I mentioned earlier that my goal for 2019 was to get caught up on film from the past several years. As a bonus I thought maybe I’d get 2018 up to 50 films. When I thoroughly kicked that goal in the ass, I thought why not see 50 films from 2019? I set a pretty conservative goal, then thanks to the wonderful world of streaming, public libraries, and a few trips to the movie theater my pipe dream was in reach. I hadn’t seen 50 or more films from a year before it ended since 2011, which I believe was the last time I managed to post a year-end top ten list.
The fact is I don’t get to see everything, and there are a few films I have not yet gotten around to watching. Some of these are in limbo movies that are no longer in theaters and have yet to be released on DVD or streaming. Some of them have not had a proper release here in Chicago, and some I just haven’t had a chance to see. So you might think, why bother making this list? Well that’s because 2019 was a damn good year for film. Sure I hit that arbitrary number of films, but did I see enough great films to warrant a top ten? The answer is an emphatic yes. 2019 closes out this decade on a very strong note, pretty easily the best year for film since at least 2013.
Although the Golden Globe nominations have come out the Academy Awards haven’t been announced yet, so there may be some giant piles of crap I’ll need to see before that ceremony comes around (Rocketman). Call it a hunch, but I don’t think Cats will get too many nominations. I have seen all but a handful of the Globe nominees so as far as award season fodder I’m in good shape. My list might strike a few of you as pretentious because more than half of the offerings are foreign language films. This is due to a number of reasons. For starters, a lot of good foreign films came out or were released theatrically this year. The second major reason is because Hollywood likes to push their award darlings out as late as possible so some would be late entries to my top ten might not even be out yet. Foreign films on the other hand generally get released whenever the hell they want.
Looking at the Globe nominees in the actress categories I have a feeling we might get another rehash of the whole weak roles for women in Hollywood story. At least a couple of the films on my list certainly go against that trend although they happen to be foreign of course. Here’s hoping they actually nominate some people in non-English speaking roles.
Now I wouldn’t necessarily assume that because a film isn’t on my list doesn’t mean it’s just because I haven’t seen it yet. It might be true for your particular favorite of the year. Yes I’ve seen Joker and I’ve already reviewed a few of the other overrated clunkers everyone else seems to like. I also saw the new Star Wars film, spoiler alert, I don’t feel like talking about it. This list is also noticeably bereft of comic book adaptations. Not to say I didn’t enjoy Endgame, Far From Home, and Shazam in decreasing order, it’s just that there were more than enough other stellar pictures.
My project for 2020 is to put together a rock solid list of the best films of the decade, most likely a top 50. This will require me to revisit quite a few films, so if you see some of these films in a different order, or other late entries from 2019 on that forthcoming list, you can assume I’ve had a change of heart. All the films on this list were released in the US in 2019, so some might have slightly different international release dates. Anyways, here’s my thoughts, happy streaming.
10. Woman at War (Benedikt Erlingsson Iceland-France-Ukraine)
Before many of the official top ten lists came out, I was using Rotten Tomatoes to check scores of movies. I’d scroll through a streaming service, then cross reference the movie. Hulu happened to be showing Woman at War, and it’s score was high enough for me to check out, and I was damn glad I did. Many of this year’s best films came from directors I had never heard of before. Erlingsson was best known as an actor, but this film is just great. It feels like a Aki Kurismaki film in it’s extremely deadpan humor and subtle absurdity, but with a lot more real world weight to it. This film should probably be shown in feminist cinema classes. If you want to see one woman take on a nation, this is superb stuff.
9. Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes Daniel Schmidt Portugal-France-Brazil)
I have the Criterion Channel largely for older movies. Where else can I binge all 13 Jean Pierre Melville features? There were a couple of newer films streaming there including the much more mentioned An Elephant Sitting Still which nearly made the list. Diamantino was something very different. A few minutes in we watch our simple minded title character/narrator playing soccer in a field of pink clouds with giant fluffy puppies, and I was hooked. This was a masterclass in balancing tones, no matter how far fetched or outlandish some moments were, everything fit. You could go from political commentary, to sports, to espionage, to romance, and comedy. There really isn’t a movie like this.
8. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers US-Canada)
Robert Eggers only saw his cult grow in the four years since The Witch came out. I wasn’t as high on that film as others, but I did recognize a unique voice was making it. With Robert Pattinson and a never better Willem Dafoe as his only main actors, I was on board immediately. The sound design is oppressive in the same way Eraserhead was, it’s unrelenting and lends itself to the growing madness that surrounds it. This is less overtly surreal than Lynch’s film but it’s hard not to draw comparisons when things start getting really far gone.
7. One Cut of the Dead (Shin’ichiro Ueda Japan)
I owe this film to Red Letter Media. When hearing about it on an episode of Half in the Bag I looked it up to find it received a very rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even Parasite was a 99%, so I was certainly interested. The less said plot-wise the better on this movie, but the set-up is a 40-ish minute single take zombie movie shoot that gets interrupted by an actual zombie attack. A few “fuck it keep filming” moments might stand out as jarring or even sloppy until the second half of the film sheds a new light in an extremely satisfying way.
6. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma France)
Celine Sciamma’s film had been on my radar pretty early on in the year. It earned a lot of awards at a lot of festivals, but I’m still not even sure it’s been officially released theatrically. Luckily I was able to find a copy and this film is just exquisite. This is a film I wish everyone who praised Call Me By Your Name would see. Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel are absolutely perfect here. To make up for the sausage fest of Irishman, this film I believe had a total of 1-3 lines of dialogue spoken by a man. Something about sapphic bliss in an isolated castle set in olden times that just makes for fascinating cinema.
5. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese US)
Hearing Scorsese and DeNiro were re-uniting for the first time in 24 years was big news. The fact that Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel were also along for the ride set this film up to be legendary before it was even made. It does take a special film to deliver when expectations are that high. This movie felt like a great band from the 70s reuniting and touring. They still got it, but it’s hard not to think of older films when watching this. The much talked about digital de-aging is not always convincing, and no one looks anything like the real life people they’re playing, but it doesn’t matter. This is America’s greatest living filmmaker doing what he does best, and this is a movie to be cherished for all of it’s 3 and a half hours.
4. Ad Astra (James Gray US)
Every year there is an early front-runner. A movie that gets released in summer or early autumn that becomes the film to beat. In 2019 it was James Gray’s Ad Astra. This is by far his biggest budget, and seems a huge leap from films like Two Lovers and The Immigrant. The strength is in the details though. A thinking man’s space epic that takes a somewhat nihilistic approach to whether or not we’re alone in the universe. Brad Pitt is amazing, and Ad Astra overshadowed Claire Denis’ well worth seeing High Life. Since we’re on the subject of old actors coming around, how great is Tommy Lee Jones? The man is a national treasure.
3. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan China-France)
Sometimes a movie is so good it starts to make you re-think what you thought you knew. Bi Gan’s second feature at first feels like a loving homage. He’s dwelling in the same milieu as Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Tsai Ming-Liang, Wong Kar-Wai, and several other titans of world cinema. It’s enjoyable, good, a nice mixture of influences, but then something happens in the second half. Topping his 45 minute single-take shot in Kaili Blues, he shoots the entire second half of the film (nearly an hour) as one single shot, that truly is a marvel to behold. The second half is where surrealism starts to take hold, not so much in a Bunuel or Lynch way, but more in a Tarkovsky way or even Jung. It follows the logic of a dream, the plot structure of a strange dream that takes you in and around a labyrinth that seems easy to escape from but impossible to leave. Gan’s film is so good I want re-watch his first again, and dig into all kinds of other movies that influenced it.
2. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho South Korea)
This is the film that’s been topping a large majority of top ten lists this year. Not only is the movie great, but the marketing campaign for it was textbook in how to sell a foreign film. Bong Joon-ho has long wrapped up the title of South Korea’s greatest director but after two English language films this can’t help but feel like a return to his roots. What’s amazing is how absolutely none of his films are anything alike. Parasite is that rare breed of story that sets you up down a familiar road then pulls the rug out from under you in a very satisfying way.
1. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach US)
Noah Baumbach has been making variations on a theme for his whole career. His films live and breathe New York in the way some of Woody Allen’s best work did. The Squid and the Whale seemed to tell the tale of divorce more from a child’s perspective and also at a very brisk 85 minutes. Marriage Story seems like the culmination of a great director’s life work. Much in the way we can rejoice at Martin Scorsese doing what he does best in The Irishman, Baumbach seems like he was born for this movie. Adam Driver and Scarlet Johanson have never been better in anything, and as long as Driver isn’t up against Willem Dafoe I wish him all the awards there can be. Along with Atlantics, The Two Popes, and several other offerings Netflix seems in it to win it this year. Here’s to more first class pictures I can stream from the comfort of my own home.
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