Top Ten Films of 2019

David Davidson

1. Black Conflux (Nicole Dorsey)

2. Ripe (Conor Casey, Rebeccah Love) and Measure (Karen Chapman)

3. Jeune Juliette (Anne Émond)

4. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg) and I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

5. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa) and One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk)

6. Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski), Flowers of the Field (Andrew Stanley), Florrie (Ilir Pristine) and The Pose (Kevin Dempster)

7. Le Daim (Quentin Dupieux), Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar) and Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

8. Synonymes (Nadav Lapid) and Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

8. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams), Joker (Todd Philipps), Ad Astra (James Gray) and The Irishman(Martin Scorsese)

9. Jeanne (Bruno Dumont) and Alice et le maire (Nicolas Pariser)

10. Genèse (Philippe Lesage), Répertoire des villes disparues (Denis Côté) and Matthias et Maxime (Xavier Dolan)

***

Candice Beaith

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn)

- El Camino (Vince Gilligan)

- Midsommar (Ari Aster)

- Murmur (Heather Young)

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

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Us (Jordan Peele)

***

Nick Little

- John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Chad Stahelski)

- A Hidden Life (Terrence Mallick)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Joker (Todd Phillips)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Micheal Dougherty)

- Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)

- Midsommar (Ari Aster)

***

Megan Widawski

- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

- Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Captain Marvel (Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck)

- Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo)

- Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts)

- Isn’t it Romantic (Todd Strauss-Schulson)

- Us (Jordan Peele)

- Shazam! (David Sandberg)

- Dumbo (Tim Burton)

***

Evan Jerred

- Recrue (Pier-Philippe Chevigny)

- All Cat’s Are Grey in the Dark (Lasse Linder)

- The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin)

- American Factory (Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar)

- Waves (Trey Edward Schults)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

- The Righteous Gemstones (Danny McBride)

- Watchmen (Damon Lindelof)

- Pompei (Anna Falguères, John Shank)

***

Jade Hurlbut

1. Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman)

2. The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia)

3. Klaus (Sergio Pablos)

4. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles)

5. Black Conflux (Nicole Dorsey)

6. Abominable (Jill Culton)

7. Radioactive (Marjane Satrapi)

8. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

9. Captain Marvel (Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck)

10. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

***

Mark Barber

1. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

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

3. Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan)

4. A Brother’s Love (Monia Chokri)

5. Joker (Todd Phillips)

6. Us (Jordan Peele)

7. Child’s Play (Lars Klevberg)

8. Une Colonie (Geneviève Dulude-De Celles)

9. Crawl (Alexandre Aja)

10. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

***

Jordan Sowunmi

1. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

3. Marriage Story (Noam Baumbach)

4. Honey Boy (Alma Har'el)

5. Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)

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

7. High Flying Bird (Steven Soderbergh)

8. Us (Jordan Peele)

9. Waves (Trey Edward Shults)

10. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

***

Piers Handling

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)

- J’accuse (Roman Polanski)

- Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

- Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Gu Xiaogang)

- The Painted Bird (Václav Marhoul)

- An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- The Chambermaid (Lila Aviles)

- The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

***

Andrew Burke (Hinterland Remixed)

I have often felt that top ten lists tell us as much about the dynamics of distribution - and the ongoing unevenness that characterizes availability, even in the streaming era - as they do about critic consensus or the anomalies of taste. Most of what I have listed here are genuine 2019 releases, yet I could not resist including a few 2018 gems that arrived belatedly for me, but with a bang I want to acknowledge. Likewise, there are a large number of 2019 releases - Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century and Heather Young’s Murmur foremost among them - that, for me at least, will belong to 2020.

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

3. Bait (Mark Jenkin)

4. Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain, 1984-1992 (Jeremy Deller)

5. In Fabric (Peter Strickland)

6. Black Mother (Khalik Allah)

7. Transit (Christian Petzold)

8. Infinite Football (Corneliu Porumbiou)

9. Danny (Aaron Zeghers, Lewis Bennett)

10. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack)

***

Clélia Cohen

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Proxima (Alice Winocour)

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- Le Traître (Marco Bellochio)

- Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- The Mule (Clint Eastwood)

- Mindhunter – Season 2

- The Deuce – Season 3

- Mid90s (Jonah Hill)

***

Jean-Jacky Goldberg
1. Dragged Across Concrete (S.C. Zahler)
2. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
3. Ad Astra (James Gray)
4. Welcome to Marwen (Robert Zemeckis)
5. La Flor (Mariano Llinás)
6. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)
7. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)
8. Sibyl (Justine Triet)
9. Alice et le maire (Nicolas Pariser)
10. Synonymes (Nadav Lapid)

***

Denis Côté

1. Jeanne (Bruno Dumont)

2. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

3. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

4. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

5. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

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

7. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

8. Give Me Liberty (Kirill Mikhanovsky)

9. About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)

10. Liberté (Albert Serra)

***

Gaspard Nectoux

1. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

2. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

3. La Flor (Mariano Llinás)

4. Jeanne (Bruno Dumont)

5. Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)

6. Technoboss (João Nicolau)

7. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

8. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

9. Porte sans clef (Pascale Bodet)

10. Vitalium, Valentine ! (Part 2) (Jean-Charles Fitoussi)

+ Parcours Jean-Luc Godard at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers (Jean-Luc Godard, Fabrice Aragno, Nicole Brenez and Philippe Quesne).

***

Nicole Brenez (Sorbonne nouvelle/Fémis; Cinémathèque française)

- Fireflies (Bani Khoshnoudi)

- I don’t Know who I am but I know what I love (Mathieu Morel)

- Obatala Film (Sebastian Wiedemann)

- Fire Will Come (Oliver Laxe)

- Piramide erosionada (Colectivo Los Ingrávidos)

- Records (geography of San Sadurnino) (Adrian Canoura)

- Solitude(s) L’insomnie (Valérie Massadian)

- The Fever (Maya Da-Rin)

- Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

- Zones and Passages (Iro Siafliaki)

Plus:

• From 2018, seen in 2019: The Trial (Sergei Loznitsa)

• Special Event: Experimental concert by Leah Singer and Lee Ranaldo at the International Film Festival of Mar del Plata, curated by the wonderful Cecilia Barrionuevo.

***

Mike Hoolboom

These films weren’t necessarily made last year (though most were), but I saw them all last year, there were so many marvels, too many to cram into this list. Jorge continues to startle with his left field portraits, Heather has invented her own animation stylings, Martina delivers an intimate wordless essay portrait, Keltek was a revelation – Meteors is a stone masterpiece, the most important movie I saw last year. D’Agata’s White Noise is a flawed compilation and summary work, with the most breathtaking sequences of any movie made last year. Not Moldova is Madi’s best movie, a handsome wounded doc, Jafa remains the king of found footage, Richards was the B shooter for Terence Malick, bringing Javier Bardem as a priest into a stunning faux doc, and Flock by Mikhail Zheleznikov confirms that he’s the best experimentalist working in Russia today.

- Discrepancy (Jorge Lozano)

- Untitled (Heather Frise)

- Interbeing (Martina Hoogland)

- Gulyabani (Gürcan Keltek)

- Meteors (Gürcan Keltek)

- White Noise (Antoine d’Agata)

- Not Moldova (Madi Piller)

- Love is the Message, the Message is Death (Arthur Jafa)

- Thy Kingdom Come (Eugene Richards)

- Flock (Mikhail Zheleznikov)

***

Ryan Krahn

1. Heimat is a Space in Time (Thomas Heise)

2. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

3. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

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

5. Too Old to Die Young (Nicolas Winding Refn)

6. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

7. Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

8. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão (Karim Aïnouz)

9. Saturday Fiction (Lou Ye)

10. Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski)

***

Blake Williams

1. Ossuary and Apricity (Nathaniel Dorsky)

2. Cityscape (Michael Snow)

3. Liberté (Albert Serra)

4. The Giverny Document – Single Channel (Ja’Tovia Gary)

5. I Was at Home, But… (Angela Schanelec)

6. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

7. Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)

8. Book of Hours (Annie MacDonell)

9. About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)

10. Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (Frank Beauvais)

***

Jordan Cronk

1. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

2. Liberté (Albert Serra)

3. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

4. Synonymes (Nadav Lapid)

5. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

7. State Funeral (Sergei Loznitsa)

8. Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

9. Tommaso (Abel Ferrara)

10. Heimat Is a Space in Time (Thomas Heise)

***

Dan Sallitt

These are films whose world premiere happened in 2019. What with the vagaries of international film distribution, it will take another 18 or 24 months for this list to begin to stabilize - the current version will be invalid in a matter of weeks.

- Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

- A Voluntary Year (Ulrich Köhler and Henner Winckler)

- Easy: “Swipe Right/Swipe Left” (Joe Swanberg)

- Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin)

- Shakti (Martin Rejtman)

- Sheena667 (Grigoriy Dobrygin)

- Technoboss (João Nicolau)

- Litigante (Franco Lolli)

- Waiting for the Carnival (Marcelo Gomes)

- A Tale of Three Sisters (Emin Alper)

***

Aret Frost

1. Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)

2. Light from Light (Paul Harrill)

3. Belmonte (Federico Veiroj)

4. Styx (Wolfgang Fischer)

5. In my Room (Ulrich Kohler)

6. The Seen and Unseen (Kamila Andini)

7. Diane (Kent Jones)

8. Fail to Appear (Antoine Bourges)

9. An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo)

10. Our Time (Carlos Reygadas)

***

Fred Jeanne

- La Flor (Mariano Llinás)

- Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

- An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo)

- Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Midsommar (Ari Aster)

- Border (Ali Abbasi)

- Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

- Une Grande fille (Kantemir Balagov)

- Atlantique (Mati Diop)

- Le Traître (Marco Bellocchio)

- Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- La Fameuse invasion des ours en Sicile (Lorenzo Mattotti)

- Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

- Les Misérables (Ladj Ly)

- So Long, My Son (Wang Xiaoshuai)

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- Perdrix (Erwan Le Duc)

- Ne coupez pas ! (Shin’ichirô Ueda)

+ Trois Documentaires: M (Yolande Zauberman), Santiago, Italia (Nanni Moretti), Dans la terrible jungle (Caroline Capelle, Ombline Ley).

+ Deux Inédits: Les Funérailles des roses (Toshio Matsumoto) et Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon)

***

Edouard Sivière

1. Le Livre d’image (Jean-Luc Godard)

2. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

3. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

4. Les Misérables (Ladj Ly)

5. Alice et le maire (Nicolas Pariser)

6. Asako I+II (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

7. Joker (Todd Philipps)

8. A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen)

9. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

10. La Chute de l’empire américain (Denys Arcand)

+ Le Daim (Dupieux)

***

Oriane Sidre

1. Asako I+II (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

2. So Long, My Son (Wang Xiaoshuai)

3. Liz et l’oiseau bleu (Naoko Yamada)

4. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

5. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

6. Passion (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

7. Ad Astra (James Gray)

8. Penguin Highway (Hiroyasu Ishida)

9. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)

10. To Live To Sing (Johnny Ma)

***

Connor Jessup

- Penguin Highway (Hiroyasu Ishida)

- Genèse (Philippe Lesage)

- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

- I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

- Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

- Atlantique (Mati Diop)

- I Lost My Body (Jérémy Clapin)

***

Marko Orlic

1. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

3. Us (Jordan Peele)

4. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

5. Our Time (Carlos Reygadas)

6. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

7. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

8. Transit (Christian Petzold)

9. Sunset (László Nemes)

10. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

Honourable Mention: Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton), Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood), Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov), Peterloo (Mike Leigh).

Best Films Not Yet Released: Ema (Pablo Larraín), Bad Education (Cory Finley), Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello), Les Misérables (Ladj Ly).

***

Gabrielle P. Leith

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Us (Jordan Peele)

- Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened (Chris Smith)

- Waves (Trey Edward Shults)

- Atlantique (Mati Diop)

- Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

- The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

- Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

- The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia)

***

Zac Goldkind

- La Flor (Mariano Llinás)

- High Life (Claire Denis)

- Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

- Cityscape (Michael Snow)

- Asako I+II (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

- Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)

- Jessica Forever (Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel)

- Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)

- Grass (Hong Sang-soo)

- Transit (Christian Petzold)

- Le Livre d’image (Jean-Luc Godard)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians (Radu Jude)

- Too Old to Die Young (Nicolas Winding Refn)

- Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)

***

Jesse Cumming

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (Frank Beauvais)

3. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

4. Endless Night (Eloy Enciso)

5. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

6. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

7. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

8. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

9. High Flying Bird (Steven Soderbergh)

10. Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

An honourable mention for three excellent docs that weren’t seen widely enough: La Vida En Común (Ezequiel Yanco), Solidarity (Lucy Parker) and Swarm Season (Sarah J. Christman).

***

Violet Lucca

- Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

- High Life (Claire Denis)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Synonymes (Nadav Lapid)

- Midnight Traveler (Hassan Fazili)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

Honorable mention: Richard Jewell, which I saw twice without realizing that Olivia Wilde’s character was named after a real journalist. I understand that she is meant to represent the excesses of the newspaper (and media writ large) but...come on. She screws a made-up FBI agent and then has to share a byline with a male colleague because she can’t actually write. I wish screenwriter Billy Ray would’ve used a fake name instead. Great movie otherwise!

***

Gabrielle Marceau

- Joker (Todd Philipps)

- The Hottest August (Brett Story)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)

- This is the Future (Hito Steyerl)

- Synonymes (Nadav Lapid)

- Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski)

- The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

- Sun Rave (Lafhat Shams)

- Gone to Earth (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) – Nitrate Picture Show 2019.

***

Ethan Vestby

1. The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

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

4. Synonymes (Nadav Lapid)

5. Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler)

6. Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)

7. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

8. Ad Astra (James Gray)

9. Knife + Heart (Yann Gonzales)

10. Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)

11. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

12. Joker (Todd Phillips)

13. Relaxer (Joel Potorykus)

14. The Hottest August (Brett Story)

15. Too Old to Die Young (Nicolas Winding Refn)

***

Alan Jones

- Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler)

- The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

- Midsommar (Ari Aster)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin)

- Ma (Tate Taylor)

- Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)

***

Will Sloan

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

- Rolling Thunder Revue (Martin Scorsese)

- Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)

- Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler)

- Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy (Surender Reddy)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- High Life (Claire Denis)

***

Peter Kuplowsky
The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine) 
Crawl (Alexandre Aja) 
High Flying Bird (Steven Soderbergh) 
Jallikatu (Lijo Jose Pellissery) 
Kaithi (Lokesh Kanagaraj) 
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) 
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg) 
Sye Raa Narashima Reddy (Surender Reddy) 
The Twentieth Century (Mathew Rankin) 
The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)

***

Mitch Greenberg

I wanted to preface my list with a quick note. I am so grateful for the filmmakers and artists responsible for this year’s abundance of inspired cinema. I am grateful to witness a year with so many inspired works of art despite the encroaching hegemony of monolithic production-distribution companies. There were more phenomenal films released this year than I had the opportunity to see. Perhaps the films on my list aren’t “perfect” (whatever that means), but they took risks, they had an undeniably strong point of view. Some of these films are libidinal, some are elegiac, some are furious, and all had something to say. We were blessed this year.

1. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

2. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

3. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

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

5. Joker (Todd Phillips)

6. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

7. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

8. Matthias et Maxime (Xavier Dolan)

9. A Sun (Chung Mong-Hong)

10. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)

***

Francisco Felix

- Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- The King (David Michôd)

- Triple Frontier (J. C. Chandor)

- Us (Jordan Peele)

- John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Chad Stahelski)

- The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (Alex Gibney)

- Long Shot (Jonathan Levine)

***

Paul Williams  (sorted by IMDB rating)

- One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk): IMDB rating 8.3 / 10 with 14 votes.

- Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello): IMDB rating 7 / 10 with 977 votes.

- State Funeral (Sergey Loznitsa): IMDB rating 6.9 / 10 with 96 votes.

- Ad Astra (James Gray): IMDB rating 6.7 / 10 with 102,591 votes.

- Ema (Pablo Larrain): IMDB rating 6.7 / 10 with 709 votes.

- The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg): IMDB rating 6.5 / 10 with 4,588 votes.

- Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello): IMDB rating 6.2 / 10 with 646 votes.

- My Skin, Luminous (Nicolas Pereda, Gabino Rodriguez): IMDB rating 5.2 / 10 with 72 votes.

(Dis)honourable Mention:

- Le Daim (Quentin Dupieux), IMDB rating 6.8 / 10 with 2,172 votes.

***

Alfio Foti

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

2. Jalikattu (Lijo Jose Pellissery)

3. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

4. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

5. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

6. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

7. High Life (Claire Denis)

8. Too Old to Die Young (Nicolas Winding Refn)

9. Anima (P.T. Anderson)

10. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

***

Brandon Wall-Fudge

1. Liberté (Albert Serra)

2. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

3. The Halt (Lav Diaz)

4. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

5. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

6. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

7. The Giverny Document (Single Channel) (Ja’Tovia Gary)

8. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

9. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

10. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

***

Honorata Trojanowska

1. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

2. The Halt (Lav Diaz)

3. Fire Will Come (Oliver Laxe)

4. Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski)

5. One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk)

6. Endless Night (Eloy Enciso)

7. Liberté (Albert Serra)

8. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

9. Crazy World (I.G.G. Nabwana)

10. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

***

Charlotte Selb

- Heimat Is a Space in Time (Thomas Heise)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Atlantique (Mati Diop)

- Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk)

- MS Slavic 7 (Sofia Bohdanowicz, Deragh Campbell)

- State Funeral (Sergei Loznitsa)

- Liberté (Albert Serra)

- Overseas (Sung-A Yoon)

***

Sofia Bohdanowicz

- Rushing Green with Horses (Ute Aurand)

- Vulture (Phil Hoffman)

- Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

- Aquí y Allá (Lina Rodriguez)

- I Was at Home, But… (Angela Schanelec)

- Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)

- Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

- Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another (Jessica Sarah Rinland)

- Varda par Agnès (Agnès Varda)

- The Portuguese Woman (Rita Gomes)

***

Lola Landekic

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

3. Vai (Becs Arahanga, Amberley Jo Aumua, Matasila Freshwater, Dianna Fuemana’s, Mīria George, ‘Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki, Marina Alofagia McCartney, Nicole Whippy)

4. Us (Jordan Peele)

5. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

6. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (Marielle Heller)

7. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

8. Honey Boy (Alma Har’el)

9. A Perfect Turn (Minha Kim)

10. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

***

Erin Mick 
1. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

2. Ready or Not (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett)

3. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

4. Us (Jordan Peele)

5. Saint Maud (Rose Glass)

6. Crawl (Alexandre Aja)

7. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

8. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

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

10. Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)

Honorable Mention: The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)

***

Jake Howell

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Luce (Julius Onah)

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- Cold Case Hammarskjöld (Mads Brügger)

- American Factory (Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar)

- Monos (Alejandro Landes)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Chad Stahelski)

***

Simon Ennis

I still need to catch up with Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, Anne at 13,000 ft. and Little Women.

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- 143 rue de desert (Hassen Ferhani)

- Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Martin Scorsese)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas)

- About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)

- Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)

- Letter To The Editor (Alan Berliner)

- The Vast Of Night (Andrew Patterson)

Honourable Mentions: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese), Midsommar (Ari Aster), Climax (Gaspar Noé).

Best 35mm screenings I saw in 2019 (this is the real “best of” list): The entire Aki Kaurismäki series at the Cinematheque, but if I have to go with one, I guess I’ll say... Drifting Clouds.

- No Fear, No Die (Claire Denis): The Royal, Black Gold.

- Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy): The Revue, Designing the Movies.

- The Passion of Joan Of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer): Cinematheque, with Marilyn Lerner piano accompaniment and Viggo Mortensen introduction.

- The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emmeric Pressburger): The Metrograph.

- Return of The Living Dead (Dan O’Bannon): Nighthawk Brooklyn, midnight screening.

- Days Of Heaven (Terrence Malick): The Royal

- Kundun (Martin Scorsese): The Lightbox

Movie Event of The Year: Crazy World (I.G.G. Nabwana): A raucous, sold-out crowd at Ryerson for the closing night film of Midnight Madness, with live ‘video joker’ accompaniment and post-screening skype with the Waka stars. Pure joy.

***

Jesse Hawken

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

***

Hugh Gibson

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

2. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

3. Midnight Family (Luke Lorentzen)

4. Seven Years in May (Affonso Uchoa)

5. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)

6. Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

7. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

8. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

9. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

10. One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk)

***

Kevin Laforest

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

2. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

3. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

4. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

5. Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler)

6. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

7. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

8. Joker (Todd Phillips)

9. Color Out Of Space (Richard Stanley)

10. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)

***

Paul Landriau

1. The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin)

2. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

3. For Sama (Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts)

4. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

5. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

6. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

7. Ad Astra (James Gray)

8. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

9. The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil (Lee Won-tae)

10. Le Prince de Val-Bé (Jean-François Leblanc)

***

Noah Taylor

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- Deadwood: The Movie (Daniel Minahan)

- Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

- The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Spider-Man: Far from Home (Jon Watts)

- Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley)

***

Katie Wackett

- The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

- The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin)

- The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

- The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

- Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)

- Birds of Passage (Christina Gallego, Ciro Guerra)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Varda by Agnès (Agnès Varda)

***

Ioannis Kanonakis

1. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

2. La Flor (Mariano Llinás)

3. Le Livre d’image (Jean-Luc Godard)

4. Synonymes (Nadav Lapid)

5. Sibyl (Justine Triet)

6. Grass (Hong Sang-soo)

7. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

8. Sophia Antipolis (Virgil Vernier)

9. In My Room (Ulrich Köhler)

10. Knife + Heart (Yann Gonzales)

***

Lars Aumueller

- Ad Astra (James Gray)

- Amazing Grace (Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack)

- Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)

- Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)

- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

- Midsommar (Ari Aster)

- The Mustang (Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre)

- Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)

***

Arika Jiang

1. Ema (Pablo Larraín)

2. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

3. The Great Darkened Days (Maxime Giroux)

4. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

5. Saint Maud (Rose Glass)

6. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

7. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

8. Asako I+II (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi) and The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

9. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

10. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn)

Honourable Mentions: The Farwell (Lulu Wang), Clifton Hill (Albert Shin), Slut in a Good Way (Sophie Lorain), Midsommar (Ari Aster), The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot), Matthias et Maxime (Xavier Dolan), Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry) and Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You(Brandon Cronenberg).

***

Niles Schwartz

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

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

3. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

4. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

5. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

6. Peterloo (Mike Leigh)

7. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

8. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

9. Transit (Christian Petzold)

10. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)

***

Neil Young

NEW

1. A Pearl (Mitski)

2. The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

3. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

4. Wild Berries (Marianna Vas, Hedda Bednarszky, Romulus Balazs)

5. dogs, moon river and Baudelaire (Marija Kovačina)

6. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

7. horizōn (Sid Iandovka, Anya Tsyrlina.)

8. Community Gardens (Vytautas Katkus)

9. Memorable (Bruno Collet)

10. The Rain (Piotr Milczarek)

OLD

1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)

2. The Present (Robert Frank)

3. Light Being (Diana Toucedo)

4. The Plumber (Peter Weir)

5. Time Stood Still (Ermanno Olmi)

6. Trial on the Road (Alexey German)

7. Shunters (Jürgen Böttcher)

8. Festival (Hubert Sielecki)

9. 1 Homme de Trop (Costa-Gavras)

10. Macario (Roberto Gavaldón)

***

C.J. Prince

1. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)

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

3. Frankie (Ira Sachs)

4. Répertoire des villes disparues (Denis Côté)

5. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec)

6. Isadora’s Children (Damien Manivel)

7. So Long, My Son (Wang Xiaoshuai)

8. Technoboss (João Nicolau)

9. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)

10. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)

Honourable Mentions: Jallikattu (Lijo Jose Pellissery), Honey Boy (Alma Har'el), The New King of Comedy (Stephen Chow), Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach), First Love (Takashi Miike), Bad Education (Cory Finley), Le Daim(Quentin Dupieux), Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa), Little Joe (Jessica Hausner), Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi), Midsommar (Ari Aster).

***

Adrian Patterson

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

3. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

4. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

5. Joker (Todd Philipps)

6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

7. High Flying Bird (Steven Soderbergh)

8. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

9. Us (Jordan Peele)

10. Ad Astra (James Gray)

***

Paolo Kagaoan

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

- Homecoming (Beyoncé)

- For Sama (Waad al-Kateab)

- The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

- The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

- Invisible Life (Karim Ainouz)

- Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)

- Avengers: Endgame (Russo Brothers)

- Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

Performances: Zhao Shuzhen (The Farewell), Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory), Nahema Ricci (Antigone), Rikita Nandini Shimu (Made in Bangladesh), Gloria Duarte (Invisible Life), Adam Driver (Marriage Story), Mindy Kaling (Late Night), Rianto (Memories of My Body), Song Kang-ho (Parasite) and Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse).

***

Kelley Dong

New releases

- log 0 (Isiah Medina)

- Red Shift (Isaac Goes)

- Partitions (Alexandre Galmard)

- Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)

- Dark Phoenix (Simon Kinberg)

New to me:

- Children Who Draw (Susumu Hani)

- Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma)

- Cruising (William Friedkin)

- Next Attraction (Raya Martin)

- Murmur of Youth (Lin Cheng-sheng)

***

Pat Mullen

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Genèse (Philippe Lesage)

3. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

4. One Child Nation (Nanfu Wang, Lynn Zhang)

5. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles)

6. nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up (Tasha Hubbard)

7. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

8. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

9. Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher)

10. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) and The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

***

Barry Hertz

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho): An exhilarating and furious indictment of class struggle, Parasite is the masterpiece that South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho has been working toward his entire career. Mixing the social outrage of Snowpiercer, the wild humour of Okja, the heartwarming family drama of The Host and the slow-boil vengeance of Mother, Bong’s latest is a genre-hopping triumph. Focusing on two families – one a clan of con artists living in a cramped basement apartment, the other led by a tech mogul who keeps his wife and two children safely ensconced in a star architect’s mansion – Parasite expertly plays with tension and expectations. At first, it appears that Bong has created a sharp comedy, especially when he digs into the details of how one family becomes so familiar with the other. But then both families’ lives become upended in the most peculiar of ways, leading to a final hour that is sharp enough to draw blood.

2. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie): A 134-minute anxiety attack disguised as a movie, Benny and Josh Safdie’s Uncut Gems is a New York trash-terpiece. Abiding by his self-imposed rule that every fifth movie he makes is allowed to be good, Adam Sandler stars as Howard Ratner, a permanently stressed-out Manhattan jeweler. As the film opens, Howard is in deep debt to the Jewish mob, on the outs with both his wife and mistress, negotiating with real-life rappers and NBA stars and hustling for one last score. The Safdie brothers start big and fast and dirty and do not stop to take a breath for one single filthy moment. The result is a Vice Magazine circa 2012 article come to life, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

3. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese): Partly a continuation of the career-long conversation that he’s been having with audiences about the evil that men do, and partly a reflection on regret, The Irishman is the film that Martin Scorsese needed to make. And it is the film that the industry and audiences needed to spend so much of the year wringing its hands over. Much like the director’s most popular work, this is a crime film, thrilling and visceral. But The Irishman represents something deeper, too. It’s as much a companion piece to the addictive violence of Goodfellas and Casino as it is to the meditative lacerations of Silence, the punishing doubts of The Last Temptation of Christ and the romantic suffering of The Age of Innocence. The result is a film that is nearly perfect.

4. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma): Including Céline Sciamma’s drama in a 2019 list is a slight cheat: the film will only screen on a handful of New York and L.A. screens this month before it gets a proper release in February 2020. But the film - passionate, elegant, and devastatingly romantic - is such a triumph that it can sustain at least 24 months of cultural conversation. In 18th-century Brittany, artist Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is commissioned to paint the portrait of an Italian noblewoman’s reclusive daughter, Heloise (Adèle Haenel, from Sciamma’s Water Lilies). Soon enough, the pair disarm each other, and form a bond intimate and profound. Sharply subverting the male gaze at every turn, Sciamma has created an unforgettable treatise on thwarted desire.

5. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg): Early on in her excellent new drama The Souvenir, director Joanna Hogg aligns her film with its most despicable character. “We don’t want to see life play out as it is,” says Anthony (Tom Burke), a Cambridge-educated, silver-tongued mooch, “we want to see it as experienced within this soft machine.” That Anthony is using his words to woo film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), who herself is based on Hogg, only adds to The Souvenir’s paradoxical approach to filmmaking as personal history. This is not a movie that lets life simply play out as it is or was – it is instead a collection of memories, some sharp as shards but others smoothed down. It is, as Anthony says, an experience that cannot be replicated in another medium.

6. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach): If there is a trend forming in this list, it’s the dominance of Netflix (40 per cent). Part of the streaming giant’s success is due to its deep pockets, leveraged by huge amounts of debt. But another reason is its commitment to producing movies that other studios have forgotten about: human dramas that place character before franchise potential. Marriage Story is the just that kind of film, wisely leveraging its star power (Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson) to tell a story few in Hollywood would have financed today. By the time the film cycles through the starts and stops of a divorce, Baumbach will have you cycling through all manner of convulsions. This is hilarious, heartbreaking cinema – a work that will make you burst out laughing one moment, and leave you tearing your hair out the next.

7. Atlantique (Mati Diop): A sensual and heady stew of romance, family drama, police procedural, political polemic and ghost story, Atlantics marks the debut of a ferocious talent in French filmmaker Mati Diop. In Dakar, the young Ada (Mame Bineta Sane) longs to be with construction worker Souleiman (Traore), but she has been promised to another, and he sees no future in Senegal. But after Souleiman leaves the country for some vaguely brighter prospects, tragedy strikes on the Atlantic Ocean. Diop takes some highly unusual detours, both narratively and thematically, but there is a confidence in her vision that is startling. The intense pleasure of Atlantics is not in the A-to-B storytelling, but in the poignant and painful emotions its filmmaking conjures. And in the realization that this is just the first scream of an intensely curious and essential cinematic voice.

8. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot): Earlier this year, I predicted that there would be an rush of critical essays examining how a white director like Joe Talbot could make a film called The Last Black Man in San Francisco. And deservedly so – just because a film takes issue with a city’s racial erasure does not mean it’s immune to that same discussion. But the anticipated debate didn’t really arrive, perhaps because Talbot’s work was released too early in the year and has now been overshadowed by a similar discussion over Waves, which is being given a heftier awards push by A24, which produced both films. Whatever the case, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an essential work to experience, and a difficult one to shake. With its deadpan humour, wild visuals, and career-making performance from Jimmie Fails, who collaborated with Talbot on the screenplay, the film marks an irrepressibly original and exciting cinematic vision - one that feels as fresh as it does problematic.

9. The Farewell (Lulu Wang): Using director Lulu Wang’s own family history – “based on an actual lie,” as the opening credits inform – The Farewell tells a big drama that carefully gets whittled to a hundred tiny little dramas, each affecting in their own way. The film opens in Changchun, China, where family matriarch Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) is awaiting test results at a local hospital. Unbeknownst to her, the elderly woman has cancer and is likely to die in a few months. But in an effort to avoid upsetting Nai Nai, her sister Little Nai Nai (Lu Hong) hides the diagnosis – a strategy that the film repeatedly informs us is common practice in China – and the rest of her globally scattered brood make their way back to Changchun for one last visit. Wang’s eye for small-yet-large details is amplified tenfold by the performances she wrings out of her cast, including a stellar lead turn by Awkwafina.

10. High Life (Claire Denis) and Ad Astra (James Gray): Leave it to Claire Denis and James Gray to find something new to say while in outer space. While Denis’ High Life and Gray’s Ad Astra both flick at the zero-gravity trappings of the genre - and both feature marquee-level stars in Robert Pattinson and Brad Pitt, respectively - each film works against expectations, resulting in two of the year’s most profound, and divisive, works. Don’t let either film get lost, in space or otherwise.

***

Ben Gordon

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

2. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

3. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

4. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

5. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

6. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (Marielle Heller)

7. Aniara (Pella Kågerman, Hugo Lilja)

8. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn)

9. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

10. An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo)

***

Kurt Halfyard

1. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)

2. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

3. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

4. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

5. Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov)

6. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

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

8. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

9. The Art of Self Defense (Riley Stearns)

10.The Mountain (Rick Alverson)

***

Courtney Small

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot):

4. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

5. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

6. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

7. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

8. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)

9. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

10. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

***

Corey Pierce

1. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

2. Us (Jordan Peele)

3. Parasite (Bong Joon Ho)

4. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

5. Klaus (Sergio Pablos, Carlos Martinez Lopez)

6. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles)

7. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

8. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (Marielle Heller)

9. The Peanut Butter Falcon (Tyler Nelson, Michael Schwartz)

10. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

Honorable mentions: John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Knives Out, The Kid Who Would Be King, Marriage Story, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, The Irishman.

***

Anna Swanson

- Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- High Life (Claire Denis)

- A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Atlantique (Mati Diop)

- The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

- Under The Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)

***

Joshua Harold Wiebe

1. High Life (Claire Denis)

2. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

3. Krabi, 2562 (Ben Rivers, Anocha Suwichakornpong)

4. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

5. Us (Jordan Peele)

6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

7. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

8. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn)

9. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

10. One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk)

***

Ariel Esteban Cayer
1. Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (Frank Beauvais) 
2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese) 
3. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) 
4. Labyrinth of Cinema (Nobuhiko Obayashi) 
5. Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (Miguel Llanso) 
6. The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin) 
7. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Gu Xiaogang) 
8. Balloon (Pema Tseden) 
9. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers) 
10. The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan) 
11. Jallikattu (Lijo Jose Pellissery) 
12. Promare (Hiroyuki Imaishi) 
13. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie) 
14. Overseas (Sung-a Yoon) 
15. Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)
***
Tim White
1. I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec) 
2. La Flor (Mariano Llinas) 
3. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie) 
4. Transit (Christian Petzold) 
5. Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski) 
6. Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another (Jessica Sarah Rinland) 
7. To the Ends of the Earth (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) 
8. The Fever (Maya Da-Rin) 
9. Ad Astra (James Gray) 
10. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (Karim Aïnouz)

***

Kurt Walker

- Dragon Ball Super: Broly (Tatsuya Nagamine)

- The Portuguese Woman (Rita Azevedo Gomes)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- Ether (Krzysztof Zanussi)

- Labyrinth of Cinema (Nobuhiko Ōbayashi)

- log 0 (Isiah Medina)

- Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed)

- Jallikattu (Lijo Jose Pellissery)

- Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)

- 47: Metres Down: Uncaged (Johannes Roberts)

- Syndrome IO (Anastasia Braiko, Egor Sevastyanov, Anastasia Veber)

- Go-Stop (Miguel Mantecon)

- House of Hummingbird (Bora Kim)

- No. 7 Cherry Lane (Yonfan)

***

Neil Bahadur

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

2. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

3. The Leader (Communist Youth League Central Propaganda Department)

4. Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed)

5. Cityscape (Michael Snow)

6. Joker (Todd Philipps)

7. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

8. s01eo3 (Kurt Walker)

9. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn)

10. The Halt (Lav Diaz)

11. Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)

12. To The Ends Of The Earth (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

13. Liberté (Albert Serra)

Honorable mention: Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie).

***

Leora Heilbronn

1. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles)

2. Fleabag – Season 2 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge)

3. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

4. The Handmaid’s Tale – Season 3

5. PEN15 (Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle, and Sam Zvibleman)

6. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

7. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

8. When They See Us (Ava DuVernay

9. This Way Up – Season 1

10. Someone Great (Jennifer Kaytin Robinson)

Honourable Mentions (in no particular order): Unbelievable, Booksmart, Queen and Slim, Fast Color, Looking for Alaska, Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé, Parasite, Rocketman, Midsommar, The Lighthouse, the first 3/4 of Hustlers, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Ready or Not, Tales of the City, Her Smell, The Morning Show(Season 1).

***

Ben Harrison

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

2. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

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

4. Us (Jordan Peele)

5. Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa)

6. The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin)

7. One Cut Of The Dead (Shin'ichirô Ueda)

8. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

9. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)

10. High Life (Claire Denis)

***

Shahbaz Kh

1. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

2. Greed (Michael Winterbottom)

3. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

4. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)

5. Guns Akimbo (Jason Lei Howden)

6. Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy)

7. Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)

8. The Truth (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

9. Simple Women (Chiara Malta)

10. It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman) and The Other Lamb (Malgorzata Szumowska)

***

Mehdi Pilehvarian

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

2. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

3. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)

4. So Long, My Son (Wang Xiaoshuai)

5. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

6. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

7. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

8. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)

9. Joker (Todd Phillips)

10. The Wild Goose Lake (Yi’nan Diao)

***

Jason Tyrone

- Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

- Hereditary (Ari Aster)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

- The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

- High Life (Claire Denis)

- Joker (Todd Phillips)

- Us (Jordan Peele)

- Spider-Man: Far from Home (Jon Watts)

- Yesterday (Danny Boyle)

***

Jason Wilson

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

3. Midsommar (Ari Aster)

4. Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry)

5. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

6. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

7. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

8. High Life (Claire Denis)

9. Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)

10. Ad Astra (James Gray)

***

Brendan Prost

1. Mouthpiece (Patricia Rozema)

2. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn)

3. White Lie (Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas)

4. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

5. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

6. Waves (Trey Edward Schults)

7. The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin)

8. Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry)

9. Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)

10. Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan)

Honourable Mentions: Murmur (Heather Young), Climax (Gaspar Noé), The Irishman (Martin Scorsese).

***

Adrien Alexander Benson

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

3. A Bread Factory Parts 1 and 2 (Patrick Wang)

4. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

5. Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)

6. Triple Frontier (J.C. Chandor)

7. Ready Or Not (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett)

8. Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)

9. One Cut of the Dead (Shin’ichirô Ueda)

10. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

***

Barry Greenwald

- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

- Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

- Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Martin Scorsese)

- A Kandahar Away (Aisha Jamal)

- nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up (Tasha Hubbard)

- Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)

- The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn) 
- Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) 
- One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (Zacharias Kunuk)

***

Brandon Bui

1. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

2. Liberté (Albert Serra)

3. I Was At Home, But... (Angela Schanalec)

4. SaF05 (Charlotte Prodger)

5. Cézanne (Luke Fowler)

6. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

7. Endless Night (Eloy Enciso)

9. Remembrance: A Portrait Study (Edward Owens)

10. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

11. Atlantique (Mati Diop)

12. Heimat is a Space in Time (Thomas Heise)

13. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

14. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumbiou)

15. Le Traître (Marco Bellochio)

16. State Funeral (Sergei Loznitsa)

17. The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yi’nan)

18. Seven Years in May (Affonso Uchoa)

19. Acid Forest (Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė)

20. Movements of a Nearby Mountain (Sebastian Brameshuber)

***

Tom MacCammon

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

2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

3. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

4. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

5. Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)

6. Joker (Todd Phillips)

7. 1917 (Sam Mendes)

8. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

9. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

10. Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold)

***

Patrick Devitt

- Jesus is Born (Sunday Service Choir)

- The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)

- Euphoria

- 2019 NBA Playoffs

- Red Film (Sara Cwynar)

- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

- When I Get Home (Solange)

- Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

- Democracy in America (Romeo Castellucci)

- A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen)
***
Eric Bizzarri
- Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino): Tarantino is a master at work, as evident in a film that combines fantastic set pieces, killer performances and strong cinematographic work. A journey in the life of these characters, as they navigate through the trials and tribulations of old Hollywood.   
- Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie): A wild ride, exploring the truths of humanity, love and hustling. It's a surprising turn for Adam Sandler, who is entertaining and stellar throughout.
- Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach): Marriage Story has some of the best performances of the year, coupled with uncomfortable writing (in the best way) and visuals that allow the piece to become claustrophobic when it needs to be. Driver and Johansson are consistently changing here. They manifest such heartbreaking but also enlightening performances that remind us of the good and bad in relationships. As a whole, the film presents the idea that you can never completely destroy the love you have for someone that you've shared a strong intimacy with. Love, in the sense of adoration and affection. There is always something to be learned, though. The last shot, especially, is quite affecting and will stay with you.   
- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho): Parasite roars from its impressive simplicity. Production Design is fantastic here, as director Bong Joon-ho blends a mix of terrific settings that accentuate his wide array of genres at play, all blended together to make for full-bodied viewing. Horror, comedy, romance. It's all there.   
- Avengers: Endgame (Joe and Anthony Russo): What a treat. A satisfying conclusion to 11 years worth of films in the MCU and one that will have die hard fans especially, at the edge of their seats. A mega spectacle interested in exploring failure and how it can feel to affect those you care about. A solid piece of filmmaking at its core. A film with intentions of providing fan service, while also allowing audiences to reflect on themes of loss, sacrifice and failing. We don't expect heroes to fail, but Endgame breaks that barrier of perfection, reminding us to allow failure to pass us, granting us the opportunity to learn and grow from our mistakes.   
- Honey Boy (Alma Har'el): Honey Boy is an exploration of truth, tragedy and comedy. Shia LaBeouf spills his heart into what is one of the most groundbreaking, personal entries to come out of this medium. This is what filmmaking is - an admission into a filmmaker's mind. It's an un-missable cathartic experience.  
- Waves (Trey Edward Shults): Waves is one of the best films I’ve seen this year. Incredible performances across the board. Tight editing. A beautiful cinematographic palette. It’s a conversation of love across generations - teaching us that the consequences of our actions truly have ripple effects.
- Joker (Todd Phillips): Joker is a strong showcase for Joaquin Phoenix with beautiful, striking images and a chaotic score, achieving an incredible, irritable piece. The film is built on trauma, exploring the current political climate through a character we believe we knew before. Anyone that has gone through something traumatic will feel, in this movie. The amount of discourse surrounding this film has become rather interesting. I definitely think the negative feedback towards it stems from people’s discomfort with the truths the movie is showing. Joker is created very tastefully and carefully, with a lot of nuance.   
- Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski): Anne at 13, 000 ft. is a huge step forward for director Kazik Radwanski, marking a strong entry in his own filmography, while also exploring the lengths of which Canadian Cinema can go. It's a full bodied film, exploring the uncomfortable truths, insecurities and joys of Deragh Campbell's character, whom delivers an exceptional performance here. The visual language is consistent in its claustrophobia, presenting each frame in tight close-ups, as we slowly uncover all of the mini details and awkward moments in character interactions and subtle shifts in conflict. The story is timely and opens relevant discussions to be had about mental health, and coming to the aid of those we know, or may not know, who are in need. Radwanski refuses to present antagonists solely as antagonists, but rather those who could be suffering as well, creating a full-bodied piece.   
- Booksmart (Olivia Wilde): Hilarious. Booksmart is deeply rooted in its central characters played so affectionately by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever. Booksmart is what audiences have been waiting for - a film with, at times similar antics, yet a coming of age story finally told from a female perspective that invites us into new territory while re-invigorating what we already love from the coming-of-age genre.
***
Dave Acacia
1. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)
2. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)
3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)
4. Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (Abdellatif Kechiche)
5. So Long, My Son (Wang Xiaoshuai)
6. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)
7. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles)
8. Cats (Tom Hooper)
9. Ad Astra (James Gray)
10. Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold)