Best Movies of 2019

The criminal justice system and innocent men getting caught up or being railroaded were a strong and common theme that I saw in cinema this past year. Film after film addressed this very thing, which I enjoyed because it is a vitally important social problem, not only in the United States but around the world. It is a particular problem for African-Americans. One of the last reviews I wrote for the year was for Just Mercy (2019), which is about a lawyer freeing men on death row. Yet, there was Clemency (2019), Richard Jewell (2019), Brian Banks (2019) and Trial By Fire (2019). These are all legal dramas that were in a lot of ways doing the same thing. Not all of them occur in court rooms, but they are all deconstructions of the criminal justice system. Each probably stands for legal reforms or more awareness of the failings or bigotries therein. Even a film like The Mustang (2019), which is about a prison inmate, and a film like Driven (2019), which is about the case of John DeLorean, are about issues with criminal justice as well.

Classism was also a strong and common theme in cinema this past year. This isn't new though. Classism could probably be argued as a strong theme every year, if not in a lot of years. The American political conversation this past year through Presidential candidates like Senator Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang has been a lot about the poor versus the rich. Those conversations have also mainly been about the working class, examining things and trying to better those not in the 1-percent. In cinema, we've seen those conversations expressed bluntly in films like Joker (2019) or subtly in films like Parasite (2019). Those themes of poor-versus-rich or haves-and-have-nots are present in films like The Upside (2019), Jordan Peele's Us (2019), Disney's Aladdin (2019), Always Be My Maybe (2019), Ready Or Not (2019), Hustlers (2019), Downton Abbey (2019), The Laundromat (2019), Ford v Ferrari (2019), Knives Out (2019) and even Little Women (2019).

There are several trends that happened this past year, which bear recounting. One such trend is the idea of the comeback. Specifically, several actors made strong comebacks, garnering a lot of success and praise after years of near non-existence or strong criticism. At the top of the list is Jennifer Lopez who has gotten so much well-deserved hype for her role in Hustlers, as a conniving but lovable stripper named Ramona. She hasn't gotten praise like this since Selena (1997). Obviously, she's a wealthy pop star who has been doing well in music for over 20 years, but she's also been acting in that time. Her acting though hasn't been spotlighted in nearly all that time, especially not since Gigli (2003), which was a bomb that sunk her acting career for a while.

Other comebacks include Eddie Murphy and Shia LaBeouf. Murphy had his comeback through his titular role in Dolemite Is My Name (2019). He's been working steadily since he burst on the scene in the early 1980's. It climaxed in an Academy Award nomination for Dreamgirls (2006), but he fell off the radar after that. He's spent fifteen years as a bit of a fading memory but Dolemite Is My Name and even his hosting of Saturday Night Live after leaving in 1984 has proven why people love him. LaBeouf's situation was slightly different. He's now 33 but six years ago when he was in his mid 20's, he was arrested and had a drug addiction, which rather derailed his Hollywood career. This year, he's gotten a ton of praise for The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) and Honey Boy (2019), which is a film that he wrote autobiographically. He's terrific in both and hopefully this will be the start of a renaissance for him.

One actor who needs no renaissance is Adam Driver. Driver is probably having the best year of any actor under the age of 40. He was the lead or had a leading role in five major motion pictures. He was in Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2019), Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die (2019), the true-life story of The Report (2019), Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story and the blockbuster Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Marriage Story might get him an Oscar award, which if it did, it would be absolutely appropriate. He's incredible in the film.

Netflix is the company behind Marriage Story and Driver's push for an Oscar. Netflix though has been just as busy as Driver promoting films for the Oscar. Netflix has the aforementioned Dolemite Is My Name, as well as Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (2019). However, Disney dominated the headlines when its mega-blockbuster Avengers: Endgame (2019) became the highest-grossing film of all-time at $2.79 billion, narrowly beating James Cameron's Avatar (2009) at $2.78 billion. Yet, with Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox, the Mouse House now owns Avatar.

Putting all those billions aside, the movie studio that made a lot of headlines was a brand new studio, that of Tyler Perry Studios. Tyler Perry is an actor, playwright, filmmaker and TV producer. He recently turned 50 and this past decade was listed as one of the highest-paid entertainers in the country. He created Tyler Perry Studios in 2006 in Atlanta, Georgia. He had space inside the city that he used, but, last October, he had the grand opening of a new space on 330 acres just south of the city's downtown. It became the largest film studio in the nation in terms of land-size. He's also the first, African-American to outright own a major film studio. He talked about it when he won the Ultimate Icon Award at the 2019 BET Awards.

Perry talked about #OscarsSoWhite. That online campaign was as much about the actors who get recognized at the Academy Awards, as it was about the films that get the kind of backing by film studios in distribution and marketing to multiplexes. In that regard, there was the aforementioned, Jordan Peele's Us. There was also the biopic about abolitionist Harriet Tubman called Harriet (2019) and there were a couple of blockbusters starring Will Smith, including Aladdin and Gemini Man (2019). Of course, there are films with black people in the independent film circuit, but none of them were pushed into the mainstream with any lasting effect.

Asian films and Asian filmmakers were more successful in that kind of push into the mainstream with lasting effect. Of those films, the two at the forefront are Parasite and The Farewell (2019). Given the mega hit that was Crazy Rich Asians (2018), hopefully it's a sign that more Asian films or Asian filmmakers will be on the rise. Awkwafina who starred in The Farewell and her win at the Golden Globes makes her the first Asian actress to win in a leading role at that ceremony. Hopefully, this will lead to more Asian actors getting nominated and winning.

Lastly, I have to mention a film that made headlines. It was Craig Zobel's The Hunt (2019), which was cancelled from distribution. Universal Pictures was going to put it in theaters in late September. Some argue that the cancellation was due to two mass shootings that happened in close proximity around that time. Some argue that the cancellation was also due to criticisms from President Donald Trump. It'll be interesting to see if that film ever makes the light of day, but films that I certainly want to put under a grand light as being my favorite are as follows:

Best Movies of 2019

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO by Joe Talbot

HONEYLAND by Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov

JUST MERCY by Destin Daniel Cretton

LITTLE WOODS by Nia DaCosta

HAIL SATAN? by Penny Lane

AD ASTRA by James Gray

THE MUSTANG by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre

DRIVEN by Nick Hamm

AMERICAN FACTORY by Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert

HARRIET by Kasi Lemmons

MARRIAGE STORY by Noah Baumbach

LITTLE WOMEN by Greta Gerwig

JAWLINE by Liza Mandelup

THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND by Chiwetel Ejiofor

ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE by Nahnatchka Khan

A HIDDEN LIFE by Terrence Malick

DARK WATERS by Todd Haynes

SÓCRATES by Alexandre Moratto

ONE CHILD NATION by Nanfu Wang & Jialing Zhang

THE WEDDING GUEST by Michael Winterbottom