Top Ten Cinema of 2019

My top ten films list this year is different from years past. As a genre specific film fan, I tend to gravitate to horror, and my favorites list is typically confined to them. This year sees more content variety, with queer films taking multiple spots. All of these films I saw in theatres, although a few received very limited release. The gems are out there if you know where to look.

     My list contains two re-releases. Restorations that played by projector light deserve to share the spotlight.

     This year’s batch of favorites struck a deep emotional chord. The top five brought me to tears, sometimes multiple times. This is a testament to the power these films had on me, to make me care and feel on a grand scale. These were my favorite dreams projected onto the cinema screen in 2019.

10. Climax

Considering I’m also a club DJ who spins some of the bands featured in the film, this psychedelic dance floor nightmare from Gaspar Noé was tailor made to my sensibilities. Hallways remain one of my favorite terrible places in horror, and this film plays like hallway porn.

9. Doctor Sleep

The underperformance of this film in theatres makes no difference when the movie is this strong and confident; people will discover this film later and wonder how audiences could have possibly dismissed it upon release. A fantastic adaptation of a favorite King novel, with only one faulty detour in the final minutes.

8. Paris Is Burning

With the trans and queer communities currently under attack by an administration that traffics in hate, audiences needed to be re-introduced to the mothers and butch queens before us who endured this struggle during the Reagan/Bush years, and did so with lasting influence, love, and style.

7. Equation to an Unknown

Sometimes you have to see a melancholy gay French porno from 1980 on the big screen with a crowd to understand how vital the projection of queer art and erotic experience really is.

6. Us

Jordan Peele is the closest current horror filmmaker we have matching the intelligence, originality, and intensity of Wes Craven. I hope Lupita Nyong’o takes home many awards for her terrifyingly original CHUD/committed final girl combo.

5. Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation

This documentary had the ability to bring audiences to tears for extended periods of time. Community and freedom are beautiful things to witness, especially when you’ve felt them before. Some might argue that the Love Generation didn’t change the world, but these youth absolutely made history here and changed the landscape.

4. Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood

Many watched this film as a comedy, but I had an altogether different experience. One of the most suspenseful films I watched the year, where the dread was palpable. I hate Charles Manson and his cult, the subject has terrified me since I viewed Helter Skelter on television when I was far too young in the 1970s. I really didn’t want to go back there, and this film showed how we can dream better.

3. I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu

Auteur Meir Zarchi returns with an epic sequel that makes us confront the all too real horrors in America today. An incredibly astute portrait of middle American poverty and how human monsters are made. This film delivers an unforgettable villain with Becky, portrayed by Maria Olsen, the widow of the original film’s castrated rapist Johnny. She horrified me, and then made me cry for her. Maria Olsen delivers the best performance of the year.

2. It Chapter Two

The closest I’ve seen to an actual novel on film. Stephen King’s It was the first hardcover novel I bought when it hit the shelves in 1986 and it remains one of my most read books. I felt that It Chapter Two could not have been adapted any better than this. I love these characters and every minute I got to spend with them onscreen. This sequel also takes the daring step of making one of the Losers gay and making his desire matter. In doing this, the filmmakers have made this story that has long mattered to me matter even more.

1. Knife + Heart

Yann Gonzalez’s neon, blood, and semen drenched love letter to giallo and queer cinema takes the gay slasher subgenre to exciting new heights. This film’s protagonists, an outsider group of lesbian pornographers and gay male and trans porn performers, make one of the most endearing alternative families I’ve seen on film, a group I’d fit right in with. Knife + Heart is the most stimulating and artistically thrilling work of cinema in 2019, partly because it is about cinema and its carnal effects on the viewer and those who produce it. We long to see our nightmares and desires projected on screen, and these are mine.

Armando D. Muñoz