2019 may very well be the year we saw the worst that mass-marketed cinema has to offer, with a vomitous deluge of awful, awful superhero movies (Avengers: Endgame, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Captain Marvel), pointless live action remakes (Aladdin, The Lion King) and several beloved franchises butchered to death by cancer-grade directors (Terminator: Dark Fate, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). Fortunately, despite Disney’s increasing efforts to reduce movies into the same bland flavor, a handful of amazing movies managed to bubble to the surface this year. These are movies that broke new ground within their respective genres, whether through original storytelling, cinematography, or choreography, and in doing so, kept movies relevant as meaningful experience in an ocean of meaningless Disney-fied nonsense. So without further ado, here are what I consider to be the best movies of 2019.

The Mule

It may very well be the almost-90-year-old Clint Eastwood’s last on-screen role, but The Mule will rank as one of his most thought provoking movies to date. A crime drama that portrays the power of human decency to shine strong against over-ambition and greed, The Mule, much like Eastwood’s other genre-defying classics like Unforgiven and Gran Torino, takes a hard look at what it means to have a meaningful life. Is it to enrich oneself and seek the approval of others, or is it to enrich those you love and be of service to them? Protagonist Earl Stone finds out much too late that he’s spent his life wanting to be loved by people he can only have fun with while neglecting those who genuinely want to love him, and the journey to that realization, coupled with Eastwood’s masterful directing, make this one of the most nuanced and thought provoking movies of the year. Read my full review.

Hotel Mumbai

Hotel Mumbai is an extremely rare case of a movie that kept my heart pounding  for much of its running time. An Australian production that recreates the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, the movie has an uncommonly unflinching take on the monstrous brutality that was inflicted on the inhabitants of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. It also portrays the utter incompetence of the local government to deal with the threat, leaving the hotel staff to stand between the guests and the terrorists. Thanks to fantastic performances from the entire cast and no-nonsense cinematography, Hotel Mumbai boasts the rare feat of immersing you in the emotional journey of its characters. Adding to the authenticity is the fact that the phone conversations between the terrorists and their handler, The Bull, are taken from the actual transcripts of the real-life versions. Easily the best thriller of 2019. Read my full review.

Midsommar (Director’s Cut)

Director Ari Astrid’s feature-length directorial debut, Hereditary, was without question the best horror movie of 2018. His follow-up, Midsommar, is unsurprisingly the best horror movie of 2019 thanks to its highly unconventional take on the genre. Taking place almost entirely in daytime, the movie relies less on the conventional visual motifs that drive the horror genre and instead relies on its characters’ motivations and thought processes to conjure that feeling of unease that any good horror movie should aspire to. There are no supernatural elements or otherworldly creatures, yet thanks to the unusual setting, a Swedish village in a region with exceptional long days, and the villagers’ bizarre customs, it’s easy to assume that some evil magic presence is at play. Yet the true horror of Midsommar is the darkness within the characters, the same kind of darkness that resides in many of us, that drives them to betray one another. It’s the intersection of these deep character flaws with the unsettling Utopian setting that makes Midsommar an excellent companion to Hereditary, and by extension, a worthy addition to what is hopefully a new generation of horror movies. The Director’s Cut, which runs about 3 hours, is vastly superior to the theatrical version.

John Wick 3: Parabellum 

The newest addition to the John Wick series has condemned all action movies that follow it to having an outrageously high bar to reach. This movie has just about everything you could ask for in an action film: gunfights, knife fights, sword fights, book fights (?) fistfights, chases with motorcycles, chases with horses, dogs taking down baddies, and guys getting thrown through glass walls. With two previous movies having established an alternate version of New York City, in which every person on the street is seemingly a part of or aware of a secret society of assassins, John Wick 3 is relentless in showing its central protagonist defending himself from, well, the whole goddamn city. Some of the scenes in which characters complain that Wick has come to them for help, followed by him showing them some valuable trinket to change their mind, grow tiresome. Once the carnage resumes, however, John Wick 3 is far and away the most well choreographed action movie since the last John Wick movie. Whether Wick is stabbing some poor sap in the eye or evading motorcycle thugs on a horse, the camera lingers back, never resorting to idiotic shakey-cam, allowing you to scrutinize the meticulous stuntwork and Keanu Reeve’s weapon mastery in all their glory. In particular, the battle scene in which he, Halle Berry and a pair dogs work in tandem to take down an army of mercenaries is so extraordinary it seems almost physically impossible to film something so complex with minimal camera cuts. The million dollar question is how the hell they plan to top all of that in the sequel.

Ad Astra

Forget Interstellar; Ad Astra is the true heir to the space movie throne previously occupied by 2001: A Space Odyssey. With some of the most visually arresting sequences of the decade and a story that subverts expectations in a way that Rian Johnson could only dream of doing, Ad Astra truly captures the extreme isolation of space, with no friends, no family, and no extraterrestrials to call on. Where other space movies focus on the notion of discovery and humanity advancing to new scientific and philosophical frontiers, Ad Astra shows how the colonization of space only leads to more of the same. Nowhere is this better illustrated than the stunning moon rover chase, in which McBride’s party comes under attack from pirate forces while traversing a lawless sector of the moon. It seems ridiculous at first; dudes in astronaut suits in a rover chase on the damn moon, but Ad Astra is constantly hammering home the point that once humans get over the novelty of interstellar travel and living on other planets, they will simply revert to their typical bad habits. McBride’s father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, recognizes this and goes through extraordinary lengths to seek alien life, hoping that such a game-changing discovery would allow humanity to break out of this cycle, but Ad Astra is ultimately a story about looking at ourselves for the answers, rather than the stars. Ironically, it’s this message that will alienate many audiences who are expecting the same kinds of answers McBride’s dad is.