2019: Top Ten Films Revisited
- Heather German
- Jul 3, 2020
- 4 min read
At the end of every year, I make a top ten list of the movies I saw - it's been something I've done since all the way back in 2012. Typically, though, after a few months, the order shifts, and some films I thought I loved I don't think about as much, and others stay with me, their quality only growing in my eyes.
2019 is no different, and as 2020 is halfway over, I decided to revisit my top ten and see which films have stayed with me, and which haven't. There are films that have climbed their way up, and others that have fallen, but all of them are works that stayed with me in one way or another.
10. Avengers: Endgame
Previously: Shazam!
A full eleven years after the release of the original Iron Man, the vast project of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it comes to a close. Sure there will still be films, but this is the end of the major story arc. While many complain about the over-saturation of Marvel films in the market - which is a fair criticism - I personally have found them reliably entertaining, and Endgame was an epic, emotional conclusion to everything that came before it. It tied everything up in a satisfying way, and made it all worth it in the end.
9. Booksmart
Previously: The Irishman
While on the surface it may just resemble a female knock-off of coming of age comedies from the 2000's like Superbad, Booksmart sheds all of the toxic masculinity of those films and presents us with a film that proves that raunchy comedies can be just as effective while still being progressive and inclusive. Booksmart is a fun, satisfying romp about two high school girls trying to find their way, and it's a joy to watch.
8. John Wick: Chapter Three - Parabellum
Previously: John Wick: Chapter Three - Parabellum
The first two John Wick movies turned action choreography into an art form, and the third ups the ante, introducing higher stakes, more intense and engaging choreography and fight scenes, and a surprising amount of world building and plot development that lifts John Wick's mythos to greater heights. There's already a fourth film in the works, and you can bet I'll be in line to see it.
7. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Previously: Knives Out
How to Train Your Dragon has been a hugely important franchise to me for the past decade, and while this final installment was easily the weakest of the three, it still managed to stick the landing - more or less. It has plenty of flaws, but it's still a well made film full of heart and soul and a pleasant experience from beginning to end - and yes, I'll admit to some bias in putting it on this list, but can you really blame me when the first film is my favorite of all time?
6. Marriage Story
Previously: Avengers: Endgame
Marriage Story wasn't originally on my top ten list for 2019, but in hindsight it absolutely should have been. It's a beautifully humanist story about two people who have spent their lives together, going through an incredibly messy transition period. Both parties are portrayed as equally justified and flawed, and the focus isn't on placing blame but rather studying how love changes and evolves over time, and how divorce isn't necessarily an act of hate, but it can be turned into one by a toxic cottage industry of divorce courts.
5. Promare
Previously: How to Train Your Dragon - The Hidden World
Perhaps the film that had the most surprising staying power for me was Promare. This didn't even make my top ten list initially, but while I'm barely thinking about films like The Irishman or Shazam! now, Promare hasn't left my mind. Its incredible visuals, kinetic animation, and bonkers political allegory all come together to create one of the most impressive works of animation action in recent memory, and easily Studio Trigger's best work since 2013's Kill la Kill.
4. Knives Out
Previously: Booksmart
Mid-budget genre films are an incresing oddity in the film world, with Hollywood seeming only interested in pumping out the most excessive Blockbusters imaginable as of late. Take that, and add to it another dead genre - the whodunnit mystery - and Knives Out is already a noteworthy release. But Rian Johnson goes one step further here, playing with genre, plot structure and conventions to thoroughly subvert expectations while still meeting them, creating a wholly satisfying and original experience that still manages to scratch the itch it sets out to scratch.
3. Jojo Rabbit
Previously: Jojo Rabbit
The top three of my top ten are going to essentially remain the same. I loved Jojo Rabbit back when I saw it and I still do; its pure, earnest plea for us to open our eyes and ears and hearts and find compassion for our fellow human even in the wake of tyranny resonated with me profoundly. It's funny and emotional and haunting all at once, and it's a profoundly moving story.
2. Parasite
Previously: Parasite
Bong Joon-ho's latest (and, many would claim, greatest) film remains a subversive masterpiece of class consciousness, skewering issues of wealth disparity and capitalist exploitation right down the middle and shows us all what dangers await us if we stay on our current course. It's a pitch dark comedy and an uneasy thriller all in one, and is somehow both extremely accessible and entirely unique and original. Objectively, this is probably the best film of 2019, but there's still one that I liked just a little bit more.
1. The Lighthouse
Previously: The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse is a truly phenomenal work; a genre film that defies genre, a retelling of Prometheus as a dark and stormy seaman's fable, a tale of the American dream where the light of success is made literal. It's not quite a dark comedy but not quite a horror film either, and beneath its simplistic exterior are layers of psychological thrills. All of this is wrapped in its wonderfully claustrophobic monochrome cinematography and traditional aspect ratio. With this, Robert Eggers proved that The Witch was no fluke, and that he's a serious voice to be reckoned with in independent cinema.
留言