hard movie to unpack because, to put it plainly, it’s weird as hell (which is why I love it). The only way I can think to frame my review is to tell you some things I expected going in, and some things that caught me completely off-guard. A few vague spoilers ahead.
Things I expected:
- Authenticity and meticulous period detail from writer/director Robert Eggers (who brought the same laser-focus to 2016’s The VVitch)
- Brilliant character work from Willem Dafoe
- Abiding strangeness
- Stunning cinematography
Things I did NOT expect:
- Robert Pattinson harnessing an energy reminiscent of a young Daniel Day Lewis
- A striking and impossible-to-ignore sexual charge, verging on the homoerotic, throughout
- A minute-long monologue in which one character invokes the wrath of a sea god to punish the other for besmirching how he prepares their lobster dinners.
11. Honey Boy (9.5/10)
“Why won’t you hold my hand?”
Shia Labeouf has had almost as fascinating a career trajectory as Adam Sandler. After rising to prominence on the Disney Channel, he was a welcome (if unremarkable) presence in a few big franchise movies, until he made a heel-turn and started flexing his acting chops in audacious, challenging indie films. All the while Shia battled some serious demons (addiction, mental illness) in as public a venue as anyone can. But we knew all that before. What we didn’t know (but might’ve suspected) is that, on top of it all, Shia was carrying unprocessed trauma from an absolute shit-show of a childhood. That’s what we learn in Honey Boy, a mesmerizing autobiographical exploration of how the actor’s childhood traumas have reverberated into his adulthood, sabotaging any present attempts at success and happiness. Labeouf actually wrote the script as part of his treatment after an alcohol-fueled arrest found him in court-mandated rehab. He even plays his own father in the film (opposite rising star Noah Jupe playing a version of the young Shia), and the performance is one of the year's very best and most unsung. It’s a totally unique cinematic experience, and one of two movies this year that heralded a comeback for one of Hollywood’s most talented young actors.
The Top 10:
“Let us give each other the courage to see beyond the stories we are born into.”
“WHO ALLOWED YOU TO TAKE MY BREATH AWAY?”
“Just take a minute and think about all the people who loved us into being.”
“I’m so sick of people saying love is all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it. But I’m so lonely.”
“You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all.”
6. Parasite (10/10) - Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja) is a visionary filmmaker at the absolute height of his powers, and Parasite is his masterwork. Expertly-paced, brilliantly written, beautifully shot and affectingly performed, the film also features effortless characterization and non-didactic yet utterly compelling thematic material around class struggle (one of a handful of great movies about class in 2019). As a relative newcomer to foreign film, I’ve never felt so absolutely gripped by a film in a language other than my own. Parasite is funny, horrifying, suspenseful, and thought-provoking, often at the same time. It is one of the year’s best, no question, and if the Academy knew what it was doing it would stand a serious chance of winning this year’s top award.
“I realized I didn’t ever really come alive for myself.”
“You got a good guy heart.”
4. Peanut Butter Falcon (10/10) - Releasing a few months prior to Honey Boy, Peanut Butter Falcon was 2019’s first herald of the Shia-ssance. And Mr. Labeouf really is tremendous in this unconventional road trip comedy. He brings a sweet kind of brokenness to his role as a grieving drifter, ostensibly channeling the trauma and dysfunction of his own life during these last few years. Opposite Labeouf is newcomer Zack Gottsagen, playing a young man with Down's Syndrome who escapes the supervision of his case worker Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) to seek out a wrestling school run by his favorite professional wrestler (Thomas Haden Church). He pairs up with Labeouf’s Tyler and the two form a brotherly bond as they travel together. Peanut Butter Falcon is a tender, intimate, and frequently hilarious exploration of the grace of the unexpected. It reminds us that while life can be hard, and cruel, sometimes sweetness finds us where, when, and from whom we least expect it. And even if we veer off the path, we might just get baptized.
“We must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its center. It is not a doughnut hole, but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not holed at all!”
3. Knives Out (10/10) - While I may have loved 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it was certainly not without its haters, many of whom found its jokes unfunny and its narrative muddled. The film’s writer/director Rian Johnson (also responsible for Brick, The Brothers Bloom and Looper) answered this backlash by making Knives Out, a crowd-pleasing, undeniably hilarious and narratively airtight throwback to murder mysteries in the Agatha Christie vein. To finish wearing down our defenses he enlisted a star-studded cast featuring the likes of Daniel Craig, Michael Shannon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Christopher Plummer and LaKeith Stanfield. If his own films are any indication, Johnson (Rian, not Don) must be quite the cinephile, a man so intimately familiar with genre tropes and cliches that he can satisfy them while deconstructing or subverting them to infuse life into even the stalest genres. I’m not convinced any other working filmmaker could've made an old-school murder mystery feel so of-the-moment, with such political savvy and class consciousness. Parenthetically, how can you see Ana De Armas and Chris Evans standing next to each other and not be bisexual? Asking for a friend.
“We have to dance to show God we are grateful to be alive.”
“On your left.”
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