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Movies & TV

22nd Dec 2019

The 10 Best Movies of 2019

Rory Cashin

best movies of 2019

In hindsight, it has actually been a pretty stellar year for cinema.

The cinematic year is now fully over.

Your pals at JOE have now seen every single movie released in Irish cinemas in 2019, and we wanted to wait to see if there might be any last minute additions to the top-tier line-up, with the likes of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker and Jumanji: The Next Level and Little Women and (shudder) Cats all getting released in the final days of the year.

There was a lot to ruminate over this year, and a lot of movies that were SOOOOOO close to cracking the top ten (scroll below the video to see our list of highly recommended films that didn’t quite make the cut).

So, without much further ado, here are The Big Reviewski’s 10 Best Movies of 2019. Press play!

And here are ten more highly recommended movies from 2019, but they just didn’t quite make the top ten cut:

Can You Ever Forgive Me? – Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant are magnificent in this hilarious and heartbreaking biopic.

Eighth Grade – Bo Burnham’s searing depiction of the inner workings of a modern teenage girl’s mind is equal parts funny and chew-your-own-face-off cringe.

If Beale Street Could Talk – Powerful, emotional, beautiful love story, dealing with a young couple and how their love is pushed to the brink by racism and wrongful imprisonment.

The Farewell – Awkwafina headlines this brilliant family dramedy, as she and her relations are forced to put on a wedding as a cover to spend some time with their dying grandmother, who isn’t aware that she is dying.

Rocketman – Forget about BohRap, this is how you do a decent musical biopic. Taron Egerton is far more worthy of Oscar attention than Rami Malek was, which is probably exactly why he won’t get it.

Wild Rose – Ireland’s own Jessie Buckley blazes in this attention-grabbing performance as a single mother with big dreams of becoming a country and western singer.

Us – Jordan Peele’s follow-up to Get Out isn’t quite as incendiary, but is filled with iconic imagery, some magnificent scares, and Lupita Nyong’o delivering not one, but TWO of the year’s best performances.

Ford V Ferrari – Matt Damon and Christian Bale star in the ultimate Dad movie, with the director of Logan showing us the true story behind Ford fighting to be taken seriously at Le Mans ’66.

Ad Astra – Brad Pitt goes to space to find his Dad, but maybe he’ll find out more about himself along the way? Admittedly, it all kind of falls apart at the end, but everything up to that point is almost uniformly brilliant.

The Irishman – De Niro. Pesci. Pacino. Scorsese. At times, it feels like a Best Of, a celebratory lap, and if anyone deserves one, it is these guys. It is just TOO DAMNED LONG.

 

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