2019: Top 5 movies.

Simply five movies, tv shows, and webcomics that stood out to me last year. Not necessarily my personal favorites and not necessarily the best in terms of craft, but rather five that I want to re-visit someday and that I’d recommend for a variety of reasons. 

Sadly, no books in English stood out to me this year. And of animation and comics, only one of each. 

Beyond that, they are arranged in order of preference. 

MOVIES 

* Runner-up: Casting JonBenet. (2017, dir. Kitty Green). 

Dramatization of a real-life unsolved murder —or rather, an extensive documentary about the difficultly of casting the actors for said dramatization. 

Truth be told, this movie is included here solely for the dazzling achievement that is the very final scene: Not the dramatization of the murder, as one would expect, but instead a run-through of *every* actor cast running their lines, simultaneously playing myriad versions of the same characters. The effect manages to transform the banal into pure surrealism, and then subtly critiques the very genre the movie supposedly adscribes to, the crime docu. Sometimes, the power of fiction far outweighs that of reality. 

5. Rocketman. (2019, dir. Dexter Fletcher)

Biography of Elton John, notable mainly for being the first mainstream Hollywood production with on-screen gay sex. The requisite musical numbers are a sight to behold as well. The accuracy to real life is, as in the previous entry, not as important. 

4. Nocturnal Animals. (2016. dir. Tom Ford)

Simultaneously a ‘rape-and-revenge’ thriller and a domestic drama. The ultimately misogynist storyline would sink this movie based on a best-seller —were it not also one of the movies to best capture the intensity of the act of reading itself, and of our tendency to seek clues to our life in fiction. 

3. The lobster. (Ireland. 2015, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Unpredictable sci-fi dystopia that subverts expectations at every turn. Includes one of the best uses of the seemingly omniscient narrator. Like the best entries of genre fiction, it relies less on special effects than on clever acting to sell it’s seemingly far-fetched concepts. 

2. Can you ever forgive me? (2018, dir. Marielle Heller)

Loosely based on real-life book forgery case, this black humored satire is at once a subtle queer drama and an indictment of ruthless publishing houses. The performances make the script soar. 

1. Us. (2019, dir. Jordan Peele)

Peele’s follow-up to his surprise hit “Get out” is another innovative, clever horror movie that brings a fresh spin to a common topic of the genre. This time around, the subject of doppelgängers is used to bring a chilling parable about the nature of identity, wrapped in the skin of a wonderful thriller. Capped off with a terrific climax that more than one critic failed to understand. As usual. 

Next: TV shows.