Year-End Lists

Justin Chang: Best Movies of 2019, as published by The Los Angeles Times

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016]

1. Parasite
   Bong Joon-ho
2. Knives Out
   Rian Johnson
3. Ash is Purest White
   Jia Zhang-ke
4. The Irishman
   Martin Scorsese
5. The Souvenir
   Joanna Hogg
6. Marriage Story
   Noah Baumbach
7. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
   Radu Jude
8. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
   Quentin Tarantino
9. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
   Céline Sciamma
10. Little Women
    Greta Gerwig
11. Long Day's Journey Into Night
    Bi Gan
12. An Elephant Sitting Still
    Hu Bo
13. High Life
    Claire Denis
14. A Hidden Life
    Terrence Malick
15. Synonyms
    Nadav Lapid
16. Transit
    Christian Petzold
17. Give Me Liberty
    Kirill Mikhanovsky
18. By the Grace of God
    François Ozon
19. Her Smell
    Alex Ross Perry
20. Uncut Gems
    Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie

Five favorite documentaries

• American Factory
  Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
• Black Mother
  Khalik Allah
• Honeyland
  Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov
• One Child Nation
  Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang
• What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire?
  Roberto Minervini

15 honorable mentions

• Atlantics
  Mati Diop
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
  Marielle Heller
• Clemency
  Chinonye Chukwu
• Diane
  Kent Jones
• The Farewell
  Lulu Wang
• Fighting with My Family
  Stephen Merchant
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco
  Joe Talbot
• The Lighthouse
  Robert Eggers
• Midsommar
  Ari Aster
• The Nightingale
  Jennifer Kent
• Pain and Glory
  Pedro Almodóvar
• Peterloo
  Mike Leigh
• Sorry Angel
  Christophe Honoré
• Us
  Jordan Peele
• Waves
  Trey Edward Shults