Dark Waters 2019
Chris hasn't seen it yet, but flags the shrugging 'solid job' reception it's getting as the same muted response workmanlike adult dramas got in the 90s.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five · Roundtable
The Top Five Movies of the Year | The Big Picture
December 6, 2019/ 62 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Chris Ryan · Adam Nayman
The 2019 year-end lists. Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins bring in Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman for four top fives, revealed five to one, then honorable mentions, plus one dishonorable one for Brian De Palma's Domino.
27 films across 6 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Was 2019 a good year at the movies?a rough first nine months, saved by festival season
The Pelican Brief 1993
Chris's comparison for that kind of polite, unexcited praise.
Adam Nayman's top five
No. 1
The Irishman 2019
His No. 1. A late Scorsese film about aging, contemplation, and death, handled outside the usual gangster-movie register. He saw it alone at TIFF's Bell Lightbox with a rapt under-40 crowd for all three and a half hours.
No. 2
Parasite 2019
His No. 2 (also Sean's). Says nobody shoots a scene better than Bong right now, incapable of a boring shot, and contrasts it with Us, which he calls 'so fussy.'
No. 3
Uncut Gems 2019
His No. 3. On the Safdies' compulsive, hustling energy, and how Sandler has to meet them halfway rather than the movie bending around him.
No. 4
Transit 2018
His No. 4. A period story shot with zero period signifiers, in present-day Marseille. Calls Christian Petzold his director of the decade and has rewatched it three or four times.
No. 5
High Life 2018
His No. 5. Robert Pattinson and Andre 3000 in a prison-colony-in-space movie he admires above all as pure images: bodies falling off the ship, Pattinson with his daughter.
Amanda Dobbins's top five
No. 1
Parasite 2019
Her No. 1. An 'instant classic' that already fed into the culture (the Jessica jingle meme) while staying morally contemporary: nobody in it is a flat villain.
No. 2
Marriage Story 2019
Her No. 2, her sentimental pick in a bleak Oscar season. Ends on warmth rather than hope, and she calls Baumbach's movies 'comfort food.'
No. 3
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2019
Her No. 3. A love letter to Hollywood and an alternate history that wants the best for people who didn't get it in real life: 'lived in and companionable' despite the length.
No. 4
The Souvenir 2019
Her No. 4, and the only one of the four with it on their list. Joanna Hogg's autobiographical story of a young film student in a bad relationship, anchored by Honor Swinton Byrne and Tom Burke.
No. 5
American Factory 2019
Her No. 5. A documentary about a shuttered GM plant in Dayton reopened by the Chinese company Fuyao, which she calls the likely front-runner for the documentary Oscar.
Chris Ryan's top five
No. 1
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2019
His No. 1 (tied with Sean). About characters merging themselves with history, the same trick Frank Sheeran pulls in The Irishman. He thinks this one gets recycled and lives on.
No. 2
The Irishman 2019
His No. 2. Sees it as continuous with The Wolf of Wall Street and Silence, all part of 'this late period of Scorsese,' and praises how the first two-thirds set up a devastating final hour.
No. 3
Marriage Story 2019
His No. 3. An interview accidentally unlocked it for him as a legal thriller about people getting carved up by institutions, though he still rates the performances and craft on their own terms.
No. 4
The Laundromat 2019
His No. 4. Soderbergh's Panama Papers movie (essayistic, fourth-wall-breaking, with Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas), which he thinks is criminally overlooked next to Netflix's higher-profile awards plays.
No. 5
The Standoff at Sparrow Creek 2019
His No. 5, and the pick he had to Google to recall. Henry Dunham's directorial debut, a taut noir whodunit about a militia trying to find the killer in its own ranks.
Sean Fennessey's top five
No. 1
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2019
His No. 1 too. Along with Parasite, the movie he thinks will have a decades-long shelf life, coming up every time people talk about Tarantino, Pitt, or DiCaprio.
No. 2
Parasite 2019
His No. 2. Praises its rewatchability and calls it a rare case of a 'true master working at the height of his powers' that's also just plain enjoyable.
No. 3
The Irishman 2019
His No. 3. A movie about time catching up with you, and the ways you disappoint people while believing you're protecting them. Already watched it twice.
No. 4
Uncut Gems 2019
His No. 4 (also Adam's No. 3). The Safdies' Diamond District thriller with Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner, plus Kevin Garnett, The Weeknd, and Idina Menzel.
No. 5
Marriage Story 2019
His No. 5. Noah Baumbach's most widely celebrated film, anchored by what Sean calls his favorite performance of the year: Adam Driver's.
Honorable mentions plus one dishonorable one
Picked by Adam Nayman
Domino 2019
His dishonorable mention. Brian De Palma's little-seen thriller, a movie only De Palma could've made, even if it's 'not necessarily very good.'
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Triple Frontier 2019
Offered half as a joke: a Netflix movie about 'hot dads in vests' she watched with Chris and Sean, featuring Oscar Isaac in a helicopter listening to Metallica.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Midsommar 2019
Made him 'feel like shit,' which he means as praise for how disturbing and slow-building it is.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Mickey and the BearDonnybrookKnives OutLittle WomenHeaven Knows WhatPunch-Drunk LoveWild TalesThe Ballad of Buster ScruggsHigh Flying BirdUsRoma
Baumbach and Scorsese touchstones The Squid and the WhaleKramer vs. KramerThe Wolf of Wall StreetSilenceTaxi DriverRaging BullThe Last Temptation of ChristGoodfellasThe Departed
Petzold and Tarantino comps CasablancaPhoenixBarbaraJackie BrownPulp FictionForrest Gump
Other name-checks MankDark PhoenixDe Palma
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
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