A good year for movies, though I haven’t come close to seeing everything I wanted to get to. Notable exceptions to my viewing log include An Elephant Sitting Still and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I’m also yet to see Jojo Rabbit, but don’t believe that it would’ve broken into this list. I don’t have many honorable mentions to give, but I’d encourage everyone to go see Burning Cane and Apollo 11 if they haven’t yet. Very solid films.
10. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
I’ve only ever seen three Baumbach films (Frances Ha, Kicking and Screaming, and this), but none of them have really blown me away. Frances is interesting, but I also find her kind of obnoxious. The graduates are funny and fatalist, but they’re also so pathetic. Charlie and Nicole are well-developed, but everyone around them (Dern and Liotta in particular) just seem like caricatures. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy Marriage Story. It’s my favorite Baumbach so far. I’ve probably watched the “Being Alive” scene upwards of 17 times and Adam Driver absolutely works his usual magic throughout. It’s just that I didn’t really buy into the absurdity of going through divorce that Baumbach tries to portray. Maybe I should break up with someone and then watch this again.
You can read Maddie McDougall’s full review of Marriage Story here.
9. Waves (Trey Edwards Schults, 2019)
I said in my Letterboxd review that this film is less than the sum of its parts. Moments of this film (like THAT scene and then a lot of others) blew my mind. Moments were downright frustrating, but to its credit, Shults stays creative throughout. He masterfully commands a plot structure that I’ve seen employed in other films with much less finesse. He uses a dizzying array of aspect ratios, without it ever seeming like a gimmick. And he knows exactly how to whale away at the audience’s stomachs and their hearts, without ever going too far. I’m a sucker for the music too.
You can read Rohan Patel’s rull review of Waves here.
8. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
This isn’t the Scorsese of Mean Streets, Goodfellas, or The Departed. This is a Scorsese who’s growing older and who lets his experience influence his art. Power, Old Scorsese says, is not eternal. Humans are ultimately human. Soon we will be gone from this Earth. Yes, it’s still a gangster flick. It still revels in the mean combination of Pacino and De Niro and Pesci and… Ray Romano? But it’s always working towards a message of frailty. The 209-minute runtime is just enough to let us get there on our time. Masterful work. Not my favorite Scorsese, but that’s just because he’s made too many damn good films. Where does he go next?
You can read Ryan Circelli’s full review of The Irishman here.
7. Parasite (Bong Joon-Ho, 2019)
There’s a lot of good things that can be said about this film; most of them have been said already. I’ve heard each of those good things said, and I’ve never disagreed with any of them. And yet, I’m still not blown away. Maybe it has something to do with colossal expectations I had (ranked #1 on Letterboxd all-time) that weren’t entirely fulfilled. Maybe it’s because the first half of the film feels more like a very competent heist movie than anything particularly special. Maybe it’s because I never connected with the characters. I liked the film and I loved its messages about class. I could clearly see The Housemaid’s influence and the theme of the ignored, but it was never my favorite.
You can read Joe Lollo’s full review of Parasite here and listen to UW Film Club’s podcast on Parasite here.
6. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019)
What a wonderful bit of cinema. It’s achingly nostalgic, while also intensely hopeful. It’s a film on a very small stage, but the implications it has for identity, home, and belonging are massive and especially relevant right now. It’s filled with the sort of poetic exploration of a city that can only come from its close acquaintance, and its deep affections for San Francisco could make anyone want to move there. As Joe Talbot’s first feature film, it took seven years, unwavering commitment, and faithful support to finally come to the screen. We can only be grateful that it did. There’s a slight bittersweetness in the thought that Talbot may never be as devoted to a film as he was to this one. Let’s pray he dispels that notion soon.
5. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)
Uncut Gems is miles above Good Time, which is quite a decent movie. It’s unfathomable to me how very deserving this movie and all its players are of awards and how very little recognition they’re getting. It might be just about everything a typical young guy could want in a movie: tension, action, sports, money, gambling, shiny stuff, the underworld, celebrities, gratuitous sexuality, a funny Jewish actor with a penchant for bad comedies, and a breakneck pace. And, it’s all combined brilliantly by Safdie brothers, never feeling cheap or forced. Its sound design is incredible. Adam Sandler is incredible (which we already knew but maybe some of us forgot). That diamond encrusted Furby thing that’s also in the trailer is incredible. Very much fun.
You can read Ryan Circelli’s rull review of Uncut Gems here.
4. 1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019)
Deakins! You beautiful man! What a beautiful thing you’ve done again! It’s the sky lit up by the flame of war, the charge of the doomed soldiers, and the subtle hand required to paint it all in a “single” take. It’s the cinematography that crowns this consequential journey, but that’s not to say that the other features are lacking. 1917 plays like an epic poem, as a young hero fights enemy and affliction in a glorious quest through barren, grief-stricken land. It’s moving and it’s marvelous, but it’s also very accessible. Of every film on this list, I reckon it’s the most likely to become a classic in time, even if it’s not my favorite. What is there not to like? Would you not want to see it again?
You can read Levi Bond’s full review of 1917 here.
3. Synonyms (Navad Lapid, 2019)
The following is excerpted from my Film Club review.
“I am Yoav,” says the naked man lying in the bed, staring up at his strange saviors. “I have nothing anymore.”
…
We cannot know Yoav. We can only tell that he is unabashedly alive, or another thing like it. Call it life, or urgency, or perhaps even just naive aspiration, it remains a core theme throughout the movie. “Die or conquer the mountain!” [he] exclaims. He internalizes the fight for a free spirit, for individualism. He believes in a French ideal of bravery and initiative and walks the streets with it proudly emblazoned on his chest. He longs to assimilate into his new world.
This semi-biographical story that director Nadav Lapid tells is clearly close to the heart and imbued with emotion. It dances into existence on the screen with an energy reminiscent of the French New Wave. It begs one to think deeply about the conduct of life. It fills one with the crackling sensation of vivacity, then rends one to shreds with the monstrous teeth of despair. It is ever evolving and never constrained by plot or structure. Its characters love with insatiable passion and hate with burning fury. It quietly flirts with beautiful homoeroticism, then playfully jerks back the veil and makes no effort to hide it. And it all plays out with a soundtrack that is simultaneously nostalgic and hopeful, tragic and angelic.
You can read my full review of Synonyms here.
2. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
Its mythical, magical, morbid, and just plain weird. I loved it. It’s Eggers as only Eggers can do. It’s Robert Pattinson in a very good role and Willem Dafoe in an even better one. It’s seagulls and sorcery and sea creatures and sex. It’s absolutely entrancing and perhaps a little nauseating. It’s impossible to look away. And amidst all that, it finds time for slow, bleak, meaningful cinematography à la Bela Tarr. It’s hypnotic and hilarious and hallucinatory and just a little bit terrifying. It’s something you may remember more as a dream than as an experience, but what an experience it was! I, for one, cannot be more excited for Nosferatu (2023).
You can read PJ Knapke’s full review of The Lighthouse here.
1. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
There is a place in the mountains where the air is so very pure, and the grass is so perfectly green, and the clouds are beneath you so that it feels just like heaven. Where when you breathe, you breathe the very first breaths of life. The very breaths that inspired the LORD who made the ground your feet sink into. And when you are in that place, you are so filled with love for it and for its people and for the very notion of beauty that you feel you will never again know evil. A Hidden Life is about that place and about its corruption. Death in that place and that place never again; Eden unraveled. I cannot quite describe the film. I remember it not as a memory but as a pain and a terror. This was my first Terrence Malick and it absolutely tore at my soul.
You can read PJ Knapke’s full review of A Hidden Life here.