So Close and a Million Miles Away: The 25 Best Movies of 2019 (Baby!)

The MCU closed a loop and the Skywalker Saga ended, and then a microbe irrevocably scrambled what was left of our reality. As a result, these seem so much older than they actually are.  

Thanks to the pandemic and fatherhood, this is the last year wherein I saw basically everything (according to my notes, I saw 127 new movies in a theater that year). These are the best ones.

25. Motherless Brooklyn
The direction and design of this is actually exquisite but your entire experience with Motherless Brooklyn lives and dies with Edward Norton’s acting choices as the Tourette-addled investigator Lionel Essrog. It worked like gangbusters for me but I completely understand if you tap out after six minutes.

24. Ford v. Ferrari
I am not a car guy but Damon and Bale both make total sense of the need for speed.

23. Doctor Sleep
An impossible assignment: Not only are you adapting a psychologically dense Stephen King text but you also have to make a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining. Director Mike Flanagan manages to pull it off, which is even more remarkable considering I think that guy’s TV shows are all terrible.

22. The Art of Self-Defense
Jessie Eisenberg was born to play dudes dangling on the precipice of sociopathy, and Alessandro Nivola was born to push him over that edge. Funny without ever being “funny,” you know?

21. The Dead Don’t Die
I’m broadly a sucker for Jim Jarmusch, but I am an even bigger stan of Adam Driver’s pronunciation of the word “ghouls.” Too meta for some but just meta enough for me. Did you know Selena Gomez is in this?  

20. Ready or Not
Extremely taut and well-rendered horror comedy with a crackerjack cast led by Samara Weaving, who I was convinced was the next big thing. (She was not.)

19. Booksmart
We probably got a little too excited about Olivia Wilde’s feature debut back when it dropped, but this is still a sharp and sweet teen comedy with a lot of pathos and enough belly laughs to keep everything light. Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein both cook, but the whole movie is stolen by Billie Lourd as a bored girl who can (possibly) teleport.

18. The Souvenir
Sad in the way that word used to mean something.

17. Knives Out
Like Booksmart, this was definitely over-praised at the time but history has elevated it from a simple franchise-starter to a platonic ideal for mainstream ensemble comedies. Is Benoit Blanc the best new film character birthed in the current century?  

16. Toy Story 4
Forkie lives! Am I crazy in declaring this my favorite Toy Story?

15. Avengers: Endgame
It feels so petty to complain about this at all (it’s a little sluggish in the middle and the Black Widow sacrifice stuff makes less than no sense) because it pays out like a busted slot machine at the end. Any time I want to make sure my anti-depressants haven’t completely fried my brain, I flip on the “Assemble” sequence to make sure I still have access to goosebumps.

14. Hail Satan?
Dynamite documentary that presents modern Satanism as the cure for what ails us: a commitment to community, a focus on science, and lots of stickers with pentagrams on them.

13. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
You had me at “Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers” but also Matthew Rhys should have gotten an Oscar nomination for portraying a guy who is super broken, even for a magazine editor.  

12. Under the Silver Lake
Fundamentally an Inherent Vice clone, but one made with both care and menace.

11. John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum
Halle Berry shouldn’t be allowed in movies unless she is accompanied by trained attack dogs.

10. Gloria Bell
This is director Sebastian Lelio remaking his own movie Gloria, and the new edition retains all of the charm of the original while never sacrificing its subtle bite.

9. The Irishman
This Martin Scorsese guy? He’s got some potential!

8. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
If this thing was JUST Pitt and DiCaprio riffing on 70s cop shows, I would vote for it for Best Picture every single year.

7. Jojo Rabbit
It is extremely difficult to bring Nazis into a comedy but Taika Waititi possesses the exact combination of skill and confidence to nail it (and cast himself as Hitler in the process). This material is so good it makes Rebel Wilson seem like a talented dynamo.

6. Dolemite Is My Name
Eddie Murphy found his peak-era mojo with this one, and we’re all the better for it. A movie about pimps and crudeness that also manages to be disarmingly emotional by the end.

5. Little Women
It’s a perfect story that is hard to mess up, but you still have to hand it to Greta Gerwig for making a classic movie that also has contemporary energy. The March Power Rankings are: 1. Watson 2. Pugh 3. Dern 4. Ronan 5. Scanlen 6. Streep

4. Uncut Gems
A two hour anxiety attack that I constantly get the urge to watch. Has there ever been a better movie that combines the politics of pawn shops, the 2012 NBA Finals, Outback Steakhouse takeout, and Eric Bogosian?

3. Hustlers
Not a single bit of proper nudity in this movie about strippers, and somehow I’m not complaining. THAT’s a story.

2. Parasite
My favorite kind of thriller: Everything is unpredictable, everyone is a garbage person, and the ending suggests a whole new cycle of menace to come.

1. Us
Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his breakout debut Get Out is loaded with racial politics, class warfare, childhood fantasy, and a truly terrifying performance from Lupita Nyong’o. It’s also wildly entertaining and genuinely scary, which makes it a stone cold masterpiece.