Hey everyone. Unlike last year, I didn’t attend any film festivals, so I didn’t get a chance to see quite as many movies this year. Still, saw some great ones!

Lots of films and TV shows with a strong “rich people suck” theme this year, which I love to see although some of you might consider it socialist propaganda. I feel like Chris Cooper in Little Women was the only rich person in a 2019 film who wasn’t a total dick.

I’ll link here the annual box office and give my usual exhortation – everyone, please go see a few movies next year that weren’t made by the Walt Disney Corporation. You can give them your money too – I saw all the Marvel films this year and I’ll probably get around to seeing the new Star Wars. But everyone who is not Disney needs your support, because we’re heading for a future where the Mouse completely owns the multiplex and everything else just gets dropped unceremoniously on streaming.

1. Midsommar. It’s strange, I didn’t walk out of the theater thinking Midsommar would be my best loved movie of the year. I thought it was a well-constructed horror film but short of greatness. However, after several months of thinking about it at odd times, I watched it a second time and am now convinced it’s a stone cold classic with a lot to say about our need for community in our lives to help us through hard times. Also the bear gets me every time.
2. Parasite. Lots of 2019 movies commented on economic equality but none so incisively as Parasite. It’s funny, it’s thrilling, it’ll keep you on the edge of your seat and then get you fired up to vote in the next election.
3. Knives Out. I know it’s irritating when people brag that they were “into X before it was cool” but I just want to say I’ve been hyping Rian Johnson since Brick came out in 2005. Like Parasite, Knives Out manages to sneak in some clever observations on class in with the fun parts. It’s the best murder “whodunnit” of all time.
4. Booksmart. Hilarious teen comedy, perhaps my favorite since Ten Things I Hate About You. The box office on this one was really disappointing – don’t people like funny movies anymore?
5. Little Women. Adaptation is difficult – how do you create a new take on a book that’s been adapted several times in the past, while still remaining faithful to the spirit of the original? Apparently the answer is to hand the project to Greta Gerwig.
6. The Farewell. Like Midsommar, an interesting contrast between the isolating nature of American individualism and the community/family first ethos of other cultures.
7. A Hidden Life. It’s a three hour Terrence Malick film so I wouldn’t recommend it to non-cinephiles, but Malick’s dreamy scenery and long takes of people farming puts me in a perfect state of zen that holds steady even when the movie shifts to Nazi prisons.
8. JoJo Rabbit. Definitely the least critically acclaimed film on my list. Critics found it tonally inconsistent and schmaltzy. I thought it was hilarious and moving. It lacks subtlety but makes up for it in punch.
9. Under the Silver Lake. Another one with polarized reviews, no one seemed sure to what extent the movie sides with its asshole of a protagonist. I thought it was an intelligent satire of disaffected young men who spend too much time looking for messages encoded in the world. A Foucault’s Pendulum for the modern era.
10. High Flying Bird. Steven Soderbergh always makes movies look great even when he’s shooting on an iPhone, but what I really want to highlight is the Sorkin-esque screenplay from Moonlight author Tarrell Alvin McCraney. This bird really flew under the radar (the Netflix release never helps).

I also enjoyed, in rough order: Ruben Brandt Collector, The Lighthouse, Wild Rose, Uncut Gems, The Irishman, Hustlers, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Pain and Glory, Us, Alita: Battle Angel, Cold Pursuit, Avengers Endgame, Driven, El Camino, Ad Astra, Greta, The Nightingale, Fast Color, Velvet Buzzsaw, The Souvenir, Ford vs Ferrari, Diane, Triple Frontier, and the Deadwood movie.

Best Action of the Year: Bad year for action movies. I liked Alita: Battle Angel, Cold Pursuit and John Wick 3, but I have to give the nod to the last ten minutes of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Best Rom-Com of the Year: Some passable entries with Long Shot and Always be my Maybe, but this genre continues to sadly fade away. For example, look at all the movies on this list that aren’t actually rom-coms!

Still want to see: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 1917, Ash is Purest White, Her Smell, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Toy Story 4, Shadow, Atlantics, Synonyms, Honeyland, Transit, The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

Several of the shows I liked most this year could definitely be described as a “tough watch”. When you’ve had a long day of work and are ready to kick back, eat dinner, and escape into TV for a couple hours, it’s hard to be confronted with shows that mirror real-life horrors back to us. This year we had depictions of depressing true stories – from nuclear disaster, to unjust imprisonment, to the cruel systemic treatment of the victim of a serial rapist. Even fictional comedies grapple with depression, substance abuse, and the cynical politics of our era. I get why a lot of people don’t want to engage with these shows.

The epitome of this in movies is 12 Years a Slave, which is a meticulous, perfect gem of a film that I believe should be shown in every high school in America – but personally I NEVER WANT TO WATCH IT AGAIN. In the realm of 2019 TV shows I would point to the miniseries When They See Us, which crafts an astoundingly deep, empathetic portrayal of the Central Park Five but watching it never stops feeling like doing push-ups or eating kale – something you do to better yourself as a person but not really “recreation”.

I’m not trying to criticize When They See Us, which is excellent, but more explain why I tend to have outsized respect for shows that confront real-life tragedy in a way that actually makes me want to mash that “Play Next Episode” button and not go hide under a blanket.

As Mary Poppins once said, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine goes down”. The best show creators know how to balance tragic subject matter with more entertaining ingredients – whether it’s the dark humor of Chernobyl or the police procedural elements of Unbelievable. Speaking of which…

1. Unbelievable (Netflix). A few years ago, I was riveted by a Pulitzer Prize winning article that depicted the cruel treatment of a rape victim in my own backyard. (If you haven’t read it – go read it now!). Now comes the amazing miniseries – the first episode is a tough, depressing watch as we see the aftermath of a Seattle-area rape and how the police utterly failed the victim and went on to re-victimize her all over again. But the second episode introduces the Colorado detectives that actually did catch the rapist and the show transforms into a gripping forensics procedural. I may be suffering from recency bias because I just finished watching it but it feels like the best show of 2019 to me.
2. Veep (HBO). One of the greatest comedies of all time went out with a bang this year. No other show on television better speaks to the venality and stupidity of our political system. It’s very difficult to mock current events in 2019 in a way that feels completely fresh and original but this stellar cast and team of writers managed it while landing their best season ever.
3. Succession (HBO). What Veep is to politicians, Succession is to billionaires. The show matured in its second season into a juicy soap opera of corporate intrigue that never let us forget the many ways that these people exploit and hurt everyone around them, including the poor bastards unlucky enough to have to work for them.
4. Bojack Horseman (Netflix). I hate to be predictable but this show has been in my top ten for six years now and will probably be there next year too (the final eight episodes drop in January). This year felt a bit incomplete without a real season finale but it makes the list for the “surprise wedding” episode alone.
5. Counterpart (Starz). Cheating a little bit because most of the final season aired in 2018 but a few eps snuck over into this year. A thoroughly entertaining little sci-fi espionage thriller with an exceptional cast and intricate plotting. RIP.
6. Fleabag (BBC/Amazon). TV critics have named it the best show of 2019 and it’s hard to disagree. Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.
7. Chernobyl (HBO). As I mentioned in the intro, it feels a bit like homework. But in just five episodes, Chernobyl incisively dissects the technical and societal forces that made the disaster possible, in a way that manages to be quite gripping.
8. Russian Doll (Netflix). Honestly I just like watching Natasha Lyonne fall down stairs.
9. The Good Place (NBC). More like The Good Show, am i right? I’m sick of writing these blurbs.
10. You’re the Worst (FXX). The greatest love story of our time draws to a close in a happy ending that never feels untrue to the fundamentally unhappy characters.

I also quite enjoyed: Undone, Tuca and Bertie, The Deuce, Barry, Watchmen, Killing Eve, When They See Us, Silicon Valley, Catch-22, Documentary Now, Brockmire, Game of Thrones, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rick and Morty, Disenchantment, Dead to Me, Mindhunter, Star Trek Discovery, True Detective, Ramy, Los Espookys, Dollface.

Cancelled before their time: Pour one out for Counterpart and Tuca and Bertie. That’s a short list considering all the “final seasons” listed above but most either ended on the creator’s terms (e.g. Fleabag) or had a pretty long run before the network pulled the plug (e.g. Bojack).

The book was better: Catch-22, The Name of the Rose, The Passage, Good Omens, The Boys, The Rook, NOS4A2, His Dark Materials. Adaptation is hard.

Still on the list to watch: GLOW, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mr. Robot, Lodge 49, Big Little Lies, Stranger Things, Better Things, Pose, Years and Years, The Politician, The Good Fight, PEN15, The Other Two, Schitt’s Creek, and most importantly the fifteen-years-later revival of one of my all time favorites, Veronica Mars. Also there’s some show about a baby Yoda that people keep telling me about.