Here are John Beifuss’ 10 best movies of 2019 (plus a second 10) – Commercial Appeal

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Reader, are you there? I hope so, because it's time once again for thatannual ritual of almost instantregret and months-long second thoughts, the public declaration of my choices for the best films of the year.

Since The Commercial Appeal no longer publishes movie reviews on a regular basis, the selection was particularly tough this year. I had a lot of catching up to do, having failed to see as many movies in theaters as I usually do.

Of course,the concept of "movies in theaters" is not as essentialas it once was. Several of this year's most significant films including a couple that made my list were produced primarily for streaming services, notably Netflix.

Even so, I'm sticking with my longtime methodologyof restricting my choices to newmovies that screened publicly in Memphis for the first time during the past year, withan allowance for older movies that came to a theaterhere when they received their first significant U.S. theatrical distribution.

This traditioneliminates, for example, the much-lauded "Marriage Story," which remained exclusive to Netflix in Memphis;but it enables me to consider the many one-timescreenings of new films hosted by Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts.

This also means that most peoplein Memphis had an opportunityto see themovies on these lists even if most people didn't take that opportunity.

So here they are, my choices until I change my mind for the best films of 2019.

Ray Romano, Al Pacino (Jimmy Hoffa) and Robert De Niro are among the stars of "The Irishman," a Netflix release that screened one night only at the Paradiso.(Photo: Netflix)

1. The Irishman: Russell went to church. Then he went to the prison hospital. And then he went to the graveyard. Change the name and remove the word prison and that summary of a life from Martin Scorseses 209-minute career monument could apply to many, maybe even most of us, even if we never torched a laundry or hijacked sides of beef or punched bullet holes in a gangster named Crazy Joe in a clam bar in New York. The very definition of a late-period masterwork, this reckoning with a quarter-century of American corruption and damnation touches upon historical and fanciful milestones as if they were the stations of an inverted cross; the sacraments are here, too, including unholy parodies of Holy Communion, when gangsters Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci break bread and dip it into wine. Produced for Netflix, the movie screened Dec. 2 at the Paradiso, in an event hosted by Indie Memphis.

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio head an all-star ensemble in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."(Photo: Columbia Pictures)

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Something new in Quentin Tarantinos wish-fulfillment rewrites of history, thisunlike Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, which visited righteous wrath on Nazis and slaversis a preemptive revenge fantasy, enacting savage man-vs.-woman violence upon Manson Family members who have yet to kill anyone (You dont belong here,Leonardo DiCaprios Rick Dalton tells them, just because he doesnt want scruffy hippies in a noisy car in his exclusive neighborhood). And yet, until the ugly climax (mitigated if not exactly redeemed by a poignant coda), this is the writer-directors most tender and transcendent film, filled with yearning for a minutely specific-yet-fairy tale past;brimming with swoon-worthy performances by DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie (she's an angelic Sharon Tate, presentedper Tarantino as a walking, talkingsunbeam);and fashioned from one indelible scene (cowboy actor Dalton meets his 8-year-old co-star), shot (check out Brads suede moccasin boots) and shout-out (Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen) after another, after another, after another ...

Would you buy an iced-out Furby from this man? Adam Sandler in "Uncut Gems."(Photo: A24)

3. Uncut Gems: An essential if nerve-frying experience, Benny and Josh Safdies fourth feature film is both microscopic and macrocosmic in its vision; its as if one Safdie is peering through a jewelers loupe or a colonoscopy camera while the other wields the Hubble telescope, as the writer-directors (in collaboration with writer Ronald Bronstein) place the pathetic scheming of a tornadic New York gem dealer and gambling addict (Adam Sandler) within (a) an intensely specific ethnic and cultural milieu; (b) the web of a world economy fueled by misery and injury, from Ethiopia to Manhattan; and (c) the shock wave of history, from the Big Bang to the dinosaurs to the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals, Celtics vs. Sixers, Game 7, 2012. Dizzying in its overlapping talk-talk-talk, incessant ambient din and translucent set design (glass is everywhere), the movie seems to radiate energy, heat, light and pressure it crushes scenes into diamonds.

4. Honeyland: Short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature (a nomination in both categories would be unprecedented), this eye-opener about a honey-harvesting elderly woman in rural Macedonia is (yes) sweet, but (yes again) it stings, as the beekeepers kindness, gentleness and smart stewardship of her resources prove irrelevant and unpersuasive to her disruptive new neighbors, whose short-term-profit exploitation of the hive becomes a small-scale representation of rapacious, environmentally destructive capitalism. Like many of the best documentary filmmakers, directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov provide intimate access to a place and a way of life that otherwise would be entirely unknown to most viewers; the beekeeper, Hatidze Muratova, may be the years most unforgettable and awe-inspiring hero.

5. Babylon: Unreleased in the U.S. until this year (Indie Memphis screened it in April at the Studio on the Square), director Franco Rossos rediscovered 1980 masterpiece is set among the Black immigrant and working-class communities of London, where sound system disc jockeyschase the freshest buds and beats from Jamaica while police officers and racists literally beat the doors down. The central M.C.is played by Brinsley Forde, leader of the British reggae band, Aswad; his musical presence is just one element of authenticity in a movie that never strikes a false note.

The suspenseful "Parasite" works on many levels (literally).(Photo: Neon)

6.Parasite: A fiendishly original and ingeniously constructed (physically and narratively) comic suspense thriller, South Korean director Bong Joon-hos latest genre/art crossover is a wonder, even if its well-intentionedpolitical message is muddled by its plot mechanics (the outcome, like the economy, is rigged). Song Kang-hostars as the patriarch of a struggling working-class family that insinuates itself, through deception, into a wealthy household seemingly walled-off from the consequences of inequity; the shocking discovery of a desperate and even less visible literal underclass is evidence that water (to use a euphemism) rolls downhill, as Bong demonstrates in the movies most vivid set piece, when a downpour that is picturesque at the level of the mansion becomes a flood by the time it washes into the poor familys vulnerable neighborhood.

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7. Peterloo: Glorious words (calumniated) and painstaking pictures recreate the events leading to the horrendous Peterloo massacre of 1819, in which British soldiers charged into a crowd of thousands that had gathered in Manchester to demand fairer representation in Parliament. Overlooked by audiences and undervalued by most critics, this is another top-tier effort from writer-director Mike Leigh, who presents history as breaking news and as augury: The age of gilded reptiles to borrow a labor agitators characterization of the 19th-century ruling classis with us still.

8. The Souvenir: Set in the 1980s, writer-director Joanna Hoggs quasi-autobiographical coming-of-age remembrance stars Honor Swinton Byrne (daughter of Tilda Swinton, who is in the movie) as an intellectual but naive film school student whose relationship with an urbane but somewhat louche and mysterious Foreign Office staffer (Tom Burke) is a source of inspiration and disillusion. Literary in tone and cinematic in expression, the film is entirely singular: It embraces sincerity and bravery and rejects cynicism, even as it recognizes the appeal of dissolute privilege.

Adle Haenel and Nomie Merlant star in the acclaimed "Portrait of a Lady on Fire."(Photo: Neon)

9. Portrait of a Lady on Fire: A young artist (Nomie Merlant) in 18th-century France travels to an isolated island estate to create a portrait in secret of a reluctant bride (Adle Haenel) in an arranged marriage in writer-director Cline Sciammas formally rigorous yet uncanny drama, which recognizes the hope and futility that accompanythe attempt to capture another persons essence, in love or in art. In a lengthy central section, Sciamma imagines a community minus not just men but hierarchy or authority: Is it a surprise that its almost a Utopia?

10. The Dead Dont Die: Inspired by George A. Romero (whose Living Dead films were social commentaries with real bite) and Mad magazine (complete with the fourth-wall-breaking asides that characterized that satirical publications movie spoofs), writer-director Jim Jarmuschs latest is a beautiful complement to his previous horror-genre gloss, Only Lovers Left Alive: If that 2013 vampire movie was Jarmusch looking into the mirror (the bloodsuckers were stylish hipsters with a fondness for urban decay and Neil Young), the new zombie movie is Jarmusch looking out the window and being distressed by what he sees (the climate crisis, for one thing). This isnt going to end well, drawls Adam Drivers deputy sheriff, who repeats the comedic line until it becomes unfunny until we realize its not a punchline but a prophecy.

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1. "Apollo 11": Produced on a budget of billions (if one includes the cost of the U.S. space program up to 1969), this documentary by director-editor Todd Douglas Miller uses archival footage (including stunning 70mm film never before seen by the public) to present the first mission to the moon from launchto landing to return as both nail-biting adventure and visionary achievement; captured with face-melting proximity, the closeup shots of the propellant blasts of the Saturn V rocket during lift-off represent the year's most astonishing"special effects." Although Miller lets the footage speak for itself, the film which opened March 1 at the Paradiso IMAXand has been playing for months now in a condensed version at the Pink Palace inevitably mourns the passing ofan erawhen U.S. lawmakers valued science and could suspend partisan politics to transform bold imagination into heroic realization.

2. Burning: Adapting a short story by Haruki Murakami, South Koreas Lee Chang-dong delivers what may be cinemas most elliptical serial killer drama, about an unsettled young would-be author (Yoo Ah-in) who finds himself inside a not-quite love story turned could-be mystery that is as vague and uncertain as the novel he tells people he plans to write.

3. Chained for Life: A pretty actress (Jess Weixler) in a low-budget horror movie is paired with an actor recruited for his real-life disfigurement (Adam Pearson, who hasneurofibromatosis) in this tricky balancing act from writer-director Aaron Schimberg. Assured and unexpectedlychipper (thanks largely to Pearsons wry presence), the film works as both an affectionate movie-industry comedy (with references to Franju and Freaks) and as a provocative inquiry into the parameters of onscreen representation.

Eddie Murphy is dynamite in "Dolemite Is My Name."(Photo: Netflix)

4. Dolemite Is My Name: Working from a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski that harks back to the duos Ed Wood, Craig Brewers Netflix-hosted return to feature filmmaking is a spiritual sequel of sorts to Hustle & Flow and a hilarious homage to the Memphis directors own family-and-friends filmmaking roots. Eddie Murphy is ideally cast as real-life adult party record and blaxploitation pioneer Rudy Ray Moore, an ambitious but frustrated man determined to defy the naysayers and express himself through his do-it-yourself art.

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5. Hail, Satan?: Directed by Penny Lane (yes, thats her real name), the years funniest documentary chronicles the media-savvy provocations and occasional humbug devil-worshiprituals of The Satanic Temple, a yokel-baiting, First Amendment-fortifying tax-exempt church that challenges government displays of the Ten Commandments with petitions to erect itsown tributes to the goat-headed demon, Baphomet. Rarely has so-called blasphemy seemed like so much prankish fun.

Djibril Diop Mambtys Senegal-set satire "Hyenas" screened Oct. 6 at Rhodes College, in conjunction with Indie Memphis.(Photo: Metrograph Pictures)

6. Hyenas: Making its overdue Memphis public debut after being restored and made available in the U.S. by Metrograph Pictures, Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambtys 1992 comic masterpiece about an elderly wealthy women whose return to her hometown plunges an African village into chaos is blisteringly definitein its targets (the legacy of colonialism as consumerism, especially) but universalin its consideration of human existence as both tragedy and farce (the movie is adapted from a Swedish play). Another of the years best movies, Atlantics, a political supernatural drama that screened during the Indie Memphis Film Festival, was directed by Mambtys niece, Mati Diop.

Sisters are doing it for themselves: Emma Watson (from left), Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen are "Little Women."(Photo: Columbia Pictures)

7. Little Women: Apparently undaunted by the challenge of crafting the sixth screen version of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel since movies began to talk, Greta Gerwig delivers a workthat is at once light and sturdy, charming and strong, classicand timely; under the writer-director's assured supervision, theensemble cast the title sisters are Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen and complex fractured chronology never become confusing. Characters this warm and admirable haven't been seen onscreen since last year's Mr. Rogers documentary;when "Marmee" (Laura Dern) tells her daughters "Be good to each other," you may find yourself resolving to do just that.

Say it with flowers (if by "it" you mean human sacrifice): Florence Pugh stars in "Midsommar."(Photo: A24)

8. "Midsommar: A daylight horror movie motivated by heroine Florence Pughs inconsolable anguish and the mansplaining and passive-aggressive gaslighting of her dubious boyfriend, writer-director Ari Asters flower-draped folk-horror followup to Hereditary was not everybodys cup of tea. I loved it.

9.Transit: In updating its sourcefrom World War IIto a mysteriously Fascist-occupied present-day Paris, German director Christian Petzold transformsAnna Segher's 1942 novelinto both a Philip K. Dick-esque "alternate history" thriller and aKafkaesque neo-"Casablanca." Either way, it's an on-point commentary onthe fragility of Western-style freedom.

Lupita Nyong'o heads the cast of Jordan Peele's horror movie, "Us."(Photo: Universal Pictures)

10. Us: Writer-director Jordan Peeles followup to the epochal Get Out is as messy and overstuffed as its predecessor was direct and elegant. Still, its a nonstop kick, bristling with milestone achievements (Lupita Nyongos fierce dual performance); potent jokes and scares; and Peele'sconfidence that the terrorism of American racism can be clarifyingly refracted through the prism of Twilight Zone-esque horror-fantasy even if Peeles key inspiration this time wasnt Rod Serling but Pogo Possum, who said: We have met the enemy and he is us. (Us equals U.S., you know.)

Also worth seeing: "Amazing Grace," "Avengers: Endgame," "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," "Best Before Death," "Booksmart," "Border," "Brightburn," "Child's Play," "Clemency," "Climax," "Crawl,""Dragged Across Concrete," "The Farewell," "Ford v Ferrari," "Frankie," "Harriet," "Her Smell," "The Hottest August," "In Fabric," "Jojo Rabbit," "Knives Out," "The Lighthouse," "Little Joe," "Ma," "Memphis '69," "Midnight in Paris," "Missing Link," "Monos," "The Nightingale," "Pain and Glory," "Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins,""Richard Jewell," "Roll Red Roll," "Ruben Brandt, Collector," "Shazam!," "Shoplifters," "Synonyms," "Toy Story 4," "Varda by Agns," and many more.

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Here are John Beifuss' 10 best movies of 2019 (plus a second 10) - Commercial Appeal

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero