The Best Movies of 2019

Cinema is dead. Long live cinema.

I don’t mean to be glib. These are turbulent times in the film trade. The ever-fluctuating artistic topography that is the movies somehow felt even more precarious than usual in 2019, with industry-wide fault lines cracking into seismic shifts. You’ve heard the cries of panic: about a sequel-saturated marketplace, about a dearth of original screenplays, about viewers watching new films—or, really, digitized reproductions—on their couch (typically via Netflix) rather than in the theater. Sure, some formulas remain sacred; after all, we can still count on Hollywood churning out safe products of hagiography, particularly where musical legends are concerned. (After Bohemian Rhapsody claimed four Oscars in 2018, this past year gave us Rocketman.) Yet there is nevertheless an uncertainty gripping global cinema, a sense of shifting currents and irregular tides. Even if 2020 is set to see Timothée Chalamet play Bob Dylan, I’m compelled to note that the movies, they are a-changin’.

Should we sound the alarm? Apparently so, if you listen to Martin Scorsese, who wrote a much-discussed column in the New York Times arguing, with some eloquence, that the periodic installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe don’t qualify as “cinema”. I share some of Scorsese’s concerns, even if I can’t help but wonder if his argument is undermined by his admission that he’s actually watched very few MCU entries. Regardless, the dominion that the Walt Disney Company currently holds over the domestic box office—of the top eight grossers in 2019, seven were Mouse House releases, while the eighth was yet another MCU offering, distinguishable from Disney only on balance sheets—is certainly troubling. And even setting Disney aside, the supremacy of the franchise—the exhaustively interconnected web of sequels, spinoffs, and reboots, all pre-packaged to be easily digestible and heavily merchandised—has undeniably removed some of the creativity formerly inherent in blockbuster filmmaking. You might worry that, as studios hoard profits and prioritize safety over ingenuity, truly original movies will become an endangered species.

Except that hasn’t really happened. There are simply too many good movies being made—films that crackle with energy, insight, and personality—to despair about the state of the art form. I won’t deny that things are different, but to argue that the movies, as an institution, are in mortal peril is to engage in either willful blindness or senseless fearmongering.

Even the most cursory survey of motion pictures released in 2019 reveals a trove of complex, fascinating films made by passionate auteurs. We were treated to new movies from American veterans like Clint Eastwood (Richard Jewell), James Gray (Ad Astra), Richard Linklater (Where’d You Go, Bernadette?), Terrence Malick (A Hidden Life), and Steven Soderbergh (both High Flying Bird and The Laundromat). Across the pond, venerable Englishmen continued to produce, with new works from Danny Boyle (Yesterday), Mike Leigh (Peterloo), and Michael Winterbottom (The Wedding Guest). Gifted young directors—Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse), David Robert Mitchell (Under the Silver Lake), the Safdie Brothers (Uncut Gems), Trey Edward Shults (Waves)—continued to hone their craft and announce their bona fides. International cinema yielded a typically fertile harvest, with new efforts from Pedro Almodóvar (Pain and Glory), Claire Denis (High Life), Asghar Farhadi (Everybody Knows), Jia Zhangke (Ash Is Purest White), Ang Lee (Gemini Man), and Zhang Yimou (Shadow). And Scorsese himself made The Irishman, a three-and-a-half-hour crime epic emblazoned with his own unique signature.

Were all of those movies good? Of course not; some are even bad. In fact, none of them appears on the forthcoming list. But they’re all personal and distinctive, a testament to the rich diversity of films that reached audiences in 2019, whether at the multiplex or via the internet. Indeed, I watched so many good movies last year that I felt compelled to boost my usual total for my annual superlative column by 50%; in a year this bountiful, 10 simply wasn’t enough.

The 15 films that follow are varied in terms of tone, language, genre, and character. What they share is an individuality, one endemic to the medium. Movies may be changing, in mode of distribution as well as method of storytelling. (This was the first time that a Netflix release cracked my year-end list, but it surely won’t be the last.) But they retain their inimitable ability to delight and disturb, to terrify and mystify, to educate and arouse. So before pressing the panic button on the industry as a whole, pause and take stock of these terrific titles, and remember that, while it may be undergoing an upheaval of sorts, cinema remains thrillingly alive.

(Honorable mention: American Woman, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Dolemite Is My Name, Motherless Brooklyn, Teen Spirit.)

15. Booksmart. Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut is a triumph of riotous comedy and genuine tenderness. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever are both wonderful as asymmetrical best friends, while Billie Lourd steals the show whenever she (literally) pops up on screen. (Full review here; streaming on Hulu.)

14. 1917. Its story and characters may lack depth, but Sam Mendes’ World War I epic is a staggering cinematic achievement, a bravura fusion of new-age technology and old-school craftsmanship. Roger Deakins’ silky, gliding camera captures the horror of war with masterful precision. (Full review here.)

13. Us. Less politically explosive than Get Out but more visually accomplished, Jordan Peele’s sophomore feature is a nervy bundle of classic horror tropes, fueled as much by its fluid technique and bold colors as its class consciousness. As a terrified woman desperate to make sense of the senseless, Lupita Nyong’o has never been better… except perhaps as the twisted tormentor she also plays here. (Full review here; streaming on HBO.)

12. Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Céline Sciamma’s lush period drama takes its time getting started, but it pays enormous emotional dividends down the stretch, transforming Adèle Haenel’s helpless desire into a reckoning. And even during the deliberate build-up, viewers can take rapture in the magnificent costume and production design, along with the supple camerawork.

11. Luce. Loaded with complex questions—about race and class, about prejudice and understanding—Julius Onah’s classroom drama is also a tense and spiky thriller. Kelvin Harrison Jr. delivers one of the performances of the year as a multi-faceted scholar who’s smarter than everyone else in the room, you included. (Full review here; streaming on Hulu.)

10. The Nightingale. Wrenching, uncompromising, and curiously humane, Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to The Babadook confirms her as a fearsomely talented filmmaker. Here, she eschews supernatural horror in favor of the far scarier human kind, bringing us into a brutal wilderness that’s untamed in more ways than one. (Streaming on Hulu.)

9. Never Look Away. A sweeping statement on art and artists, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s heedless epic goes for broke in all the best ways. This is an unapologetically grand picture: narratively ambitious, philosophically rigorous, and fervently emotional. (Streaming on Starz.)

8. Midsommar. Ari Aster’s gorgeous follow-up to Hereditary is considerably less scary than his first feature; it’s also even more enveloping. Florence Pugh, in the bravest of her three terrific turns in 2019, serves as the emotional linchpin, helplessly buffeted to and fro by her director’s merciless, ravishing technique. (Full review here; streaming on Amazon.)

7. Marriage Story. I knew that a Noah Baumbach picture about a painful divorce would be grueling; I didn’t expect it to be so tender. Both Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are devastatingly vulnerable and achingly flawed, while Baumbach tempers his characteristically lacerating tone just enough, finding room for angular humor and genuine affection amid all the pitilessly truthful agony. (Full review here; streaming on Netflix.)

6. Official Secrets. The most dispiritingly relevant movie of the year, Gavin Hood’s drama about a whistleblower (a superb Keira Knightley) bristles with righteous outrage. It’s also a gripping thriller, teeming with detail, intrigue, and finely calibrated suspense. (Full review here.)

5. Knives Out. The most spiritedly entertaining movie of the year, Rian Johnson’s throwback whodunit is a master class in effortless pleasure. Daniel Craig’s drawling detective is the highlight of a massively talented cast, while Johnson’s screenplay is both diabolically clever and wickedly funny. (Full review here.)

4. Little Women. Did we really need another telling of Louisa May Alcott’s novel? As Greta Gerwig’s luminous adaptation unfolds, in ways both proudly classical and defiantly modern, the answer becomes as exquisitely clear as Saoirse Ronan’s eyes. (Full review here.)

3. Transit. An allegory wrapped in a love story and disguised as a thriller, Christian Petzold’s electrifying drama pulses with intelligence and surprise. Paula Beer, who also stars in Never Look Away, dazzles as an enigmatic object of attraction, as sharp and sexy and mysterious as the film itself. (Streaming on Amazon.)

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Can great art save the world? Perhaps not, but Quentin Tarantino’s latest—a luxuriant ode to a bygone era, featuring splendid turns from Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie—makes an awfully persuasive case. (Full review here.)

1. Parasite. A satire of economic mobility and a critique of class. A comedy of manners and a slapstick farce. A revenge thriller and a genre exercise in white-knuckle suspense. Bong Joon-ho’s film is all of these things and more, threaded together with elegance and wit and incomparable flair. It’s a movie of and for our time, even if it’s also timeless. (Full review here.)

Want more? Click here for a ranked list of every movie we saw in 2019.