Top 10 of 2019

I haven't been doing Top 10s of the year lately because, well, the past few years kind of underdelivered. Sure there were movies I really enjoyed and watch fondly, but not enough films reached the pinnacle of greatness that deserved to be listed in a "Top 10." But 2019 saw an overwhelming explosion of excellent films from master directors, coupled with some truly excellent indie films and documentaries that rounded out 2019 to be quite a year. So without further ado, here is my top 10 of 2019.

10. Honeyland, 89 min. Unrated

 One of the great wonders of documentaries to me is how the filmmakers find their subjects. So much of great documentary filmmaking is purely accidental, of the right people being in the right place at the right time to capture a great story. With Honeyland the filmmakers were making a documentary on the environment and stumbled across Hatidze, a Macedonian woman who lives in a small village and keeps beehives in very old fashioned manners. Things escalate when a Turkish family moves into her area, causing disruption to her natural order and way of life. This film is a marvel to behold, a tender portrait of a life that strikes a resonant chord. One of the most unexpected and beautiful films of the year.


9. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, 161 min. R

Quentin Tarantino's ode to Hollywood circa 1969 is a fairly self-indulgent endeavor; with his amazing production design team, parts of LA were completely restored to their former glory 50 years ago for exterior scenes in the film. As far as the film goes, it's probably his lightest film on plot, as an aging TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double buddy Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) navigate the twilight years of their careers and friendship. Concerning three separate days in that year, the film also intertwines Sharone Tate (Margot Robbie) as Rick's neighbor, and if you know your history you have a sense of where things will lead for her. The film is a little long and aimless, but Tarantino's assured dialogue and love for the era, and the lead performances all still make this a stellar film.


8. Knives Out, 131 min. PG-13

Rian Johnson's latest, a whodunit in the mold of old Agatha Christie stories, is a fairly tight and terrific little piece of entertainment, bolstered by a fantastic ensemble cast and a silly but convincing central performance by Daniel Craig, affecting a treacly Foghorn Leghorn accent as detective Benoit Blanc. The central mystery is a good one, the sudden suicide of the patriarch of a murder-mystery novel empire called into question when it is revealed several family members had a motive for offing their beloved father. The mystery unspools in surprising ways, revealing key elements at unexpected moments and even pitting you against the detective. It's all handled with deft by Johnson, who cements himself as a slick, crafty storyteller who's next film I eagerly await.


7. Climax, 97 min. R

Gaspar Noé is an intentional provocateur; his filmography is full of films that want to shock you for the sake of shocking you, often gratuitously. Yet with Climax, he aims high and doesn't go as far as you might expect. That's not to say horrible things don't happen; they do, but the context is clear. Based very loosely on a true event, the film follows a dance troupe at a rehearsal at a remote gym in France in the dead of winter. During their party, it is slowly revealed that someone spiked the punch bowl with LSD, and everyone begins losing their collective minds. With a cast of dancers, Noé uses their physicality to full effect in a wild, trippy experience that escalates into a horror show you can't look away from.


6. The Irishman, 209 min. R

Yes, this movie is long. Yes, I do think it was too long. But I can't deny that The Irishman is the rare masterclass of filmmaking that we see so little of now. With Martin Scorsese working in peak form, the film details the life of hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro), his life in the mob, and his friendship with Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). For much of the runtime, the film is classic Scorsese, reminiscent of his other mob epic Goodfellas. Yet once the film reaches the 2 and a half hour mark, it changes gears, gets quieter, and more introspective. It's this final hour that stuck with me and is why despite my quibbles with length, I find this to be one of the best films of the year. We will likely never get another film like this, featuring DeNiro, Pacino, and Joe Pesci (pulled from retirement). I do look forward to sitting through it again.


5. Marriage Story, 137 min. R

Noah Baumbach's semi-autobiographical film about divorce is about as heart-wrenching as you'd expect. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are terrific Charlie and Nicole, the couple whose marriage is slowly unraveling. Torn between LA and NY, battling for custody of their son, the film is sometimes painstakingly real, as each party doesn't want to harm the other, but in the end, a separation is a difficult thing. The film tries to balance the blame between the two parties, although I can't help but feel the film favors Charlie's perspective ultimately, as Nicole begins escalating the situation due to his inaction. Regardless, it's a thoughtful, painful film that can enrich our understanding of each other.


4. Pain & Glory, 113 min. R

Another semi-autobiographical film, this one about Pedro Almodovar, here portrayed by Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo. Penélope Cruz plays Mallo's mother in flashbacks to his modest childhood in poverty, while present-day Mallo reflects on his career and relationships. It's a very touching film, and Banderas is particularly effective at portraying the man who helped start his career many decades ago. Almodovar is another director who can be unnecessarily sensational, but here he is restrained, his melancholy and remorse seeping into every frame of the film. In life, we have many regrets, and this film beautifully touches upon what it means to reflect, and maybe even get a second chance.


3. Apollo 11, 93 min. G

Many, many, many films and documentaries and tv series have been made about the Apollo space program, and specifically about the Apollo 11 mission that successfully placed a man on the moon on July 20th, 1969. But few documentaries can place you in the center of the action as effectively as Apollo 11. Featuring brand new 70mm footage from the day of the launch, the documentary places you in the moment of the mission, using audio from Mission Control and shuttle to detail the events of those many days Apollo 11 flew to the moon. It takes an event many know very well, and makes it suspenseful, holding you on the edge of your seat. So much could've gone wrong, and, amazingly, everything worked out to take Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon and back.


2. Maiden, 97 min. PG

One of the most incredible stories I've ever heard, Maiden is a documentary about the first all-female crew to participate in the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989. Told with talking-head interviews from the crew and footage from the event, the documentary tells an incredible tale of overcoming adversity and beating the odds. It's a classic sports-film set-up, with all the drama and heartbreak of real-life sprinkled in. So few films have taken me on such an emotional ride, and Maiden is a film I cannot recommend enough.


1. Parasite, 132 min. R

Parasite just gets better and better with every passing month. A masterpiece by director Bong Joon-Ho, the film concerns a low-income family who can barely make ends meet, even leaving their windows open to get free fumigation from street crews. One the son, Ki-woo, gets an opportunity to tutor the daughter of a very wealthy family, he sees an opportunity to get his family positions in every service position in the house. The film is a deft balancing act between comedy and horror, masterfully balancing genres and tone. It's a tight script that beautifully pays off all its set-ups, and in a year full of social class commentary, offers maybe the most intriguing example of class warfare. It's a terrific film, full of terrific performances, and is a film I eagerly revisit whenever I can. If you haven't seen it, seek it out immediately.

1. Inside Out (2015)

"Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems." - Sadness

Selecting a single film to stand out as the top of the decade is a pretty tricky choice. Of course, several films could vie for the top spot, but they had to settle for 2nd - 9th. So what is it about Inside Out, the one perfect film Pixar put out this decade, that made it stand head and shoulders above the rest?

With rewatch upon rewatch, my love for this film grew. It's the rare family film that is so emotionally intelligent that it can teach grown-ups as well as children. The film personifies five emotions inside a young girl's head: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. While there are of course a myriad more emotions we feel, these are a solid five representations, and as conveyed by Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Bill Hader, they are given life and distinction from each other.

The film has no bad guys (if anything the protagonist, Joy, is the villain), but instead draws drama from something as simple yet as devastating as a cross country move for a 12-year-old girl. The film's climax is a bold, stunning sequence that teaches us the power of sadness, that it's ok to feel sad sometimes, for it is in sadness that those that care most will reach out to us and offer us comfort.

This is an obvious enough message, but it is so rare to see something so simple yet so powerful conveyed in our pop culture. Pixar was not the hitmaker this decade that they were in the 2000s, where their output included the likes of Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up. Besides this film and Coco, I wouldn't consider their output this decade to come even close to matching the outstanding quality they released ten years before.

Still, we got this film, directed by Pete Doctor, and I am eternally grateful for it. The best cinematic experiences are ones that move us profoundly, that emotionally grab us and take us on incredible, fantastical journeys that we never thought possible. I adore this film, and it stands head and shoulders above the rest as my single favorite film from the decade spanning 2010-2019.

2. Holy Motors (2012)

"I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. Then they became smaller than our heads. Now you can't see them at all." - Mr. Oscar

Holy Motors is one of those films where you are either in for the ride, or not having any of it. It's a perplexing journey, one that defies explanation and convention, that segues between different sections that shift the genres from comedy to drama to musical. The film follows Mr. Oscar (Denis Lavant) as he rides in a limo around the city, getting out as different personas and engaging in a mini-story. Really Holy Motors could be seen as simply a series of short stories a la Fantasia, were it not for in-between scenes featuring Mr. Oscar.

I love this movie so much because it is one of those films you can describe as "pure cinema." Watching the film is like going on an extended journey, and it takes you places you cannot possibly predict. Few films out there can truly surprise you, and this is one that you never know where it's going, ending inexplicably with limousines talking to one another.

What does it all mean? Hell if I know. To me, that's not the point, although I'm sure others out there have written dissertations on what everything means and claim to understand it. Sometimes I just enjoy a movie that entertains while also surprising me. I'm not always a fan of films that are ambiguous or hard to interpret, but sometimes a film comes along that hits the right spots, that can satisfy a craving for creative, adventurous, bold cinema. Director/writer Leos Carax and Lavant collaborate to create one of the most engaging and entertaining films I've ever seen.



Worst Film of the 2010s: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

He lied to me
He shot at me
He hates on me
He's using me
He's dead to me
The Spider-Man is my enemy
- "My Enemy" from the soundtrack

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 may not be everyone's least favorite film, and most of you have probably forgotten about it at this point. But boy or boy I can't think of a film I actively dislike from this decade as much as this one. Filled with terrible plotting and hammy dialogue, this film is a strong representation of superhero films that don't understand the Marvel formula. With no less than three villains with little connection, the film juggles multiple unrelated plots in an overstuffed, overlong, boring mess that fails every emotional beat, and delivers some of the worst villains in the Spider-man franchise (Rhino and Electro are both confusing, and the Green Goblin is a recycled mess). I have seen the film twice and besides likable leads, the film has no redeeming values. It's the reason Sony had to loan Spidey to the MCU, and next to Justice League is a prime example of how to kill your superhero series.

3. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

"I live. I die. I live again." - Nux

What really needs to be said about Mad Max: Fury Road that hasn't been said? It's the best action film of the decade, with stunning set pieces, killer cars, a great cast, beautiful cinematography, exciting editing, and a killer score that all merge together into a dynamite film experience that just becomes richer with repeat viewings.

Although the film is titled Mad Max the real star is Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, with Tom Hardy and Nicholas Hoult turning in fantastic performances as well. One of the most memorable characters is Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a grotesque figure with a terrifying mask and disposition. Most memorable though is the Doof Warrior (iOTA), an electric guitar playing rockstar that acts as a weird modern-day war drum for the attacking fleets.

Director George Miller has always been one of the more interesting directors; his career path started with Mad Max in the 70s before transitioning into family-friendly fare with the Babe and Happy Feet movies, before moving back to the franchise that made him. He's right at home here, with souped-up monster machines and a richly textured world that doesn't require over-explaining. Every time I return to this film I am rewarded with new details I didn't notice before or appreciate a different element or character in the film. If you had told me one of the best films of the decade would be a Mad Max film I would find that prediction preposterous, but here we are, and I can't wait for Miller to bring us back to this world.



2nd Worst: The Cobbler (2014)

"It's a privilege to walk in another man's shoes, Max, but it's also a responsibility." - Abraham Simkin

Adam Sandler could arguably take up a whole list of worst of the decade films; the Grown-Ups films, Jack and Jill, Blended, or any of his Netflix films have all been disasters. Yet one shining turd stands out above the rest, his 2014 drama-comedy The Cobbler. The premise involves Sandler as a cobbler who one day discovers that any shoes he cobbles with his long-missing father's secret cobbling machine, will somehow imbue those shoes with the ability to change him into the original wearer. A half-decent idea for a Twilight Zone episode, but this movie allows Sandler to pretend to be a woman's boyfriend and nearly sleep with her (only stopping because to have sex one must remove shoes, and the jig would be up), and disguise as his missing father to serenade his own mother (a creepy scene its own right). Top this off with one of the worst twists of the decade, and an Adam Sandler who seems downright miserable, and you've got the recipe for a disastrous effort.

4. Before Midnight (2013)

"If you want love, then this is it. This is real life. It's not perfect but it's real." - Jesse

In the discussions of great trilogies, you might here Star Wars or Lord of the Rings casually brought up and discussed. But I submit that there is one trilogy that doesn't get enough exposure, and is the rare trilogy that has improved with every film (although I'd argue every film is great in their own right). That trilogy is the Before trilogy.

Each film is a meditation on love and connection at various stages of life; each film plays out in long conversations held by the leads, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). In Before Sunrise (1995), Jesse and Celine meet and spend a day together, eventually separating, but not before falling in love. Nine years later, they reunited in Before Sunset (2004), and then nine years after that, we got Before Midnight (2013), which sees them with children.

Before Midnight is a terrific meditation on relationships, how people can wear on each other, and what it takes to keep the spark of love alive. Linklater specializes in decade-spanning projects (his Boyhood (2014) is often cited as one of the best of the decade), but watching these actors age eighteen years, and inform the direction their characters take (Hawke and Delpy co-wrote this film with Linklater), giving these films a unique voice that you won't find in many other films. I adore these films and look forward to the next decade when hopefully, in 2022, we get yet another entry in the Before series.

5. Whiplash (2014)

"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job.'" - Terence Fletcher

There are so few artists that reach amazing heights, who attain greatness in their fields and stand out as a paragon of excellence in their profession. Whiplash is about what it takes to reach such staggering heights, the grind and the pressure one can put themselves under to be the best that they can be.

Your mileage may vary on how well an approach like this works. But I think it's inarguable that if you want to be great, it takes a great deal of sweat, toil, and commitment. Few people are born naturally gifted geniuses. What Whiplash concerns, and details, is one man's obsession with discovering the next great musician, and the pupil he pushes to the brink of mental breakdown. For a film simply about drumming, it's one of the most suspenseful films I've ever seen, and one that, upon repeat viewing, maintains its intensity.

The film benefits from the central performance of J.K. Simmons as Terence Fletcher, the music teacher who oscillates between compassionate mentor and screaming drill instructor on a dime. The whole affair coalesces in a final ten minutes that I would submit as the single greatest ten minutes of film this decade, and one of the best in all of film history. It keeps you on the edge of your seat for its duration until in the end you are finally allowed to breathe and the tension of the film is released in a final, sustained, beautiful note. Seeing this film in theaters was one of the most memorable experiences for me, and one I won't ever forget.



3rd Worst: Wish Upon (2017)

Anyone who is a fan of Red Letter Media has probably heard of this film; in a 2017 movie re-cap, one of the hosts, Mike, spoke of this film and how delightfully awful it was. In checking it out, I agree. It's one of those films that are enjoyable to watch, in spite of its terribleness. The plot, in short, is about a young girl who discovers a wishing box, but in classic Horror terms, her wishes come with a price (usually the grisly death of someone she knows, sequences that play out in a demented Final Destination fashion). It's a fun film to watch, but what makes it awful it the annoying lead, and ridiculous plot machinations and contrivances. So basically a strong recommendation.

6. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (2014)

"Why are you making me run around in circles? Why your honor? Why?" - Viviane Amsalem

A gett, as it pertains to this story, is a ritual Jewish divorce. As portrayed in this film, it's a years-long experience for Viviane Amsalem (Ronit Elkabetz) who appeals to a Jewish court to obtain divorce documents. But in Jewish law, if neither party has violated the marriage contract, a divorce is not sanctioned.

I saw this film on a whim years ago, and the experience has stayed with me ever since. It's a harrowing portrayal of a restrictive court system that still exists in society today, where a woman restrictive rights in a patriarchal system. Directed by sibling duo Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, the film is an oppressive experience, never leaving the sanitized, plain, white-walled courtrooms. We check in with Viviane over the years and years of battling for her case, each time revealing more about why she is so desperate to end her marriage.

One important role the movies can fill is to educate us on situations and events that we may be ignorant of; to showcase injustices or regressive practices, and make us empathize with the wronged. A film like Gett is important to me because not only is it a masterpiece, it's a learning experience, a film that broadens my understanding of the world while gripping me in an emotional story. It's perfectly fine to have more mindless fare (there certainly are some lighter films on my list), but I also value films that provide me with a new perspective, and I encourage all to check out this stellar film.