Going into a lean year’s awards season, a recap of the powerhouse final Top Ten before everything changed…
With endless films postponed, a delayed awards season and the closure of theaters, 2020 was a rough year for film fans – despite some fantastic (and conveniently streamable) indies that took the spotlight left by productions with bigger box office ambitions.
Thankfully the change in the statuette-handing calendar at least has meant that the usually thread-bare February – which could not do better than Sonic last year – brought some late beauties. But if you’ve already seen the likes of Minari, Nomadland and Judas and the Black Messiah, maybe it’s time to check out some of 2019’s lesser-known gems.
Such a knockout list should be the sign of a bright future once movie theaters re-open – but the advance in streaming in the meantime will have lasting, and still debatable, consequences. Either way, there will never be another crop like it at your local cinema house. Enjoy!
1. Pain and Glory
The most unexpected joy of the year, this nostalgic semi-autobiographic gem is a wondrous change of pace for enfant-terrible director Pedro Almodovar and eternal hunk Antonio Bandera, who put their hearts on the screen as they near their own lives’ winter. Low-key and comfortable in its own skin, it is full of delightful and moving touches, a masterclass of pacing and acting, of melancholy and catharsis. A generously personal and poetic reflection on a life’s loves and regrets.
2. The Lighthouse
A creaky lighthouse on a remote, battered rock in the 1890s. Willem Dafoe, in full beard and sailor-speech, as its mysterious, authoritative and drunk keeper. Robert Pattinson as his suspiciously introverted new assistant. All squeezed into a black and white ‘box’ frame. That it’s even more intense, thematically rich, visually stunning – and crazy – than that premise, while also utterly satisfying, makes The Lighthouse an instant classic.
3. Uncut Gems
From one stunningly original and nerve-shredding film to another – you may want a break in between them! The audacious Safdie Brothers have used their personal experience of New York’s fascinating diamond district – where their dad used to work – to create a completely absorbing narrative for their kinetic filmmaking. Shot, edited and scored with uncompromising rawness, it puts the viewer through the ringer alongside Adam Sandler’s hype-worthy anti-hero for two remarkable and unrelentingly tense hours.
4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Another veteran director is in masterclass mode for a personal piece and, even at a butt-numbing 2h40min, it is a wonder to behold. Of all his genre tributes, this ode to the golden days of Hollywood – and the violent end of innocence represented by Charles Manson – is QTs most heartfelt and mature, despite the Django-esque final reel. Loses marks for the overtly male perspective, but even this Tarantino-doubter could watch the superb Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt trade lines around a glowing Los Angeles for another 2h40m.
5. Parasite
South Korea’s superstar director Bong Joon Ho is back, moving into the big leagues with his sharpest, darkest and most subversive observation of class yet. Enticingly plotted and beautiful to look at, it sucks you in with humour and double-crosses as a clan of lovable basement-dwelling grifters expertly con their way into a wealthy family’s life and their spectacular modernist home. But all is very much not as it seems…
6. Avengers: Endgame
Of all of the multibillion-dollar cinematic franchises under Disney’s megalomaniac umbrella, the Marvel universe is the one that most genuinely puts fans at its core. While Star Wars IX, various remakes of animation classics and even Toy Story 4 felt like cash-ins, the superhero house expertly brought home a run of 22 films with a near-perfect landing. With a palpably gloomy set up and more than one main character biting the dust, there are actual stakes at play. Even with time-travel contrivances, it makes for a finale more epic – and, yes, moving – than a film with a purple-skinned villain has the right to have.
7. The Farewell
When grandma gets terminal cancer, an Asian-American clan decide to keep the news from her – instead coming up with a fake wedding to gather around her one last time in China. Based on, as the film puts it, an “actual lie” from her own experience, director Lulu Wang has avoided schmaltzy pitfalls to develop this beautifully simple set up into an elegant, funny and heartfelt look at family relationships and the tough choices immigrants have to make. Like the sassy New York-based granddaughter, played with unexpected understatement by Awkwafina, you will also want to travel across the world to give the wonderfully joyous Nai Nai a tearful hug.
8. Dolemite Is My Name
Like its tenacious real-life lead, do not underestimate this film. Much more than a hilarious comeback vehicle for Eddie Murphy, it is a fiercely entertaining tribute to a comedian who hustled from midlife failure to self-made icon and paved the way for generations of black artists. Murphy is captivating as rotund and frustrated record store employee Rudy Ray Moore – and riotous as Dolemite, the flamboyantly dressed trash-talking pimp alter-ego he created in the late 1960s. Spitting out humorous rhythmical rhymes to a musical beat, his delivery is credited with creating hip hop. Beyond the raunchy punchlines there is an irresistible underdog story as he leads a rag tag team of big-hearted rejects – played by a standout cast in rip-roaring form – to defy the establishment and make the cult ultra-low budget Dolemite movie that cemented his status as a Blaxploitation legend.
9. Knives Out
The best directorial revenge is to write and helm your own critical and box office hit. While J.J. Abrams’ plodding and contrived Star Wars IX – aka The Force-d Awakens – undoes all the brave nuances Rian Johnson inserted into the saga in the previous film, it is RJ who has the last laugh with a deliciously sharp whodunnit that features some timely social commentary as a bonus. No wonder an A-list ensemble cast signed up – though Daniel Craig’s hilariously quirky “CSI:KFC” private eye with an impossible Southern accent would have been enough on his own.
10. Honeyboy
The most brutally personal in a list filled with personal works, troubled actor Shia LaBeouf’s eye-opening biopic lands like a punch to the gut for anyone who doubted his talent or judged him through tabloid headlines. Literally a therapeutic piece written in a ‘last chance saloon’ rehab stint, it sees Shia play the insecure father whose abusive presence during his early days in showbiz has, unknown to him, haunted his life. A second timeline has Lucas Hedges, in turn, playing an in-therapy Shia. It is an odd body-swap, but the committed performances make it work and combine with the film’s low-budget indie edges to create an immersive ramshackle feel that matches the roughness of the tormented actor’s path.
Highly recommended:
Ash is Purest White (ambitious and unusual Chinese mob drama), Rocketman, Ford v Ferrari / Le Mans 66, Diego Maradona, Marriage Story (uneven, but featuring some of my favourite scenes of the year), Arctic (survival story with the always spectacular Mads Mikkelsen and directed with confidence by Brazilian YouTube sensation Joe Penna).
MS