2019 was an interesting year, as it also
ended the decade, resulting in best of the decade lists to go with the best of
the year lists. That’s just catnip for movie lovers and cinephiles alike, and
it was an interesting exercise for passionate list makers (biggest takeaway? Nobody
gets this stuff completely right the first time).
2019 saw Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, creating an entertainment colossus possibly never seen before. Now owning Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Fox, it has become almost impossible to avoid intellectual property emanating from a studio not underneath Disney’s umbrella. Of the 10 highest grossing movies of the year, the first 9 of them were exclusively Disney property (for those interested, 10th place was Hobbs and Shaw, from Universal). Their box office dominance may explain what motivated renowned auteur Martin Scorcese, in the midst of promoting one of the better films of his career (will he make this year’s list? See below!), to take a shot at the Disney juggernaut. Saying that the Marvel franchise films were closer to theme park rides than actual cinema, it greatly disturbed the ocean floors of the movie business in kicking up a lot of fuss. What’s more interesting though, was Scorcese’s debut of his film on streaming platform Netflix- an overt admission that the movie business, regardless of having one mega company make the films that everyone sees, is currently in a great state of flux. Simultaneously, the great theatre chain disruptor, MoviePass, with its exponentially affordable deals but bizarre business model concepts, went out of business, leaving a great deal of people to decide between paying their rent or going to the movies. Certainly, people went to the movies, as Avengers: Endgame didn’t become the (unadjusted for inflation) box office champion of all time for nothing- but for the 17th straight year, ticket sales haven’t matched or exceeded 2002’s grosses. Wherever the film industry ends up going, there is still greatness to be found, inspiration to be absorbed, and a gaze worth making. Here’s some of the favourites (with honourable mentions) that I was able to discover this year:
2019 saw Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, creating an entertainment colossus possibly never seen before. Now owning Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Fox, it has become almost impossible to avoid intellectual property emanating from a studio not underneath Disney’s umbrella. Of the 10 highest grossing movies of the year, the first 9 of them were exclusively Disney property (for those interested, 10th place was Hobbs and Shaw, from Universal). Their box office dominance may explain what motivated renowned auteur Martin Scorcese, in the midst of promoting one of the better films of his career (will he make this year’s list? See below!), to take a shot at the Disney juggernaut. Saying that the Marvel franchise films were closer to theme park rides than actual cinema, it greatly disturbed the ocean floors of the movie business in kicking up a lot of fuss. What’s more interesting though, was Scorcese’s debut of his film on streaming platform Netflix- an overt admission that the movie business, regardless of having one mega company make the films that everyone sees, is currently in a great state of flux. Simultaneously, the great theatre chain disruptor, MoviePass, with its exponentially affordable deals but bizarre business model concepts, went out of business, leaving a great deal of people to decide between paying their rent or going to the movies. Certainly, people went to the movies, as Avengers: Endgame didn’t become the (unadjusted for inflation) box office champion of all time for nothing- but for the 17th straight year, ticket sales haven’t matched or exceeded 2002’s grosses. Wherever the film industry ends up going, there is still greatness to be found, inspiration to be absorbed, and a gaze worth making. Here’s some of the favourites (with honourable mentions) that I was able to discover this year:
10. Honeyland
Documentaries are typically a blind spot for me, but I did manage to see a few that really made an impression. For this list, it came down to either American Factory, the sociologically tinged tale of an Ohio manufacturing plant reopening with Chinese and American workers, or the exotic Honeyland, the intimate portrait of a woman living in Macedonia. While Factory was very strong (and I have few qualms about its Oscar win for Best Documentary), Honeyland had an artistic flourish to it that felt more comparable to a work of nonfiction, while also taking a less is more approach in its portrait of a woman (Hatidze Muratova), who dares to be completely congruent with her environment (which straddles the line between rustic and abject poverty), living amongst few people but never being lonely. Its biggest charms are in the questions that it doesn’t ask, in how it shows someone too busy living in harmony with the land and taking care of her elderly mother to worry about the life that she doesn’t lead. The first FOMO you should feel about someone who couldn’t care less about FOMO, this documentary about a beekeeper is sweet.
Documentaries are typically a blind spot for me, but I did manage to see a few that really made an impression. For this list, it came down to either American Factory, the sociologically tinged tale of an Ohio manufacturing plant reopening with Chinese and American workers, or the exotic Honeyland, the intimate portrait of a woman living in Macedonia. While Factory was very strong (and I have few qualms about its Oscar win for Best Documentary), Honeyland had an artistic flourish to it that felt more comparable to a work of nonfiction, while also taking a less is more approach in its portrait of a woman (Hatidze Muratova), who dares to be completely congruent with her environment (which straddles the line between rustic and abject poverty), living amongst few people but never being lonely. Its biggest charms are in the questions that it doesn’t ask, in how it shows someone too busy living in harmony with the land and taking care of her elderly mother to worry about the life that she doesn’t lead. The first FOMO you should feel about someone who couldn’t care less about FOMO, this documentary about a beekeeper is sweet.
8. Little Women
After Lady Bird, writer/Director Greta Gerwig had a fair amount of cache moving forwards for her next project (parallel to Jordan Peele’s experience from Get Out to this year’s Us). While Women is an IP that has been covered many times previous, Gerwig’s strengths in creating relatable and strong female characters, combined with jumbling the film’s timeline of the girls’ journey to adulthood, makes the period piece material sing as a more than worthy addition to the canon. Laura Dern (better here, than in Marriage Story), Saoirse Ronan, and Florence Pugh (my favourite actress of 2019), are particularly strong as members of the March family, and composer Alexandre Desplat puts in excellent but never dominating work in crafting one of the year’s best scores. Amongst the adversity of the period’s civil war hardships, deadly diseases, and patriarchal mindsets, good vibes and estrogen powered fraternity are prominently featured. Spend some uplifting time with a bunch of women who are anything but little.
After Lady Bird, writer/Director Greta Gerwig had a fair amount of cache moving forwards for her next project (parallel to Jordan Peele’s experience from Get Out to this year’s Us). While Women is an IP that has been covered many times previous, Gerwig’s strengths in creating relatable and strong female characters, combined with jumbling the film’s timeline of the girls’ journey to adulthood, makes the period piece material sing as a more than worthy addition to the canon. Laura Dern (better here, than in Marriage Story), Saoirse Ronan, and Florence Pugh (my favourite actress of 2019), are particularly strong as members of the March family, and composer Alexandre Desplat puts in excellent but never dominating work in crafting one of the year’s best scores. Amongst the adversity of the period’s civil war hardships, deadly diseases, and patriarchal mindsets, good vibes and estrogen powered fraternity are prominently featured. Spend some uplifting time with a bunch of women who are anything but little.
7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The auteur known as QT returns in his 10th film (yes, he’s made 10 of them!) to make an elegiac love letter to Hollywood around the period of the Tate murders that along the free love fringes features his usual acidic meanderings. As per QT’s strength in casting and coaxing career best performances, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and especially Brad Pitt are superb in their roles as actor, actress, and stunt man/potential wife murderer. As always, Tarantino loves to subvert expectations and show off his freak flag (flame thrower anyone?), but the most endearing part of Once Upon is its similarities to QT’s more somber and mature works like Jackie Brown, as this is a hang out movie that showcases an era that belonged to a more innocent time and was gone before anyone really realized it. Like the shot of the strip lighting up after the sunset, by the time you realize its importance- it’s vanished.
The auteur known as QT returns in his 10th film (yes, he’s made 10 of them!) to make an elegiac love letter to Hollywood around the period of the Tate murders that along the free love fringes features his usual acidic meanderings. As per QT’s strength in casting and coaxing career best performances, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and especially Brad Pitt are superb in their roles as actor, actress, and stunt man/potential wife murderer. As always, Tarantino loves to subvert expectations and show off his freak flag (flame thrower anyone?), but the most endearing part of Once Upon is its similarities to QT’s more somber and mature works like Jackie Brown, as this is a hang out movie that showcases an era that belonged to a more innocent time and was gone before anyone really realized it. Like the shot of the strip lighting up after the sunset, by the time you realize its importance- it’s vanished.
6. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
The most romantic movie of the year. I’d heard a lot about the film Portrait, but wanted to see the goods for myself- it’s the real deal. Writer/Director Céline Sciamma’s simple story, about a portrait artist travelling to a remote island to paint a commissioned portrait of an unwilling subject left an impression on me so strong, that it just may be underrated. A quintessentially French film in terms of its unapologetic passion and oddly matched characters, its portrayal of the artistic process is almost as commendable as its romantic aspirations, as Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) take turns inverting each other’s gazes and seeing through the other, as Héloïse’s portrait continues to be refined and perfected, stroke by stroke and brush by brush. Featuring no sex but tons of glances so piercing it could be mistaken for erotica, Portrait burns like few others.
The most romantic movie of the year. I’d heard a lot about the film Portrait, but wanted to see the goods for myself- it’s the real deal. Writer/Director Céline Sciamma’s simple story, about a portrait artist travelling to a remote island to paint a commissioned portrait of an unwilling subject left an impression on me so strong, that it just may be underrated. A quintessentially French film in terms of its unapologetic passion and oddly matched characters, its portrayal of the artistic process is almost as commendable as its romantic aspirations, as Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) take turns inverting each other’s gazes and seeing through the other, as Héloïse’s portrait continues to be refined and perfected, stroke by stroke and brush by brush. Featuring no sex but tons of glances so piercing it could be mistaken for erotica, Portrait burns like few others.
5. Knives Out
The most entertaining movie of the year, Writer/Director
Rian Johnson continues his penchant for making more smart than they need to be
popcorn crowd pleasers in Knives. Featuring an incredibly stacked cast
(some, like Chris Evans, really playing against type, others like Daniel
Craig being right where they need to be), they bicker and scheme while surrounding
a promising break out performance from humble young heroine Ana de Armas
(immensely likable). Johnson pays homage to other Clue-like capers in
his comedy-noir about a family patriarch (Christopher Plummer) who’s death may
have involved foul play, and who has an estate that his family is definitely
interested in inheriting. Johnson never hesitates to wink at us, through scenes
such as essentially fan boys breathlessly shushing others who have the nerve to
interrupt a character explaining the ins and outs of the caper, and when we’re
not laughing at how preposterous the respective situations are, we’re trying to
wrap our heads around the story’s hole inside the doughnut hole of it all.
Wherever in the doughnut you land, don’t miss this one.
4. The Irishman
After throwing some shade at Marvel, Scorcese returns, and makes another gangster picture starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel. Been there done that right? Wrong. This generation’s most revered master takes a familiar cast and does something completely new with it- at least in terms of where we end up. Think Goodfellas if Henry and Karen were followed around for another decade or two after going into witness protection. Scorcese, never shy of the influence religion had on him as a child, in showing the typical rise to prominence for his crime minded characters, shows what happens to the soul after the fall, and then what happens after that too. Certainly we all have consequences that illustrate the weight of choices made throughout a life, and in typical masterful fashion, he quietly but effectively shows it here. It’s difficult to recommend to non cinephiles a film that’s 3.5 hours long (yup, longer than Godfather Pt.II), but if you can forgive the butt numbness, it’s worth it- especially when its essentially a Netflix production to be viewed from home anyways.
After throwing some shade at Marvel, Scorcese returns, and makes another gangster picture starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel. Been there done that right? Wrong. This generation’s most revered master takes a familiar cast and does something completely new with it- at least in terms of where we end up. Think Goodfellas if Henry and Karen were followed around for another decade or two after going into witness protection. Scorcese, never shy of the influence religion had on him as a child, in showing the typical rise to prominence for his crime minded characters, shows what happens to the soul after the fall, and then what happens after that too. Certainly we all have consequences that illustrate the weight of choices made throughout a life, and in typical masterful fashion, he quietly but effectively shows it here. It’s difficult to recommend to non cinephiles a film that’s 3.5 hours long (yup, longer than Godfather Pt.II), but if you can forgive the butt numbness, it’s worth it- especially when its essentially a Netflix production to be viewed from home anyways.
3. Uncut Gems
I thought the Safdie brothers had done all they could do in showcasing cinematic anxiety, through “feel bad scumbag yarns” such as Heaven Knows What and Good Time, but I was wrong- Uncut Gems is on another level. Its story, of a diamond district jewellery dealer (Adam Sandler, who has more bravura performances like this one than you would think), who’s a gambling addict who can’t stay loyal to his wife or out of trouble with his loan shark brother-in-law, exudes a frantic energy that you can’t tear your eyes from and is exhausting in the best of ways. With a scary good Kevin Garnett performance in the background, the Safdies dig deep (literally in some scenes) into Sandler as he travels all over New York, attempting to dig out of a hole that he dug himself- by digging deeper. Dripping with a love for NBA basketball, constantly roving chaotic frustration, and people interrupting each other, the Safdies’ now trademark non glamourous lighting has never highlighted the ways deeply flawed people have tried to convince others they’re this close to reforming any better. As far as films go, this is one gem that’s flawless.
I thought the Safdie brothers had done all they could do in showcasing cinematic anxiety, through “feel bad scumbag yarns” such as Heaven Knows What and Good Time, but I was wrong- Uncut Gems is on another level. Its story, of a diamond district jewellery dealer (Adam Sandler, who has more bravura performances like this one than you would think), who’s a gambling addict who can’t stay loyal to his wife or out of trouble with his loan shark brother-in-law, exudes a frantic energy that you can’t tear your eyes from and is exhausting in the best of ways. With a scary good Kevin Garnett performance in the background, the Safdies dig deep (literally in some scenes) into Sandler as he travels all over New York, attempting to dig out of a hole that he dug himself- by digging deeper. Dripping with a love for NBA basketball, constantly roving chaotic frustration, and people interrupting each other, the Safdies’ now trademark non glamourous lighting has never highlighted the ways deeply flawed people have tried to convince others they’re this close to reforming any better. As far as films go, this is one gem that’s flawless.
2. Marriage Story
As a child of divorce, stories about irreconcilable differences between consenting adults are like catnip to me. But after seeing Marriage Story, with its characters’ reasonable intentions gone awry, what comes across is how achingly sincere the characters are in trying to officially stop being a couple without destroying their family. The most humane of films about 2 people going in different directions, Director/Writer Noah Baumbach’s most mature and accomplished film features superb work by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, as 2 halves of a couple who have had a child together and now wish to divorce. Baumbach never tries to get us to pick a side (although we all will anyways!), but shows how a family, can tear itself apart after it tries to be as amicable as possible. Getting snagged up in the logistics of enmeshed extended family members and close friends (check out the hysterical Mistress America-like comedy of the service scene), as well as the gears of the legal industrial complex (both Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, as the lawyers who have no shame or squeamishness in grandstanding for their respective side’s victory, are delicious here), it’s a dilemma thick with differing opinion on how to achieve the same result. Driver and Johansson are as helpless to a clean break as we are to not falling prey to the film’s drama of what happens when a couple stops saying, “I do”.
As a child of divorce, stories about irreconcilable differences between consenting adults are like catnip to me. But after seeing Marriage Story, with its characters’ reasonable intentions gone awry, what comes across is how achingly sincere the characters are in trying to officially stop being a couple without destroying their family. The most humane of films about 2 people going in different directions, Director/Writer Noah Baumbach’s most mature and accomplished film features superb work by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, as 2 halves of a couple who have had a child together and now wish to divorce. Baumbach never tries to get us to pick a side (although we all will anyways!), but shows how a family, can tear itself apart after it tries to be as amicable as possible. Getting snagged up in the logistics of enmeshed extended family members and close friends (check out the hysterical Mistress America-like comedy of the service scene), as well as the gears of the legal industrial complex (both Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, as the lawyers who have no shame or squeamishness in grandstanding for their respective side’s victory, are delicious here), it’s a dilemma thick with differing opinion on how to achieve the same result. Driver and Johansson are as helpless to a clean break as we are to not falling prey to the film’s drama of what happens when a couple stops saying, “I do”.
1. Parasite
Unusually popular for a foreign film (South
Korea) of such technical skill, Parasite’s
charms include that it’s as enjoyable to watch as it is difficult to categorize
what genre it falls into. It’s definitely a class consciousness satire (the
title is well chosen), but with loads of thrilling moments, has a formal charm
but is at times oddly hilarious, has the shifty mechanics of a surprising grifter
but pursues integrity, has some horror elements but never feels threatening,
and has some stirringly downbeat moments while never feeling like a downer-
it’s a real trick to pull off. Director/Co-Writer Bong Joon-Ho’s pristine
camera work and divine sense of setting perfectly anchor a sterling cast and
tack-sharp script to create a perfect storm, that like a flood, has a habit of
starting slowly- before overwhelming your senses and annihilating the world you
once knew. Filled with superlatives while never trying to be more than it actually
is, it’s my favourite film of the year. A resounding commercial and critical
success- and something tells me it will age well in time moving forwards.
Honourable Mentions:
11. Ad Astra12. The Nightingale
13. The Souvenir
14. Waves
15. Peterloo
16. The Art of Self Defence
17. Us
18. Avengers: Endgame
19. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
20. Good Boys
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