Jak-Luke Sharp's BEST OF 2019

For the most part, 2019 has delivered on its promises for me in the realm of cinema. The independent circuit has, once again, taken the crown with some truly fabulous and genre defining pieces of art. Averaging five films a week throughout the year, I can undeniably say that independent film wiped the floor of the blockbuster. We have had false nostalgia fed to us on a plate all year round and the results, for the first time in some years, have gone against the blockbuster. I hope my list highlights and showcases the glory of cinema and my thoughts.

These are films that have knocked me sideways in terms of impression and emotional conviction. I have seen films this year that have shocked me in more ways than one; I have had films change my perception on all manners of life, such is the case of The Last Black Man in San Francisco. I have seen films this year that have defined my thoughts and process of analysing cinema, with the likes of Ari Aster’s Midsommar. I have had films torment me and devastate me in their perfect execution, like Uncut Gems and The Irishman. So, once again, if I have one hope about the following films, it is that you try your damn hardest to watch and support them, even if it means borrowing your ex’s NETFLIX account!

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2019

1. The Irishman

Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is a fitting career culmination in every small detail of tone and impact, layered with poignancy, aggression and weight throughout the director's sixty years behind the camera. A fierce, methodical existential look into the mentally and physically degrading participation of cruelty and the evil it reflects upon oneself and one's own web in haunting fashion. 

2. Parasite

Bong Joon-ho Gisaengchung (Parasite) is the director’s first fully Korean feature since Mother in 2009 and stands as the first Korean film to win the grand prize at Cannes for the Palme d’Or in the history of the competition. In Parasite, Bong continues his trend of cinematic masterpieces and is yet to disappoint. His latest takes him down a gritty rabbit hole of greed and morally ambiguous quota. The shocks are electric and the comedy is palpable. The climax nothing short of mesmerising with a firm intoxciating punch.

3. Uncut Gems

If Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time is about family, Uncut Gems delivers a gloriously obtuse look at the morally perplexing justification of faith. Adam Sandler is ferocious here as Howard Ratner, a performance his career as been screaming out for since his odd coupling with Paul Thomas Anderson on Punch Drunk Love. His nightmarish, haunting portrayal is a stunning provocation with weighted emotional fury. It doesn't stop there: Julia Fox, Idina Menzel and LaKeith Stanfield all put forth outstanding performances, with equally as impressive cinematography from Darius Khondji and score from composer Daniel Lopatin. Uncut Gems is the comedic intensity of Scorsese’s After Hours, the conviction and vigour of Mann’s Heat, mixed with the grassroots aesthetic of a John Cassavetes picture. 

4. Midsommar

Ari Aster is two for two in crafting glorious horror masterpieces with Hereditary and now Midsommar. The latter is spellbinding, majestic provocative horror at its most dire and gleeful best. Florence Pugh is nothing short of stunning, evoking what is potentially the most entrancing display of grief I've witnessed on screen. Aster’s use of the camera is exhilarating, with the cinematography by Pawel Pogorzelski a key component to the films overall impact. FYI — watch the director’s cut for a more whole and traumatising experience.

5. The Farewell

From its slow, comedic beginning to its heavy-hitting, emotional gut-punch end, Lulu Wang's The Farewell is a phenomenal, emotionally engulfing drama. The last fifteen minutes is tear jerking trauma expertly and captivatingly conceived with outrageously compelling conviction.

6. Marriage Story

Baumbach, once again, crafts a delicately tender and ludicrously gorgeous film with his follow up to The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) with Marriage Story. The intimacy and fire blend with perfection, a vicious entity when it wants to be but also inviting and tender, with the two delightful performances from Johansson and Driver. The latter of which is genuinely phenomenal throughout with intensity and stunning conviction of internal destruction. It also helps that there’s a scene-stealing performance from Laura Dern, who is fantastic with every line delivered.

7. Apollo 11

Todd Douglas Miller’s documentary Apollo 11 is outstanding. A visual visceral delight from start to finish and an astonishing achievement, with a stunning score from Matt Morton and matched with a perfect atmospheric edit by Miller himself. The tension is almost cataclysmic in scope with weighted poignant benevolence.

8. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Joe Talbot's directorial debut feature The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a stunningly performed and orchestrated portrait of race and societal pressures trapped and drowning in a damned system. A film so majestic and thought provoking, it engulfs all senses and basks in the glory of beauty with every turn. 

9. Woman at War

Woman At War, directed by Benedikt Erlingsson, is exquisite filmmaking at its finest. An outstanding blend of tone with a terrific central performance from Halldóra Geirharosdóttir, who steals the entire show with a fabulous performance. The film's score is wonderful and fascinatingly implemented throughout.

10. Monos

Think Apocalypse Now meets Lord of the Flies and you still have so much more. Monos is gripping, disturbing and a gut punch to every sense imaginable. The performances are stunning, as is the cinematography and score.

BEST PERFORMANCES OF 2019

BEST ACTOR - ADAM DRIVER

Adam Driver continues to impress and evolve as an actor. This year alone, he has put forward four distinctly different performances of artistic strength in a range of features. If it is not his tense rendition in The Report, then it’s his fury and emotional torment in Marriage Story, his devilish and captivating turn in The Rise of Skywalker or his bumbling meta portrayal in Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die. However, it is his performance in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story that is this year's most profound and compelling role. An outstanding precedent is set with the actor's emotional depth and range that results in a staggering and most impressive turn for the actor that ceases to establish himself as a master of his crafts.

BEST ACTRESS - FLORENCE PUGH

There has yet to be a performance this year that is as shocking, profound and as captivating as Florence Pugh’s performance as Dani in Ari Aster’s Midsommar. A truly stunning role that cements Pugh as not just the actress of her generation but a defining performance in the canon of cinema, it is a bold, deeply unsettling and morbid challenge to engulf such a character in this narrative. For having to embody it, Pugh deserves nothing but the biggest and brightest star plaudits available to her. Coupled with a stirring performance in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and a fabulous comedic flair in Fighting With My Family, Pugh is an actress that at every turn impresses and highlights such talent this era possesses.

BEST DIRECTOR - BONG JOON HO

This may be hyperbolic but I stand by it: Bong Joon ho has made a masterpiece with every turn behind the camera in all his seven feature-length films. Going into Parasite at Cannes, I was sure that nothing would touch Bong’s magnum-opus of Memoirs of a Murder. After ten minutes, I felt otherwise. Parasite cements the director not only as arguably the best foreign director working but possibly one the greatest directors living today. His latest film feels almost as a crescendo and amalgamation of everything in his filmography leading to this point. Parasite is a stunning feature with some of the greatest balances of tone I have had the pleasure to witness. It is a film that provides a stunning portrait of class structure and criticism, woven in a fabulously enduring, oxymoronic tale with substantial precedent.