2019 Year End Report: Best Ensemble Cast

Ensemble cast really should be an Oscar category – because a great ensemble elevates everything. In addition to the top 10 films, there were also these excellent casts: Ad Astra was anchored by Brad Pitt, but the supporting cast, usually only has a scene or two, elevate their small roles. Avengers: Endgame somehow sells it story, even if there are a few dozen characters too many here – they all get their moments. Booksmart smartly mixed a mostly unknown younger cast, with an established older one – and two brilliant leads. The Dead Don’t Die assembles the kind of cast that only Jarmusch could, and makes sure they are all on the same page. Genesis has an excellent assortment of Quebecois talent – anchored by a quartet of wonderful performances. Her Smell is in some ways the Elisabeth Moss show – but every other role is so expertly cast that it becomes more than that. High Life gets a lot of talented people go full on crazy, because they rightly trust Claire Denis. Hustlers has so many talented women in its cast – that Jennifer Lopez cannot quite steal every scene she’s in (just most of them). In Fabric requires a very specific kind of cast – one who can make a film about a haunted dress with a straight face. The Last Black Man in San Francisco has a large cast, in support of two great leads – all of whom made a good impression in often just a few scenes. Midsommar belongs to Florence Pugh, but every small performance builds this world extremely well. Pain & Glory has so many fine performances other than Antonio Banderas’ best in the lead – often in just a scene or two. Ready or Not is anchored by Samara Weaving’s great performance – and the cast playing the rest of the family flesh out clichés roles. Sunset has a great lead performance, and a large cast committed to the chaos of the film. Under the Silver Lake has a great lead in Andrew Garfield – but the large supporting cast, many of whom only have a scene or two, are all excellent. Us had an excellent supporting cast behind the brilliant Lupita Nyong’o – but was less was an ensemble than Get Out.

 

10. The Farewell - Awkwafina, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, Shuzhen Zhao, Gil Perez-Abraham, Ines Laimins, Han Chen, Aoi Mizuhara, Becca Khalil, Yongbo Jiang, Hong Lu, X Mayo. 

One of the hardest things to get right on screen is family dynamics – to make the long buried resentments, and love, come out in a way that feels natural on screen. Part of the reason why is because we all know what that looks like – what that feels like – to see in action. One of the great things about Lulu Wang’s The Farewell is that this large ensemble cast really does feel like a family unit – in fact, multiple family units that make up the bigger one, so that there are pockets inside the larger family in which people are more comfortable, etc. It gets both of those things right – so while you can find a few standout performances in the film (Awkafina, Shuzhen Zhao, Tzi Ma) – it’s really a triumph of the cast as a whole.

 

9. Luce - Kelvin Harrison Jr, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth, Norbert Leo Butz, Andrea Bang, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Omar Shariff Brunson Jr., Noah Gaynor, Astro, Christopher Mann.

Luce has a tremendous ensemble cast – and one of the least talked about of the year. Anything based on a play always has the potential to be a great ensemble piece – stage is still different than film, and with less flash, you need more substance. What the cast of Luce does is tackle very difficult, thorny subject matter with a character at its core – brilliantly played by Kelvin Harrison Jr. – who can be seen in several different ways, and never quite lets that guard down. It allows some great work by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth (who overcomes his underwritten role) – and particularly Octavia Spencer, who delivers the best performance of her career as the teacher who sees through the title character – or at least think she does. Even the small roles are well cast, and make interesting characters. Luce has an ensemble that deserved more attention.

 

8. Waves - Kelvin Harrison Jr., Taylor Russell, Lucas Hedges, Sterling K. Brown, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Alexa Demie, Clifton Collins Jr., Neal Huff.

There is a danger in a film like Waves – where director Trey Edward Shults turns the style up to 10, cranks up the music and tries to overwhelm your senses, that the characters will get left behind, and not hit you as hard. Shults best decision therefore may have been to cast Waves so terrifically well – with actors who will not get overwhelmed by all the noise. Kelvin Harrison Jr. anchors the first half of the film – a troubled young man, who put all his eggs in one basket, and then has everything come crash down around him and he cannot deal with it. Taylor Russell anchors the second half – the sister left with the wreckage of the family and try and have a normal life. Both have key characters in their halves – a wonderful Alexa Demie in the first half, an even better Lucas Hedges in the second – and then Sterling K. Brown and Renée Elise Goldsberry as the parents trying to hold it together. You need a cast to hold the center here – and Shults has a brilliant one.

 

7. Knives Out - Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, Christopher Plummer, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Riki Lindhome, Edi Patterson, Frank Oz, K Callan, Noah Segan, M. Emmet Walsh, Marlene Forte.

Knives Out is one of those ensemble casts where it is pretty much impossible to single out a single performance. Obviously, the key performance in the film is by Ana de Armas – the only really good person who is a member of the “family” – who finds out just how little the family actually means that – and she is wonderful. And yet, you also have attention grabbing performances by Daniel Craig, doing a wonderfully weird accent, and Chris Evans – embracing his inner asshole – and really, every other role in the film from Christopher Plummer who may seem nice compared to his family – but then, he made them who they are – to Toni Collette, having a blast, to Michael Shannon grimacing menacingly – on down to Jamie Lee Curtis and Don Johnson and Katherine Langford, etc. It is one of those ensemble in which they operate as a well-oiled machine.

 

6. Uncut Gems - Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Aranbayev, Jacob Igielski, Noa Fisher, Paloma Elsesser, LaKeith Stanfield, Eric Bogosian, Keith Williams Richards, Tommy Kominik, Louis Anthony Arias, Judd Hirsch, Benjy Kleiner, Josh Ostrovsky, Sahar Bibiyan, Lana Levitin, The Weeknd, Pom Klementieff, Jake Ryan. 

There are a couple of things that makes the triumph of the ensemble work in Uncut Gems such an accomplishment. The first is that Adam Sandler dominates the film, pretty much from first frame to last – at the center of every scene, acting the hell out of every moment, and daring everyone to keep up with him – it’s the type of performance that can devour a movie, and the rest of the cast. The second is the overwhelming, pulsating style of the film – which seems to want to give you either a heart attack or anxiety attack, or both. What’s amazing about it though, is the ensemble cast doesn’t allow either of those things to outdo them. Kevin Garnett, a basketball player, makes the most of his performance time here – it’s really quite a performance. And there are moments when the likes of Idina Menzel or Eric Bogosian of Judd Hirsch or LaKeith Stanfield or Julia Fox get their moment as well. It really gives the movie the feel of the whole world collapsing in on Sandler – they are all against him, all coming for him, with no way out.

 

5. Marriage Story - Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Merritt Wever, Laura Dern, Wallace Shawn, Ray Liotta, Alan Alda, Julie Hagerty, Robert Smigel, Kyle Bornheimer, Mark O'Brien, Mickey Sumner, Azhy Robertson, Brooke Bloom, Hannah Dunne, Annie Hamilton, Martha Kelly.

One of the great things about Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is that it gives the two leads – Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson – equally complex roles that grow and take on depth as the two of them are apart, so that when they come together we feel that weight between them. Part of why this works so well is because Baumbach also gives the entire ensemble cast fully realized roles as well – even if they are small ones. So Laura Dern is probably the best of the supporting cast – at first she seems like the typical high priced, shark divorce lawyer – but there is depth there, that she slowly shows. Alan Alda is sweetly sympathetic as the other lawyer. Azhy Robertson, as their son, is allowed to be the annoying kid he almost certainly would be in this situation. Even some of the more one note characters – Ray Liotta as a bulldog, asshole of a lawyer, or Julie Hagerty as Johansson sweetly spacey mom – are given great moments. The movie belongs to Driver and Johansson to be sure – but the ensemble adds a lot.

 

4. Little Women - Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Chris Cooper, Jayne Houdyshell, Meryl Streep, Maryann Plunkett, Hadley Robinson, Charlotte Kinder, Ana Kayne, Dash Barber.

What is amazing about the ensemble cast of Little Women is how much of a family they all seem – an idealized family to be sure, but still one in which little hurts are remembered, but brushed aside for the great good. The way the parents bury their own hurt away from the children to protect them. The way the sisters can bicker with each other, and still be there for each other when it counts. The two best performances are clearly by Saorise Ronan and Florence Pugh – as sisters and rivals Jo and Amy, two opposite performances, that are equally powerful. But everyone here works well – from Timothee Chalamet as Laurie, who here really does feel more like a brother than a potential lover, or Laura Dern as the selfless mother, or Meryl Streep, who has some fun as an elderly spinster. Gerwig has a way with actors – as a screenwriter, she excels at making even small characters feel complete, and as a director, she gets that from them all as well. An expert ensemble.

 

3. Parasite - Kang-ho Song, Yeo-jeong Jo, So-dam Park, Woo-sik Choi, Sun-kyun Lee, Ji-so Jung, Hye-jin Jang, Jeong-eun Lee, Seo-joon Park, Hyun-jun Jung, Myeong-hoon Park.

There is not an off performance in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. The main foursome of the Kim family – Kang-ho Song (one of the great actors in the world, delivering his best performance) as the father with a plan for everything, until he gives up, So-dam Park as the talented daughter, always scamming, the more romantic son, Woo-sik Choi who gets everything going, and Hye-jin Jang as the mother, who becomes harder as the film goes along. They are a complete family unit – and a brilliant one. Then add in the upper class Park family – particularly Yeo-jeong Jo as the mother, or the maid – a great Jeong-eun Lee – and you have an ensemble that is set to bounce against each other – crash into each other – brilliantly, which keeps Bong’s brilliant thriller also a deeper film. One of the best examples of ensemble acting you will ever see.

 

2. The Irishman - Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jesse Plemons, Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale, Stephen Graham, Jack Huston, Domenick Lombardozzi, Aleksa Palladino, Kathrine Narducci, Ray Romano, Sebastian Maniscalco, Jake Hoffman, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Louis Cancelmi, Kate Arrington, Jim Norton, India Ennenga, Gary Basaraba, Paul Herman, Jordyn DiNatale, Welker White, Jennifer Mudge, Lucy Gallina, Dascha Polanco.

It feels like Martin Scorsese felt he had to make The Irishman before he died – one last gangster epic, to bury the genre (at least as he defined it) once and for all. And it’s telling that so many people from his past felt the need to come back to be a part of it as well. De Niro is at the heart of nearly every scene – his first work for Scorsese in 24 years – but he hasn’t missed a beat, and it’s one of those rare time where he really seems to dig into the role, and do surprising thing. Pacino, working with Scorsese for the first time, is the perfect Jimmy Hoffa – big and bold, prone to yelling that are a mixture of comic and scary. And then there’s Joe Pesci – exuding authority, doing the exact opposite of what he did in GoodFellas and Casino. They are the three main performances – but every small performance is wonderful, from Scorsese’s stock company like Harvey Keitel or Bobby Cannavale or Stephen Graham or (especially Ray Romano) to new people. It is undeniable that Scorsese’s films never really figures out what to do with the female characters – still Anna Paquin does some great silent acting, and Welker White (so memorable in GoodFellas) is wonderful as Hoffa’s wife. You only wish Frank Vincent had made it long enough to be in this as well. It is an expert ensemble cast – and one of the very best.

 

1.Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood  - Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino, Lena Dunham, Timothy Olyphant, Sydney Sweeney, Damian Lewis, Kurt Russell, Austin Butler, Emile Hirsch, Lorenza Izzo, Bruce Dern, Victoria Pedretti, Mike Moh, Zoë Bell, James Landry Hébert, Rafal Zawierucha, Damon Herriman, Luke Perry, Maya Hawke, Mikey Madison, Madisen Beaty, Nicholas Hammond, Samantha Robinson, Scoot McNairy, Harley Quinn Smith, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Daniella Pick, Costa Ronin.

It’s probably easy to pick a Tarantino film for the ensemble cast award. After all, he has always excelled at creating memorable roles, even if you only have a scene or two. That’s certainly true here – with actors like Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, Al Pacino, Lena Dunham, Mike Moh, Zoe Bell – and of course the great Julia Butters – who are fully rounded characters you will not forget, even if they have only one scene. He also does a great here though of building those ensembles in smaller groups – of course the brotherly love between DiCaprio and Pitt is first and foremost among them, and brilliantly so. But there is also the Manson family – who act as a unit, or the sexual tension between Pitt and the great Margaret Qualley in their scenes together. Or the set where DiCaprio is on, doing the best work of his career in his last hurrah. Or Margot Robbie, occupying her own world, separate from the rest. This may be Tarantino’s most sprawling film – with the biggest cast he has ever used – and he nailed it He recreates this world of Hollywood, that perhaps only every existed in his mind – but feels real, and fully lived it. This may just get my vote for best ensemble of the decade.