Best of 2019 - End of Year Report

Evening all. Here are my favourite ten films of 2019. As usual, some may be from earlier years but all are first time viewings.

10. Diego Maradona (2019)
A searching dive into the dualism of the man, Diego and the myth, Maradona. Some great pitch-side footage cut with Naples street life.

9. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Rollicking set-pieces and matured performances almost put this at the top of the trilogy. Driver and Ridley take plaudits but it's an assured hand from Abrams that delivers it.

8. The Sisters Brothers (2018)
A weird, slow-paced, Old West, English language debut from my favourite director, Jacques Audiard. It's filled with restrained performances and odd shit. Not everyone's cup of gold-finding chemical formula.

7. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Not much more to be said about this. Amazing coda to a mostly cracking series of films.

6. The Irishman (2019)
Scorsese's ode to the mob/union/politics links in the post war U.S.  Excellent performances, especially from Joe Pesci.

5. Fire in Babylon (2010)
Fantastic documentary about the rise and eminence of the West Indies cricket team of the 70s, 80s and 90s and how they overcame racism and colonial attitudes along the way. The Master Blaster (Viv Richards) and Whispering Death (Michael Holding) are incredibly watchable.

4. Knives Out (2019)
What a bag of tricks this is. I haven't been as tickled leaving a cinema for quite a while. Clever story with great turns and topical undertones.

3. The Favourite (2018)
This almost Dogme style historical-based dark lark by Yorgos Lanthimos was superbly decked out with odd music, natural lighting and lavish sets. And about half a dozen top drawer performances too.

2. Parasite (2019)
Very hard to split the top two, as here is an absolute peach of a film. The curiosity of the title, the varied acting styles, the potty symbolism, the twisted plot, the Haneke-esque climax, and many more elements, all add up to a probable apex for the Bong man.

1. Us (2019)
But this film ever so slightly exceeded the one above for me. Jordan Peele takes the eye-clawing anxiety of his previous film up a notch with this hard to categorise gem. The story is super gripping, with a brilliant turn from Lupita Nyong'o. Oh, and Minnie Riperton's Les Fleurs is exactly the right song to end on. Excellent.

MINOR SPOILERS IN POD

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