Kicking the Seat's Top 19 Films of 2019
2019 was such an unbelievable year for film that I had trouble paring down my favorites to a "Top 19". The list below doesn't represent the biggest or most buzz-worthy draws; you'll find no Jokers, Avengers, Jedi, or Irishmen among these picks. I've chosen to highlight the films that affected me emotionally, intellectually, or (in terms of the actual moviegoing experience) physically; a few of them achieved the trifecta.
You may not agree with these choices. Hell, you may not have heard of some of them. But that's okay. I'm not you, and you're not me (count your blessings). But you've come here to see if our tastes intersect on some level--and to gauge the troubling degree to which they diverge on another. However our views line up, I hope we can all take a moment to realize what a gift last year was in forwarding ideas, striking unexpected chords with audiences, and advancing the notion that not only is cinema not dead, it's just getting started.
Notes and Disclaimers: The list below is presented in bullet points instead of numbers because I haven't "ranked" these films. The movies are so disparate that calling one out as being "better" than the other would be an exercise that requires more time and interest than I have to expend. They're all great, in their own way.
Additionally, if a film's title appears as a hyperlink, it will take you to either a round-table discussion of that particular movie or, in some cases, to a podcast interview I conducted with someone involved in the production. I was fortunate enough to speak with several of the creators behind my top choices for the year, and wanted to share those conversations with you, in case you missed them the first time around. If a film's title is not hyperlinked, that means I didn't have a chance to write about or discuss it upon release. I'll try to tidy up some of those loose ends in the near(ish) future.
UsI'm sure Jordan Peele's follow-up to Get Out makes perfect sense to him, but there's far more to unpack in this doppelganger thriller than a single viewing will allow. I haven't gone back to this one yet, but the experience of unraveling the mystery while perched firmly at the edge of my seat has stayed with me all year. And you'll never catch me dead near a hall of mirrors again.
Hail Satan? The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that his followers aren't complete morons. I'm paraphrasing, but that could have been the tagline for Penny Lane's surprisingly poignant documentary about the Satanic Temple's struggle to erect a statue of Baphomet next to the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma State Capitol. Using interviews, unfettered access, and some comedic-effect editing, Lane allows her subjects to open up about the myths, misconceptions, and truths about the Temple--revealing, in the process, a legitimate new frontier in the quest for religious equality.
Decaf DonNick Alonzo continues to be one of my favorite undiscovered filmmakers. Each time out, his micro-budget marvels cover new ground in theme and form--from the off-kilter Windy City travelogue, Shitcago; to the transcendental break-up trip The Art of Sitting Quietly and Doing Nothing; and his latest, Decaf Don, the writer/director tackles different aspects of modern isolation in ways that never feel repetitive. On the night before a big job interview, a disgraced high school teacher encounters one of his prized former students (now a delivery guy). The result is a stirring and evenly positioned race play that says more about the state of America than any high-profile "woke" drama of the last half-decade.
Echo in the Canyon If Jeff Goldblum can have a weird show on Disney +, why not Jakob Dylan? Andrew Slater's Echo in the Canyon isn't just a look at the Laurel Canyon music scene of the '60s, interspersed with Dylan's efforts to put on shows where he and contemporary artists revive the classics--it's a funny and charming showcase for the musician to interview living (at the time of filming) legends. Part confessional, part vivid history lesson, part toe-tapping concert film, this one has (ahem) echoed in my brain since I caught it early last year.
John Wick 3: Parabellum There's a lot to be said for big, dumb action when executed with high-art passion. In a world of PG-13 smash-'em-ups and ham-handed, social-consciousness would-be tent poles, it's refreshing to see an unapologetically regressive bit of ultra-violence on the big screen. John Wick 3 finds Keanu Reeves' titular ex-assassin fighting his way across a globe whose every scumbag contractor has been activated against him. It's a balletic bloodbath whose every artery-popping fight is a lesson in creative one-upsmanship (and, believe it or not, comedy).
Werewolf Ninja PhilosopherLike Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey, I entered a mental stargate earlier this year when watching Sujewa Ekanayake's comedy about a New York City private eye who also happens to be a werewolf, philosopher, martial artist, and minor celebrity. This was my introduction to "slow cinema", a genre whose work I'd sampled but never appreciated, and whose wide-ranging practitioners include Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick, and Andy Warhol. Discovering this genre has had such an impact on the way I look at film now that I've started a monthly podcast/YouTube miniseries with Sujewa to help break it all down. And it all started with Art Shrian Tiwari's iconic turn as a laconic lothario who's (sort of) trying to solve indie-filmmaker murders in the Big Apple. For sheer originality, 2019 didn't get much better, or weirder, than that.
American DreamerStand-up comic Jim Gaffigan starred in seven movies last year, many of which found him playing against his "food-obsessed dad" stage persona. Derrick Borte's American Dreamer offers not only the most extreme example of this transformation, but also announces Gaffigan as a multi-layered dramatic actor. Playing a down-on-his-luck rideshare driver who fumbles his way through a scheme to swindle a drug-dealing client, the comedian sells his character's true everyman bona fides--which is a huge detriment to navigating the life-or-death setup I've just described. The film neither plays things safe, nor does it revel in misery for misery's sake. A criminally underseen gem.
Blinded by the LightSpeaking of underseen, I will never understand how Gurinder Chadha's music-infused drama about a Springsteen-obsessed Pakistani Brit teen failed to find an audience. This was my number one film of the year for most of 2019, so enraptured was I by the tunes, tears, and triumph I experienced at an early screening. I wonder if casual moviegoers somehow confused it for Danny Boyle's lackluster Yesterday--or maybe it came out way too early or way too late in the year. Whatever the case, Blinded by the Light captured my imagination and soul. I've learned to let go of my sour feelings at the fact that, Sarfraz Manzoor's book (on which this "true story" was based) bears absolutely no resemblance to what Chadha brought to the screen; I've simply begun wishing for the day when I might visit the alternate reality in which the current film and a truly faithful adaptation might compete against one another for Best Picture.
The AeronautsAnother film rubbed me the wrong way this year, yet here sits The Aeronauts on my "Top of 2019" list. Tom Harper's historical adventure tells the story of two explorers whose hot air balloon expedition unwittingly gave birth to modern weather science. Harper made the film for Amazon, which is ironic considering the small-screen platform paid for one of my biggest big-screen "wow" moments of the year: I became physically disoriented during a few scenes of high-altitude daring, even gripping the arms of my seat to keep from tumbling onto the floor. When interviewing Harper a short time later, I found out that the scenes that I'd assumed had been CG-enhanced were created using practical effects and real-life aeronautics. I also found out that one of the two real-life explorers, Henry Coxwell, was changed for the film so that Felicity Jones could play the bold female hero of the mission. Yes, composite or fictitious characters have been used in historical dramas before, but rarely at the expense of one of the main characters whose story is being told.
Honey BoyShia LaBeouf began this decade as one of the biggest movie stars of his generation. He ended it as a punch line to those who only remember sensationalist headlines. Arrests, brawls, and head-scratching performance art dropped LaBeouf from public favor, driving him to less glamorous but more daring and personal work. Alma Har'el's Honey Boy (which LaBeouf wrote) is his masterstroke, a hard-hitting and tender autobiography that tries to explain why he turned out the way he did. He puts himself on the couch, playing a version of his own rodeo-clown-turned-stage-dad father, who falters in putting down demons while elevating his burgeoning-Disney-star son. This may be penance for the creator, but it's a cinematic reward for the audience.
JoJo RabbitOne of my constant refrains this year is that I can't wait until we're out of the Trump era. That's an artistic statement, and not a political one. So many films of the last couple years feel like ham-handed and unhelpful tantrum-reactions to the 2016 upset that I often know just by looking at the poster whether or not I'm in for an actual movie or a multi-million-dollar polemic. I'm happy to have been wrong about Taika Waititi's JoJo Rabbit--a satirical dramedy about a Nazi youth who discovers a Jewish teenager living in the walls of his house (a secret that doesn't sit well at all with the boy's imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler). This stylish, goofy fantasy isn't just an excuse for Waititi to parade swastikas across multiplex screens, or draw easy parallels with the "Bad Orange Man" in the White House; buried just under the surface is a surprising message about the need to understand one's enemies before writing them off due to their bloodlines, beliefs, or backgrounds.
I Lost My BodyHere's another case of a streaming service absolutely owning the big studios--in quality, if not mass attention or dollars. Forget Toy Story 4, Frozen 2, or the lesser 3D-animated movies that comprised last year's sad "Animated Feature" bucket. Jérémy Clapin's 2D-animated, French-language masterpiece snuck onto Netflix late in the year, and if it weren't for the fact that it simply didn't look like anything else in the awards-season queue, I might have passed it right by. That would've been a shame, because the urban fantasy about a teen's disembodied hand making its way back to its lovelorn owner is one of the coolest, most moving animated marvels I've seen in years. The attention to environmental detail and movement is pure Miyazaki, while the stunted character interactions and cosmic meditations recall Linklater's Waking Life.
Knives and SkinThere were two movies with "Knives" in the title this fall, and while Rian Johnson's studio-backed Whodunnit sucked up all the acclaim, Jennifer Reeder's hyper-stylized small-town noir indie did all the heavy lifting. Following a high school student's mysterious disappearance, the tenuous stitching connecting three families' secrets begins to pop. Reeder stuffs a lot of themes, music, and neon into this bizarre coming-of-age drama, which often times feels like a spiritual successor to Heathers, as directed by David Lynch and punctuated by American Psycho-style analyses of pop music. Knives and Skin's themes of social justice are also far more nuanced and striking than the lazy hashtag activism of its zeitgeist-chasing contemporaries, offering a truly timeless message about the need to look deeper when trying to figure out who a person is and where they're coming from.
Dolemite is My NameEddie Murphy is the human equivalent of Groundhog Day (not the movie, the actual day). Every decade or so he'll emerge from relative obscurity to appear in an offbeat vehicle that reminds audiences why he was once the crown prince of comedy. In 1999 it was Bowfinger. In 2006 it was Dreamgirls. In Dolemite Is My Name, Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, blacksploitation's answer to Ed Wood (or for millennial readers, Tommy Wisseau). Unimpressed with Hollywood's entertainment for African American audiences, the struggling comedian/singer/actor scraped together finances, cast, and crew to create a machine gun-toting pimp named Dolemite. Murphy and director Craig Brewer have made this hilarious, inspiring, and heartfelt biopic for Netflix, which, as is one of the running themes of this year's list, means that its audience will be potentially smaller than the one it might have garnered with a national theatrical push. I hope that's not true--and I hope Murphy parlays this success into similar meaty roles, instead of knocking out more Meet Daves and Pluto Nashes on his way back to hibernation.
Marriage Story Finally, a Netflix film that I can praise without lamenting the fact that it isn't getting a traditional Awards Season theatrical push. Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story contains five of the year's most phenomenal performances. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are getting all the attention (rightfully so) for their portrayals of an artsy couple whose marriage dissolves into molten lava, but I was equally bowled over by Laura Dern, Ray Liotta, and Alan Alda as a trio of very different divorce attorneys circling the doomed thirtysomethings. This isn't a movie you go to for sweeping crane shots or cutting-edge sound design, but Baumbach proves himself a master of blockbuster emotions--minus the contrivances that often pop up this time of year. Whether you're about to propose, about to abandon ship, or still going strong, Marriage Story will serve as a cautionary tale, a booby-trap guidebook, or a reminder to say "I love you" every day.
Once Upon a Time...in HollywoodOne of my biggest fears of 2019 was how Quentin Tarantino would handle the real-life murder of actress Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Family in his Tinseltown fable, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. For more than two hours, the auteur peppered tension with laughs and touching drama, interweaving plots involving Leonardo DiCaprio's aging TV star, Brad Pitt's laid-back stuntman, and Margot Robbie's doomed Tate character. The climax rolled over me and the other Music Box Theatre patrons like a 70MM truck, providing one of the decade's most surprising and cathartic movie moments. This is Tarantino at his most narratively evolved and technically precise, yet the blood-and-guts-loving video store clerk is still tinkering deep within that deliciously demented psyche, slurping coffee and reading "What If" comics. If this truly is his second-to-last film, it will be a nearly impossible act to follow.
ParasiteBelieve it or not, 2019 was the year of dueling "doppelganger family" movies, both of whom appear on this list. Bong Joon Ho's Parasite is more figurative than Jordan Peele's Us, and it is also the more socially relevant and viscerally satisfying of the two. It was recommended that I not watch any trailers, read any synopses, or ask too many questions about what the film was before seeing it--to go in as cold as possible and let all its secrets do their work on me. I did as instructed, and will now extend the favor to this synopsis, which is to say that there won't be a synopsis. Instead, I will insist that you seek out Parasite above all other films you may have skipped (or not heard of) this year, and pay this recommendation forward after having been welcomed into the family.
Uncut Gems Fuckin' Netflix. Sorry to swear, but they've driven me to broken-record status with yet another "Top of 2019" film to rave about.Adam Sandler's turn as a New York jeweler with a severe gambling addiction is every bit as revelatory as you've heard. Josh and Benny Safdie's relentless, nerve-wracking drama is so packed with indelible scenes and surprising performances (Kevin Garnett--who knew?) that every Netflix sub (or movie ticket, if you're lucky enough and smart enough to catch it on the big screen) should come with a Valium prescription. I watched this one too late in the season to schedule a conversation about it, but one of my first New Year's resolutions is to fix that, post-haste.
The NightingaleJennifer Kent really painted herself into a corner with this one. In an era when Hollywood is falling all over itself in the name of female empowerment, the Babadook creator made a stirring, historical rape/revenge thriller featuring one of the most richly written and toweringly acted women characters of the year. It's also a film whose mere synopsis is likely to draw vows of "never gona watch that one" from its target audience--regardless of gender. Every moment and every performance is a testament to the power of movies to grip, educate, and transform.
