Here it is - my final and favourite post of the year, the one where I get to indulge my filmic passions and talk effusively about what really turned me on (cinematically speaking) over the twelve months just past. As usual there are a few qualifiers re my choices...
The list is based on films released in the UK during 2019 and therefore can't include titles like 1917, The Lighthouse and Parasite. Plus I haven't seen any of those, which doesn't help at all. It also means that I may include a few picks that had a 2018 release in other territories, but which landed here in the year currently concluding and are no less deserving of my love.
Speaking of films I haven't seen, those include such highly regarded releases as The Farewell, The Peanut Butter Falcon and The Last Black Man in San Francisco. So if/when I catch up with any of those, I'll let you know my thoughts and whether they might have made the top-list. Just don't expect me to re-order everything. That simply ain't gonna happen, because - you know - time.
Finally let me make clear that these are my favourite films of 2019, I'm not making any big statement about which are the most worthy or best. There will be movies that stunned me through sheer technical achievement and those that appealed to me emotionally in a way that others generally don't. So if you agree with my choices, good. If not, well that's the joy of subjective experience. Don't berate me for what I love. Allow me my choices and embrace your own. Okay - prior to the Top Ten, here are my now traditional Honourable Mention Awards (with a couple of Dishonourables thrown in):
Most Singalongable Movie: Rocketman (I really hope my singing was inaudible.)
Best Bromance: Runner-up - Green Book; Winner - Stan and Ollie
Film I Liked More Than Everyone Else: Tolkien
Film Everyone Else Liked More Than Me: Ad Astra
Daftest Film That Still Succeeded In Being Fun: Crawl
Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Runner-up - IT Chapter Two (there were moments to love, just not enough of them); 'Winner' - Godzilla: King of the Monsters (just plain feckin' awful).
Best Film That Managed to be Both an Adaptation of a Sequel Novel and a Sequel to an Adaptation of the Original Novel that Departed Radically from that Novel (anyone follow that?): Doctor Sleep
Comedy That Deserved a Bigger Audience: Runner-Up - Long Shot; Winner - Booksmart
Purest Live-Action Adventure Fun: Runner-Up: - Spider-Man: Far From Home; Winner - Shazam!
The Filmic Forays Low Expectations Award for a Film that was Massively Better Than I'd Expected: Jumanji: The Next Level (a sequel to a sequel that might easily have been a tedious cash-grab but wasn't).
Best Belter of a Performance by Someone who Should be a BONA-FIDE INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR This Time Next Year: Jessie Buckley in Wild Rose
Best Arrival of Someone who now IS a BONA-FIDE INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR: Florence Pugh in Fighting With My Family and two others, more of which later.
Best Reminder That Someone Can Really Act (in a Movie that was Pretty Damn Great Too): Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers
Best Film That Can't Really Be Considered for My Top Ten as it had a Limited UK Release on December 31st 2018 so I'm Sneaking It In as a Kind of Unofficialy Eleventh Top Ten Entry - Deal With It, It's My Blog My Rules: The Favourite (a work of insane genius.)
Right, we're almost there - the most difficult end-of-year Top Ten I've had to compile since Filmic Forays began. I mean I've seen around twenty films (some already mentioned), any of which would have graced the final list quite beautifully. Plus there are a handful which might well rise further in my estimation on future viewings, causing me regret that I haven't put them there. Titles that spring to mind are:
Beautiful Boy (gorgeous, dreamlike and heartbreaking, plus it was formidably well-acted by both Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell)
Us (can't reconcile myself to the ending of Jordan Peele's Get Out follow-up, but so much about this surreal horror was magnificent)
Official Secrets (as good a political thriller as there's been in a long time with Keira Knighley being terrific, while in terms of subject this film really matters)
Ford v Ferrari (I don't watch motor sports, but I'd watch this movie over and over and then a few times more)
Marriage Story (it pains me not to include this one, it's so damn authentic)
Little Women (including the second of those Florence Pugh performances; if anything, this omission pains me even more than the previous one - this list-making business is tough)
Good. My conscience is clear. Pretty much. Here in a somewhat contrived ascending order is my Top Ten. Brace yourself. There's no going back.
10. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
A lot of John Wickianados claim that JW2 is the optimum expression of Wickness. However Chapter 3 took the premise of international assassins, safe-house 'hotels' and arcane rituals and kicked its walls out. Wick went truly global, with our (anti?)hero trekking through desert and city alike in search of an 'out' from the murderous lifestyle he thought he'd abandonded. From its 'on-the-run' opening (a direct follow-on from 2's massive cliffhanger), this film is sustained adrenalin. Its ultra-violent martial arts sequences are more outrageous than before, its visuals more glossily stylised and its entire cinematic world more vividly realised than fans could have dared hope. The ending and the tickets sales both ensure a John Wick: Chapter 4. I for one am not complaining.
9. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
This Oscar-nominated drama got rightfully bigged up for great central performances from Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. However everything about it matches their beautiful work. The quirky-but-true tale of biographer turned literary plaigerist Lee Israel and her louche partner-in-crime Jack Hock boasts a screenplay that's bitingly witty, along with unfussy but smart direction by Marielle Heller. This is no big splashy blockbuster; it's a painstakingly honed little gem of a film that I loved at every point. Heller's follow-up A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood has yet to open in the UK, but I can't wait to see what she's forged using the creative input of a certain Tom Hanks.
8. Toy Story 4
I thought it was a bad idea - Pixar upping their Toy Story output to four. Why risk sullying the legacy of a perfect trilogy with what could only be an inferior add-on? Well the makers proved me wrong in style. 4 leaves the trilogy intact and gives us instead the further soul-searching adventures of Woody. What begins with a spork's existential crisis takes us into the external world of abandoned toys and a shadowy antiques shop inhabited by a sweet-sinister dolly and her coterie of macabre ventriloquist dummies. The old gang have significant roles to play, but this is more about Woody's new friends - and what a varied and entertaining bunch they prove to be. (Duck and Bunny and Duke Caboom are stand-outs.) This is not only as good as the other Toy Story entries, it's the funniest and most philosophical of the bunch. And it'll still cause a tear or two.
7. Knives Out
A couple walked out early from Knives Out - so one of the attendants at my local Odeon cinema told me - saying it was just an Agatha Christie 'rip-off'. They clearly hadn't given the film much time to unravel, as this Christie homage spends about twenty minutes underscoring all the tropes of the famous crime-writer's work (rambling mansion, slippery cast of suspects, eccentrically brilliant detective), before upending all we've been banking on and doing the story its own brilliant way. Rian Johnson's screenplay is as funny as it is devious, his direction makes the most of the lavish production design and his cast play their (frequently grotesque) characters like the gifts they are. As for the protagonist, that's one of the year's most endearing film creations and not who you'd expect. This is a glorious confection of a movie with some added political bite. That silly couple missed a treat.
6. The Irishman
Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour mobster epic is a serious viewing commitment, but it's totally worth it. Why is Marty revisiting the world of organised crime so thoroughly documented in Goodfellas and Casino? Well because he has a great true story to tell - that of mob hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), who may or may not have been involved in the disappearance of celebrated ex union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Yes - that is the two American acting greats spending extended screen time together, but it's also Joe Pesci playing a whole other kind of dangerous to his Tommy DeVito Goodfellas character, it's a narrative both sprawling and intimate, it's a fiercely intelligent screenplay by Steve 'Schindler's List' Zaillian and it's Scorsese bringing all his mighty film-making powers to bear on a world no other film-maker knows so well. But what does it have to offer emotionally that's new? Poignancy. Loneliness. Regret. And those elements, more than anything, are what gets it firmly in my Top Ten.
5. Joker
Not just another comic-book movie, Joker now stands with 2017's Logan as a film that expands the genre beyond recognition. Demonstrating more in common with early Scorsese than The Dark Knight, this villain origins story is a dark and twisted yet at points deeply moving character study of a societal misfit who gets pushed deep into psychosis. I could rave about the period production design and vivid colour correction, the daring narrative twists and confrontational political themes, but let's face it - everyone remembers the film chiefly due to Joaquin Phoenix' Joker-in-the-making. As downtrodden professional clown Arthur Fleck, a walking grab-bag of dysfunctionalities, he delivers - and let's not understate this - one of the great film performances of the decade currently concluding. I've only watched Joker once and have a feeling that repeat viewings might have pushed it up this list. It's a disturbing miracle of a movie.
4. Midsommar
Speaking of 'disturbing'... Ari Aster's 2018 supernatural horror Hereditary was an extended exercise in dread that lost some of its audience, me included, in the final demented act. Midsommar, however, held me in its shudder-inducing clutches till the final shocking moments. On one level it's a contemporary retelling of The Wicker Man, a sunlit Scandinavian cult supplying all the creepiness of the 1973 film's murderous Scottish islanders. Going deeper it's about both relationship dysfunction and grief therapy, both experienced in no uncertain measure by central character Dani (played by Florence 'I'm-having-one-hell-of-a-good-year' Pugh). Simultaneously one of the 2019's most aesthetically gorgeous movies and one of its most unsettling, Midsommar left me with a bizarre combination of emotions that I could scarcely unpick without spoiling all. It's both beautiful and appalling and I'll gladly be harrowed by it all over again.
3. Avengers: Endgame
I know some people find comic hero films a turn-off (Martin Scorsese is notable among them), but if you haven't been following Marvel's Cinematic Universe over the past twelve years, then this is the glorious payoff on which you've missed out. Avengers: Endgame could have been one vast superhero smash-em-up. Following on from the catastrophic final twist of Infinity War, however, it's structured into three distinct and very different acts. The first is all about absorbing loss, while slowly and painfully regrouping. The second is a complex, multi-stranded mission involving time-travel and the revisiting of iconic MCU moments. And the final act - well that is one vast superhero smash-em-up, but delivered with verve, style and a the kind of fan service that's been earned over a decade. Plus it included a hug that made me grin and cry at the same time. So I'm a geek - shoot me. This is escapist cinema at its best.
2. If Beale Street Could Talk
My favourite film of 2017 was Moonlight by Barry Jenkins. Happily - oh so happily - it wasn't a one-off. Adapted from James Baldwin's 1974 novel of love and racial injustice, If Beale Street Could Talk is beautiful on multiple levels - its words, its score, its visual poetry, the tenderness of its central characters... But it also brims with anger and is utterly unflinching in its critique of American social justice or the lack thereof. At its heart is the most touching love story of the year - childhood sweethearts Tish and Fonny, who refuse to buckle under pressure of a terrible miscarriage of justice, however star-crossed their romance seems to be. Kiki Layne and Stephan James are sublime in the leads, but it's Regina King as Tish's mother, who will reach gently into your chest cavity and extract your still-beating heart. Jenkins is currently working on TV drama The Underground Railroad. I will be there, watching every unmissable second.
1. Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood
And it's a controversial Number One. Quentin Tarantino's ninth film is my favourite of the year. I'm no knee-jerk QT-worshipper, so this came as a surprise foremost to me. The movie is all about hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio's struggling actor Rick and his stunt-double/ best pal Cliff in late-60s Los Angeles - you know, the way we did with Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction, only in this new movie it's for most of the damn runtime. Thing is, it works amazingly well. The immersion in time and place is so complete, so vivid, so remarkable in its detail, that Once Upon a Time... enthralls from the opening moment and never lets up. Rick and Cliff are both flawed but intensely magnetic protagonists - a hoot to watch when together, and no less absorbing when pursuing their own adventures. The sequence where Rick attempts to nail his performance in a TV pilot episode had me rivited like no other in 2019. As for the Sharon Tate sub-plot, that cast an air of foreboding over the whole story, only to be resolved in a way that was - well - either shocking and exploitative, or wildly cathartic (or all of it together), depending on individual response. That scene is one part of a whole - and as a whole, I unabashedly loved this film.
And there we have it - my chief sources of filmic delight in this final year of the Twenty-Teenies (or whatever we'll be calling them looking back). With the struggle I had paring them down to a final Ten, it's turned out to be pretty vintage. Will our movie screens provide similar riches in 2020, or will we be fleeing evermore into the bosom of Netflix for our fix of quality movies? I may well write a feature about that - and if I do, there'll be a link HERE. (If I haven't, there won't be.) Annnyway...
For now, Happy New Year and equally Happy New Watching. A fresh decade beckons. It's going to be a whole new ride.
It's that time again! The time when I berate myself for all the films I failed to see over the past twelve months, and which therefore can't be considered for this list. Last year, for example, I missed out on Call Me By Your Name and The Florida Project, either of which, it turned out, might well have made my Top Ten list, thus preventing all the flack I took for including Mother!.
As for this year's list, it won't (because it can't) include American Animals, Cold War, Shoplifters or Sorry to Bother You, each of which has received glowing praise from people whose filmic opinions I respect. And I'm a total Netflix newb as well, so most of the movies released on that esteemed platform passed me by this time around - with one notable exception that has made my Top Ten below. I shall do better in 2019.
Okay - one or two ground rules for my choices. All films in the list were given a UK release in 2018, hence one or two inclusions that may strike readers in some regions as a bit late-to-the-party. My criteria, roughly speaking, are as follows: the movie's strength in technical terms, my gut reaction on watching it and the way it's settled with me since the watching. So if a film falls short technically but it still smacked me soundly in my emotional centre, it might well still find a place. And before the TEN, here are my purely-for-fun Honourable Mention Awards:
Best Mad Adrenalin Rush With Added 'He Does His Own Stunts, Y'know' Factor: Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Best Fantasy World-Building: The totally groovy Afro-fururism of Black Panther
Most Misunderstood and Underrated Film of the Year: Runner-Up - Gringo (it was funny!); Winner - Downsizing (it was deep)
Most Uncomfortable-Yet-Undeniably-Touching On-Screen Relationship: Emma Thompson and Fionn Whitehead in The Children Act
Best Sequel That Could Have Gone So Horribly Wrong But Thanks Be To God It Didn't: Mary Poppins Returns
Biggest Blub-Fest: Mary Poppins Returns
Happiest Film of the Year: Mary Poppins Returns
Scene of Greatest Hitchcock-Style Intensity: Emily Blunt uses a bathtub but not to take a bath in A Quiet Place (likewise in Mary Poppins Returns, oddly enough)
Film That Most Effectively and Frustratingly Derailed Itself En Route to Horror Brilliance: Hereditary
Film That While Not Perfect Genuinely Shook Me Up: Unfriended: Dark Web
Most Spine-Tingling Moment: Lady Gaga hits the chorus of the song 'Shallows' while unexpectedly performing on stage with Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born
Most Rewarding Moment of Character Development: Elizabeth Debicki hits Viola Davis back in Widows
Film the Ending of Which Almost Made Me Hate It Before Actually Making Me Love It: You Were Never Really Here
Slick-Smart-Classy-Ballsy-Epic Jessica Chastain-ness Award: Molly's Game
Saoirse Ronan Being Brilliant Because She's Saoirse Ronan Award: Lady Bird (starring Saoirse Ronan)
Most Impressive Film That I Simply Haven't Had Time to Review (So Don't Go Looking for a Link 'Cos It Ain't There): Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
The Filmic Forays Low Expectations Award for a Film that was Massively Better Than I'd Expected (this award is now officially a 'forays thing'): Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (if you're not a lifelong ABBA fan, you won't get it)
It caused me a little bit of pain to reject each of those films from my top ten, particularly Poppins and Mamma Mia! (yes, I'm serious about the ABBA pic), and the following list is purely what I'm feeling right now. So before I undermine its value completely, here in ascending order are my Top Ten favourite films of 2018:
10. Leave No Trace
Respect for independent cinema! No gloss, no histrionics, no crazy special effects - Leave No Trace thrives on heart and humanity alone, both delivered with beautiful understatement. Ben Foster conveys PTSD despite ever alluding to said trauma and teenage Thomasin McKenzie radiates pride and devotion as his daughter, even when her loyalty is tested, the authorities having put an end to their migrant wilderness lifestyle. A very pure and focused piece of storytelling that will warm your heart while breaking it.
9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Twisted humanity is still humanity - and no one reminds us of it better than Irish playwright-turned-film-maker Martin McDonagh. Give him Frances McDormand as his lead as a bereaved and vengeful mother in rural America and let one truly unforgettable tale unfold in a manner that's as shambling and unpredictable as real life. Beauty in the landscape is at odds with ugliness of human nature - but there's also compassion, regret and the occasional glimmer of hope. It's also scabrously funny throughout, with a host of memorable performances, not least Sam Rockwell's inept (and racist) police deputy.
8. Isle of Dogs
Isle of Dogs is my favourite animation of the year, Coco and Incredibles 2 notwithstanding. Maverick film-maker Wes Anderson matches the quality of his sublime The Grand Budapest Hotel, only this time he uses stop-motion to tell a rescue story involving disease-ridden dogs on a Japanese junk-heap archipelago. The straight-faced character humour, the exquisite framing of each shot, the obsessive attention to visual detail - everything that makes Anderson's work great is here in shovelfuls. Dogs, animation, tall tales - if you love any or all of those, watch this film now. It's a wonder.
7. First Reformed
Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver, brings us Reverend Ernst Toller, a church minister who has lost his faith - not in God, but in all of humanity, not least representatives of his own faith community. Ethan Hawke is superb as the compassionate but angst-ridden priest, who like cabbie Travis Bickle before him is spiralling towards violence and disaster. First Reformed is a shot-by-shot masterclass in narrative cinema, telling a story that's apocalyptic in feel, and resonant with the environmental concerns of our time. This is my kind of religious movie - challenging, shocking and complex, with a sympathetic but flawed man of faith at its centre.
6. BlacKkKlansman
Speaking of films for our time - BlacKkKlansman may be set in the 1970s, but it tackles the racism of Trump-era America with angry gusto. Spike Lee's latest joint, inspired by the real-life infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan by black police officer Ron Stallworth (with a little help from a white surrogate), is a unique brew. Outrageously funny satire, nail-chewing tension and in-your-face agitprop - they're all here and they all work, to searing effect. It's jostling with terrific performances too - John David Washington and Adam Driver both excel.
5. Roma
Oh the humanity! I only saw Roma a week ago and it raced its way to the top half of my chart. Why? Because it's intimate and vast, specific and universal, period-based and contemporary. It's bravura film-making from one of the greats working today (Gravity's Alfonso Cuaron) and it's an emotional roller-coaster initially disguised as a stately scenic ride - beautiful but with a seemingly meandering quality. Only when it plunges into trauma do you realise the kind of ride to which you're committed. Stick with it. It's gorgeous in a heart-wringing kind of way, and its central performance is quietly extraordinary.
4. The Shape of Water
Also known as Beauty and the Cat-Eating Fish-Beast, and with a Cold-War B-movie setting that also manages to remind you of both French fantasy Amelie and classic Hollywood musicals. It would probably be a mess, were it made by anyone other than Mexican auteur Guillermo del Toro. As it works out, The Shape of Water is a stunning adult fairytale - sometimes dark and violent, sometimes beautiful, life-affirming and erotic. Ultimately it's about difference - and whether to fear it or embrace it. And as the poster suggests, Sally Hopkins opts for the embracing. This is one defiantly weird film, so just go with it.
3. Bad Times at the El Royale
I had no clue what to expect going in, and I'm so glad that was the case. Part of what I loved was the cunning of Bad Times' puzzle-box construction, particularly when it clicked piece by piece into place, forming a complex whole. More of what I loved was the multiple levels on which it worked, the cleverly drawn and immaculately performed characters, the sweetly judged musical score, the striking set design and the gorgeous warmth of the late-60s period visuals. But what boosted it into my top three was the story's unexpected emotional core and equally unexpected central relationship. Plus it introduced us (with a little help from Widows) to shining new cinema star Cynthia Erivo.
2. Avengers: Infinity War
Infinity War isn't so much a film in its own right as a grand explosive culmination of eighteen other Marvel Cinematic Universe films, in which all the heroes we've embraced (or not, if you avoid this kind of movie like a rash) face off against their ultimate nemesis. He's purple and he has a point, but he's still an abusive bullying bastard. By the way, I wrote all about it at length for those who give a damn HERE. I love all cinema from niche arthouse stuff to mainstream popcorn extravaganzas as long as it's done well. And Avengers: Infinity War is done supremely well. I hadn't felt that level of bubbling expectation since the final Lord of the Rings movie and this film proved worth all that excitement and then some. It also ended with a gobsmacking plot-twist that demands addressing, but that's a whole other movie in a whole other year...
1. First Man
It occurred to me as I was watching it that First Man might end up as my favourite film of the year. Some have found it too slow and its lead performance too contained, but every last thing about this space drama fascinated and enthralled me, not least Ryan Gosling's anti-heroic, deeply human depiction of Neil Armstrong. The film's superior writing, its beauty, its sense of time and place, its subtly drawn character dynamics, its simultaneous journeys into space and the depths of the human soul... There was genuine scene-after-scene relish at what was unfolding before me. I'm not saying it's the year's best movie, I'd have trouble saying that about any single piece of cinema in any given year. But it was the one I found the most personally satisfying - dramatic, spectacular, meditative and profound.
And those, my Filmic Friends, are my favourite UK-released films of 2018 (until around April of next year by which time I've rematched some of the titles that didn't make it and caught up with the various titles I missed, thereby completely recalibrated my list, sticking Show Dogs at the top - that's not going to happen, I'm never going to watch Show Dogs, not while there are any other films in existence). Ultimately I'm making no great statements about the above choices beyond my own enjoyment, so feel free to tell me all about your own picks - particularly those I've still to experience. You may introduce me to an alternative 'top film of 2018'. No film list should be set in stone.
See you in 2019 for a whole new year of Filmic Forays. I can't wait - can you?
