THE TOP 5
1. Avengers: Endgame (review)
“Not a minute is wasted, not a scene feels superfluous, and anytime you can offer up a half-dozen genuinely gut-wrenching scenes alongside riffs on everything from Axe body spray to Cheez Whiz, you’ve created something truly special.”
2. Free Solo (review)
“Free Solo is a marvelous documentation of perhaps the most stunning athletic achievement in history—certainly, at least, the most death-defying. Just be prepared to feel as though your own life hangs in the balance, too, with every step Honnold takes.”
3. Toy Story 4 (review)
“Directed by first-timer (and former Pixar storyboard artist) Josh Cooley, the film is as heart-warming, tear-jerking, hilarious, and ultimately brilliant as anything PIxar has done before, surpassing even Toy Story 3 in its ability to wrench genuine emotions from the most surprising of places.”
4. Cold War (review)
“Pawlikowski has created a sublime masterpiece of dark and twisted fantasy, an ode to love and devotion that will break your heart as much as it makes you appreciate what two hours in a movie theater can provide. Cold War is easily one of the best of the year.”
5. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (review)
“Stahelski, however, is the real star of the show, proving that he has quite the artistic eye, from his visually stunning settings to his seemingly innate ability to take typical jiu-jitsu-heavy fights and turn them into something almost balletic in nature. (The beauty and grace of ballet, in fact, is featured brilliantly in a scene that juxtaposes Wick’s ultra-violence.)”
THE REST
6. Booksmart
7. If Beale Street Could Talk
8. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
9. Rocketman
10. Captain Marvel
11. Yesterday
12. Late Night
13. Hotel Mumbai
14. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
15. Long Shot
16. Shazam
17. Fighting with My Family
18. Happy Death Day 2U
19. The Lego Movie 2
20. Stan and Ollie
21. Destroyer
22. The Secret Life of Pets 2
23. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
24. Missing Link
25. Triple Frontier
26. Isn’t It Romantic
27. Cold Pursuit
28. The Upside
29. Wine Country
30. Wonder Park
31. Five Feet Apart
32. Glass
33. On the Basis of Sex
34. Escape Room
35. Men in Black: International
36. Murder Mystery
37. The Sun is Also a Star
38. The Dirt
39. Aladdin (2019)
40. The Hustle
41. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
42. The Silence
THE BOTTOM 5
43. The Highwaymen (review)
“The ultimate blah-ness of the movie is no surprise, really, given that the man in the director’s chair was John Lee Hancock—whose previous efforts, including The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks, and The Founder, succeeded despite him and not because of him.”
44. Alita: Battle Angel (review)
“Rodriguez, Cameron, and the gang offer nothing satisfying for you to look back on as you walk out of the theater. The only thing that is satisfying is that you do, in fact, get to walk out of the theater and put all of this behind you.”
45. Captive State (review)
“Despite what sounds like a rather simple premise, Wyatt (who also wrote the screenplay) does everything he can to make Captive State a muddled, esoteric mess. It’s not only literally muddled—set in a gray, rainy, colorless world and often at night—it seems to go out of its way to make everything as confusing as possible.”
46. Dumbo (2019) (review)
“At one point in Dumbo—Disney’s ill-advised live-action remake of its own 1941 classic—a potential circus investor turns to a colleague and exclaims, “Wow, what a disaster!” As tempting as it is to end this review right there, I’ll soldier on.
47. Serenity (review)
“We have the runaway contender for worst movie of the year. Truly, it will take a calamitous motion picture event to knock Serenity from its perch, and that’s not likely since the majority of the movie’s failure lies with the obscenely squandered cast.”