What
is cinema? Never mind...I'll leave that question to
Martin Scorsese.
Every year in my TV list, I talk about trying to watch less TV. With film, I'm trying to do the opposite. And I did pretty well with that last year, watching a total of 104 new releases, way more than I ever had before. That would be tough to top, but I at least wanted to stay somewhere close, as opposed to the 75 I ended up hitting. Part of that is because this year marked the debut of the Criterion Channel streaming service and I chose to spend more time watching MGM musicals from the 1950s and Akira Kurosawa films instead of whatever new algorithmically generated movie Netflix released onto their system. But another part might be that it was a weaker year overall. It was very top-heavy in 2019, with many masters and soon-to-be masters putting out excellent work, but it just didn't seem to have the overall depth that 2018 did. Even some of those aforementioned masters could barely get their movies shown in theaters.
Okay, maybe Marty was right.
The rules: As long as a film got an official United States release in 2019, it was eligible for placement on this list. This is an important thing to remember, since some of the films that appear in my top 20 premiered at film festivals in 2018, but didn't get released in theaters until this year. And in the case where a film got no theatrical release, then a VOD debut in 2019 will make it eligible.
