2019 Year End Report Top 10 Performances: Best Actress

After years of this being by far the more competitive of the two lead categories, I think it switched this year – but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of great performances in this category this year – some flew too far under the radar.

 

Performances that I really loved, but didn’t have room for in my top 10 include: Ana de Armas in Knives Out was the surprise lead of the film, and was charming throughout – carrying it through all the twists and turns. Kaitlyn Dever & Beanie Feldman in Booksmart who are perfect together, developing one of the best portraits of teenage female friendship I’ve seen in any movie. Cynthia Erivo in Harriet elevates the rather typical biopic with a fiery performance as the legendary conductor on the Underground Railroad. Charlize Theron in Bombshell does a killer Megyn Kelly impression, and makes her brave, without making her flawless. Rene Zellweger in Judy is the type of comeback performance in a biopic that brings actress and subject into sharp focus. Tao Zhao in Ash is Purest White continues to prove why she is one of the greatest actresses in the world – especially when working with Jia Zhang-ke.

 

10. Awkafina in The Farewell

Awkafina is the anchor of The Farewell – a sweet, funny, charming and genuinely moving feature about an extended family all returning to China to say goodbye to their dying grandmother – without letting her know she is dying. Awkafina plays the stand-in for director Lulu Wang – telling her own story – and is also the conduit for the audience itself, who may not fully understand Chinese culture, as she asks the questions we are asking ourselves (and should) throughout. All of those things usually mean the lead character can be more than a little dull – or at least not one with much depth. But that isn’t true here – here, Awkafina is genuinely warm and moving, funny and charming, and explores depths of what it means to be Chinese-American – both sides of that being important. This is proof that Awkafina has a long career ahead of her – and she’s not just the insanely funny comic relief she had been cast as before this.

 

9. Juli Jakab in Sunset 

The films of Laszlo Nemes depend a great deal on the faces of his protagonists – the brilliant performance by Geza Rohring at the heart of Son of Saul for instance. In Sunset, his massively underrated follow-up, that role is played by Juli Jakab – a mysterious young woman in pre-WWI Hungry, who returns to Budapest, to try and get a job at the hat store her family once owned – as Budapest descends into chaos, and everyone tries to pretend it isn’t happening. This is a chillier movie and performance than Son of Saul – which did the same thing in limiting your perspective and focusing exclusively on this lead character – and Jakub makes her one of the most fascinatingly distant characters you can imagine. She doesn’t give anything away – but there’s so much going there anyway. It is a great performance, in a great movie, that deserved more attention.

 

8. Honor Swinton Byrne in The Souvenir

Honor Swinton Byrne’s breakthrough performance in The Souvenir is truly wonderful. Playing the stand-in for director Joanne Hogg in her film school days, who gets involved in a toxic relationship and then cannot find her way back out, Swinton Byrne’s performance here is remarkably subtle. You know she’s making mistakes – and yet, you understand precisely why she’s doing it at the same time. That happiness in the early scenes, gives way to heartbreak, slowly but surely. The film is a coming of age story of sorts – that first adult relationship, that shapes you forever, and you cannot forget, even if you should. Swinton Byrne has big shoes to fill to match her mother’s career – but she has knocked it out of the park her first time to the plate.

 

7. Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale

Irish-Italian actress Aisling Franciosi has mainly done TV work (including a couple episode of Game of Thrones) before being tapped for the lead in Jennifer Kent’s brilliant, harrowing follow-up to her debut masterpiece The Babadook. As Clare, a young Irish woman sent to Australia for a prison term in the 1800s for petty teenage crime, and getting more just punishment for the abusive English officer who controls her fate, Franciosi delivers a brilliant performance. The first act of the movie is all abuse – she suffers one horror after another – before she takes control of her fate from then on, with a fierce determination that carries the film through some scenes you may not want to watch. In a just world, this is the type of performance that would make her a star – unfortunately not enough viewers dared to see this film. I know I’ll never forget it however.

 

6. Saorise Ronan in Little Women

In their two movies together so far, Greta Gerwig and Saorise Ronan have become one of the best actor/director collaborations currently working. Her Jo in Little Women is in many ways, a continuation from the work she was doing in Lady Bird – her character who is full of plans for her future, so outwardly confident, and yet so inwardly insecure – unsure of what to do next. The way Ronan movies through the world is mesmerizing, and she gets the perfect rhythm to Gerwig’s dialogue, which does have a subtle musicality to it. She is great when she is putting on her brave, confident face – but even better when just a part of her breaks a little, and then has to put that brave face back on. Ronan has been one of the great actresses working for a while now – so this isn’t the best performance by the actress who delivered that stunning performance in Brooklyn a few years ago, but it’s more proof that she is one of the greats.

 

5. Mary Kay Pace in Diane

Mary Kay Pace is one of those terrific character actresses who is always great in everything – but usually the parts are small, and you don’t often notice just how great she is. Kent Jones wrote Diane specifically for Pace – specifically to give her a lead role finally – and Pace wasn’t going to let the role get away. This is a complex role – starting out as how we see a stereotypical mother – selfless, always doing for others, never expecting anything in return – until the film allows its secrets to come out, slowly but surely, and you start to question Diane’s motives – and wonder if that is what matters? The film then goes to some rather profound – and universal – places it winds down. Pace has never delivered a bad performance that I’ve seen – she has never gotten the chance to be this good before, and she is truly remarkable here.

 

4. Florence Pugh in Midsommar

Florence Pugh’s performance in Midsommar is remarkable for the many different layers she has to hit. This is a horror film, and she does have to hit horror movie beats – which she does brilliantly. But her performance here is also one that is a depiction of depression – the constant drip, drip, drip of it always getting in the way. It’s a portrait of being one side of a couple – the side more afraid to lose the relationship – making excuses for her boyfriend, hell, apologizing to him when it’s his fault. And finally, in those last moments, it’s becoming free of all of that as well. Those who saw Pugh in Lady Macbeth two years ago already knew how brilliant an actress she could be – 2019 confirmed it, nowhere more so than here, where she delivered her best performance to date.

 

3. Elisabeth Moss in Her Smell

There are few performances this year that just completely “go for it” with the same fearlessness and gusto as Elisabeth Moss’ in Her Smell. In the film, she plays a Courtney Love style rock style – in five long scenes, set over a few years, as she spirals completely out-of-control, hits rock bottom, and then slowly rises up again. It’s a fearless performance, as Moss does nothing in those early scenes to make her character sympathetic – she is raw and full of rage, and pushes everyone – and the audience – to their breaking point. In the two later scenes though, she is fragile – the first one, with her daughter, playing a cheesy pop song on the piano, brings tears to your eye. In the final, as she tries to maintain her grip, without going over, it’s a portrait of vulnerability. Moss really does hit every note imaginable in Her Smell – and nails them all. The great TV actress, finally has the film roll she deserves.

 

2. Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story

I know it’s selfish of me, but I’m glad after Avengers: Endgame that perhaps Johannsson’s schedule will be freed up to do more challenging work than she’s been doing basically since her duel brilliance in 2013’s Under the Skin and Her. Her performance in Marriage Story may just be her best work yet – playing a woman who still loves her husband, but knows that if she is ever going to be her own person – and not just an extension of him – she needs to get away from him. She is given a devastating monologue in her lawyer’s office where she lays out everything in one brilliant, long take – mostly in close-up. But she is great throughout – a woman who can cruel and mean, but is also a victim of her husband cruelty as well – and not because anyone is bad, but because that is what marriage has done to them. It is a sensitive, subtle performance and a welcome return to form for Johansson, who has been lost in superhero land for far too long.

 

1. Lupita Nyong’o in Us

Lupita Nyong’o’s dual performance in Us is truly among the most complexes performances of the year – really in recent memory. Both as Adelaide – the wife and mother – and Red – her murderous doppelgänger – Nyong’o has to find hidden depths – and then keep finding them as the secrets come out, and in turn, makes both of these characters even more complex. In these roles, Nyong’o has to navigate two people’s traumatic pasts, two people’s lies and cover-ups. Oh, and she also has to be absolutely terrifying as well. We have seen a number of truly great horror movie performances in the last few years – and I think Nyong’o’s belongs at the top of the list. Easily the best work of Nyong’o’s already wonderful career.

2019 Year End Report: Top Ten Performances: Supporting Actor

It seems like it’s been a while since we had this many great performances in the supporting actor category – but when it rains, it pours, and this year had a wealth of choices.

 

Some great performances that I didn’t have room for in the top 10 included: Alan Alda in Marriage Story uses his good guy charm to good effect in the film – the lawyer who wants the best for everyone, but perhaps isn’t the right fit. Sterling K. Brown in Waves is wonderful as the caring, too involved father, who thinks he is doing the right thing – but it leads to a very bad place. Woo-sik Choi in Parasite as the son who gets everything started, and ends the film with an unforgettable moment of delusion and heartbreak. Asier Etxeandia in Pain & Glory as the director’s old star, who shows just how talented he was – and could still be. Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems is great, playing an exaggerated version of himself – a vein athlete. Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes is excellent in the role of Pope Benedict – and could have been even better had the screenplay gone deeper. Jonathan Majors in The Last Black Man in San Francisco as the best friend and artist, who does his best to express the feeling of an entire city through his work. Sam Rockwell in Richard Jewell is so good in ways that are instantly recognizable, so he gets over looked. Leonardo Sbarglia in Pain & Glory who is only in one scene, as the director’s old boyfriend, but it’s one of the most memorable, and best acted scenes of the year. Wesley Snipes in Dolemite is My Name is having the time of his life as his above it all character – it’s not a deep performance, but every line reading is a killer.

 

And now, the top 10.

 

10. John Turturro in Gloria Bell

For the most part, Sebastian Leilo’s English language remake of his own film Gloria is basically a redo of that film – a very good redo, with an excellent performance by Julianne Moore – but a redo just the same. The one aspect of the film that really sticks out this time though is John Turturro’s great performance as Moore’s new love interest – a recent divorced man, who is still way too involved in his ex-wife’s life, not to mention his two adult daughters, who rely on him for everything. Turturro’s performance here is vanity free (it’s a nice reveal the first time he has sex with Moore for example) – and a portrait of a pathetic man, who says he knows what he wants, but is powerless to overcome his own insecurity and anxiety. Turturro is always great – he’s particularly great in this film.

 

9. Jeremy Bobb in Under the Silver Lake

Jeremy Bobb is in all of one scene in Under the Silver Lake – but it’s the single best scene of the film, and one of the very best of the year. As the mysterious character known as The Songwriter, Bobb’s job, under a hell of a lot of makeup, and a bad wig, is the detail the ludicrous conspiracy theory that underpins everything that has happened in the film. To say more is the ruin the film’s surprises – but needless to say, Bobb absolutely nails this scene – it’s the type of one scene wonder performance that will become famous in the years to come, when more people realize just how good this very strange film is.

 

8. Shia LaBeouf in Honey Boy

Shia LaBeouf wrote Honey Boy, and is essentially playing a version of his own father. When LaBeouf was a child actor, his father was his manager and chaperone – despite the fact that he was an abusive, recovering alcoholic and a convicted sex offender. The film is about just how far his father pushes him – who petty and jealous of his own son he was, and how that effected the son into adulthood. And yet, if LaBeouf played him as a monster, it would be boring. Instead, he plays him as a sympathetic, fully rounded person who does horrible things, talks a mile a minute, and for whom every day is a struggle. It is a great performance by LaBeouf – really the best of his career – and what’s more, it feels like the performance he had to give in order to move on.

 

7. Kelvin Harrison Jr. in Waves

Kelvin Harrison Jr. is one of the great young actors working now – and 2019 represented a huge breakout year for him with his lead performance in Luce, and his performance here in Waves – which anchors the first half of the movie. In the film, Harrison plays a young black man, who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders – the expectations from his father and stepmother to be a good man, to get a scholarship in wrestling, and the weight for his girlfriend to step up and take care of his responsibilities. And then, of course, it all comes crashing down around him – and he doesn’t know how to react. As with the film in general, Harrison’s emotions here are cranked up to 11 – and yet they don’t feel phony or forced or overblown – but exactly right. It’s a big, bold, volatile performance – and Harrison shows why he is could be one of the next greats.

 

6. Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse

Willem Dafoe has always been a great actor – and he’s having quite a renaissance in the last couple of years, picking up Oscar nominations for The Florida Project and At Eternity’s Gate. His performance in The Lighthouse is lighter than either of those – in fact, it should probably not be allowed to be this good in a movie while clearly having this much fun in the role. Dafoe plays the older, gruffer, cruder, ruder, more flatulent of the two lighthouse keepers in the film – and he delights in tormenting poor Robert Pattinson throughout the course of the movie, although eventually that lightness turns dour and sour and paranoid – and he goes off the rails wonderfully. There is nothing subtle about this performance – certainly not the accent – but there is also nothing in it that isn’t perfect for the role. Another for Dafoe’s pantheon.

 

5. Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

For all the jokes people make about Hanks and all the Oscars he’s won and been nominated for – he actually hasn’t been nominated at all since CastAway nearly 20 years ago – and in recent years has delivered some great performances (Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies) that perhaps deserved more love than they got. He delivers one of his very best performances ever as Mr. Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood – it was perfect casting of course, but Hanks doesn’t play Rogers as a secular saint – he goes deeper than that. His Rogers is the man with infinite wells of kindness and patience – but there’s also something a little creepy about him, a little stand-offish, in the way he just pretends he doesn’t hear the questions he doesn’t want to answer, or else won’t give details about them – although you can see that pain there. What Hanks plays here is a man of immense self-control – and how that may just be a little sad, in addition to all the great things Mr. Rogers did – and meant – to so many.

 

4. Al Pacino in The Irishman

Pacino was the perfect choice for Scorsese’s Jimmy Hoffa – it brings Pacino into the Scorsese fold of gangster epics, which oddly he had never been in before. But it’s also because Pacino isn’t afraid of going big, bold and risk going over the top. Sometimes, Pacino goes too far – but that doesn’t happen here. Here, the big and bold is perfect for Hoffa, who was that was anyway, and as the film moves along you realize that most of that in Hoffa is bluster – almost comic. He doesn’t really believe they will take him down. It’s Pacino finally having a chance to give his talents to Scorsese – and Scorsese knowing the absolute perfect way to use those talents.

 

3. Kang-ho Song in Parasite

One of the biggest stars in Korean – and one of the best actors in the world – I am delighted that Kang-ho Song seems to finally be getting the type of attention that he deserves for his best ever work for frequent collaborator Bong Joon-ho. Here, playing the father of the family trying to integrate itself into the life of a rich family, Song is brilliant in the early scenes – where things are lighter and funnier, and even more so as the action gets more frantic, and ke tries in vein to keep things under control. One of the absolute best moments of acting in any film this year is when he is laying on that cot, and finally admits he has no plan – it’s a culmination of his performance and character in this film, but also in all of his films with Bong – where he always seems to have something up his sleeve. And that doesn’t even mention his devastating final moments. So I welcome the world to the cult of Kang-ho Song – what took you so long?

 

2. Joe Pesci in The Irishman

The smartest thing, in many smart things, about The Irishman is the way it uses Joe Pesci. Pesci, whose well-known persona is based on the hotheads he played in previous Scorsese gangster masterpieces GoodFellas and Casino, is pretty much the exact opposite here. His Russell Bufalino is every bit the killer of those characters – but a measured, calm, smart one. He doesn’t raise his voice – because he knows he doesn’t have to. He exudes authority, and knows he will be listened to by all who know what is good for them. His final scenes are even quite touching, even if you know the person he is. This may well be the final performance of Pesci’s career - it’s only his third film this century, and his first is nearly a decade. If it is, what a way to go out on top.

 

1. Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Brad Pitt is one of those interesting movie stars in that he is one of those few actors who can still pull of the absolute movie star performance – like in the Ocean’s films or Moneyball, where he coasts on his charm, his talent, his good looks and good humor. That’s a skill few people have left. But he’s also an excellent character actor when he wants to be – diving in deep to characters, drudging up something profound. His best performances – like in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and now this one in Once Upon in a Hollywood, Pitt combines those two aspects of his talent, to deliver something truly special. His Cliff is really the heart of the film, the connective tissue between everything – and Pitt doesn’t let that go. He also embraces the contradictions in his character – the complex morality, or amorality, of his character that complicates his status as a hero. It is the best performance in a great career – probably the best in any category this year.

2019 Year End Report: Top 10 Performanes: Supporting Actress

This really was a strong year for this category – with some wonderful performances, from some unexpected places – and a couple of films that yielded multiple contenders.

 

Runners-up: We had any number of performances that I quite liked, that I just didn’t have room for in the top 10. Kathy Bates in Richard Jewell is a wonderfully sensitive performance as a woman who believes deeply in her son, even as their world crashes around them. Penelope Cruz & Julieta Serrano in Pain & Glory both play the directors mother at different points in her life – and together, they add up to a heartbreaking portrayal of motherly love – in all its flaws. Evelin Dobos in Sunset is such a smart, subtle performance it’s quite possible to overlook just how good she is. Hye-jin Jang in Parasite was terrific as the mother – the character in the family who takes the longest to reveal herself – and perhaps has the saddest end. Jeong-eun Lee in Parasite originally appears to have a thankless role of the original housekeeper – but she finds so much here as the film moves along. Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers showed precisely why she is a movie star – she owns this movie, the way she hasn’t done since Out of Sight, over 20 years ago. So-dam Park in Parasite is excellent as the cynical, incredibly smart daughter – who has one of the best moments of the year right before she goes in the door the first time. Margot Robbie in Bombshell is the films most sympathetic character – perhaps because she’s the only fictional one – but still shows how sexual harassment builds piece by piece.

 

10. Shuzhen Zhao in The Farewell

Zhao is wonderful – warm and open hearted as Nai Nai, the woman that everyone gathers to wish farewell to because she has been diagnosed with cancer. The trick is that she doesn’t know that. I think it is impossible to watch Zhao in this film and not think of your own grandmother – I lost my own a few months before seeing The Farewell, so I was primed to cry (and I did). Most of the performance is warm and funny – the kind of supportive grandmother who always has your back, even if your parents don’t. And then, the moment that gets her on this list, is her final one in the movie – as she waves goodbye to her family, keeping a happy look on her face, until, of course, she can no longer do it. It is the most heartbreaking moment of the year – and it is so wonderfully played by Zhao in a performance that will make you cry in more ways than one.

 

9. Octavia Spencer in Luce

Spencer, a character actress who has become an unlikely Oscar favorite in recent years (winning for The Help, and being nominated for Hidden Figures and The Shape of Water, delivers her best – by far most complex performance of her career in Luce. She plays the title characters’ teacher – and while everyone else believes him to be a great kid, she can see through him. But does she see through him because of her own biases – or is that real? Does he do what he does because of her – or would be do it anyway? We never really get an answer – but it’s a delight to see Spencer, who too often has to play the sympathetic friend, here get to really dig into a meaty, complex role – she knows it too, and isn’t letting go.

 

8. Julia Butters in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

It’s always difficult to evaluate child performances – because you’re never quite sure how much is them, and how much is the director, steering them directly where they want them go. One of the remarkable things about Butters’ performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood though is how thoroughly she dominates her scenes with DiCaprio – and how much dialogue she has to deliver. Tarantino has a particular patter that you need to get the proper rhythm for when you deliver – and Butters is a natural – and she puts DiCaprio through his paces, and asks him to keep up. It’s a small performance – just a couple of scenes – but she absolutely owns them in a way that lets you know this isn’t just a director molding a child performance – this is a born actress acting the hell out of her role.

 

7. Yeo-jeong Jo in Parasite

I have already mentioned pretty much every other prominent female performance in Parasite in this category – but to me, the MVP of them all is Yeo-jeong Jo as the wealthy Mrs. Kim. We are warned before we see her that she’s young – and not very bright. But that’s a deliberate choice by Bong, to shape how we see her character – she certainly is gullible, but I don’t think she’s stupid. What she is though is sheltered – sheltered by her class, and thus she sees things the world in a way that makes her a target for people. It’s a great performance of a woman who isn’t necessarily bad – it would have been too easy to make her a bad guy – but instead it’s something more complex – a woman walking through life with blinders on, and never knowing it.

 

6. Florence Pugh in Little Women

Florence Pugh obviously had a great year – those of us who saw her in Lady MacBeth two years ago knew she was going to be a star, and now she is. In her second great performance of the year, Pugh is given the difficult job of playing Amy March – a character that is easy to hate, and hard to play well – especially when Gerwig asks her to play Amy from the time she is a young teenager until she is into her 20s. And yet, while Pugh never looks like a 13-year-old, she acts perfectly like one – the kind of petty, whining child who doesn’t like to be left behind. As she ages, Pugh makes Amy into a more complete character than normal – you like her more than normal, because you can understand why she does what she does. Pugh doesn’t steal the movie from Ronan – but she comes close – and it is a performance that confirms just what a great actress she is.

 

5. Laura Dern in Marriage Story

It’s sad that Hollywood didn’t always know what to do with Laura Dern – after a great start to her career with David Lynch and others, she often didn’t get the work the caliber she deserved – although once in a while (Citizen Ruth, Inland Empire) we’d be reminded what a genius she is. Now, she has found her niche on television (Big Little Lies, Twin Peaks: The Return) – and directors are utilizing her skills once again. In Marriage Story, she plays Johansson’s lawyer – and at first you think it’s going to be the type of role Dern can sleepwalk through with ease. But she reveals some depths to her – she’s a shark to be sure, but not an unfeeling one – one that understands just what Johansson is going through and how both manipulate her, and be there for her – and she’s even given a speech about the misogyny inherent in the justice system. It’s another great role and performance for Dern – one of our greats.

 

4. Julia Fox in Uncut Gems

In her debut performance, Julia Fox is tasked with trying to keep up with the chaos of the movie, and hold her own against Adam Sandler, as the film spins wildly out of control. She does both wonderfully well. She plays the younger, mistress of Sandler’s character – and while it would have been easy to play her as a gold digger, Fox doesn’t really do that. She may be in it, in part, for the money – but there is genuine love and affection there – and hurt when he rejects her. It’s also a very funny performance – in her moments with The Weeknd for instance, or that very strange pilot at the end. I had never seen Julia Fox is anything before – but now I cannot wait to see what she’s in next.

 

3. Margaret Qualley in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Margaret Qualley has been quietly building up a string of excellent performances in the past few years – The Nice Guys, Novitiate, Fosse/Verdon even the awful Donnybrook, and in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she makes the most of the plum role of Pussycat in Tarantino’s epic. You notice and remember Qualley from the second you see her on screen – wordlessly flirting with Brad Pitt more than once through the window of his car as she’s on the side of the road. When she finally gets into that car, she challenges Pitt to keep up with her – his laid back performances is the perfect counterweight to her aggressive one. That scene is the cornerstone of the performance – but she excels even when she gets to Spahn Ranch – although that’s when you see her in a different way – not the free spirit she appeared. It is a great performance for Qualley - one of the most memorable in a film full of memorable performances.

 

2. Taylor Russell in Waves

In the first half of Waves, newcomer Taylor Russell pretty much has to sit back and watch in horror as her father and especially her brother destroys their family – she is powerless to stop it, and doesn’t even know where to begin to try. In the second half of the film, she has to anchor the whole thing – picking up the pieces of her life that has been shattered, through no fault of her own, and trying to find some degree of happiness for her self – and some degree of forgiveness for everyone else in the family. This is a not a show-offy performance – a risk she took, considering she had to share the screen with Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Sterling K. Brown, not to mention the pulsating sound and style of Trey Edward Shults film. But it’s a quietly devastating performance – and the one in the film that finds hope for the future – and for herself. This should be a star making performance for Russell.

 

1. Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

People can complain all they want to about the lack of lines Margot Robbie had in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – no performance more moved me this year than her beautiful work in Tarantino’s film. Playing the late Sharon Tate, Robbie glides through the movie carefree and happy – living her life to the fullest, because she doesn’t know what is around the corner. The movie gives that happiness back to Tate here – nowhere more so than when Robbie as Tate goes to the theater to see a movie with the real Tate – and the actress and the actress playing the actress, share this bond through the screen that is absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking. Her final lines in the movie – as if summoning DiCaprio to heaven – are just as beautiful When you can do what Robbie does in this film, you don’t need that many lines.

2019 Year Report Report: Top 10 Films of 2019

And finally, the top 10 films of 2019, as chosen by me.

 

10. Sunset (László Nemes)

László Nemes’ debut film – the great Son of Saul – got a lot of attention for its depictions of the horrors of a Nazi Concentration Camp through the eyes Saul – a Jew working the camps, who slowly goes mad, and develops a kind of tunnel vision – blurring out the horrors all around him. Nemes’ follow-up film didn’t garner the praise his first film did – but it should have – as he deploys a similar style, or a much more diffuse, ambiguous plot and character. This time, it’s a young Hungarian woman on the eve of WWI – who returns to a hat store once owned by her parents, and finds how much things have changed. The film descends into absolute chaos, and then at the halfway point kind of restarts and descends once again – ending with a wonderful final shot. The film may not have the immediate power of Son of Saul – but it’s a haunting film, and a brilliantly directed one – keeping our focus on a character who remains enigmatic until the end.

 

9. Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)

David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake is a stoner noir for our strange, conspiracy minded times. It stars Andrew Garfield as a slacker turned detective, trying to figure out what happened to his beautiful neighbor (Riley Keough) when she goes missing. But he ends up going down so many rabbit holes, so many side trips – and just kind of trips along. The film is also a stealth critique of white privilege – Garfield’s character slowly reveals himself to be an asshole and a misogynist – even if his search for truth and meaning hits an honest place. The film is meticulously detailed – with hints in nearly every shot at the mysteries and conspiracies in the film – even if they are all meaningless. This is a film that belongs on a list with Altman’s The Long Goodbye, the Coen’s Big Lebowski, Kelly’s Southland Tales and Anderson’s Inherent Vice – and perhaps the one with the most to say about the here and now.

 

8. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

Following his 2011 masterpiece, The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick basically decide to stray further and further from narrative filmmaking in movies like To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, Song to Song and Voyage of Time. I liked those films – I admired Malick following his muse where it took him (even through all the twirling) – and yet am still happy that he returned to a more narrative structure with his latest film – A Hidden Life – his best since The Tree of Life. Telling the story of Franz Jagerstatter – an Austrian farmer, who lives in a place that Malick makes look like the most beautiful place on earth, who sees his life shattered with the outbreak of WWII – and his dawning realization that he cannot support Hitler, no matter what that means to him and his family. Malick’s film, of course, looks beautiful – his sweeping camera work is amazing. The film really does feel like Franz’s decent into hell. The film is long – nearly three hours – but it earns that runtime, and becomes emotionally overwhelming by the end. This is another example of what Malick can do that no one else can.

 

7. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

Noah Baumbach’s best film to date is this painful study of a couple going through a divorce. The film doesn’t choose side – you could choose them for yourself if you want to, but the film works best if you don’t do that. The artistic couple at its core – actress Scarlett Johansson, theater director Adam Driver – do love each other, but are realizing that it’s more complicated than that. As the film progresses – the trips back and forth from New York to L.A. take their toll, and the divorce turns ugly. As you watch the film, you feel sorry for both of them – and acknowledge that both have done things that could be considered downright cruel at the same time. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson deliver two of the year’s best performances as these damaged, flawed people, coming to terms with closing this chapter of their lives. The film is painful and dramatic – there are scenes that will bring you to tears – but also funny and deeply empathetic. Baumbach’s previous best film was The Squid and the Whale – another tale of divorce, but that one through the eyes of a child. Now, he’s moved on to tell a similar story from the inside out.

 

6. Us (Jordan Peele)

Jordan Peele’s debut film, Get Out, is the kind of instantly iconic film that can be nearly impossible to try and follow-up. While I don’t think Us caused as immediate a cultural impact as Get Out did (largely because “The Sunken Place” was such a simple, and perfect metaphor) – I do think it is a trickier, more ambitious film than Get Out was. It’s the type of film that you have no idea where it’s going when it starts – just begins with an instantly brilliant idea of a home invasion horror film, where the invaders are doppelgängers of the family in question. Expanding that idea outward, Us becomes a parable for American history – the ways in which we try to paint over the past, instead of dealing with it, and how eventually, it will all come out whether we like it or not. It’s also just the out and out scariest film of the year, a bloody good time at a horror film, and features on the very best performances of the year by Lupita Nyong’o, taking on the tricky duel role at the center of the film, that you don’t realize how tricky it is until the film’s finale. Get Out proved Peele could work beyond comedy – Us proves that is a true master of the horror genre.

 

5. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

Last year, Ari Aster made his debut with Hereditary – a brilliant family horror film that brought in occult elements to a family that was already at each other’s throats. But he outdoes himself with Midsommar – one of the great “break-up” movies of all time, and a great folk-lore like horror film in its own way. Florence Pugh is brilliant as a young woman, suffering through a family tragedy, who decides to accompany her boyfriend (Jack Reynor, a perfect example of a bad boyfriend) and his friends to a small Swedish village for their Midsommar festival. What happens there is horrifying in more ways than one – but also cathartic. Aster doesn’t really go for big horror movie moments in this film – what he does is trickier, sustaining a mounting sense of dread for two-and-a-half hours, often in the bright, brilliant, white sunshine. It all climaxes with one of the best endings of the year. Further proof that Aster is one of the best young horror directors – hell best director’s period – currently working.

 

4. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho reached a new level with his Palme D’or winning masterpiece Parasite this year. Like some of his other film, Parasite begins as such an entertaining film – such a fun film – that the levels on which Bong is working and layering into the story you don’t quite notice, which makes it all the more effective when he lowers the boom. The film may start out as escapist entertainment – but that’s just on the surface. When the film descends into the darkness (both literally and figuratively), Bong’s class warfare film really takes on a level of bite than is rare. It isn’t as simplistic as say Ready or Not or Knives Out this Year (as much as I liked both of those films) – because Bong isn’t interested in black and white villains and good guys – but a system in which the poor are pitted against each, and will never be able to rise up through the classes – and the rich are thoughtless and ignorant, but not necessarily cruel. And Bong layers all of this into a film that is still remarkably entertaining and amazingly well-made (Bong has a perfect sense of where to put the camera at all times). It is a film gets under your skin and stays there – the ending is a gut punch.

 

3. Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie)

With Good Time, the Safdie brothers made one of the most intense films of the decade – a film of propulsive energy, that just keeps gaining steam as it goes along. With Uncut Gems, they try to top themselves – making a film that I believe is designed to induce an anxiety or heart attack in the audience. This almost indescribably intense film focuses on Adam Sandler’s character – a jewelry dealer in Manhattan, who is running multiple different scams to keep his gambling habit alive, and over a few days they all come crashing down upon him. The main thrust has to do with an uncut gem from Africa – that he plans to sell for big money, and solve all his problems – the problem is, he lets NBA star Kevin Garnett borrow it – and then cannot get it back. There is also his collapsing marriage to Idina Menzel, his increasingly fraught relationship with his mistress Julia Fox – and the various people he owes money to. The film never settles down for a minute – putting one impossibly intense sequence after another after another – brilliantly shot by Darius Khondji with all the energy you can imagine, and some of the best sound design of the year. Presiding over it all is Adam Sandler is a towering, magnetic performance – the best of his career, leaning into the opposite end of his persona that he explored so well in his previous best work – Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love. With their last two films, the Safdies have thrust themselves into the top echelon of working directors.

 

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood kind of feels like a summation for Tarantino – he is apparently only making one more film before retirement after this, but I have to wonder if, no matter what that film is, if it will be as brilliant and touching a final statement as this film is. The film takes place in 1969 – in the time leading up to the Manson murders. But Charles Manson is an afterthought – he’s thrown on the dustbin of history where he belongs – as Tarantino makes a buddy film about a former star (Leonardo DiCaprio) now doing TV guest spots, and his stuntman buddy (Brad Pitt), The two are brilliant together – they have an ease that is hard to get – but the film really soars when they separate – when DiCaprio finds meaning in these guest spots again, finds his art again, and Pitt heads off to the Spahn ranch for the most intense sequence of the year. And Margot Robbie is brilliant as Sharon Tate – it’s a small role, often she says nothing, but it’s such a touching one – one that gives her back her humanity, makes her more than just a murder victim, which all too often how she is remembered. The film is also Tarantino honing his storytelling in ways I found unexpected – given how Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained ended, you couldn’t be shocked by the explosion of violence in the end. But it’s after that in the final moments of the film where Tarantino delivers the most emotional scene he has ever put on screen. In many ways, this does feel like Tarantino’s final statement – about the value of making this kind of entertainment, even if it ends up being mostly forgotten (look at all the billboards for movies, or commercials for them, or even the soundtrack – they are not full of classics as almost anyone else would have) – about this lost of world of Hollywood, a world that was always a fantasy, but one you’d rather live in. Tarantino is the first director I ever fell in love with as a teenager back in the 1990s – his films are imprinted on my cinephile DNA – and here he really does seem to be pushing himself further than before. I loved the film when I first saw it – loved it more the second time – and I am growing more convinced that this may well be Tarantino’s masterpiece.

 

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

Martin Scorsese is my favorite filmmaker of all-time, and he come out and said that The Irishman was his final film – that he had said all he needed to say – I would have understood complete. The film feels like a summation in many ways for Scorsese – certainly of the kind of loose trilogy of gangster film he has made with DeNiro and Pesci (GoodFellas, Casino being the other two) – but also on Scorsese’s worldview at large. This sprawling, three-and-a-half-hour film about the life of Frank Sheeran (DeNiro) – a WWII veteran, who becomes a teamster, and eventually rises in the ranks – becoming a hitman for the mob under Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and growing close to Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Here, DeNiro is playing a very passive character – pulled between two places, and unable to make a decision, he reacts, but doesn’t act – and essentially slowly loses everything he values. The film is a slow march to death – we’re all on that same march – but it’s about the meaningless of this all, how Frank sells his soul, and gets nothing in return. The other two gangster films Scorsese made with this team is kind of about how everything was so much fun, until it wasn’t. Here, it was never fun – and you are left broken and alone and no one cares. This is an epic masterpiece by Scorsese – one of the best films of his brilliant career. For someone like me, who has spent more time watching Scorsese films than any other filmmaker, it really does feel like a familiar voice, now getting more serious, and walking you to the end.

2019 Year End Report: Best Films of the Year 20-11

In another year, perhaps, some of these could have been on my top 10 list. Alas, this was not that year.

 

20. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

Joe Talbot’s marvelous debut film, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, is an utterly unique film. It has a strange, almost dreamlike quality – a portrait of San Francisco from the point-of-view of someone who very clearly loves the city, but is being left behind. It’s also that rare film about a large, systematic issue – in this case gentrification – that doesn’t reduce the complex issue to a series of individual villains, but rather sees the problem as something large, and insurmountable. It also has the quality of street theater, but with a wider scope. It is an ambitious film, a beautiful film, a deeply humane film – and in the end, a rather sad film. Sometimes there is nothing to do but leave town. This film announces a major new talent in the film world.

 

19. Pain & Glory (Pedro Almodovar)

Pedro Almodovar was, for a long time, an art house staple. From the late 1980s to sometime in the mid-2000s, he could be counted on for making colorful, stylish, entertaining, and insightful movies like All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Bad Education. But it’s been a while since Almodovar truly broke through. Now 70, he returns with his version of 8 ½ - with his frequent collaborator Antonio Banderas, playing a version of Almodovar himself – sick and unable to work, alone in the world, and going over his memories of his childhood, his mother, etc. Does Almodovar try to cram a little too much into this film? Perhaps – but it almost all works, particularly Banderas’s performance, everything to do with his mother (played by Penelope Cruz and Julietta Serrano) and the late film sequence where he reconnects with his old lover, which is one of the best sequences Almodovar has ever made. A return to form for a great filmmaker.

 

18. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

Long Day’s Journey Into Night is Bi Gan’s stunning technical achievement – with one of the best uses of 3-D I have ever seen in a film. For the first 70 minutes or so, the film is a haunting and elusive film noir – the main character searching in vain for a woman he once knew and loved. Like his debut film, Kaili Blues, his film is meant as part memory, part fantasy, part realism, and Bi Gan does nothing to tell which is which. And then for the next 59 minutes, we witness one continuous shot – in 3-D (the first 70 minutes weren’t in 3-D) as the character literally has to ascend out of the mines, and then descend into a town, where he believes the woman will be performing in a karaoke competition, and he connects with another woman, who may or may not the woman he is looking for. It is an absolutely mesmerizing sequence, brilliantly shot by Bi Gan and his cinematographers. The whole movie is a visual masterwork – mysterious and elusive and haunting, and it marks Bi Gan as a truly special, daring filmmaker.

 

17. An Elephant Sitting Still (Bo Hu)

The tragic story behind An Elephant Sitting Still – that writer/director Bo Hu committed suicide shortly after finishing his four-hour cut of the film, as he was arguing with his producers who wanted him to cut the film down to a more commercial 2 hour cut – is certainly interesting knowledge to have about the film. This is a dark film – there are two suicides in the film itself, and it is about a group of four people who going through difficult times in a Northern Chinese industrial town – all may be considering suicide themselves. And yet, the characters in the film don’t give up – they may not find hope per se, but they find a reason to keep going. The film is made up of long takes – drawn out conversations, that would never work in a shorter version. Bo Hu’s life ended tragically early – and he has left behind this one masterful film that will make you wonder just what would have been next.

 

16. The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)

Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to her amazing debut horror film, The Babadook, is a more troubling, more challenging film – a film that takes the form of a rape/revenge plot, but deepens it, and muddies it a little. The first third of the film – which includes the rapes and other travesties, is very hard to watch – and Kent doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t exploit or titillate – but shows the horrors. From there, it becomes a slow cat-and-mouse game that takes on issues of misogyny and racism and colonialism in deep, dark disturbing ways. This isn’t a horror film at all really – but a deeply troubling film. At its core is an amazing performance by relative newcomer Aisling Franciosi – as the Irish woman, sent to Australia in the 1820s for petty crimes – and more than pays her debts. This film firmly establishes Kent is one of the most promising filmmakers in the world – already having delivered two exceptional films.

 

15. Waves (Trey Edward Shults)

Trey Edward Shults’ third film is a stylistic and emotional tour-de-force – a movie that moves along on the propulsive energy of its style and pulsating music running through it. The film is basically split into two halves – the first focusing on Kelvin Harrison Jr.’s high school senior – a wrestling star, dealing with the immense pressure his father (Sterling K. Brown) places on him – and what happens when everything goes wrong at the same time. The second half is about Harrison’s younger sister, a wonderful Taylor Russell, dealing with the fallout from the events of the first half. Shults style is to place us inside these kids’ lives – often inside the cars, with the pulsating music, and the camera constantly moving. The films first half steadily to an emotionally shattering climax. The second half is quieter – but no less moving. Shults, who previously made the ultra-low budget and personal Krisha, and the horror film It Comes at Night, has taken a major step forward – in a film that will remind you of Cassavetes and Malick and early Paul Thomas Anderson – but is also entirely its own thing. This is a film that young people will discover – and love – sooner or later.

 

14. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

Lady Bird wasn’t technically Gerwig’s debut film as a director – but it may as well have been. That film was remarkable in that it was a small film – an indie film really, a coming of age film based loosely on the life of Gerwig herself, but written with such sensitivity, directed with a wonderful, restrained style, and performed by an amazing cast that it was miles beyond the many similar films we get in any given year. What is remarkable about her follow-up is that she is able to do the same thing on a larger scale – with one of the most famous stories in American literature. Little Women has been filmed – often – before – but Gerwig makes it her own, from the brilliant time jumping structure, to changing things just enough to be faithful to the book, while putting a modern twist on it. Gerwig is well on her way to becoming one of the greats.

 

13. Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry)

Alex Ross Perry’s best film to date is Her Smell – a film told in five parts about the fall, and partial redemption of a Courtney Love-esque rock star. When we first meet Elisabeth Moss’ Becky Something, she is already a star in her punk band – but is driving everyone around her nuts. Addicted to drugs and alcohol, with a massive ego, the film traps us backstage at a gig, as she goes off on a rampage, Things get even worse as the film goes along – a recording session gone horribly wrong, another backstage meltdown, etc. Ross Perry’s intentions here are to trap us alongside Becky’s collaborators in these small rooms, offering no room for escape or refuge. And then, she slowly starts to pull things together in the last two segments – making her way back. Ross Perry has always been interested in self-involved, creative people – driving us all mad. Moss has never been better (at least in a movie) than she is here – she does absolutely nothing to make Becky sympathetic or likable – meaning her slow redemption in the last two segments all the more impressive. The film is a dynamic visual film – the camera constantly moving, constantly erratic in those early scenes – but each scene has its own unique look and feel. Ross Perry has been doing very good work for a while now – but Her Smell is a major step forward for him.

 

12. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

Joanna Hogg’s beautiful, sensitive, humane film about a toxic relationship really is quietly moving, building to a final two shots that are emotionally overwhelming. In the film, Honor Swinton Byrne plays a character based on writer/director Hogg –a young, privileged film student in the 1980s who wants to make films about the underclass. She meets an apparent upper crust young man who works for the home office – Tom Burke – who is both stuffy, but funny and kind. The two fall in love quickly, him keeping secrets from her the whole time. Even as they come up, she cannot fully give up on him – and keeps coming back. Both Swinton Byrne and Burke are wonderful in the film that is also a step forward for Hogg as a filmmaker – who had already made two wonderful films (Unrelated and Archipelago – I wasn’t a fan of Exhibition). She is a filmmaker who is subtle and perceptive – and here, she brings her work to a new level, particularly in the aforementioned final two shots which are a stunner.

 

11. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

Robert Eggers follow-up to his astonishing debut The Witch is an even more visually stunning film. Shot in stark and black, in an old school, narrow aspect ratio, the film is about two men – Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe – trapped together working at an isolated lighthouse, who drive every other insane. You need actors as committed and talented as Pattinson and Dafoe to go this strange, doing everything from fart humor to beating seagulls to death to mermaid sex, and both are brilliant in the film. Eggers and his crew may be the real star here though – working with old cameras, the film looks great – the production design is amazing (they built that lighthouse, because of course they did) and it sounds great as well. You can kind of tell that the story was reverse engineered a little – but it’s such a smart usage of mythology, and shows just how committed and talented Eggers is. I cannot wait to see his career continue to develop.

2019 Year End Report: Best Films of the Year 30 - 21

So, now let’s officially start my ridiculously long year end recap – starting with the best films of the years, 30 -21 (noting that if it’s animated or a doc, and isn’t in the top 10, I let them rest of their own list).

 

Runners-up: Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhang-ke) is a kind of greatest hits package for one of China’s best filmmakers – not his best work, but excellent nonetheless. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde) is a hilarious high school comedy, and a poignant look at female friendship. Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler) isn’t as good as his first two films, but continues his streak of controversial, slow moving, violent films in a unique voice. John Wick Chapter 3 – Parabellum is perhaps the best pure action film Hollywood produced this year with one great set piece after another. Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood) would have easily been somewhere above – what works is as good as anything in late Eastwood – but the depiction of Kathy Scruggs mars the film badly. Shadow (Zhang Yimou) may not have been quite the film that Hero or House of Flying Daggers was – but it mainly a return to form for Yimou. For the second year in a row (since it opened in Toronto in late 2018, but in America in early 2019) I’ll add The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylon) which doesn’t reach the top levels of the Turkish master’s films, but occasionally still haunt me a year later.

 

30. Luce (Julius Onah)

Luce is a complex look at race and class in America that offers no easy answers, just troubling questions. The film stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. in the title role – a former African child soldier, adopted by an upper class white, liberal American couple (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) – and has become an American success story. He is going to be valedictorian; he is a great athlete – everyone loves him. With one exception – his teacher (Octavia Spencer) who believes she can see through him, and maybe she can. The film is very well acted by the trio of leads (Harrison Jr., Watts and Spencer) – and the film plays with you, as you start to question Luce, and then question why you’re questioning him. The film seems to be designed to make white audiences uncomfortable – and never let us settle done. Based on the stage play, the film has opened things up a little – but does what great theatre can do – inspire conversation, and disturb you to the core.

 

29. Monos (Alejandro Landes)

Monos is a very odd film – a movie set in Columbia, for the first half on a beautiful, muddy mountaintop, the second half deep the jungle – about a group of child soldiers who work for some sort of “organization” whose job is to watch over an American hostage (Julianne Nicholson). Landes’ film has an odd tone – a great, very strange score by the wonderful Micah Levi helps set the stage from how weird it will be. The film is about these kids, trapped in a world of adult conflicts, which they don’t really understand and will only lead to more and more violence. The film is about group dynamics – how this group of kids would probably be okay by themselves, but in this group only bad things are going to happen. This film didn’t quite get the attention it deserved this year – but it’s a quiet stunner, whose reputation will grow.

 

28. Ad Astra (James Gray)

James Gray’s Ad Astra is a sci-fi film and it has all the trappings of a space film – but it touches on much deeper themes than many other films of its kind do. It does have all the trappings of a space adventure – as Brad Pitt’s character goes from Earth to the moon, and then off to Mars and beyond in search of his absent father. There are exciting sequences – the moon pirates for example. But what it’s really about is about men’s inability to connect – to be closed off emotionally, and the complicated relationships they have with their often absent fathers. It can read on that very personal level – but it can also been read as something larger – and Ingmar Bergman film in space about the silence of God. The film is very quiet and slow – not an adventure all the way through – but a quiet and introspective one – and one I think will likely continue to grow in my mind over the years.

 

27. Transit (Christian Petzold)

I have been thinking about Christian Petzold’s Transit since seeing it at TIFF back in 2018. It is a modern film, set in France in 2018 during the ongoing refugee crisis, but adapted from a book written during Nazi occupation during WWII – and changes almost nothing about it. The effect is strange – a film that is both timely, and out of time, at the same moment. It’s a film about how the more things change, the more they stay the same. The plot is based on coincidences and contrivances – the main character who is pretending to be a dead writer in order to escape, who ends up falling for the dead writer’s wife, who refuses to leave until he arrives, etc. The film is classic melodrama in its way – it may remind you of Casablanca to a certain extent – but it arrives at a place of true emotional weight. I don’t think it’s quite the film Phoenix was for Petzold – but it’s closer than I thought when I first saw it. All this time later, I’m still thinking about it.

 

26. Diane (Kent Jones)

I know there are some who think of Kent Jones’ Diane is more of a performance piece for Mary Kay Pace than anything else. To be fair, Pace’s performance is truly remarkable – the career best work of one of the great character actresses in recent years. And yet, Jones’ film is deep and wise in many ways – the ways that even apparently selfless acting can be selfish in its own way – those secrets we don’t really want to talk about, and how they shaped our lives. And how, right down to the end, our minds are working on things that don’t really matter. On the surface, Diane certainly is a performance piece for Pace – but it really is a deep and profound film in its own right as well.

 

25. Genesis (Philippe Lesage)

Now that Xavier Dolan has kind of lost his footing, my vote for best young voice from Quebec cinema easily goes to Phillippe Lesage. His sophomore film isn’t quite as good as his debut (the remarkable The Demons, which I also caught up with this year) – Genesis is a strange coming of age story about three kids in very different circumstances. There is Guillaume (Theodore Pellerin) a gay teenager in a boarding school who is struggling with that reality, and his older half-sister Charlotte (Noee Abita) in college, drifting from one disappointing boyfriend to the next. After a shocking incident three quarters of the way through, the film changes gears completely – becomes a quasi-sequel to The Demons, concentrating on a rather sweet story of a younger kid and his crush at summer camp – before all the messiness that has befallen the older characters. Lesage has a unique view on coming-of-age movies – The Demons is almost horror film, this one a little calmer. But Lesage deserves all the attention that is going to Dolan right now – and this film kind of disappeared when it came out in America briefly this year. Track it down.

 

24. High Life (Claire Denis)

The strangest sci-fi film of the year is clearly Claire Denis’ space journey to nowhere. It is a film about a group of criminals, whose sentence is to be research subjects on a space journey – they assume they’re coming back to earth at some point, but they aren’t. Instead, they are drifting forever. The film flashes back and forth in time – starting with Robert Pattison and a baby, and then flashing back to the rest of the prisoners, and how they ended up in the haunting shots of them floating into space. The movie is another example of just how daring and good Robert Pattinson can be as an actor. But the entire ensemble goes for broke as well – particularly Juliette Binoche as a doctor who crosses many lines, and that doesn’t even include her trips to the room known as the Fuck Box. Denis is one of the most interesting, daring filmmakers in the world – and High Life is one of her strangest, best films to date.

 

23. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

Lulu Wang’s deeply humane The Farewell is one of the best movies I have ever seen in depicting an extended family. The movie, about a Chinese family, all returning back to China to say goodbye to their beloved mother/grandmother who they believe is dying – even though they won’t tell her that – The Farewell is filtered through the character based on Wang, played wonderfully by Awkafina in a sensitive performance, trying to merge her American culture experience with the Chinese one. But what makes The Farewell so special is the depiction of this large extended family – coming from all over the world, back. It is about those petty disagreements and squabbles that exist in every family, and that people can never quite get over. The film is deeply emotional – the final shot of Nai is a heartbreaker – and funny and deeply personal. I don’t like the final scene in the movie – but other than that, this is a wonderful film.

 

22. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

Rian Johnson’s murder mystery – which is only a throwback on the surface, as it has very contemporary issues on its mind – is one of the year’s great entertainments. A very rich family gathers for the patriarch’s 85^th birthday – which ends in the middle of the night with his apparent suicide, even though they all may have had a motive to kill him. Enter a brilliant P.I. of great renown – played wonderfully by Daniel Craig – and you have the ingredients you need for a closed box murder mystery. Johnson and his amazing cast have a blast with the material – the film is fun and funny throughout, and navigates all its twists and turns with intelligence and wit – but the film has more on its mind than just that, which is why Ana de Armas’ performance and character is the key to the entire film. The film may be a blunt instrument – but dammit if it isn’t a lot of fun. 

 

21. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Marielle Heller)

It would have been much easier to make a standard issue biopic about Mr. Rogers that audiences could have wrapped themselves in like a warm blanket. Inside what Marielle Heller and company did was something far trickier – it’s not really a biopic at all, but rather a story in which Mr. Rogers plays a supporting role – and sometimes a frustrating one. It is the Mr. Rogers film made for people like its real main character – a cynical journalist played by Mathew Rhys – whose first reaction when he meets Mr. Rogers is to wonder if the guy can possibly be for real. As Rogers, Tom Hanks was the only logical choice for the role, and he ends up giving one his best, most complex performances. His Rogers can be sometimes a little creepy, sometimes frustrating – as he clearly just doesn’t answer questions he doesn’t want to answer. It is a portrait of a man with tremendous self- control – someone who has the feelings the rest of us do, but is able to control them. You can see them seep out in interesting ways however. On top of that, Heller makes some daring choices in her direction – which brings the film into some strange, weird places. If you thought this film may be too saccharine for you, you’d be wrong.