Aaron's Top Fifteen Movies of 2019

When looking back at the list of 2019 releases I have seen over the past 12 months, I find myself, as has become an annual tradition for me, overwhelmed with the number of movies I want to cram in to my year-end list but don’t have space for. This year, I’ve given in and expanded the list to 15 spots with two honorable mentions and a new cut of a classic masterwork that I wanted to highlight because everytime I tried to re-arrange the list, a new pang of guilt set in. So, without further ado, here is my list of favorite films of 2019; starting with my honorable mentions.

Hustlers

I missed Hustlers in theaters when it released back in September, but the cast and story (and rave reviews) spurred me to finally catch up with it on video-on-demand. And I’m so glad I did. Writer-director Lorene Scafaria weaves a distinctly post-financial collapse Robin Hood tale of a crew of strippers stealing from their wealthy Wall Street clients. The true story treads a fine line between the joyous, electric energy of this grimy heist and the moral repercussions of drugging and stealing from actual human beings. Scafaria wisely takes a page from Scorsese’s playbook here, drawing on the tightrope walk that the master has trodden over and over. Echoes of Goodfellas, in particular, can be felt here. It’s a complete and utter joy to watch as the masterful cast (Constance Wu, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, and, of course, Jennifer Lopez) plays in this glitter-filled sandbox.

The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers latest is an homage to both silent horror classics and Lovecraftian fiction. It’s bizarre and surreal and utterly insane. But, most of all, it demonstrates a modern horror master totally hellbent on communicating a singular vision. I loved his last, The Witch, for its icy, uncompromising, atmospheric vision of a Puritan community ripped apart by the metaphorical pull of carnal desires. In that film, there was a tension between the allure of base, amoral sexuality and the strict order of Puritan society. In The Lighthouse, the tension stems from a similarly metaphorical vision of sexuality, abstracted into a light guarded by an aged lighthouse keeper. The oppressive darkness and howling wind that engulf the titular lighthouse create an atmosphere unlike any film I’ve seen this year. 

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

The best film I saw in theaters this year and, indeed, one of the best theater-going experiences I’ve ever had was watching Coppola’s (supposedly) final cut of his masterwork Apocalypse Now. The 1979 epic is both epic in scope and intimate in stakes. It is among the very best war pictures ever produced and it struck with as sharp an anti-war message in 2019 as it did in 1979. So commanding and enrapturing are the images of Apocalypse Now, especially on a screen the size of a wall, that it feels like you are seeing the artform renewed and invigorated. While watching it Scorsese’s comments about Kubrick’s films in an interview he did on the occasion of that celebrated director’s death sprung to mind. He said of Kubrick’s films, “[He] could create a rock-solid image, that has conviction...what’s in that frame stays in that frame and what isn’t is out.” Apocalypse Now is full of such images. Images that say something about the awe and terror, the inhumanity and humanity of war. And it’s a sight to behold this classic restored and recut into a refined, all-time masterwork four decades after its release.

The Top 15

15. In Fabric

Peter Strickland’s particular brand of off-kilter filmmaking first popped up on my radar with his 2014 release: The Duke of Burgundy. I’ve yet to fully plunge into his filmography, but the bizarrely mysterious sadomasochism of that story was enough to pique my interest in his newest In Fabric. In this new release, a killer dress moves from owner to owner as unexplainable calamity after unexplainable calamity befalls each new owner. It’s a film that feels like a truer spiritual successor to Argento’s classic Suspiria than Guadagnino’s 2018 retelling of that story (though I loved Guadagnino’s vision). And, it balances a tricky marriage of tones: genuine creeping dread and absurdist hilarity with aplomb. This is a movie wherein a coven of department store workers sell a dress advertised as “artery red” to patrons while greeting them with delightfully florid language, “...the hesitation in your voice soon to be an echo in the recesses of retail.” It’s silly and fun, but also quite creepy. And, it’s one of the very best pictures I’ve seen this year.

14. Knives Out

Rian Johnson’s first post-Star Wars project is a delightfully twisty whodunnit with an all-star cast. But, what makes it one of my favorites of the year is how clear it is that everyone on set was having a blast. It’s full of great performances from legendary actors that eat up their archetypes and savor every last drop. Johnson and his cast, here, go big and it’s as much fun to watch as it probably was to make.

13. Luce

Julius Onah’s Luce is a film that was recommended to me a number of times throughout the year. And, when doing 2019 catch-up this past winter, I dove in. Though the trailers advertise it as a winding thriller about a (maybe) bad seed, the film, in full, takes on a much richer context. Luce (Calvin Harrison), star student, immigrant, former child soldier, and adoptive child to Naomi Watts’ Amy and Tim Roth’s Peter, is the ideal high school graduate. But when he writes an essay for class arguing for the necessity of violent political action, his teacher calls a conference with his parents. Unconvinced that these are genuinely held beliefs, Luce’s parents push back, as does the principal, clearly anxious at the prospect of the school’s star pupil being defamed. It’s an astutely observed thriller that is buoyed by knockout performances from Calvin Harrison, Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, and Octavia Spencer. But, it's the questions it raises about the room black men have to express anger, the dehumanization of tokenization, and how we otherize those dealing with PTSD that makes this film really shine. 

12. Booksmart

Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart is a film I reviewed for Talk Film Society early last year. I was ecstatic leaving the theater back then and I’m just as ecstatic about the film now, almost a year on. This is a film that is never content to corner anyone into cliche. It treats all its cast, principal and secondary, as a human being as complex as the next; with all the aches and worries and regrets that we share. Though its premise - two studious highschool seniors set out to have as much fun and break as many rules as they can before graduating - seems like fairly standard young adult movie fare, it belies the more human and touching premise that carries the picture through the finish line: empathizing and truly listening to others is what makes us mature.

11. The Irishman

Maestro Martin Scorsese’s latest is a funereal picture. It’s a film that, for me, constantly recalled Sergio Leone’s masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America; an epic in which an equally stupendous Robert De Niro plays an aging rum-runner whose gnawing regrets haunt him in the final chapter of his life. That film dealt with the pain and toll of memory and the inevitability of time, “age can wither me.” In The Irishman, the film winds back and forth charting the journey of De Niro’s Frank Sheeran and Pacino’s Jimmy Hoffa, but eventually settles into its true premise: the inevitability and toll of time. In the final act of the film, Scorsese lets the picture really breathe a deep, heavy sigh of finality. It’s not pretty, but, then, aging never is. This is as meditative and reflective a work as Scorsese’s last, Silence, and no less moving.

10. Uncut Gems

The Safdies’ last, Good Time, was among my favorites of 2017. The manic, Dog Day Afternoon-inspired energy of that film locked it into my top ten of that year. Their latest, Uncut Gems, is no less inspired nor exciting. In this, a stupendous Adam Sandler plays a jewelry store owner, Howard Ratner, who juggles gambling scheme after gambling scheme shifting money around at a dizzying pace. Of course, as is to be expected from a Safdie brothers film, all does not go well. And much of the pleasure of this film comes from seeing Sandler’s repulsive, but utterly spellbinding character wriggle his way from one scenario to the next. And, like Good Time, the film feels like a masterfully-crafted, two-hour long anxiety attack. 

9. Pain and Glory

Pedro Almodovar is a filmmaker I am just barely acquainted with. His last, Julieta, is a modern take on the classic melodrama brimming with sublime performances and equally sublime art direction. Pain and Glory, however, occupies another stratosphere entirely for me. It concerns Antonio Banderas’s Salvador Mallo; an aging filmmaker coming to terms with loves lost, life regrets, and an inability to work due to an ever-growing list of bodily and spiritual ailments. It is reductive to call this, one of Almodovar’s most personal (and best) works, his 8 ½, but, in essence, it is. Over the course of the film, we come to see the role of Salvador’s mother, his past lover, and his actors in his life. And, we see him come to terms with his own creeping mortality. It’s both deeply mournful and full of life. But, best of all it contains, for my money, the year’s best performance in Antonio Banderas’ warm, yet sad, salt-and-pepper haired visage. 

8. A Hidden Life

Though Malick’s The Tree of Life is my favorite film of all time, I have been hot and cold on his most recent output. I’ve found his prolific post-2011 work to be both aimless and often trite. But, A Hidden Life feels like a return to form. Not because of its return to a more sturdy, narrative-based filmmaking. But, rather, because this latest picture feels urgent and compassionate. In it, Franz Jagerstatter refuses to join the army in Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II. His unwavering faith and conviction in Christ’s principles is played with such moving honesty and fearlessness that I found myself genuinely in awe of the character and man. But, as he always has, Malick communicates more through his imagery than he does through his words and, oh, what imagery. Grand, picturesque, sweeping landscape shots cushion the action here, showing the immensity of Jagerstatter’s home and, metaphorically, the well of conviction in the man. It’s an incredibly beautiful picture and the story moved me so much that I spent the next several days reading up on the actual man. Even if you haven’t been in love with Malick’s latest work, give this one a shot. It’s really something special.

7. The Art of Self Defense

After Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) is attacked on the street, he joins a local martial arts class to combat his PTSD. But, as he works his way up the ranks of this class, he begins to uncover a much darker world of violent aggression and hypermasculinity. It’s a bizarre picture that might have toppled under the weight and improbability of its narrative construction if it weren’t for the brilliant examination of cycles of abuse and the role of aggression in modern constructions of masculinity. It’s deeply disturbing and brilliantly constructed and even after months, I still can’t get it, nor its implications, out of my head.

6. Marriage Story

It’s wild that the newest Baumbach and Scorsese have penetrated the popular conversation as much as they have and say what you will about Netflix’s growing chokehold on the modern theater-going experience, I’m just glad these two gems were seen by as many as they were. Much as I loved Baumbach’s last - The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) - Marriage Story is a special picture. It’s raw and uncomfortable, painful and beautiful. And, it contains two of the most dynamic and interesting performances of the year in Scarlett Johansson’s Nicole and Adam Driver’s Charlie. Just as you begin to take one of the partner’s sides, Baumbach pulls the rug out from under you and reveals new depths in the other. It’s a masterclass in truly empathetic storytelling and truly great character writing. It feels like Baumbach is channeling Bergman here, weaving his own version of that master filmmaker’s brilliant series Scenes from a Marriage, and he cheekily references that work several times over. It’s a testament to Baumbach’s talent as a writer (not a word here is improvised) and the principal performers’ talents as actors that this film struck me with as much force as that classic work from one of cinema’s very best directors. 

5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

This felt different for Tarantino. I love the manic energy of the director’s work, especially the joyful, breezy two-part epic Kill Bill. But, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, though supremely funny and supremely fun, feels more compassionate, more serious, and more reflective than anything the director has done before. It’s my favorite of his illustrious career and it’s one of the most touching works I’ve seen this year. At its heart, this is a love story. A shaggy, buddy hangout movie starring two of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood: Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. And, what works best about this nostalgic throwback is how the two show their dedication and care for one another in their every action. Similarly, Tarantino’s treatment of Sharon Tate, and the continued way he leverages his cinematic revisionism to get at a deeply moral thematic core was, perhaps, the most touching thing about a surprisingly touching film. 

4. Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Though I enjoyed writer-director Celine Sciamma’s last, Girlhood, I never quite found myself as enraptured by that film as others were. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, on the other hand, I get. This gorgeous period piece charts the silent romance of Noemie Merlant’s Marianne and Adele Haenel’s Heloise. Heloise is commissioned to paint a wedding portrait of Marianne and travels to the woman’s isolated home in Brittany where the two stay, mostly alone, in the days leading up to Marianne’s wedding. The two actresses brilliantly infuse every glance, gesture, and pause with longing and unvoiced desire. It’s heartbreaking, haunting, and utterly beautiful. And, the myth used as a thematic and narrative framing device is deployed brilliantly; resulting in the year’s most sublime final shot. 

3. The Nightingale

Jennifer Kent’s latest is brutal and exhausting. I’m not sure I ever want to see it again. But the moment after the credits rolled, I knew I had seen one of the very best films of 2019. In it, Irish convict Claire (Aisling Franciosi), chases an officer through the Tasmanian wilderness to get revenge for a rape and murder perpetrated at the start of the film. It’s a gut-wrenching film that left me in tears and emotionally drained. But, its exploration of colonialism and its toll on minorities, women, and the intersection of race, class, and gender made it one of the most interesting films of the year. As she wades through the forests of Australia with her Aboriginal guide Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), the odyssey interrogates not only the profound evils of colonialism - showcasing them unflinchingly in all their genocidal horror - but also the ways in which it systematically dehumanizes anyone not in the ruling class. It’s a very tough watch, but one of the very best of the year.

2. Ad Astra

I’ve liked, but never loved James Gray’s films in the past. His dogged determination to resurrect the glory and risk-taking of American cinema in the 70s is admirable, but his latest hits its bullseye in a way he has previously been unable to accomplish. Ad Astra concerns Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride, whose prickly father, legendary astronaut Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) has charted virtually all the planets in the solar system: first to Jupiter, first to Neptune, etc. But, the heart of this tale, set up as a search and destroy mission a la Apocalypse Now, is a man coming to grips with reconciling who his father is and what his father represents. It’s a tale about forgiving and letting go. And, it moved me deeply. About a year ago, my father woke me up in the middle of the night to drive him to the emergency room because he was about to go into cardiac arrest. I got him there before he arrested and, luckily, due to the hard work of some very talented doctors, nurses, and technicians, he survived. But, the event has made me reflect on what my father means to me on a personal level and how my role as a son has evolved as I’ve gotten older. Ad Astra understands this changing role and how hanging on, quite literally, to the ones we love is, in the end, all we can do.

1. Parasite

Bong Joon-ho’s new picture, Parasite, is the best new release I’ve seen all year. It’s perfectly paced plot balances the madcap absurdity of its premise, a family slowly moving into another’s home without ever raising suspicion, with a brilliant class dynamics critique at its core. It’s a film that has made an international splash in a way other contemporary Korean masterpieces like The Handmaiden and Burning never did. And, deservedly so. This film is not only a masterfully crafted thriller, it’s just plain fun to watch. Bong weaves a plot so tightly wound, so edge-of-your-seat thrilling, that by the time credits rolled, I realized I had been holding my breath for its entire third act. And, just when you think you know where the film is going to go, Bong twists the story yet again. When I saw this back in October I knew it was likely to remain un-contested for my top spot of the year. And, I was right. This is some of the most fun you’ll have watching a movie from 2019; it certainly was for me.