Superlatives: Best in Film 2019
Like I said in my Best Films of 2019 post, I really can’t remember a year where I swapped so many films in and out of my Top 10 to find the combination that made sense to me. I wanted to take the time to recognize more of the films and show why it was so close for my list. Let’s get to it.
Best Director
Mati Diop, Atlantics
Greta Gerwig, Little Women
Bong Joon-ho, Parasite
Jennifer Kent, The Nightingale
Lulu Wang, The Farewell
Olivia Wilde, Booksmart
Winner: Mati Diop, Atlantics: It comes down to balancing the tone of this incredibly ambitious and weird film. Diop’s world feels so real, even as the paranormal elements begin to take over everyday existence.
Best Actor
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Taron Edgerton, Rocket Man
Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Eddie Murphy, Dolemite is My Name
Robert Pattinson, The Lighthouse
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Winner: Adam Driver, Marriage Story: This is, for me, Driver’s best performance to date. He handles the darker material in Marriage Story better than anyone else.
Best Actress
Awkwafina, The Farewell
Beanie Feldstein, Booksmart
Aisling Franciosi, The Nightingale
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Florence Pugh, Midsommar
Octavia Spencer, Ma
Winner: Octavia Spencer, Ma: I’m a sucker for a great horror performance and Spencer’s Ma is on the level of Kathy Bates in Misery and Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. It’s worth watching the film just to see Spencer chew through the scenery 99 minutes.
Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted)
Mati Diop, Olivier Demangel, Atlantics
Greta Gerwig, Little Women
Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Julia Hart, Jordan Horowitz, Fast Color
Gasper Noé, Climax
Lulu Wang, The Farewell
Winner: Greta Gerwig, Little Women: The adaptation of Little Women, with its time jumping conceit and sprinkling of Louisa May Alcott quotations, breathes new life into one of the great American novels.
Best Supporting Actor
Alan Alda, Marriage Story
Chris Evans, Knives Out
Robbie Fairchild, Cats
Steven Huszar, Rabid
Song Kang Ho, Parasite
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Winner: Chris Evans, Knives Out: I didn’t like the film, but I loved Chris Evans in it. I would watch a whole film of his performance as Ransom just roasting his family.
Best Supporting Actress
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Jeong-eun Lee, Parasite
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Bille Lourd, Booksmart
Shao Shuzhen, The Farewell
Winner: Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers: Lopez is a phenomenal screen actor who knows how to command the camera. Hustlers is just another of her should-be-universally praised performances. She’s unstoppable when a screenplay is good enough to challenge her.
Best Ensemble
Climax
The Farewell
Little Monsters
Little Women
Parasite
See You Yesterday
Winner: Parasite: The film is as good as it is because every actor is on top of everything. They all commit to the classic Bong Joon-ho con of realistic drama turning into grotesque caricature.
Best Use of Music (Original or Adapted)
Atlantics
Climax
Hustlers
Joker
Little Women
Midsommar
Winner: Midsommar: The songs and score in Midsommar are so good I wished the whole thing was a sung through musical. Not since The Wickerman…
Best Production Design
Booksmart
Midsommar
Missing Link
Parasite
See You Yesterday
Velvet Buzzsaw
Winner: Parasite: It’s the flood scene that really set it above the competition, though the contrast between the apartment and the basement, the poor and the rich, tells a clear story of intention and purpose.
Best Editing
Atlantics
Little Women
The Nightingale
Parasite
Rabid
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Winner: Atlantics: The conceit for the reveal of the true paranormal nature of the strange occurrences is a masterclass in editing. The film would not work if you did not believe what you can see was actually real and it looks real.
Best Visual Effects (Practical and/or Digital)
Alita: Battle Angel
Detective Pikachu
Fast Color
Frozen 2
Missing Link
Rabid
Winner: Missing Link: Studio Laika makes beautiful stop-motion films and this Bigfoot-starring globe-trotting Victorian adventure pulls out all the stops.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Atlantics
Little Women
Midsommar
Rabid
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Us
Winner: Us: It’s hard enough to make each character in a large ensemble horror film instantly recognizable; now double that task with each character getting a doppelganger who looks exactly like them, only the opposite. Us gives us 22 beautifully realized makeups for the 11 most featured roles (Adelaide’s family (4), Young Adelaide (1), Adelaide’s parents (2), and the friend’s family (4)) that show off how obsessions and strengths can be good or bad things. If you took the red jumpsuits away, you could still tell by look alone which version of each character was which. The special effects makeup is top notch, too.
Best Costumes
Dolemite Is My Name
Little Women
Midsommar
The Nightingale
See You Yesterday
Us
Winner: Midsommar: Midsommar is a visually overwhelming film. The costumes are the most subtle design element for about 2/3 of the film, creating the distance between the world we know and the world of the festival and showing how the two slowly blur into each other. Then all bets are off on the last day when everyone is forced into their final and most elaborate costuming. The final costumes for all the guests set up the horror of their fates so well, still establishing them as total outsiders amongst the stark white outfits with embroidered edges of the locals.
Best Horror Film
The Lighthouse
Little Monsters
Midsommar
Rabid
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Us
Winner: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: PG-13 horror is hard, but Scary Stories…manages to be one of the scariest and best-written horror films in a long time. The material is slight compared to the horrors that made my Top 10 of the Year list, but the execution is all-ages horror in the vein of Gremlins and The Company of Wolves: filled with lessons for the little ones and psychological terror for the grown ups.
Wrap Up
Overall, I recognized 30 different films over 15 categories. I limited myself to a Top 10 because it felt like the right number, but I expanded to 6 nominations in each specialty category so I could feel good about nominating must of who I wanted. This is part of why I like to go into more specific categories. There are critically acclaimed films that I acknowledge but don’t enjoy overall as much as others. I can see that, say, Joe Pesci is wonderful in The Irishman while also not enjoying the film. Same with Joker; I don’t get it, but the music and Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is stellar.
Of those nominees, 11 films come out on top in a category. No film won more than 2 categories. 2 films won on their only nomination. My process is winnowing down to a list of nominees, walking away for a few days, then comparing the nominees for who I think is the best in each category.
The category I cut the most from in the nominating process was Supporting Actress. I struggled to narrow it down to a Top 10, let alone a Top 6.
The category I cut to stop myself from being sassy was Best Musical Film, which would have had one nomination (Climax).
Here’s the full spread of the nominations. An * means the film is on the Best Films list.
Nominations:
9 Nominations:
Little Women*
7 Nominations:
Parasite*
6 Nominations:
Atlantics*
The Farewell*
Midsommar
5 Nominations:
Booksmart*
The Nightingale*
Rabid
Us*
4 Nominations:
Fast Color*
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
See You Yesterday*
3 Nominations:
Climax
Marriage Story
Missing Link*
2 Nominations:
Dolemite Is My Name
Frozen 2
Hustlers
Joker
The Lighthouse
Little Monsters
1 Nomination:
Alita: Battle Angel
Cats
Detective Pikachu
Frozen 2
The Irishman
Knives Out
Ma
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Rocket Man
Wins:
2 Wins:
Atlantics*
Little Women*
Midsommar
Parasite*
1 Win:
Hustlers
Knives Out
Ma
Marriage Story
Missing Link*
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Us*
