The world seemed filled with vile unhappiness in 2019, yet on the movie screen something wonderful happened: Movies discovered a sense of compassion. There was also some sinister glee, but even in the bleak South Korean thriller Parasite, even in Rian Johnson's back-stabbing Knives Out, even in some of the mediocre blockbusters that filled the screen, there was an underlying sense of humanity.
Is this the cumulative effect of so much unpleasantness in life, or is it just happenstance. In any case, it made for an especially insightful and unusually uplifting year at the movies. Here are my favorite films of 2019:
10: Knives Out
It's been a long time since we've had an all-star, big-budget whodunit, at least a whipsmart one, which Kenneth Branagh's lumbering adaptation of
Murder on the Orient Express was certainly not. Director Rian Johnson comes at us with a completely fresh mystery, and even if you come close to solving it before the final scenes, you'll still relish in the delight of the actors and the production itself, which is ravishing. It's also continually funny, without the sadistic sleaze of the vaguely similar
Ready or Not. It's just gleeful. And wonderful.
Who in their right mind would want to see a movie with this title? It sounds treacly sweet, like an after-school special with a hidden "inspirational" message – yet it turns out the film is anything but that. Part adventure, part fable, it's intoxicatingly satisfying, a movie about people with troubles who wish they could just run away ... and do. Yet under the waters of the big river on which they float is the grief and sorrow that is never far away because, it turns out, that's what life is.
The Peanut Butter Falcon is indeed inspirational, but in the best possible way.
It's raw and it's painful, but
Marriage Story is ultimately filled with hope, a feeling of promise that isn't evident at first in this excruciatingly detailed examination of the modern process of divorce. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are just right as a couple who never really went together, but tried anyway. The single most sorrowful aspect of Noah Baumbach's Woody Allen-esque movie isn't the subject matter but the fact that it's relegated to Netflix, which is kidnapping wonderful films and dumping them on to its streaming service as so much "content." This is a special film and deserved better.
If Rami Malek could win an Oscar as Freddie Mercury and
Bohemian Rhapsody be taken seriously as an awards contender, how do you explain the fate of this vastly superior, exponentially more entertaining bio-fantasy and its incredible central performance by Taron Egerton? It's a firecracker of a movie, as befits a film about Elton John – and if much of it seems contrived, it probably is. Who cares? It's a joyous affirmation of everything the movies are about: big, bold and endlessly entertaining.
If 2019 is remembered for anything cinematically, it might be the year Shia LaBeouf went from irritating former child star to a soulful, wise, compelling big-screen presence. He wrote and stars in
Honey Boy, a movie about his own life, which sounds smugly self-satisfied, but isn't.
Honey Boy is a harrowing and deeply affecting exploration of the complex love between a faltering father and his promising son. It's emotionally raw, and through its extreme specificity it finds a way to be relevant – and heartbreaking – to everyone.
It's almost achingly funny, but
Booksmart is also achingly astute about the real pains and heartbreaks that come with being a teenager. Director Olivia Wilde's movie is cinematically playful and so perfectly modulated that it is able to balance silliness and pain on the thinnest of lines. One breathtaking sequence moves from broad comedy to intense sadness so effortlessly it's almost stunning. It feels both wonderfully stupid and totally real. Or maybe those are the same things.
Carefully controlled, intricately designed, impeccably crafted and entirely sinister,
Parasite is the work of a master filmmaker at the height of his skills. Bong Joon-ho has made a rarity: a thriller that actually knows how to thrill. The suspense at times is almost unbearable, and the surprises are both surprising and surprisingly delightful, in a twisted sort of way.
Parasite invites repeat viewings, and dazzles with the kind of filmmaking flare that invites – and deserves – comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock, with a worldview that is equally bleak as that filmmaker's, filtered through a cinematic precision that is just as exciting to watch.
Here is a movie to make you feel alive, a movie to leave you feeling less alone about loving whatever it is you happen to love. After watching it in August, I recommended it to a friend who was searching for a good comedy, who called me after seeing it and asked, "What about that was a comedy?" Come to think of it,
Blinded by the Light – which is about a British boy who discovers an unknown passion for Bruce Springsteen's music – may not be designed for laughs, and it contains some moments of real anguish. Yet, director Gurinder Chada's film is suffused with something rare in movies: a love for life, even when that life is not at all what you hoped it would be.
On television, this CNN documentary might seem straightforward and familiar, even though most of its footage has never been seen before. Start to finish, it's a thrilling and magnificently edited account of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, and every moment is captivating. But seen on the biggest screen possible, ideally in IMAX,
Apollo 11 becomes something even more wondrous: a movie that thrusts you into a different time and leaves you wishing we could find such a sense of purpose and pride. An edited version, which I haven't seen, still plays in science centers, and even in truncated form, it's worth seeking out.
Apollo 11 leaves you with a sense of genuine awe.
Here is the film we need in such terrible, angry, hate-filled times. Writer-director Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's much-loved novel finds a new and urgent sense of purpose, and has the desire to impart one quality above any other: kindness. In that, it is noble, but it goes much further –
Little Women is sumptuously made, and so filled with a generous spirit of love for humanity that it almost hurts to see. With a screenplay that makes unexpected but entirely fluid jumps back and forth through time,
Little Women deconstructs and reconstructs the familiar novel in ways that make it fresh and exciting, even while remaining entirely true. It is an exquisite example of how to adapt literature to the screen, but more than that, as you watch it you get the distinct sense you are discovering a film that will be hailed as a classic decades hence. It is the freshest, most fulfilling, most beautiful experience of 2019.
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