Listomania! My Favourite Films of 2019

“Sometimes it gets a little hectic out there
But right now, yo, we gonna up you on how we just chill”
-- Tajai of the mighty Souls of Mischief crew - 93 ‘til Infinity

It can be very, very tempting to put a button on the decade or the year as the final days roll past. A sentence or two to wrap things up in a decorative yet artificial and constricting bow. But there can be an infinitesimally fine line between the profound and the trite, the manufactured and the heartfelt. So let’s agree not to do any of that.
 
Here’s what I do know. This was the year when Souls of Mischief’s 93 'til Infinity turned up in Jonah Hill’s beautiful elegiac paean to skater boys Mid90s, and then accompanied Ali Wong and Randall Park in the delightful Always Be My Maybe (which featured Keanu Reeves in the greatest cameo appearance of the year), before making one final outing in Tim Story’s woefully misjudged buddy-comedy contribution to the Shaft dynasty.

Time to unveil my undisputed film of the year, followed by the rest in no particular order. Let’s do it.

Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)

Avengers Endgame (Anthony Russo / Joe Russo)

Border (Gräns) (Ali Abbasi)

The Chambermaid (La camarista) (Lila Avilés)

For Sama (Waad Al-Khateab / Edward Watts)

Foxtrot (Samuel Maoz)

One of the first films I saw in 2019 and I haven’t been able to shake it. Wonderfully strange with exhilarating tonal shifts, and you really don’t want to know any more than that to feel the full impact of it.

In Fabric (Peter Strickland)

Which I wrote about earlier in the year here.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

Us (Jordan Peele)

War (Siddharth Anand)

This was a lot of movie. Imagine a Fast and Furious film stopping for a brief musical interlude so that the Rock can perform a song-and-dance number, and that barely covers it. Invigorating and overwhelming in the best possible ways.

And that makes Ten. But wait! There were a handful of others, every single one of which could have very easily nabbed a slot on that list. To the Almost Top Tenners...I salute you!

Close But No Cigar

3 Faces (Se rokh) (Jafar Panahi)
Beanpole (Dylda) (Kantemir Balagov)
John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum (Chad Stahelski)
Knives Out (Rian Johnson)
Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (Pedro Almodóvar)
Photograph (Ritesh Batra)
The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard)
Thunder Road (Jim Cummings)

I have no idea what 2020 holds for us all. But I will leave you with a couple of fortifying epigrams to wear like luminescent armour in the days to come:

“The most courageous decision that you make each day is to be in a good mood.” -- Voltaire

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.”
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

A very Happy New Year and love and peace to you all. See you at the movies.

It's never...