My Favourite Films of 2019

I said this last year, I’m saying it again this year, it hasn’t been a great year for me and movies. I traveled around too much. I watched a lot of rubbish on airplanes. I didn’t get to spend anywhere near as much time as I’d have liked to in the QFT. Still, I managed to rack up 108 films watched. Some were stand outs. Some were mediocre. A couple were so bad there’s a bit of a contest for clunker of the year 2019. Unfortunately, I peaked far too soon and saw the best film of the year on January 1st. It’s not exactly been downhill since then, but I haven’t seen another movie I enjoyed as much as The Favourite. A couple of these films might technically have first screened in 2018 and I only managed to catch them on the re-run. Roma would have definitely been in my list for last year if I’d managed to see it sooner. Still, the same rule applies to movies as to books: if it was a great movie in 2018, it’s still a good movie in 2019. Honourable mention goes to Mid 90s, The Kindergarten Teacher, Bait, The Souvenir, White Crow, Happy as Lazarro, Extraordinary, Woman at War and Beautiful Boy, all of which I also loved. I’d add Rocketman to this list but this was the last known siting of my favourite yellow sunglasses and just thinking about the movie now brings me pain.

At this point I want to say a huge thank you to the QFT for offering me an ongoing home away from home and always being up for a bit of a post-show dissection and continuing to open their doors to people living with Dementia for our monthly Dementia Friendly Screenings. (Check out their website for upcoming screenings. Everyone’s welcome to come along). If you’re not lucky enough to live in Belfast find your nearest independent cinema and watch as many movies as you can in 2020. Until then here are my best and worst of 2019 complete with my original reviews.

My Favourite Film of 2019 – The Favourite

“Dear 2019, please take this movie as your benchmark and aim to show me films of a similar exceptionally high standard or films which are even better than this, otherwise I’m afraid I will have ruined the year by seeing my favourite film on January 1st. Ps. Exceptionally good as this was and showcasing as it did the incredible talent of three very fine actors, I think we all could have done without that migraine-giving, optical illusion font.”

My Top Twelve (sorry I couldn’t keep it to ten) Films of 2019 (in no particular order)

1. Pain and Glory. “I really loved this. It’s so gentle and everyone involved is so easy to watch and it just looks gorgeous. Antonio Banderas is brilliant though the whole way through I kept thinking he was like Antonio Banderas playing Bill Murray playing Antonio Banderas. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.”
2. Capernaum – “This does absolutely everything a movie is meant to do. It utterly captivated me for two hours. It was the most georgeously shot film I’ve seen in ages. It had incredible, utterly believable performances from some very young actors. And it made me leave the cinema a slightly different person. Do not miss it.”
3. RBG. “It goes without saying this is pretty inspiring but I didn’t expect to cry so much.”
4. Ordinary Love. “Some observations about this movie. 1. Owen McCafferty’s the king of pared back, naturalistic dialogue. 2. I want to live in this house. 3. Liam Neeson has the largest hands I’ve ever seen. 4. It’s really rather good.”
5. By the Grace of God. “I was not expecting this to completely undo me but it is phenomenally good filmmaking. It approaches the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church from so many nuanced angles it forced me way out of my empathetical comfort zones in a really good way and left me both hopeless and incredibly hopeful. Go see.”
6. Book Smart. “Oh but we need more clever, funny high school movies like this. Such a good watch.”
7. Knives Out. “Well, this is an absolute joy to watch. You can just tell every single actor involved is having an absolute blast.”
8. Little Women. “In which Greta Gerwig proves she can literally do no wrong.”
9. Marriage Story. “1. Noah Baumbach is a genius. 2. This is worth the ticket price alone for the thing with the Stanley knife which made me laugh harder than I’ve laughed at a movie for a very long time. 3. There’s no way that kid is eight years old. 4. It’s just so good.”
10. 1985. “It’s a long time since a movie hit me this hard. Left the cinema an hour ago and I’m still reeling. It’s so simply done and so devastating. Powerful stuff.”
11. Eighth Grade. “If I had a 14 year old I think I’d find this film almost impossible to watch. It’s painfully accurate.”
12. Dirty God. “This is a powerful wee film with an incredibly brave performance from Vicky Knight. Brilliant stuff.”

…. And the Absolute Clunkers. (There were just so many awful movies this year).

1. Destroyer. “I was not destroyed by this movie. I have seen more destructive episodes of Call the Midwife. Wise up Nicole Kidman. Just wise up.”
2. The Goldfinch. “A totally unbelievable film.”
3. The Laundromat. “I think I have now found my new least favourite genre of movie: Hollywood A-Listers explaining “difficult” political concepts or world events in an irreverent, oftentimes “hilarious” manner whilst occasionally breaking the fourth wall. Ideally these films should be interspersed with helpful, slightly patronising diagrams or graphics illustrating concepts anyone who’s ever read any newspaper ever will already understand. See also Vice and that one about the financial collapse, although it wasn’t half as bad as this.”