Movie critic details the best and worst of the year in film
Photo Credit: Jonny Cournoyer
Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox
Alan Markfield
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
Photo Credit: Alex Bailey
Sanja Bucko
Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
Atsushi Nishijima
By Michael Clark
Movie Critic
It’s time now for my annual year-end list of movie industry highlights and lowlights. Some choices are obvious; some others, hopefully, are not. Thanks for reading and have yourself a great 2019.
Top 10 films:
1. “The Favourite”
2. “Annihilation”
3. “You Were Never Really Here”
4. “Deadpool 2”
5. “Alpha”
6. “A Star is Born”
7. “Chappaquiddick”
8. “A Quiet Place”
9. “Green Book”
10. “American Animals”
Best lead actor: Joaquin Phoenix, “You Were Never Really Here”
Best lead actress: Emma Stone, “The Favourite”
Best supporting actor: Nicholas Hoult, “The Favourite”
Best supporting actress: Rachel Weisz, “The Favourite”
Best ensemble cast: “The Favourite”
Best director: Yargos Lanthimos for “The Favourite”
Best animated film: “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse”
Best cinematography: Robbie Ryan for “The Favourite”
Best documentary: “RBG”
Best first feature film by a director: Bradley Cooper for “A Star is Born”
Best foreign language film: “Cold War” (Poland)
Best original score: Jonny Greenwood for “You Were Never Really Here”
Best original song: “Shallow” from “A Star is Born”
Best screenplay: Deborah David and Tony McNamara for “The Favourite”
Best set and costume design: Alice Felton and Sandy Powell for “The Favourite”
Breakthrough performance: Thomasin McKenzie in “Leave No Trace”
The remainder:
A lot of bark and very little bite: “Avengers: Infinity War”
According to the movie industry, mid-February isn’t winter, it’s early summer: “Black Panther”
Animated movie you’ll like but your children will probably hate: “Isle of Dogs”
Bad AND depressing: “On Chesil Beach”
Bad attempt at comically portraying family/urban dysfunction: “Instant Family”
Bad situation actually getting better: studios cramming in last minute screenings of Oscar-hopeful titles all at once at year’s end for awards consideration, referred to by some as “Dumptember”
Best 3D: “Alpha”
Best awards telecast: the Golden Globes
Best badass: Joaquin Phoenix in “You Were Never Really Here”
Best biography: “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Freddie Mercury)
Best Blu-ray/4K overhaul: “2001: A Space Odyssey”
Best buddy/road flick: “Green Book”
Best nonfiction caper/heist flick: “American Animals”
Best fiction caper/heist flick: “Widows”
Best chase scenes: “Widows”
Best comeback: Glenn Close in “The Wife”
Best comedy: “Deadpool 2”
Best date comedy: “Crazy Rich Asians”
Best date drama: “A Star is Born”
Best dying trend (continuing, ad infinitum): 3D
Best editing: Joe Bini for “You Were Never Really Here”
Best animated family film: “Incredibles 2”
Best live action family film: “Hearts Beat Loud”
Best father figure: John Krasinski in “A Quiet Place”
Best final scene: “A Quiet Place”
Best girls’ night out: “Ocean’s 8”
Best guilty pleasure: “A Simple Favor”
Best horror flick: “A Quiet Place”
Best human versus nature movie: “Alpha”
Best independent studios: A24 and Annapurna
Best made-for-cable movie/miniseries: “Paterno”
Best mix of reality and fantasy: “Welcome to Marwen”
Best Steven Soderbergh imitation: Gary Ross with “Ocean’s 8”
Best movie (almost) no one saw: “American Animals”
Best movie about female empowerment: “Widows”
Best movie about teen angst/internet addiction: “Eighth Grade”
Best movie based on real events: “The Favourite”
Best movie for dog lovers (although not initially): “Isle of Dogs”
Best movie with religious overtones: “First Reformed”
Best original concept: “A Quiet Place”
Best performance by a minor: Thomasin McKenzie in “Leave No Trace”
Best performance by a non-human: The horses playing the title character in “Lean on Pete”
Best female performance in an only so-so movie: Emily Blunt in “Mary Poppins Returns”
Best male performance in an only so-so movie: Charlie Plummer in “Lean on Pete”
Best period piece: “The Favourite”
Best political satire: “Death of Stalin”
Best Quentin Tarantino imitation: Drew Goddard for “Bad Times at the El Royale”
Best recreation of historical events (and without political bias): “Chappaquiddick”
Best remake: “A Star is Born”
Best revenge flick: “You Were Never Really Here”
Best return-on-investment theatrical: “Halloween” ($10 million budget versus $253 million-plus global box office)
Best female scenery chewing: Rachel Weisz in “The Favourite”
Best male scenery chewing: Bradley Cooper in “A Star is Born”
Best sci-fi flick: “Annihilation”
Best sequels: “Deadpool 2” and “Incredibles 2”
Best shaggy dog (or, in this case, wolf) story: “Alpha”
Best soundtrack (original): “A Star is Born”
Best soundtrack (redone): “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Best special effects: “Annihilation”
Best sports movie (purely by default): “The Miracle Season”
Best tragedy: “A Star is Born”
Best trend: tons of high quality documentaries
Best use of classic rock songs: “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Best use of profanity (modern): “Deadpool 2”
Best use of profanity (historical): “The Favourite”
Best use of silence: “A Quiet Place”
Best venue for private rental and press screenings (as always): Cinevision
Best villain (female): Rachel Weisz in “The Favourite”
Best villain (male): Daniel Kaluuya in “Widows”
Best war flick: “Journey’s End”
Better than it should have been: “Deadpool 2”
Better never than late: “Mary Poppins Returns”
Biggest box office surprise: “A Quiet Place”
Biggest flop: “A Wrinkle in Time”
Bravest nude scene: Chloe Sevigny in “Lizzie”
Classiest exit (?): Robert Redford in “The Old Man & the Gun”
Clunkiest title: “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool”
Creepiest: Domhnall Gleeson in “Little Stranger”
Game changer: “Black Panther”
Great backswing, horrible follow-through: “Damsel”
Highest profile scandal: the Bill Cosby trial
Hollywood is really concerned about: rottentomatoes.com
Hollywood no longer cares about: imdb.com
Likely to break the record for most Oscar nominations in a single year: Bradley Cooper
Looks great, less filling: “Aquaman”
Miserable idle rich Europeans at their most depressing: “Happy End”
M.V.P. (female): Nicole Kidman (“Boy Erased,” “Destroyer,” “Aquaman”)
M.V.P. (male): Joaquin Phoenix (“You Were Never Really Here,” “Mary Magdalene,” “The Sisters Brothers,” “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot”)
Most astute (and largely negative) view of the future: “Ready Player One”
Most astute (and largely negative) view of the present: “Eighth Grade”
Most blatant cash-grab: the sanitized, PG-13 re-release of “Deadpool 2” (“Once Upon a Deadpool”)
Most botched retelling of history: “Operation Finale”
Most downbeat family film: “Christopher Robin”
Most erotic: “Disobedience”
Most fantastical real name: Zazie Beetz
Most likely to be elected to public office in the not-so-distant future: Dean Cain
Most needed new Oscar category (still and forever): Best Ensemble Cast
Most overrated film: “First Man”
Most politically misguided (and inept) documentary: “The King”
Most unhinged: Robert “Punchy” de Niro
Most unneeded remake: “Papillion”
Most underrated film: “You Were Never Really Here”
Mostly fiction posing as fact: “BlacKkKlansman”
My career as an entertainer is over so I’ll just become an uniformed political activist: Alyssa Milano
No, it’s NOT a standalone movie (and it wasn’t very good and it tanked): “Solo: A Star Wars Story”
Not afraid to look her age: Blythe Danner in “What They Had”
Not afraid to look his age: “Robert Redford” in “The Old Man & the Gun”
Not for cat lovers: “Isle of Dogs”
Odd couple: Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Oddest mix of comedy and horror: “Sorry to Bother You”
Proof positive it’s better to hire a singer who can act instead of the other way around: Lady Gaga in “A Star is Born”
Proof positive Mark Wahlberg should fire his agent: “Mile 22” and “Instant Family”
Proof positive Saoirse Ronan should fire her agent: “On Chesil Beach” and “Mary, Queen of Scots”
Pure overkill: “Aquaman”
R.I.P.: Harry Anderson, Marty Balin, Bernardo Bertolucci, Steven Bochco, Philip Bosco, Frank Buxton, Roy Clark, Dennis Edwards, R. Lee Ermey, Nanette Fabray, Milos Foreman, Aretha Franklin, John Gavin, William Goldman, Rick Hall, Barbara Harris, Tab Hunter, Ricky Jay, Mickey Jones, Margot Kidder, Ed King, Christopher Lawford, Stan Lee, Sondra Locke, John Mahoney, Dorothy Malone, Penny Marshall, Peter Masterson, Dolores O’Riordan, Jean Porter, Burt Reynolds, Douglas Rain, Nicolas Roeg, Connie Sawyer, Neil Simon, David Ogden Stiers, Jerry Van Dyke, Clint Walker, Nancy Wilson
Rainmaker, yet again (this is getting boring): Disney Studios
Separated at birth (female): Chelsea Handler and Elizabeth Banks
Separated at birth (male): Jim Ocasta and George Clooney
Showing up in two 2018 movies (one good, one great) as herself: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Something’s Fishy: TWO Clint Eastwood movies (“The 15:17 to Paris,” “The Mule”) released in the same year without advance press screenings.
Sounds like bad news but it’s actually not: the choice of many studios not to press screen what are mostly bad films released in January, February and August
The hardest working man in show-business: Dwayne Johnson
The new go-to industry bad boy: Joe Alwyn in “The Favourite,” “Boy Erased” and “Mary, Queen of Scots”
There’s a reason it came out in August: “The Spy Who Dumped Me”
There’s a reason it came out in January: “Forever My Girl”
Very good and very few cared: “Alpha”
Watch me self-destruct by doing something incredibly stupid and kill my career in the process: Roseanne Barr
Welcomed and unexpected surprise: Philip Glass and Wayne Shorter receiving Kennedy Center Honors
Winner of the third annual Cindy Stoltz Award for Outstanding Service by a Movie PR Agent: three-way tie (in alphabetical order) — Laura McLeod, Andrew Mixon and Brittany Westveer
Worst adaptation of a (semi) classic piece of literature: “Robin Hood”
Worst girl’s night out: “Book Club”
Worst movie based on true events: “White Boy Rick”
Worst movie of the year: “Instant Family”
Worst movie to turn perceived modern-day political incorrectness into a period western: “Damsel”
Worst movie featuring a mostly senior citizen cast: “Book Club”
Worst movie with religious overtones: “God Bless the Broken Road”
Worst ongoing trend: guys making embarrassing-to-watch, amateurish video movie reviews in their mom’s basements while wearing sunglasses and posting them on their own barely visited websites
Worst remake: “Robin Hood”
Worst sequel: “Fahrenheit 11/9”
Finally, to my great friend Carolyn Sloss and her stupendous staff at Allied Integrated Marketing: With your invaluable assistance in the scheduling/organizing/juggling of pre-vote, year-end screenings and mailings, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle, in just its sophomore year, has become a nationally recognized critics association, and I wish to extend to you my heartfelt applause for your collective and extraordinary efforts. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you. — MC
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