2019 in films - according to Film Excess

The Top 10 of 2019

1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker/Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker - J.J. Abrams + Best Action-Adventure of the Year + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best Villain of the Year: Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid)

2. The Irishman (I Heard You Paint Houses), VOD - Martin Scorsese + Best American Movie of the Year + Best Comeback Actor of the Year: Joe Pesci + Best Epic of the Year + Best Gangster Movie of the Year + Worst Poster of the Year

3. Judy - Rupert Goold + Best Biopic of the Year + Best Comeback Actress of the Year: Renée Zellweger

4. One Child Nation, documentary - Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang

5. Queen of Hearts/Dronningen - May el-Toukhy + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Sex Drama of the Year 

6. Avengers: Endgame - Anthony & Joe Russo + Best Blockbuster of the Year (2,797.3 mil. $ gross) + Best Superhero Movie of the Year + Most Profitable Movie of the Year (763.12 
mil. $ range)

7. Honeyland, documentary - Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov + Best Hero of the Year: Hatidze + Best Nature Documentary of the Year 

8. Out Stealing Horses/Ut og Stjæle Hester - Hans Petter Moland + Best Adaptation of the Year + Norwegian Movie of the Year 

9. Pain and Glory/Dolor y Gloria - Pedro Almodóvar

10. It Chapter Two - Andy Muschietti + Best Gore Movie of the Year + Best Horror Movie of the Year 

Other good, recommendable movies (in alphabetic order):

Late Night - Nisha Ganatra + Best New York Movie of the Year

Uncle/Onkel - Frelle Petersen + Best Low-Budget Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year

The Bottom 2 of 2019

1. Annabelle Comes Home - Gary Dauberman + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year 

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood/Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino + Most Overrated Movie of the Year 

Other failed, mediocre and/or poor films (in alphabetic order):

Rambo: Last Blood - Adrian Grünberg
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark - André Øvredal 
Us - Jordan Peele + Strangest Movie of the Year 

[17 titles in total]

Notes:

No masterpieces from 2019 have been found yet.
The year's top is reigned by J.J. Abrams' exhilarating saga ender Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; Martin Scorsese's mammoth-length gangster drama The Irishman; and Rupert Goold's terrific showbiz biopic Judy. The rest of the top are Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang's politically explosive documentary One Child Nation; May el-Toukhy's stirring sex drama Queen of Hearts; Anthony and Joe Russo's expectations-beating franchise finale Avengers: Endgame; Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov's rare nature documentary Honeyland; Hans Petter Moland's visually sumptuous adaptation Out Stealing Horses; Pedro Almodóvar's personal drama Pain and Glory and finally Andy Muschietti's horror whopper It Chapter Two.
The bottom only has two films on it at the moment; Gary Dauberman's awful bore Annabelle Comes Home; and Quentin Tarantino's hugely applauded, dead movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Great filmmakers who put out underwhelming efforts in 2019 also include André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) and Jordan Peele (Us).

Biggest flops of the year:

[The loss is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]  

1. Rambo: Last Blood - 13.44 mil. $ range
2. Out Stealing Horses - 3.98 mil. $ range
= Combined losses: 17.42 mil. $

Biggest hits of the year:

[The gain is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account] 

1. Avengers: Endgame - 763.12 mil. $ range
2. It Chapter Two - 118.8 mil. $ range
3. Annabelle Comes Home - 91.4 mil. $ range
4. Us - 82.04 mil. $ range
5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - 53.92 mil. $ range
6. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark - 13.8 mil. $ range
7. Late Night - 4.92 mil. $ range
= Combined profits: 1,128 mil. $

2019 titles currently on the watch-list:

Ip Man 4: The Finale, Bombshell, Frozen II, Last Christmas, Terminator: Dark Fate, Jexi, The Addams Family, The Goldfinch, Hustlers, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Dolemite Is My Name, Waiting for the Barbarians, Joker, Citizen K, Uncut Gems, Daniel, The Truth, Echo, Crawl, Deadwood: The Movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Parasite, Frankie, The Lighthouse, The Virtues, Missing Link, The Twilight Zone (2019-), Ximei, Booksmart, The Art of Self-Defense, The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Kid, The Golden Glove, Brittany Runs a Marathon, The Souvenir, Luce, Greener Grass, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, Honey Boy, The Kid Who Would Be King

Previous annual lists:
    
2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess  
2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2016 in films - according to Film Excess
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2013 in films - according to Film Excess    
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess   
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess   
2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess   

What do you think of the 2019 lists?
Which 2019 titles are at the top and bottom of your lists?
Which worthwhile 2019 titles are missing on the watch-list?  

Avengers: Endgame (2019) - The superhero super-pack deliver a massive, thrilling culmination

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Blockbuster of the Year (2,797.3 mil. $ gross) + Best Superhero Movie of the Year + Most Profitable Movie of the Year: 761.9 mil. $ range

A traditionally character-stuffed poster for Anthony and Joe Russo's Avengers: Endgame

In the wake of Thanos' decimation of the Avengers and half of all life in the universe as such, the remaining heroes gather around a time-traveling plan to reverse the disaster and defeat the purple giant.

Avengers: Endgame is written by Christopher Markus (You Kill Me (2007)) and Stephen McFreely (Pain & Gain (2013)) and directed by great Ohioan brother filmmakers Anthony and Joe Russo (Pieces (1997)). It is by far the best of the now four Avengers movies, as well as the provisional climax of the now 22 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The film picks up after the surprising ending of the preceding chapter, Avengers: Infinity War (2018), which killed off several major characters, (Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Peter 'Star-Lord' Quill among others), which has added some emotional depth to the narrative, - whether it is fully absorbed or not, (I for one have a hard time getting very emotionally invested in the Avengers superhero mashup, but I can recognize the narrative's bloom anyway.)
Absent in Infinity War, Paul Rudd's (The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)) Scott 'Ant-Man' Lang turns up with the impetus for the solution to the catastrophe: And no one with pop culture background should be surprised to learn that it is a time machine. Rudd also adds fun, - as does Chris Hemsworth (In the Heart of the Sea (2015)) as a flabby, almost obese Thor, - to the increasingly complex plot, which is luckily highly entertaining, even if certain parts of it fly by without achieving full comprehension. Brie Larson's (21 Jump Street (2012)) Carol 'Captain Marvel' Danvers turns up, - and for us who haven't yet seen Captain Marvel (2019), she arrives out of the blue, full of power, but without us gaining much insight into who she is here.
Excitement is successfully built up in the long narrative, and the co-working of the many characters that we have gotten to know through the various individual character movies, is satisfying. The action sequences and especially the ending are thrilling, and Josh Brolin's (The Dead Girl (2006)) motion-captured Thanos is plenty fascinating as a villain and visually enticing piece of work to center another film.
The ending of this super-length superhero extravaganza also has a super-length denouement, SPOILER as Tony 'Iron Man' Stark (Robert Downey Jr. (Bowfinger (1999)) is buried and Steve 'Captain America' Rogers (Chris Evans (The Paper Boy (2003, short))) passes his gauntlet on to Sam 'Falcon' Wilson, the new Captain America, it seems, and it almost - only almost - wears out the film's welcome.
The list of stars in Endgame seems never-ending, and thankfully, Marvel and the Russos have succeeded in making a great and very impressive piece of entertainment out of this colossal spectacle.

Related posts:

The Avengers franchise: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2019 in films - according to Film Excess
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]  
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - Whedon disappoints with less fun, huge, ugly sequel
The Avengers/Avengers Assemble (2012) or, Farty Latex Suits: Gather!

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 356 mil. $
Box office: 2,714.1 mil. $ and counting
= Huge hit (has returned its cost 7.62 times as of writing this)
[Avengers: Endgame premiered 22 April (Los Angeles, California) and runs 181 minutes. Shooting took place in Georgia, including Atlanta, and in the UK from August 2017 - January 2018. Re-shoots took place from September - October 2018 and in January 2019. Evans and Hemsworth were paid 15 mil. $ each for their performances. Russian authorities delayed the film's release in Russia to protect local films' performances. It opened #1 to a 357.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #1 for another 2 weeks and spent the following 2 in the top 5 (#2-#3), where it may yet return. It has grossed 815.7 mil. $ domestically, where several AMC theaters stayed open 24 hours a day to screen the film around the clock. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets yet are China (614.3 mil. $) and the UK (111.4 mil. $). It is the highest-grossing film of the year, highest-grossing superhero movie of all time, 2nd highest-grossing movie of all time (only beaten by Avatar (2009)), and 5th highest-grossing of all time when adjusted for inflation. It made 1 bil. $ in 5 days, - the fastest ever for a film. The Russo brothers are in pre-production with their next film, Cherry (2020), a war/drug/heist-themed drama with Tom Holland (Spider-Man). Downey Jr. returns in The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle (2020), Evans in Knives Out (2019), and Brolin in Dune (2020). Avengers: Endgame is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8.3/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Avengers: Endgame?