2019 in Films

Format adapted from Charles François, who I still hope will one day rediscover his cinephilia and start hanging out with myself and the Skandies crew again. It’s been ten years since he last used it and I hereby declare it in the public domain.

Combine the first two columns for a list of films released in 2019, and the last two columns for films seen in 2019. Ordering is preferential when ratings are identical.

Seen Previously
Movies I saw in 2018 {or before} that were released in the U.S. in 2019. Films not yet released but currently scheduled for this year are indicated by a (→).
Seen in 2019
Movies I saw shortly before, during or after their 2019 U.S. run. Asterisks (*) indicate films seen prior to their actual release. TV-only "runs" (arbitrarily deemed eligible) get a (†).
To Be Released
Movies I saw in 2019 which are still awaiting a U.S. release. Those known to have lined up distribution are indicated by a (→). Production {year} is listed if film is more than two years old.

A For All Time

A- Event

B+/A- Near Great

*Knives Out (Johnson) 81
*La flor—Part 1 (Llinás) 81

B+ Must See

In My Room (Köhler) 76
Under the Silver Lake (Mitchell) 76
A White, White Day (Pálmason) 76
Light of My Life (Affleck) 74
Fourteen (Sallitt) 73
*Uncut Gems (Safdies) 73

B/B+ Warmly Recommended

*First Love (Miike) 72
Sunset (Nemes) 71
It Must Be Heaven (Suleiman) 71
Belonging (Çevik) 70
*Parasite (Bong) 70
Shadow (Zhang) 69
Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Tarantino) 69
High Flying Bird (Soderbergh) 69
*La flor—Part 3 (Llinás) 69

B Recommended

Too Late to Die Young (Sotomayor) 68
They Shall Not Grow Old (Jackson) 68
*Sword of Trust (Shelton) 67
Her Smell (Perry) 67
*Marriage Story (Baumbach) 66
Hotel by the River (Hong) 66
Little Women (Gerwig) 65
Apollo 11 (Miller) 65
About Endlessness (Roy Andersson) 65
Gloria Bell (Lelio) 64
Bait (Jenkin) 64
I Heard You Paint Houses (Scorsese) 64

B-/B Recommended with Mild Reservations

Sibyl (Triet) 63
American Dharma (Morris) 63
Dragged Across Concrete (Zahler) 62
Bad Education (Finley) 62
Dolemite Is My Name (Brewer) 62
In Fabric (Strickland) 61
The Burnt Orange Heresy (Capotondi) 61
*Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma) 61
1917 (Mendes) 61
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Talbot) 60
*Motherless Brooklyn (Norton) 60
Sorry Angel (Honoré) 60
Us (Peele) 60
*Conjuring the Rolling Thunder Re-vue (Scorsese) 60

B- Recommended with Strong Reservations

Vitalina Varela (Costa) 59
*I Lost My Body (Clapin) 59
El Camino (Gilligan) 59
Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (Yuen) 59
Midsommar (Aster) 59
*Triple Frontier (Chandor) 59
Arctic (Penna) 58
*Official Secrets (Hood) 58
The Whistlers (Porumboiu) 58
Letter to the Editor (Berliner) 58
Peterloo (Leigh) 58
Rojo (Naishtat) 57
*The Peanut Butter Falcon (Nilson, Schwartz) 57
Paddleton (Lehmann) 57
Bacurau (Mendonça Filho, Dornelles) 57
Annabelle Comes Home (Dauberman) 57
Loro (Sorrentino) 56
Monos (Landes) 56
*All Is True (Branagh) 56
*Freaks (Stein, Lipovsky) 56
To the Ends of the Earth (Kurosawa) 56
*I Am Mother (Sputore) 56
Dogman (Garrone) 55
Piercing (Pesce) 55
Avengers: Endgame (Russos) 55
Greta (Jordan) 55
*Les Misérables (Ly) 55
*La flor—Part 2 (Llinás) 55

C+/B- On the Fence, Leaning Forward

The Souvenir (Hogg) 54
Ray & Liz (Billingham) 54
Diane (Jones) 54
The Traitor (Bellocchio) 54
Sorry We Missed You (Loach) 54
Asako I & II (Hamaguchi) 54
Long Day's Journey Into Night (Bi) 53
The County (Hákonarson) 53
Ash Is Purest White (Jia) 53
3 Faces (Panahi) 53
*The Sound of Silence (Tyburski) 53
The Truth (Kore-eda) 53
Booksmart (Wilde) 52
State Funeral (Loznitsa) 52
*The Hole in the Ground (Cronin) 52
JT LeRoy (Kelly) 52
Beanpole (Balagov) 52
The Kid Who Would Be King (Cornish) 52
Transit (Petzold) 51
Dirty God (Polak) 51
The Standoff at Sparrow Creek (Dunham) 51
Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams) 51
*Ip Man 4: The Finale (Yip) 51
Non-Fiction (Assayas) 51

C+ Take It or Leave It

The Farewell (Wang) 50
Zombi Child (Bonello) 50
The Dead Don't Die (Jarmusch) 50
*The Fall of the American Empire (Arcand) 50
Varda by Agnès (Varda) 50
*Pain and Glory (Almodóvar) 50
Richard Jewell (Eastwood) 50
Martin Eden (Marcello) 50
A Faithful Man (Garrel) 50
Deerskin (Dupieux) 49
*The Great Hack (Amer, Noujaim) 49
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Gilliam) 49
*The Lighthouse (Eggers) 49
Everybody Knows (Farhadi) 49
*By the Grace of God (Ozon) 49
Pasolini {2014} (Ferrara) 49
The Moneychanger (Veiroj) 48
*The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (Krzykowski) 48
The Nightingale (Kent) 48
Sea Fever (Hardiman) 48
The Wild Pear Tree (Ceylan) 48
*Atlantics (Diop) 48
Climax (Noé) 47
*Frankie (Sachs) 47
A Girl Missing (Fukada) 47
The Wandering Soap Opera (Ruiz, Sarmiento) 47
Synchronic (Benson, Moorhead) 47
*Yomeddine (Shawky) 47
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Heller) 46
Little Joe (Hausner) 46
Dumbo (Burton) 46
Depraved (Fessenden) 46
*Leto (Serebrennikov) 46
*A Million Little Pieces (Taylor-Johnson) 46

C/C+ On the Fence, Leaning Backward

*A Hidden Life (Malick) 45
Guest of Honour (Egoyan) 45
*Hotel Mumbai (Maras) 45
*Birds of Passage (Gallego, Guerra) 45
At War (Brizé) 44
*Dark Waters (Haynes) 44
Girls of the Sun (Husson) 44
Waves (Shults) 44
*The Two Popes (Meirelles) 44
*The Aftermath (Kent) 43
*Trial by Fire (Zwick) 43
The Command (Vinterberg) 43
Wasp Network (Assayas) 43
Our Time (Reygadas) 42
*The Song of Names (Girard) 42
Saturday Fiction (Lou) 42
*La flor—Part 4 (Llinás) 42

C Pass

Fire Will Come (Laxe) 41
*Mary Magdalene (Davis) 41
Meeting Gorbachev (Herzog, Singer) 41
I Was at Home, but... (Schanelec) 40
High Life (Denis) 40
Knife + Heart (Gonzalez) 40
*An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu) 40
Joker (Phillips) 39
Relaxer (Potrykus) 38
The Wild Goose Lake (Diao) 38
*The Brink (Klayman) 38
Jojo Rabbit (Waititi) 37
*Vita & Virginia (Button) 37

C- Ugh

The Heiresses (Martinessi) 36
The Image Book (Godard) 36
Primal (Powell) 35
The Personal History of David Copperfield (Iannucci) 35
*Donnybrook (Sutton) 34
*47 Meters Down: Uncaged (Roberts) 33
The Death & Life of John F. Donovan (Dolan) 33
Grass (Hong) 32
*Ophelia (McCarthy) 31
*Synonyms (Lapid) 28

D+ Double-Ugh

Ad Astra (Gray) 27

D Bomb

Liberté (Serra) 16

F Burn the Negative

Walk-outs Channel Surfing

Alice and the Mayor (Pariser)
All Is Well (Trobisch)
American Factory (Bognar, Reichert)
Black Mother (Allah)
Burning Cane (Youmans)
Chained for Life (Schimberg)
*The Chambermaid (Avilés)
*Clemency (Chukwa)
Comets (Shavgulidze)
Diamantino (Abrantes, Schmidt)
Dogs Don't Wear Pants (Valkeapää)
A Family Submerged (Alché)
The Fourth Direction {2015} (Singh)
Fausto (Bussmann)
Give Me Liberty (Mikhanovsky)
Honey Boy (Har'el)
Honeyland (Stefanov, Kotevska)
Hustlers (Scafaria)
Jinn (Mu'min)
John & Jane {2005} (Ahluwalia)
Joy (Mortezai)
Kinetta {2005} (Lanthimos)
A Land Imagined (Yeo)
Land of Ashes (Quirós Úbeda)
Late Night (Ganatra)
The Load (Glavonic)
Long Way Home (Novais Oliveira)
Love, Antosha (Price)
No. 7 Cherry Lane (Yonfan)
Ordinary Love (D'Sa, Leyburn)
Outlaws (McCallum)
*The Plagiarists (Parlow)
Present.Perfect. (Zhu)
Rafiki (Kahiu)
Ruben Brandt, Collector (Krstić)
Sick, Sick, Sick (Furtado)
Slut in a Good Way (Larain)
Sócrates (Moratto)
Sound of Metal (Marder)
Tlamess (Slim)
Toy Story 4 (Cooley)
The Welts {2004} (Piekorz)
Woman at War (Erlingsson)
Working Woman (Aviad)
Yardie (Elba)

Incomplete Mishap/Bad Timing