In our mid-year report, the TimeOut Entertainment team reviews the best Movies so far in 2019 - does your favourite make our list?
1: CAPTAIN MARVEL
Marvel's strongest hero? Check. Marvel's first female-led feature? Check. A 90s setting with accompanying 90s soundtrack? Double check. Captain Marvel flew into the MCU
with insane power and a good amount of sass, bringing with her a tale of the power of women - even when men try to rein them in for their own benefit. There's also a beautiful story about female friendship, and a tonne of action-packed space-capades, plus a ginger cat named Goose. This was the female superhero film comic fans had been waiting for.
- Siena Yates
2: JOHN WICK 3: PARABELLUM
In an action cinema landscape defined by virtuous, primary colour-clad superheroes, it sometimes feels like Hollywood forgot about the old school action movie. Then another John Wick movie comes along. Clearly made by old school action fans, this black-clad hitman-versus-everybody franchise expands in scope and popularity with every entry. The brutal third film continued that tradition, adding Halle Berry, Anjelica Houston and gender non-binary actor Asia Kate Dillon to the mix. It also benefitted from being released at a time when everyone was remembering how much they loved Keanu Reeves, even when he's stabbing people in the head.
- Dominic Corry
3: US
It's not often that a director's follow-up movie is better than his debut, especially when that debut was the mega-hit Get Out. But that's exactly what Jordan Peel pulled off with Us. Peel confidently delivered a multi-layered film that is both a horrific thrill-ride and a Nietzschean-sized self-stare. With a riot of rich imagery highlighted by a jaw-dropping performance by Lupita Nyong'o, this film simmers in delicious ambiguities and volatile spooks, and garnishes the brew with a piercing social critique. A spell-binding horror, Us made me gaze into the abyss ... and it freaked me out.
- Toby Woollaston
4: DESTROYER
Directed like a gut-punch by woman-power maestro Karyn Kusama, Destroyer flew quietly under the radar during awards season. Shame, because this nihilistic slow-burn deserved a lot better. What begins as standard police procedural becomes a primal cry of motherhood as the story investigates how crime has stained a mother's relationship with her daughter. Kusama knows how to tell a hard-boiled story to lens-cracking effect and with Destroyer she also hung enough of the film's driving force on Nicole Kidman's nail-hard central performance. The result? A Kidman masterclass at the hands of a woman-centric director in complete control of her craft.
-Toby Woollaston
5: UNDER THE SILVER LAKE
Writer/director David Robert Mitchell's eagerly anticipated follow-up to his widely-acclaimed 2014 horror It Follows has been dividing audiences since it premiered at Cannes in 2018. I bloody loved it. Andrew Garfield plays a hipster douchebag who follows an ill-defined mystery down several rabbit holes in contemporary Los Angeles. If you are prepared to go with the movie's Lynch-Meets-Linklater groove, you'll have a great time.
- Dominic Corry
6: LONG SHOT
Long Shot's unfortunate flaming out at the box office had nothing to do with its quality. Although it came out a week after Avengers: Endgame, the superhero blockbuster was still dominating the planet and it simply steamrolled Long Shot. Which is a bummer, because the politically charged film excelled at putting a very 2019 spin on a tired and almost-obsolete genre: the romantic comedy. Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron proved a winning romantic pairing, playing, respectively, a muck-raking journalist and his former babysitter, now the US Secretary of State. A rare case of a studio comedy that saved some of its best jokes for the movie instead of spoiling them all in the trailer.
- Dominic Corry
7: IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Barry Jenkins is one of the most significant directors working today and if his Oscar-winning effort Moonlight wasn't proof, then If Beale Street Could Talk certainly is. This film unapologetically meets America's racist past head-on, weaving into its fabric a mesmerising love story that is so heartfelt it would melt the polar caps. Jenkins brings black activist James Baldwin's novel into vivid focus with a softly-trod diatribe (if there is such a thing) tempered by James Laxton's breathtaking cinematography. It's a symphony for the emotions and the senses. Achingly beautiful and woozily sensual, If Beale Street Could Talk is essential viewing.
- Toby Woollaston
8: EIGHTH GRADE
Eighth Grade made a genius casting call that should be the norm: casting an actual eighth grader as an eighth grader. Via Elsie Fisher's incredible performance, Eighth Grade illustrates 13-year-old Kayla's last week of intermediate with almost excruciating truthfulness. You're instantly transported back to the absolute insanity of that age, where you're trying to figure out who the hell you are while also trying to appear as cool and normal as possible. In Kayla's world, that's only made harder by the added pressure of social media. Her journey is hilariously uncomfortable, awfully sad, but ultimately uplifting – just try not to break during her conversation with her dad by the fire.
- George Fenwick
9: AVENGERS: ENDGAME
Endings are difficult (see: Game of Thrones), and even though there will be many, many (many!) more Marvel movies to come, this movie felt like an ending, the culmination of a 22-film story. And emotionally, it lived up to that, effectively exploiting the huge reserves of character goodwill built up over the first 12 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By emphasising character over visual spectacle (although there was plenty of that, too) Avengers: Endgame stands as conclusive proof - if any was still needed - that superhero movies can be just as heart-wrenching as any of the other more "respectable" genres.
- Dominic Corry
10: THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING
Perhaps the surprise of the year, this modern-day adaptation of the well-trampled Arthurian tale was a victim of some poorly aimed marketing. A blockbuster this good should've been a runaway hit. It wasn't. But rightfully it spawned quite a bit of critical favour, thanks to writer/director Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) who wonderfully conducted an ensemble cast (including Louis Ashbourne Serkis — yes, Gollum's offspring) into an orchestration of hilarity and adventure. It's a movie for all ages and with writing this good, some top-notch effects and a cast of kids who give it their all, it was impossible to resist the film's magical charm.
- Toby Woollaston
Ebony Lamb performs Successful Feelings. Made with funding from NZ On Air. Video / Locals Only