A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally discovered that I’d managed something that I’d been trying to pull off for years — watch every single Best Picture nominee in a year before the Oscars. It wasn’t because I’d gone through the list like the meticulous tryhard I occasionally aspire to be, but because I’d seen all of them before the nominations had even been announced just because I’d wanted to. Then I realized — I’ve seen a lot of good movies this year, haven’t I?
This was a good year for movies (at least for me), and I wanted to celebrate it in the only way that I can do decently well — writing about them. This isn’t a perfect list, nor is it even a real Oscars ballot. It’s not even close to perfect, either. But I enjoyed doing it, and I hope you do too.
Best Picture
In January of 2009, there was a massive uproar in the media when The Dark Knight didn’t get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture; in a field already perceived to be biased against science fiction and box office tentpoles, locking out one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year only stoked the fire. In response to the outcry, the Academy changed to a new system — 10 Best Picture nominees, which later shifted into a flexible total between 5 and 10 depending on specific voting thresholds. The outward results changed, but the most basic internal mechanism remained the same — Academy voters only get 5 spots each when they nominate a movie for Best Picture.
I decided to have a little fun and tried to imitate that process, but this was a strong field; between the first and final iterations of my pretend ballot, I must have changed my mind literal dozens of times. Out of the 27 movies I watched in 2019, I eventually came down to 13 movies competing for 5 spots. I get to list as many as I want because this is a blog post about fake awards and not an actual media production, but my point is this: 2019 was a good year for movies, and we’re lucky that we’re able to argue about the best of the best instead of bemoaning that there’s no best at all.
Why did I do this, exactly? Well… it was fun.
I. If I Had a Ballot…
1. Jojo Rabbit: I legitimately get emotional every time I even think about this movie. The core of Taika Waititi’s style hasn’t changed, but he’s added new shades to his repertoire; a touch of emotional depth here, a dash of suspense there. It’s a dark comedy with an emotional edge, a story with a male main character that makes sure to shine a spotlight on its women, and a unique perspective on war followings that’s thought-provoking even though its story is straightforward. It’s an absolutely gorgeous film, and I’ll sing its praises for as long as I care to think about movies.
2. 1917: I’ve never paid such close attention to a movie in my entire life, and I still feel like there’s so much I keep missing. 1917 is a testament to the reasons why we go to the movies — to get drawn into a story, and to be goddamn amazed.
3. Marriage Story: In so many words, this movie is just fucking exhausting. It puts its characters through hell, bares their flaws for all to see, and gives all the power of judgement to the viewer. Noah Baumbach has created the perfect playing field for a character study, and that’s what makes it so special.
4. Portrait of a Lady on Fire: What sets this movie apart from the rest of this list — and why I love it so dearly — is that it forgoes any and all cinematic fanfare to unrepentantly focus on its ideas, revealing a beautiful love story that goes to war with modern filmmaking convention and comes out on top.
5. Booksmart: The reason why Mean Girls has survived for so long isn’t because it was as quotable as Anchorman or as innovative as Borat; it’s because movies about growing up will matter for as long as we have kids, and Booksmart is perfectly positioned to capitalize on that. Make no mistake — this movie was built for a very specific cultural moment, but its stellar performances and insightful writing make it a comedy that’ll last forever.
II. Best of the Rest
6. Parasite: I really wanted to love this movie and I just didn’t. Did I enjoy it? Yeah. Did I Google the shit out of it after I got home to try and wrap my head around it? You bet. Those things made me appreciate it more, but I just didn’t love it the way that so many other people did. I think Parasite is a profoundly impressive piece of filmmaking, but it just didn’t get to me like the other movies on this list did. I hate that. I wish it had.
7. The Irishman: No matter how you feel about CGI or runtime, the ideas and the spectacle of The Irishman will go down in history. It’s one of the most innovative mobster movies ever made, as well as being just really well done from the top down. For a 210-minute movie, it felt like a breeze.
8. Uncut Gems: For the first 5 minutes, I legitimately thought I was in the wrong theater. Then, I was confused. Then I was just scared. There’s really very little messaging in Uncut Gems, but its brilliantly hectic depiction of compulsion and terror is incredible in a way that only the Safdie Brothers can pull off.
9. Knives Out: Here’s my reactionary statement of the day — this is the only movie I’ve ever seen with a flawless screenplay. From overarching plotlines to throwaway lines, Rian Johnson takes painstaking effort in making sure that every detail plays a part in building a heinously complex murder mystery that both honors its predecessors and subverts them in equal measure.
10. Little Women: A lot of movies come and go from the public eye, and a lot of the reason why is because the cultural context for their popularity just went away. Stories like these will never go away because stories about women will never stop mattering, and Gerwig’s take on it is impressive in its own right because it makes the story relevant and exciting in new ways without losing sight of the source.
Best Director
Bong Joon-ho (Parasite): Bong has taken one of the most creative scripts of the decade and flawlessly translated it to the screen, weaving together irreconcilable genres and emotions without losing either the plot or the audience. There will never be another movie like Parasite — and Bong’s presence is why.
Greta Gerwig (Little Women): Because of her screenplay, Gerwig essentially had to direct two movies concurrently — one with a lighter tone and sixth-sense chemistry, and one that’s more stark and emphasizes the passage of time while still keeping true to the characters. The fact that she was able to squeeze as much out of her characters as she did is a feat all in its own.
Josh & Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems)
Sam Mendes (1917)
Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit)
Best Actor
Adam Driver (Marriage Story)
Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems): Every 10 to 15 years, Adam Sandler pops out from his massive fort of money and makes a prestige movie so good that it forces people to respect him. Then, he disappears. See you in 2032.
Christian Bale (Ford v. Ferrari): I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed watching a character as much as I have Bale’s. He basically got to sit in a car and yell at people and himself for 2 and a half hours, and what’s not to love about that?
Joaquin Phoenix (Joker): He was working with a script about as eloquent as a Twitter thread posted at 4 AM, but Phoenix turned in an absolutely fantastic performance that explores the ins and outs of mental illness. It wasn’t the most enjoyable performance ever, but it’s almost impossible to say it wasn’t the best.
Matthew Rhys (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood)
Best Actress
Ana De Armas (Knives Out): Seeing how Ana De Armas turned what was basically a gimmick character into the emotional rock of a chaotic movie was one of my favorite “what the fuck” movie experiences of the year.
Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart)
Lupita Nyong’o (Us)
Saiorse Ronan (Little Women): She has to win the real deal one of these years, I swear to God.
Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story): As someone who knows these kinds of people, ScarJo’s performance was absolutely heartbreaking. Falling out of love and having to push through into the next part of your life is something that’s easy to turn into a cliché on film, but Johansson’s work with Baumbach’s script drags us back to the truth: that it’s all too real.
Best Supporting Actor
Al Pacino (The Irishman): No matter how much fun I (or anyone else) can make of the questionable-at-best de-aging work put into The Irishman, there’s no denying that Pacino is one of the few actors that really sells the effect. In a film littered with mobsters skating by on reputation and riches, Pacino’s Hoffa is the explosive catalyst that keeps the whole film moving. “Back then, there was no one in this country who didn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was,” Robert De Niro says early on in the film. With a performance like Pacino’s, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could’ve forgotten.
Brad Pitt (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood): We use a lot of fancy adjectives and wax poetic about how impressive actors are in their work, but there are few performances that can be described as quite so effortless as Pitt’s. In the same vein as pretty much any character of significance in a Tarantino movie, Cliff Booth is not without complication or charisma, and Pitt pulls off both with the apparent ease of crossing the street.
Joe Pesci (The Irishman)
Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood)
Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse)
Best Supporting Actress
Adèle Haenel (Portrait of a Lady on Fire): I found out a couple of weeks after watching the movie that Haenel’s been nominated for a César (the French Oscars) six times in the past eleven years. This was somehow both incredible yet entirely unsurprising.
Florence Pugh (Little Women)
Diana Lin (The Farewell)
Scarlett Johansson (Jojo Rabbit)
Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit): Here’s something I wrote last month:
As someone whose memory of film stretches from pressing my face across the projector screen to watch Jurassic Park to buying tickets online and drinking ungodly amounts of slushies, I’ve never seen a performance as dominant as Thomasin McKenzie’s in Jojo Rabbit.
I’ve just seen the movie for the third time, and I‘m just as amazed with her performance as I was three months ago — she absolutely carries that movie. I can’t imagine what Jojo Rabbit would be without her performance, nor what the movies she’s in would be without her.
Best Original Screenplay
1917 (Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns): I know that the idea for a one-shot movie is most likely to manifest itself in the screenplay, but the care that went into plotting out every camera movement and character action is un-fucking-believable.
Knives Out (Rian Johnson): See above.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Parasite (Bong Joon-Ho): I can’t get over how incredible this script is. It breaks the language barrier and the culture barrier almost effortlessly while telling a wildly entertaining and thought-provoking story in its own right. Knives Out impressed me — Parasite amazed me.
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
Best Adapted Screenplay
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster): I walked into this movie thinking it was going to be Oscar bait, and walked out completely enamored with how delightfully bizarre it was. From its dioramic framing devices to its hallucinatory setpieces, Fitzerman-Blue’s & Harpster’s screenplay takes the utmost care in turning an Esquire cover feature into a full-fledged adventure without losing the charm or the heart of the source. So many adaptations settle for “very good” when they decide to copy the original’s structure and refurbish the details, but by taking the risks that they did, Fitzerman-Blue & Harpster dare to be great.
The Irishman (Steven Zaillian)
Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)
Little Women (Greta Gerwig)
The Farewell (Lulu Wang): Wang’s script is so stupidly authentic that I spent about half an hour’s worth of the movie cringing not because it was awkward, but because I’d been witness to those situations before and knew exactly how they felt. At a time when anti-Chinese sentiment is rapidly rising, Wang’s screenplay is so important because it shines a thorough and uncritical light on very real cultural struggles that typically only make it to the public eye through the lens of either harsh stereotyping or thick Crazy Rich Asians-style gloss. It’s funny, it’s accurate, and it doesn’t shy away from saying exactly what it means without running it through a thesaurus until it sounds artistic — everything I want out of a movie.
Best Cinematography
1917 (Roger Deakins): It feels like once every couple of years, someone asks Roger Deakins to do something absolutely balls-off ridiculous and he just goes off and does it. Deakins has been working for over 40 years and has been a critical darling for over 25, but it feels like his best work has only just arrived.
Joker (Lawrence Sher)
The Lighthouse (Jarin Blaschke)
Marriage Story (Robbie Ryan): I loved the storybook-style framing and the warm lighting Ryan went for here. It makes the dramatic parts feel that much more ethereal, and the grounded parts that much more so.
Portrait of A Lady on Fire (Claire Mathon)
Best Editing
Ford v. Ferrari (Michael McCusker & Andrew Buckland): Ford v. Ferrari is not without its faults, but McCusker & Buckland put in some serious heavy lifting to lift the movie above and beyond anything that could bog it down. Almost every type of visual media suffers from drag — but Ford v. Ferrari isn’t one of them.
The Irishman (Thelma Schoonmaker): I can’t overstate how goddamn insane it is that Schoonmaker turned in a 3-and-a-half hour long final cut that didn’t drag in the slighest.
Little Women (Nick Houy)
Parasite (Yang Jin-mo)
Uncut Gems (Ronald Bronstein & Benny Safdie)
Best Original Score
Unlike some other years in recent memory — *COUGH* *WHEEZE* 2014 *COLLAPSES ON FLOOR, EYES ROLL BACK INTO HEAD* INTERSTELLAR *MOUTH BEGINS FROTHING* — this was a pretty straightforward year for movie soundtracks.
1917 (Thomas Newman): In a movie where the whole point is that you never stop moving, Newman’s high-wire act of building a score that guides the viewer through the highs and lows of 1917 manages to effectively tell to the viewer how to feel without coming off as patronizing. It’s not the most arduously built score or the most innovative, but Newman pulled off a high order with flourish to spare.
Jojo Rabbit (Michael Giacchino): I feel like I’m obligated to explain this one because it’s both a flex pick and a pick that kicks out John Williams. Let’s start with a snippet from “10 and a half things about Jojo Rabbit”, which I wrote last month:
“Rather than playing around with multiple themes as he’s done in previous work like Rogue One, Giacchino instead focuses on one theme while instead tinkering with instruments and tempo to associate different emotions with one consistent melody. It almost feels like he’s challenged himself — can we establish cues within this arbitrary condition? For a strategy that should come out as grating and repetitive, the result has an oddly beautiful air to it.”
On the topic of Star Wars IX — John Williams is a fan-fucking-tastic composer and his cultural footprint rivals Beethoven’s. In terms of Star Wars, the scores haven’t really broken new ground in years. Whether it’s Williams’s fault for not breaking from the typical Star Wars themes or Disney’s fault for not giving him ground to work with, I don’t know. Either way, the sequel trilogy scores are mostly homogenous, and I don’t feel like being the third of that set is really worth celebrating. You would be totally within your rights to look at it as a Mike Trout/LeBron kind of fallacy where I’m taking John Williams’s greatness for granted; regardless, I’m fine with the Jojo Rabbit pick here.
Joker (Hildur Guðnadóttir): Fuck me, Joker and Chernobyl in the same year? She’s just broken out and her work’s already getting typecast.
Little Women (Alexandre Desplat)
Marriage Story (Randy Newman)
