Bin, a small-time crook, embracing with naiveté “Jianghu”, the seemingly anachronistic moral code of the Chinese mob, is catapulted to the gang’s leadership by the sudden death of the clan’s leader. Text Carmen Gray . South Korean director Bong Joon-ho created the year’s most idiosyncratic take on economic inequality with his darkly humorous and utterly bonkers Parasite. Because she can’t buy male clothing, her husband starts wearing female cardigans which further amplifies the uneasiness between the two. We have listed our worst films of the year, our favorite arthouse flicks, and some festival favorites, too. The house holds more secrets than they anticipate, and when the Parks return home early from a camping trip amid torrential rain the fallout from the deception wildly escalates. Franz, as a member of the Catholic Church, seeks spiritual support from the local priest who refers him to his superior. A beautiful father daughter love story about loneliness and identity. Although the film is a visual feast, the performance of an eerie Van Gogh-looking Dafoe couldn’t get any more nuanced and the period costumes and design are rigorously authentic. Very few locations appear in the film which sustains a sense of persecution and psychological claustrophobia. Ten of the Best Arthouse Films of 2018. This is the partially 3D film everyone’s been jabbering about since Cannes. Published Nov. 24, 2019 Updated Nov. 18, 2020; ... Best of 2020 › The Best Movies of the Year. That will prove to be very difficult due to his difficult temper and mental troubles. Gothic, bold, and romantic, French director Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire updates the historical territory of gowns, portrait sittings and strategic marriages with the feminist and queer sensibility we know from her earlier films such as Tomboy (2011). No flamboyant superlative is excessive, undeserved or suspect when used to describe the absolutely sensational film of Colombian directors Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra! By Kayti Burt , Mike Cecchini , David Crow , Don Kaye , John Saavedra | December 30, 2019 … The Best Movies of 2019. The destructive forces of addiction and codependency are portrayed with unflinching, devastating power in Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, set in 1980s London. Uncut Gems continues that streak. The Best Films of 2019, According to the Independent Film Community We asked a range of influencers in the independent film world to share their … This French arthouse film premiered at Cannes in 2015 and made headlines for featuring unsimulated sex scenes in—of all things—3D. Also, most of the chosen films did extremely well in Cannes’s Film Festival most recent edition. In our January 2020 issue we spotlight some of the themes and stories that have defined the cinema of 2019 – from post-#MeToo movies to the fortunes of the European arthouse, as well as expanded cinema and a countdown of the best TV of the year. He awakes in an empty apartment, his belongings stolen, and passes out naked and freezing in a bathtub. The 50 Best Overlooked Indie Movies of All-Time agoodmovietowatch is a new and quickly developing platform suggesting little-known but acclaimed movies – … Essential viewing for those wanting to explore the arthouse genre. 1,579 250 80s Movies … With 2019 over, we give you our whole editorial staff's picks for the best movies of the year! This has a truly brilliant finale. When the Bishop simply tells Franz that “he has a duty to his country”, the protagonist moves to the next stage of his resistance to the Nazi regime – obstinate silence. Ash Is The Purest White – Jia Zhang Ke. All these reactions sustain a vivid existential threat. Juliette Binoche is on fine form as a doctor experimenting with artificial insemination on a crew of convicts serving death sentences who have been sent on a mission to a black hole to endeavour to extract alternate energy. In our January 2020 issue we spotlight some of the themes and stories that have defined the cinema of 2019 – from post-#MeToo movies to the fortunes of the European arthouse, as well as expanded cinema and a countdown of the best TV of the year. The Endless Trench – Jon Garaño & Aitor Arregi y Josemari Goenaga. Auditions are approaching to replace a disgraced member of the national ballet who was expelled after being caught sleeping with another man on tour. We came into it knowing we’d be getting new films from filmmaking heavyweights like Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and Greta Gerwig (Little Women), and their efforts did not fail to live up to the hype.The year was also filled with its share of surprises from names both … Julie, a somewhat naive film school student from an affluent background (Honor Swinton Byrne) enters a relationship with an older man, Anthony (Tom Burke), a heroin user whose habit he coerces her into funding. Initially, Bin’s guts and physical dexterity succeeds in fending off a bunch of attackers for quite some time, in what is the most dynamic and spectacular scene of the film. This is a crumbling world of painterly shadows as magnificent as any Caravaggio painting, full of grief and muttered regrets, in which poverty is borne with a sadness as deep as it is dignified. You arrived too late. (Peter and Maria Hoey / For The Times) The spiritual communion with nature or any hints of transcendental meaning piercing through the veil of the physical world seems a superb approach for some elegy or poem. The film starts with Van Gogh in Paris, confessing to the camera his aspiration to live with a vibrant community of artists and fraternize with them. 5) Long day’s Journey into Night 2019 – China First, she’s courted by other male characters as she’s considered to be a young widow by the whole community. But why wait that long when first-rate cinema is opening every month? It requires either some new twist, a very ingenious new angle or some amazing mise en scene in order to outwit the genre’s more or less conventional codes. When Zaida emerges from the isolation imposed by the rite of passage into adulthood and the whole tribe celebrates her imminent wedding to Rapayet, a pretender to Zaida’s hand from another tribe, the dowry requests imposed by the autocratic matriarch of the tribe – Ursula, Zaida’s mother – seems excessive or even impossible to meet. So, Pajiba’s reviewers have singled out some of the best art house films that 2019 had to offer. It’s maddeningly oblique and delirious, and unlike anything he (or anyone else, for that matter) has done before. Tom Mercier plays Yoav, who has just arrived in Paris, having given up on his homeland and language. The fast enrichment leads to crime and other transgressions which alter tragically and irreversibly the tribe’s serenity, traditional values, and lifestyle. A spectacular saga of small-time criminals in industrial northern China, and ultimately a tragic love story. The reaction to the lengthy runtime ranged from overjoyed to begging for an intermission. The Best Arthouse Movies Of All-Time Art/Photography , Best Movies , Classics , Drama , Foreign-Language , History , Romance , Science Fiction/Fantasy , War February 18, 2019 January 11, 2019 by AM Anderson The first half is a little slow and challenging: a Chinese neo-noir tale of gangsters, lost lovers, and unexpected karaoke. The other construction workers in his boat had also not been paid for months. Here in Portugal there is nothing for you. However, strangely Terrence Malick chooses to eradicate any psychological insights or even further theological stance, except for incipient bits of conversation with the lawyer who tries to get Franz to compromise or at least simulate some sort of benign indifference for the regime, that could fool the Nazi Establishment and save his life. At the end of every calendar year, critics rank the best movies of the past 12 months. Hailed as the best representation of Hollywood actors. The year in entertainment: 2019’s best movies, music, TV shows, games and more Noel Murray Craig Fairbrass, left, Nick Moran and Scott Adkins in the movie “Avengement.” 2) Synonyms(Synonymes) 2019 – France/Israel. While Good Time starred a Robert Pattinson so scuzzed-up it gave him a new level of indie cred, blackly comical Uncut Gems does the same for Adam Sandler, who plays a wheeler-dealer jewellery store owner and compulsive gambler. The Best Movies of 2019. Van Gogh is brilliantly played by Willem Dafoe. Singin’ in the Rain is an excellent example, and as one of the best musicals ever made, is a swell feel-good movie pick—especially for film lovers. 3. Design & Living AnOther List. A French artist couple help him reconstitute himself from this confused state of dispossession, in this wildly original take on cultural dislocation. But beyond them, it was a year alive with startlingly innovative arthouse cinema – so let’s not forget its other highlights. Sexual activity has been prohibited between them, but carnal urges will not be repressed so easily in a spacecraft complete with a specially designed room for crew masturbation. It all makes for a bracingly odd, disquieting take on technology and colonisation, which suggests progress is just an illusionary veneer over innate human savagery. Arriving home to tragedy, Masha demands Iya pays her back a heavy price for what has occurred, and so begins a resentment-fuelled, codependent dance in the name of desperate consolation. In the meantime, the relation with Rosa gradually fades away. A tortured grimace when he’s in danger of being discovered, the twisted torso, a terrorized glance. Oddly enough, many of the movies listed involve, in some capacity, ghosts. However, when the protagonist antagonizes the whole village, embarrasses the clergy, absorbs with calm mysticism the resentment of the court – except for the somewhat levelheaded and reasonable Judge played by Bruno Ganz – one expects there to be at least a degree of intense drama than drama-sublimation, through sublime visuals. The arrival of savage capitalism with the awakening some tribe members’ latent greed, propels the whole archaic and traditionalist microcosm into something like a Greek tragedy, but treated with psychedelic-magic realism touches. Zhang Ke’s fourth film spans cover a 16-year period, from 2001 to 2017 and it is composed of 2 major sections and an epilogue. 1. Following Gauguin’s suggestion, Van Gogh moves to Provence. ... It’s crossed over, not just from our ever-shrinking arthouse terrarium, or even the genre slot in which it comfortably resides. In the best movies of 2019, the definition of independent is blurrier than ever Even the best studio movies of 2019 have an indie sensibility. Tomorrow, we’ll have our Best of 2019 (my favorite comfort film of the year is actually number ten on that list), but today I bring you the list that I compile every year that means the most to me. Below, there are daring directorial debuts and savage sophomore efforts, cutting comedies and harrowing horror, ravishing romances and dramas we just can’t forget. Qiao’s capture with a gun, without acknowledging whose weapon it was during police interrogations, gets her a 5-year jail sentence. Either Qiao walks ahead of Bin or Qiao is alone in the frame. An examination of an idiosyncratic and amazing impressionist painter by a good idiosyncratic artist (also initially a painter himself). The 10 Best Arthouse Films of 2019 Posted on January 1, 2020 January 1, 2020 by Ryan Akler-Bishop In a year where Disney films dominated 80% of box office revenues, it’s been easy to feel discouraged about the medium’s future. Screenings of Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin’s feature And Then We Danced went ahead recently in Tbilisi, the city where it was shot, despite violent protests by the far right against it. All rights reserved. There is incisive social comment, too, on the chain of racial exploitation that underpins America’s alternate economy – if you can catch your breath long enough to ponder it. Kantemir Balagov is only 28, but with his second feature, Beanpole, the director has pulled off a Russian work as majestic and ambitious in scope as it is emotionally bold. Besides Malick’s distinct signature – meditative voice-over, delirious lyricism, some sort of profound spiritual communion with nature, love as the central value in life, there is a dramaturgical empty space in the center of the story. It's like you can … Your husband was buried two days ago. As Marianne seeks to win her trust and complete the commission, an unexpected bond ignites. Safdie brothers Josh and Benny proved themselves the gutsiest chroniclers of the New York underbelly since Abel Ferrara with their features of visceral rawness, street smarts and lurching pace Heaven Knows What (2014) and Good Time (2017). 10 Great 2019 Arthouse Films You May Have Missed Posted on November 4, 2019 November 4, 2019 by Robert Popa The common denominator of the most recent amazing art-house films selected is the amazing vision, technical virtuosity (especially in Gan Bi ‘s stunning masterpiece “Long day’s journey into night” and a reassured authorial voice. 2019 was the year that Netflix movies came of age, and ageing actors were made young again.