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My 2019 Movie Diary, Finally

It’s the weekend so I’m sneaking in an incredibly tardy housekeeping post here: a full wrap-up of my movie watching from 2019. Like my monthly roundups, I’ve been doing this for the past several years as a way of assessing what I’ve seen—usually not five months after the year has wrapped, but better late than never.

The way it works is: every time I watch a movie, I log it in my Letterboxd film diary. Then, at the beginning of each month (more or less), I post a recap of what I watched the previous month. After the year is over, I put all of the roundups together in a single post, along with a top ten list.

Currently, in May of 2020, I’m in the middle of my fifth year of doing this, which is nuts. In my first year, 2016, I watched a total of 189 movies. In 2017, I watched 191 movies. In 2018 I watched 201. And last year, I watched 219. (You can see Letterboxd’s automatically generated overview of my year here.)

Top Ten

One of the benefits of posting this so late in the following year is that I had the time to actually watch more of the previous year’s films than I normally do. As a result this list of my favorites looks slightly different now than it would have looked back in January, say. Reassessing the year now I realize that only the first five or so feel absolutely essential to me. The rest are worthwhile for sure, but I’m less passionate about them than I was about the lower spots on previous years’ lists. This actually seems like a fairly accurate reflection of the fact that most of 2019, at least leading up to the traditional, late-year awards season, was a terrible time for movies.

See my full ranking here.

  1. Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood” (2019) ★★★★
    A more expansive, complete idea of what a movie can be than anything else released in 2019.
  2. Knives Out” (2019) ★★★★
    I almost don’t even care about the political morality tale at its heart because every beat feels like pure entertainment.
  3. Uncut Gems” (2019) ★★★★
    Breathlessly alive like few other movies in recent memory.
  4. “1917” (2019) ★★★★
    Largely a technical accomplishment but I really did feel something when I watched it.
  5. “The Wedding Guest” (2019) ★★★★
    Your mileage may vary on this one but it’s the sort of brainy, anti-thriller that I find irresistible, plus it’s a showcase for its two incredible vibrant South Asian leads.
  6. High Flying Bird” (2019) ★★★★
    Puts huge demands on the viewer to keep up.
  7. The Souvenir” (2019) ★★★★
    Fully believable descent into the the helplessness of loving someone bent on self-destruction.
  8. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” (2019) ★★★★
    An amazing performance from Tom Hanks and an incredibly judicious narrative exploration of what it takes to be good.
  9. Parasite” (2019) ★★★½
    I really was blown away by this movie but I just couldn’t work up any passion for the final act and how it undermined everything that preceded it.
  10. Marriage Story” (2019) ★★★½
    Too well-directed and emotionally honest to be denied, even if it’s irritatingly fixated on privileged living.

January 2019

  1. Solo: A Star Wars Story” (2018) ★½
    When are we all going to admit that we’ve dragged this “Star Wars” thing out way too long now?
  2. If Beale Street Could Talk” (2018) ★★★★½
    A beautiful and brutal achievement.
  3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (2001) ★★½
    It’s hard to believe how dated this looks already.
  4. Free Solo” (2018) ★★★
    A monument to stupidity.
  5. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (2002) ★★
    Chris Columbus was the wrong director to kick off this franchise.
  6. Roma” (2018) ★★★★½
    Intimacy on a huge scale.
  7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004) ★★★
    Wait, maybe this is going to be fun after all?
  8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005) ★½
    I guess not.
  9. The LEGO Ninjago Movie” (2017) ★★★
    Confirmed: I’ll watch anything that Phil Lord and Chris Miller are involved in.
  10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (2007) ★★
    I have no idea what even happened in this one.
  11. Shirkers” (2018) ★★½
    I try not to watch documentaries. This is why.
  12. Die Hard” (1988) ★★★★
    A stone cold classic.
  13. The LEGO Movie” (2014) ★★★
    Still good, but not really all that magical on rewatch.
  14. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (2009) ★★½
    Something important happened in this movie, I’m sure.
  15. How to Train Your Dragon 2” (2014) ★★★
    Apparently our current decade’s films are obsessed with the idea of mother figures being banished to purgatory.
  16. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” (2010) ★★½
    What this franchise needed but never got was a creative team more interested in making good movies than in adapting the books.

February 2019

  1. The Oath” (2018) ★★★★
    Terrific and hilarious, even if it goes off the rails a bit.
  2. Peter Rabbit” (2018) ★★½
    Exceeded my very low expectations—by a little.
  3. Mission: Impossible–Fallout” (2018) ★★★★½
    Rewatchable AF.
  4. Christine” (2016) ★★★★
    Never loses its nerve. Superb.
  5. Man from Reno” (2015) ★★★★
    Excellent, but it’s hard to believe this movie exists. Who would finance an American movie with so few white people?!
  6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” (2011) ★★½
    I made it all the way through to the end.
  7. Upgrade” (2018) ★½
    More of an update to the idea of a schlocky exploitation flick.
  8. Y Tu Mamá También” (2001) ★★★
    Inspired.
  9. Call Me by Your Name” (2017) ★★
    Preposterous and boring.
  10. For Your Eyes Only” (1981) ★
    Man this was painful to sit through.
  11. Lady Snowblood” (1973) ★★★½
    Still strikingly beautiful, but felt even more substantial than the first time I watched it.
  12. A Simple Favor” (2018) ★★
    A bit of a shambles, but it all could’ve worked with a better director than Paul Feig.
  13. Spellbound” (1945) ★★★
    What “The Net” was to the Internet, this movie was to psychoanalysis.
  14. Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997) ★★
    I feel bad for Pierce Brosnan; he tried so hard, but the producers never gave him anything to work with.
  15. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” (2019) ★★½
    Totally fine!
  16. Hail, Caesar!” (2016) ★★★½
    You know the term “inside baseball”? This is “inside Hollywood,” but, like, old. I mean, I enjoyed every minute of it. Rewatched.
  17. Okko’s Inn” (2018) ★★
    Little more than an excuse for gorgeous hand-drawn animation.
  18. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” (2019) ★★★½
    It got me in the end, I must admit.
  19. Notorious” (1946) ★★★★★
    One of those rare films where everything went exactly right.

March 2019

  1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) ★★★★
    Utter genius.
  2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (2009) ★★★
    Seriously, sign me up for anything Lord and Miller work on.
  3. Leave No Trace” (2018) ★★★★½
    Incredible. Makes other indie movies look like parodies of themselves.
  4. Life of Brian” (1979) ★★★
    Genius sometimes suffers from its own ambition.
  5. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature” (2017) ★
    The title says it all.
  6. Captain Marvel” (2019) ★★
    Sloppy and uninspiring in every way.
  7. Home” (2015) ★★½
    Rewatched. Terrible title for an adorable tale.
  8. Dilili in Paris” (2018) ★½
    Not my style.
  9. Burn After Reading” (2008) ★★★★
    Superb genre exercise in a genre—bureaucratic black comedy—that no one really thought existed.
  10. Strangers on a Train” (1951) ★★★★
    Basically just Hitchcock indulging his less perverse perversions.
  11. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley” (2019) ★★
    Documentaries are so frustrating.
  12. Triple Frontier” (2019) ★★★
    Slightly better than your average manly movie.
  13. The Revenant” (2015) ★★★
    I kind of hated it except it’s so good.
  14. A View to a Kill” (1985) ★
    The pits.
  15. The Sisters Brothers” (2018) ★★½
    Never manages to feel bigger than its meager budget.
  16. The Muppets” (2011) ★★½
    Rewatched. It’s not without its charms, but it’s not really The Muppets, either.
  17. The Savages” (2007) ★★★½
    Pretty decent for a story most people wouldn’t want to watch.
  18. The Handmaiden” (2016) ★★★★★
    Like watching a master origamist folding a beautiful, complex sculpture.

April 2019

  1. The Square” (2017) ★★★½
    A fascinating mess.
  2. The Muppet Movie” (1979) ★★★★
    A real gem, but…
  3. The Great Muppet Caper” (1981) ★★★★½
    …For my money, this is the best Muppet movie.
  4. So Dark the Night” (1946) ★½
    Beautifully photographed but empty-headed.
  5. Muppets Most Wanted” (2014) ★★
    Actually has the right kind of energy, but runs too long on too few original ideas.
  6. Youth of the Beast” (1963) ★★★½
    Violent, angst-driven, stylized yakuza fairy tale.
  7. High Flying Bird” (2019) ★★★★
    Feels stridently out of step with Hollywood in the best way.
  8. Solaris” (1972) ★★★
    Fully engrossing, very, very serious sci-fi classic that’s also unintentionally absurd, if truth be told.
  9. Last Hurrah for Chivalry” (1979) ★★½
    An early work from director John Woo that’s as over-the-top and homoerotic as you’d expect.
  10. Suede: The Insatiable Ones” (2018) ★★★
    More than decent rockumentary.
  11. Interstellar” (2014) ★★★★
    Really flawed, but also really thrilling.
  12. Shazam!” (2019) ★★½
    Captain Meh-vel.
  13. Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017) ★★½
    Probably the best super-hero movie of the Marvel age of cinema.
  14. Solaris” (2002) ★★★½
    Re-watched this after seeing the original, and I was surprised by how well it compares.
  15. The Wife” (2017) ★★
    Terrible. Truly terrible.
  16. Avengers: Infinity War” (2018) ★★½
    Re-watched it, didn’t like it any better the first time around.
  17. Avengers: Endgame” (2019) ★★½
    A triumph of lowered expectations on a mass scale. That means I thought it was crap. Read my review.

May 2019

  1. John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City” (2018) ★★★½
    Genius comic brain in a Young Spalding Gray body.
  2. My Name Is Julia Ross” (1945) ★★½
    Proto-gaslighting.
  3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (2018) ★★★★
    Rewatched, eagerly.
  4. The Lineup” (1958) ★★★★
    Vicious little noir B-movie
  5. Unsane” (2018) ★★★½
    Soderbergh working it out.
  6. Drive a Crooked Road” (1954) ★★★★
    Formulaic even for noir, but executed with extraordinarily care.
  7. The Matrix” (1999) ★★★½
    I used to think I’d never get tired of rewatching this, but that’s no longer true, turns out.
  8. The World’s End” (2013) ★★½
    Rewatched. Edgar Wright just can’t get out of his own way.
  9. Spy Kids” (2001) ★½
    Oof.
  10. The Grinch” (2018) ★★½
    Rewatched. Quite sweet and pretty well done.
  11. Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. A sustained series of miracles captured on camera.
  12. John Wick: Chapter 3–Parabellum” (2019) ★★
    Too much.
  13. Girlfriends” (1978) ★★★½
    A lovely time capsule of singlehood in pre-Giuliani New York.
  14. Kaleidoscope” (1966) ★★
    I watched this on TV as a kid! It seemed better then.
  15. Being There” (1979) ★★★★
    Sadly prescient.
  16. Ronin” (1998) ★★★★
    Rewatched. Holds up very well.
  17. Starman” (1984) ★★
    What if E.T. were handsome? And boring.
  18. All the President’s Men” (1976) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. I could listen to just the sound effects endlessly.
  19. Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance” (1974) ★★
    Kind of pointless.
  20. Three Outlaw Samurai” (1964) ★★★½
    If you like samurai films, you’ll like this.
  21. Pokémon Detective Pikachu” (2019) ★★
    The name says it all.
  22. Ant-Man” (2015) ★★★
    Rewatched. The best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  23. Stuart Little” (1999) ★
    Bizarre.
  24. Entertainment” (2015) ★★★
    Horrific.
  25. The Lives of Others” (2006) ★★★
    Rewatched. Labored but effective.

June 2019

  1. Always Be My Maybe” (2019) ★★★½
    Keanu’s cameo got the most attention, and it’s not even the best part!
  2. The Sting” (1973) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. An almost perfect little fairy tale of the confidence game.
  3. The Kentucky Fried Movie” (1977) ★★
    Teeming with ideas, not all of them great.
  4. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” (2007) ★★★
    Rewatched. It nails the rock biopic genre, but doesn’t do much more than that.
  5. Bumblebee” (2018) ★★½
    A good Transformers movie is still only as good as a Transformers movie.
  6. Network” (1976) ★★★
    Rewatched. Prescient but really only resonant for an age without YouTube.
  7. Booksmart” (2019) ★★
    I’ve already said enough.
  8. The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (2019) ★★★★
    One of the most beautiful things ever to come out of that city.
  9. Benji” (2018) ★½
    These people think kids will watch anything.
  10. Heat” (1995) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. Action cinema as romantic poetry.
  11. Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance” (1972) ★★★
    Genre fluff.
  12. Miami Vice” (2006) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. After I finished it I immediately wanted to watch it again.

July 2019

  1. Under the Silver Lake” (2018) ★★½
    A lot of promise for too little payoff.
  2. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot” (2018) ★★
    Gus Van Sant seems bored.
  3. Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019) ★½
    Spectacularly uninteresting.
  4. Miami Vice” (2006) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. I know people think this looks like a cheesy adaptation of a cheesy TV show, but this movie is genius.
  5. Phoenix” (2014) ★★★½
    Pretty ridiculous if a bit implausible World War II fairy tale, with an amazing ending.
  6. Amazon Women on the Moon” (1987) ★½
    Baby boomers break bad.
  7. The Big Doll House” (1971) ★★
    Exploitation perfected, but I don’t need to see it again.
  8. Public Enemies” (2009) ★★★
    A noble experiment, but it doesn’t hold up on rewatch.
  9. Kill!” (1968) ★★
    passable samurai fable.
  10. The Kid Who Would Be King” (2019) ★½
    Hard to believe this guy made “Attack the Block.”
  11. Jules and Jim” (1962) ★★★
    Great and all I guess, but good advice for Truffaut would’ve been “Show, don’t tell.”
  12. The Gay Divorcee” (1934) ★★★★
    Fred and Ginger dancing to “Night and Day” with the moonlit beach in the background is so beautiful I nearly cried.
  13. Ratatouille” (2007) ★★★½
    Rewatched. If only Brad Bird didn’t hate critics so much, this would’ve been perfect.
  14. Miami Vice” (2006) ★★★★½
    Rewatched again, third time in a month!
  15. The Equalizer 2” (2018) ★★
    Kind of amazing this movie ever got made. Because it really didn’t need to be.
  16. A Vigilante” (2018) ★½
    Conspicuously tasteful, woke filmmaking at its absolute worst.
  17. Murder on the Orient Express” (1974) ★★★½
    Classy AF.
  18. Top Hat” (1935) ★★★
    I totally get why people fell for Rogers and Astaire.
  19. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (2005) ★★★★
    Rewatched. “May contain nuts”!
  20. Collateral” (2004) ★★★★
    Rewatched. Didn’t expect this to hold up, but it really does.
  21. Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood” (2019) ★★★★
    Let me know if you’re free to go see this.

August 2019

  1. Iron Man” (2008) ★★
    Rewatched. Clear from the beginning: the real auteur in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the studio.
  2. Deadwood: The Movie” (2019) ★★★½
    Everyone wanted a reunion, so they got a reunion.
  3. Inglourious Basterds” (2009) ★★★★
    Tarantino at his least sophisticated, but still remarkable.
  4. Django Unchained” (2012) ★★★½
    Rewatched. A brilliant ride.
  5. Burning” (2018) ★★★★
    Exemplar of the post-Modern mystery.
  6. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (2019) ★★★★
    Rewatched. This is what moviegoing should be all the time.
  7. The Hateful Eight” (2015) ★★★½
    Rewatched. How to stage a play for the cinema.
  8. sex, lies, and videotape” (1989) ★★★½
    Rewatched. Like a blueprint for independent cinema, and yet still so much less interesting than what Soderbergh would go on to do.
  9. The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1976) ★
    Intolerably boring.
  10. Wolf Children” (2012) ★★★★
    Anime that’s not overly impressed with its own wonder.
  11. Pulp Fiction” (1994) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. Still a goddamn masterpiece.
  12. Funeral in Berlin” (1966) ★★★★
    A delightfully stylish working-class spy thriller.
  13. The Spy Who Dumped Me” (2018) ★
    Completely incompetent.
  14. Airplane!” (1980) ★★★½
    Rewatched. Still laughing.
  15. Mary and the Witch’s Flower” (2017) ★★½
    Fine.
  16. Jackie Brown” (1997) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. No one got a better showcase than Pam Grier did, and she made the most of it.
  17. The Lady Vanishes” (1938) ★★
    What a great title. What a boring movie.
  18. Reservoir Dogs” (1992) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. Remains undimmed.
  19. Death Proof” (2007) ★★★½

September 2019

  1. Police Story” (1985) ★★½
    It’s hard to resist Jackie Chan, but this one is way too sloppy for my taste.
  2. Ralph Breaks the Internet” (2018) ★★★½
    Could be a pretty decent trilogy in the making.
  3. High Life” (2018) ★½
    The production values of a 70s sci-fi TV show, the brains of an insufferable art student video.
  4. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” (2005) ★★★½
    Off the wall bonkers from Park Chan-wook.
  5. Kill Bill: Vol. 1” (2003) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. The thrills remain but the characters somehow work even better now.
  6. Stalag 17” (1953) ★★★½
    A prisoner of war movie as a cozy blanket.
  7. Widows” (2018) ★★★★
    Rewatched. A masterpiece hiding in plain sight.
  8. The Awful Truth” (1937) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. Just confirming that this movie deserves its spot on my top five all time best list.
  9. Battle of Britain” (1969) ★★
    Sounds like homework, and pretty much is.
  10. The Circus” (1928) ★★★★
    Chaplin at his most effervescent.
  11. Kill Bill: Vol. 2” (2004) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. This is the movie that convinced me Tarantino is a genius.
  12. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971) ★★
    Why people are sentimental about this movie, I have no idea..
  13. Between Two Ferns: The Movie” (2019) ★★
    You can’t make a conventional movie out of an unconventional show.
  14. Grand Illusion” (1937) ★★★★
    A prison break tale with unexpected humanity.
  15. American Psycho” (2000) ★★★★
    Rewatched. A black hole of humanity.
  16. Un Flic” (1972) ★★★
    Painstakingly made but tests the limit of macho posturing.

October 2019

  1. The Five Venoms” (1978) ★★
    Everybody really was Kung fu fighting.
  2. Robin Hood” (2018) ★½
    A bold reimagining of the classic folk tale as a terrible action movie made for idiots.
  3. Transit” (2018) ★★★
    Fantastic execution of a plot that doesn’t always bear scrutiny.
  4. Inside Out” (2015) ★★★★
    Rewatched. I got emotional.
  5. Wonder Woman” (2017) ★★★½
    Rewatched. A so-so movie elevated by two very charming leads.
  6. Joker” (2019) ★★★½
    A funny thing happened on the way to the box office.
  7. L’Eclisse” (1962) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. Emptiness was never so beautiful.
  8. Ad Astra” (2019) ★★★
    For a movie about the vastness of space, it’s surprisingly narrow.
  9. Columbus” (2017) ★★★★
    A wonderful meditation on the spiritual power of Modernist architecture. Recommended.
  10. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” (2019) ★★★½
    Inessential except as an excuse to enjoy Vince Gilligan’s ingenious storytelling chops.
  11. Anna” (2019) ★
    Hard to believe, but this movie about a supermodel assassin is not very good.
  12. The Laundromat” (2019) ★★★★
    I’ll take this over “The Big Short” any day.
  13. Toy Story 2” (1999) ★★★
    Rewatched. They should’ve stopped here.
  14. I Knew Her Well” (1965) ★★★★
    Neo-realist gem that both celebrates and skewers post-War Italy.
  15. Young Sherlock Holmes” (1985) ★½
    Rewatched. They made this in the Eighties and it stank then too.
  16. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” (1988) ★★½
    Rewatched. This one is special to me but it’s less zany than I remembered.

November 2019

  1. The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear” (1991) ★★★
    Rewatched. Not too bad actually.
  2. Shadow” (2018) ★★½
    Exquisitely made martial arts epic that’s devoid of feeling as to the point of grotesqueness.
  3. The Bourne Identity” (2002) ★★★★
    Rewatched. Never gets old.
  4. Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult” (1994) ★★★
    Rewatched. Surprisingly maybe the best one?
  5. The Irishman” (2019) ★★★
    Very distracting.
  6. The Hate U Give” (2018) ★★★
    Comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.
  7. Parasite” (2019) ★★★½
    So, so close to being perfect.
  8. Dolemite Is My Name” (2019) ★★★½
    Eddie Murphy pure charm elevates a by-the-numbers biopic.
  9. The Addams Family” (2019) ★
    Frighteningly boring.
  10. Mother” (2009) ★★★★
    So emotionally true it’s harrowing.
  11. The Killing” (1956) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. My favorite Kubrick work; a definitive text for every heist movie that followed.
  12. Ford v Ferrari” (2018) ★★★
    Perfectly fine but it’s easy to imagine what it could’ve been in the hands of a more distinctive directorial talent than James Mangold.
  13. Do the Right Thing” (1989) ★★★★½
    Rewatched. Electrifyingly urgent, even thirty years later.
  14. Suspiria” (2018) ★½
    Shallow ideas dressed up with high class pretensions.
  15. Chris Claremont’s X-Men” (2018) ★★
    A look back to when comics grew up, before the rest of the world noticed.
  16. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” (1969) ★★
    Rich people problems from the Sixties.

December 2019

  1. Okja” (2017) ★★½
    Very respectable until the English-speaking actors start acting.
  2. The Wolf’s Call” (2019) ★★★½
    A French “Hunt for Red October” and a solid dad movie.
  3. Rounders” (1998) ★★★★
    Rewatched. I didn’t realize how good this script was.
  4. Thirst” (2009) ★★
    There hasn’t been a truly decent vampire movie in decades.
  5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016) ★★★
    Rewatched. The only worthwhile installment since, well, “The Empire Strikes Back.”
  6. Harakiri” (1962) ★★★★★
    Starkly rendered, beautifully told samurai fable.
  7. He Ran All the Way” (1951) ★★½
    One of those noirs in which the characters are all dumb as a rock.
  8. Tokyo Story” (1953) ★★★★
    Searingly human tale of grown children and aging parents.
  9. Samurai Rebellion” (1967) ★★★★
    Anatomy of a moral tragedy.
  10. Knives Out” (2019) ★★★★
    One hundred percent pure entertainment.
  11. Marriage Story” (2019) ★★★½
    Impeccably directed but distractingly preoccupied with lives of privilege.
  12. Uncut Gems” (2019) ★★★★
    More successfully distortive than most fantasy movies, and also happens to finally solve the question of what to do with the Adam Sandler persona.
  13. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) ★
    Intergalactic garbage.
  14. Klaus” (2019) ★★★
    Insofar as holiday specials go, not half bad.
  15. Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx” (1972) ★★
    Episodic, not in a particularly beneficial way.
  16. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” (1993) ★★½
    Decent ideas, substandard animation.
  17. The Wedding Guest” (2018) ★★★★
    An off kilter thriller set in South Asia. Not for everyone, but I adored it.
  18. A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) ★★★★½
    Rewatched with my kid for the first time. She was enchanted.
  19. Frozen II” (2019) ★★
    All of Disney’s number crunching and strategy decks pretty much worked this time.
  20. The Souvenir” (2019) ★★★★
    Absolutely nails its milieu.
  21. The Art of Self-Defense” (2019) ★★★
    In the proud tradition of indie absurdity.
  22. Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) ★★★
    A bit self-serious, but I enjoyed it.
  23. Abominable” (2019) ★½
    Aside from its transparent pitch for the Chinese market, this is a movie utterly lacking any specific qualities.
  24. School of Rock” (2004) ★★★★★
    Rewatched. A masterpiece.

If you want to keep up with what I watch this year, just follow me on letterboxd.com.

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