A confession: I’ve never made a top ten list of anything for anything in my life. This would be my first, to my recollection. I mean, how does one even begin to categorize and then measure each individual experience with a movie and put them up against each other anyway?
I understand the exercise, though, as making any sort of 'Best Of The Year' list helps contextualize the industry and creates a framework with which to properly comprehend a year and how it can be defined.
When I had to put this list together, I naturally gravitated towards work that were not only technically proficient and excellently crafted movies, but also films that managed to define what 2019 was about thematically and captured that feeling of discontentment and fear and anger that is so pervasive these days.
Because art is always a reflection of the times. It is a mirror to society and it reveals us. A great film is not just an enjoyable time at the theater, but it reminds us of our humanity and does so with precision in its ability to weave images and sound into a narrative that is strangely familiar and inevitably true.
Take note that I didn’t get to watch as many movies as I would have liked. I missed most of the major festivals and when it comes to Filipino films, I’ve seen a lot more mainstream movies than independent movies this year, for some reason. That’s going to affect the choices on this list, for sure.
But here’s a list of my favourite films of 2019:
10. Beanpole (Director: Kantemir Balagov) | Read review
The Russian film, which had three screenings in this year’s QCinema Film Festival, is a masterwork of silence and stillness. It is a character study of two women in the aftermath of World War II as they suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress after surviving in one of the more devastated cities during the war.
Grounded by spectacular performances from its two leads, Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina, Balagov delivers a powerful and painful anti-war movie that really explores the far-reaching damage and destruction that wars bring; and not just the damage it does to property but to people’s lives as well.
9. Hello, Love, Goodbye (Director: Cathy Garcia-Molina) | Read review
From the opening montage of ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye’ that details Kathryn Bernardo’s Joy as she struggles to make ends meet in Hong Kong, Cathy Garcia-Molina infuses her film with an urgency that never falters. Even when the film introduces Alden Richards’ Ethan into the mix and threatens to upend the film and turn it into your run-of-the-mill romance movie.
But, no, the film never gets side-tracked and instead uses the romance elements to further explore the Filipino characteristics that continue to plague Joy and Ethan like the unnecessary burdens that we Filipinos put upon ourselves because of our family. It asks hard questions despite its commercial gloss and shine. It’s a well-crafted bait-and-switch with a wonderful performance by Kathryn Bernardo at the center of it all.
8. Us (Director: Jordan Peele) | Read review
Very early on in the year, Jordan Peele’s follow-up to the massively successful ‘Get Out’ had us singing his praises once more for its blatantly political message interwoven into the DNA of his narrative about a woman who met her doppelganger in an abandoned house of mirrors in Sta. Cruz when she was a child, and then meets her again as adults in a bloody contest of wills.
Lupita Nyong’o’s magnificent double role really amplifies the themes of ‘Us’ as it asks us to look within ourselves for the way we have neglected the less fortunate in this world and to take stock of the monster that is inside us. The social commentary about social inequality is wrapped around a deliciously tight and enjoyable suspense and horror film where the real villain is unclear and up for debate.
7. Avengers: End Game (Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo) | Read review
It may just be a “comic book movie” but the feeling of catching ‘Avengers: End Game’ in the cinema, surrounded by so many other fans of the film, while the conclusion of a ten-year storyline that spanned across 21 movies is unlike any other in the history of cinema, in my opinion. The culmination of a decade of stories was fully realised in a movie that delivered the thrills and emotional beats that they’ve built up over time.
There hasn’t been an event of that magnitude and it created a worldwide phenomenon that gave people a common imagery and language (Thanos’ infinity snap and dusting, dad-bod Thor, the sacrifice at Vormeer, etc.) regardless of age or race and gave birth to countless of memes. No matter where you stand on the “comic book movie” debate, you cannot deny that the amount of people who came to watch and enjoyed ‘Avengers: End Game’ has made it a cultural landmark for 2019 and maybe even decades to come.
6. The Favourite (Director: Yorgos Lanthimos) | Read review
I’m using a technical loophole to add ‘The Favourite’ into the list since it was released in Philippine theaters in February, even though it’s a 2018 film. On the account that it was released in 2019 for us, it makes it to my list because of its amazing use of cinematic techniques — from its unusual camerawork (fisheye lenses and use of natural light) to the contemporary rhythm in its editing and pacing — to distort the reality and depiction of an 18th century England in the time of Queen Anne as two courtesans are fighting for her favour.
‘The Favourite’ is punctuated by magnificent performances by its lead cast, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, and the much-deserved Oscar win for Olivia Coleman. This is a story of women empowerment in all its twisted glory and there’s absolutely no film like it.
5. John Denver Trending (Director: Arden Rod Condez) | Read review
I haven’t seen as many independent Filipino films as I would have wanted to this year but I’m so happy to have caught ‘John Denver Trending’ at this year’s Cinemalaya because it is truly a marvel of craftsmanship and storytelling. Arden Rod Condez utilized the film’s rawness to truly cement the setting and the performances from its primarily non-professional cast to drive hard its very real themes about cyber-bullying and its thematic attack on mob mentality.
Newcomer Jansen Magpusao delivers a heart-wrenching performance of a young boy caught in the maelstrom of cyber-attacks with very real consequences and amplified by Meryll Soriano’s beautiful portrayal of a single mother who is working her hardest to provide and protect her child in a world that has no support whatsoever for her. It is a powerful look at the fringes of Philippine society that has been left behind by the progress of the nation: a lack of education, opportunities,and infrastructure that has kept the world of ‘John Denver Trending’ at the edge of a knife and cutting all those who cannot find their balance.
4. Midsommar (Director: Ari Aster) | Read review
Ari Aster’s follow up to ‘Hereditary’ bends the rules and conventions of the horror genre and gives us a two-and-a-half-hour scary movie in broad daylight that is also a psychological thriller and a drama. Florence Pugh gives a breakout performance that catapults her into the A-List by giving a completely dedicated and fully-committed performance of a young woman who is coming untethered during a vacation in a remote Swedish commune where nothing is what it seems.
‘Midsommar’ is an immersive experience into what might as well be another world but it’s presented as a foreign culture, a strange unfamiliar practice that puts the viewers as a cultural outsider and forces them to question what the boundaries of propriety are as a tourist. The horror is in the othering of the protagonist and it questions what is right and wrong when cultural practice is put into the forefront. And all throughout this conflict, there is an inner layer of a story of a breakup that is brought to its most extreme level because of the circumstances of the summer festival. It’s genius work that is unique and fresh and genre-bending.
3. Knives Out (Director: Rian Johnson) | Read review
Rian Johnson’s genre-twisting ensemble romp is high on this list for how well ‘Knives Out’ merges brilliant craftsmanship with high calibre entertainment value while still delivering a pointed attack on Republican and conservative politics. The script is so tight, the performances are magnificent across the board and the storytelling is so clever that you are left at the edge of your seat the entire time and completely submitting to Johnson’s ability to engage with you every step of the way.
‘Knives Out’ turns the mystery genre over its head and presents us with a thrilling reverse whodunit while delivering belly-aching laughs and giving each of his tremendous cast a moment to shine and show off what they are made of. ‘Knives Out’ is so much fun and you can tell they had fun making it, which is a win for everyone.
2. Marriage Story (Director: Noah Baumbach) | Watch Now on Netflix
Noah Baumbach’s character study of a couple in the process of divorce is a heart-wrenching drama without the gloss and the glamour of mainstream filmmaking. It’s power comes from the authenticity of its depiction of lives being torn apart by the complicated feelings that comes with loving someone else and loving yourself. Because, at the heart of ‘Marriage Story’ are two people whose relationship is falling apart that forces them to take stock of their lives and who they are and what they’ve been doing to themselves and each other.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson deliver two of the most powerful and moving performances of the year, which has given me my personal choices for who should win best actor and actress in all the upcoming awards. Like the movie itself, Driver and Johansson are raw and spontaneous and so natural without any flair or gimmick in their performances. These are real people with real emotions and dealing with real issues that really show us the power of cinema to really illustrate the nuances of humanity during a singular event. In a story so personal and intimate, cinema manages to highlight the tiniest of gestures and make bare that which is kept inside in a way that only cinema can do.
1. Parasite (Director: Bong Joon-Ho) | Read review
Without a doubt, no movie has surprised me at every turn that Bong Joon-Ho’s comedy/thriller-turned-horror/drama. ‘Parasite’ is a master work by a director who is in such great control of his narrative that he can shift the film’s genre in the halfway mark and not lose his audience in the process. With a sharp script and an outstanding ensemble performance, ‘Parasite’ takes you on a journey from the uppercrust of South Korea to its underbelly in a wild ride of emotions that has you wondering who it is you really are rooting for.
A lot of the films on this list really tackle power struggles, social inequality, and class struggles but no film approaches it with such guile and wonderful precision. It pulls you from all sides by presenting you with a family that is so charming, you kind of fall in love with them even when they begin to do very questionable things. Somehow the film manages to contextualize this reality from the systems that made it necessary and when viewed from that lens it becomes a powerful commentary on the 1% and all those struggling under a system that makes it impossible to cross that divide.
The way that the film has been embraced all around the world despite it being wholly a South Korean story shows the universality of film as a global language. Stories, when told well, will be understood and appreciated by any culture, regardless of language.
