Here’s the final 35 in HE’s (actually the IMDB‘s) list of adult-friendly, quality-aspiring 2019 films — possible critical faves and perhaps even award-season contenders. I’m not 100% certain that each and every film is a 2019 release, but they certainly seem to be. It’s a process of honing, refining…getting to the truth.
Later today I’ll post the whole list of 97, but broken down into categories — top 25 HE hotties, possible award-season contenders, indie-woke-Sundance-Spirits-Gotham (aka inspirational, identity politics, intrepid p.c. heroes), and generally aspirational. Reminder: This list contains no submental jizz-whizzers (CG-driven, comic-book, sequels, horror).
Here’s the initial roster of 31 (posted on 11.18), and the follow-up slate, also numbering 31 (11.19)
63. Deston Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy — Attorney Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) defends Walter McMillan (Jamie Foxx), a man unjustly imprisoned for murder. Based on Stephenson’s memoir. (Jordan, Foxx, Brie Larson, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, Rob Morgan)
64. Jay Roach‘s Fair and Balanced — Fox honcho Roger Ailes and sexual harassment allegations that resulted in his resignation. (Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Duplass)
65. Terrence Malick‘s Radegund — Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Third Reich in World War II and is executed in 1943. Shot in late summer of 2016. (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Matthias Schoenaerts, Bruno Ganz)
66. Rod Lurie‘s The Outpost — Abut the 2013 Battle of Kamdesh in which Taliban forces attacked a U.S. outpost. The result of the battle was a pyrrhic victory as most the the outpost was destroyed and 8 Americans were killed and 27 were wounded but Taliban forces retreated due to heavy casualties. Over 150 Taliban fighters were killed during the battle. Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha (Scott Eastwood) and Staff Sergeant Ty Carter (Caleb Landry Jones) were both awarded the Medal of Honor in 2013 for courageous actions. Orlando Bloom also stars.
67. Darius Marder‘s Sound of Metal — (Olivia Cooke, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Arthur Hiou)
68. Fernando Meirelles‘ The Pope — Opposing visions between two of the most powerful leaders in the Catholic Church, both of whom must address their own pasts and the demands of the modern world in order to move the church forward. (Juan Minujín, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Matthew T. Reynolds)
69. Casey Affleck‘s Light of My Life — A father and his young daughter find themselves trapped in the woods. Also written by Affleck. (Casey Affleck, Elisabeth Moss, Tom Bower, Timothy Webber)
70. Robin Bissell‘s The Best of Enemies — Civil rights activist Ann Atwater faces off against C.P. Ellis, Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, in 1971 Durham, North Carolina over the issue of school integration. (Sam Rockwell, Tarahji O. Henson, Wes Bentley, Anne Heche)
71. Sia‘s Music — the story of a sober drug dealer and their disabled sister. (Kate Hudson, Hector Elizondo, Maddie Ziegler)
72. Julius Onah‘s Luce — (Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth, Kelvin Harrison, Jr.)
73. Lone Scherfig‘s The Kindness of Strangers — Four people suffering through the worst crises of their lives. (Andrea Riseborough, Zoe Kazan, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel)
74. Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind — A boy in Malawi helps his village by building a wind turbine after reading about them in a library book. (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Aïssa Maïga, Joseph Marcell, Noma Dumezweni)
75.Christoph Waltz‘s Georgetown — Ulrich Mott, an ambitious social climber, marries a wealthy widow in Washington D.C. in order to mix with powerful political players. (Christoph Waltz, Annette Bening, Corey Hawkins, Vanessa Redgrave)
76. Gideon Raff‘s The Red Sea Diving Resort — The rescue of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel in 1981. (Michiel Huisman, Haley Bennett, Chris Evans, Greg Kinnear)
77. Todd Robinson‘s The Last Full Measure — 34 years after his death, Airman William H. Pitsenbarger, Jr. (“Pits”) is awarded the nation’s highest military honor, for his actions on the battlefield. (Alison Sudol, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irvine)
78. Alice Winocour‘s Proxima — An astronaut prepares for a one-year mission aboard an international space station. (Eva Green, Matt Dillon, Lars Eidinger, Aleksey Fateev)
79, Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat — A group of journalists unearth 11.5 million files, linking the world’s most powerful political figures to secret banking accounts to avoid taxes. (Gary Oldman, Melissa Rauch, Meryl Streep, Robert Patrick)
80. Kasi Lemmons‘ Harriet — The story of Harriet Tubman, who helped free hundreds of slaves from the South after escaping from slavery herself in 1849. Wait…there are two Harriet Tubman films? (Janelle Monáe, Deborah Ayorinde, Cynthia Erivo, Joe Alwyn)
81. Sebastián Lelio‘s Gloria Bell — A middle-aged Los Angeles woman looking for love. (Julianne Moore, Alanna Ubach, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Sean Astin)
82. Steven Soderbergh‘s High Flying Bird — A sports agent pitches a rookie basketball client on an intriguing and controversial business opportunity during a lockout. (Zachary Quinto, Zazie Beetz, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Duke)
83. Julie Taymor‘s The Glorias: A Life on the Road — Gloria Steinem’s story of her itinerant childhood’s influence on her life as a writer, activist and organizer for women’s rights worldwide. (Alicia Vikander, Lulu Wilson, Julianne Moore, Bette Midler)
84. James Gray‘s Ad Astra — Astronaut Roy McBride travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. (Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga)
85. Liz Garbus‘s Lost Girls — A mother searching for her missing daughter in Long Island makes a horrifying discovery in the woods where the murdered bodies of four girls have been dumped. (Amy Ryan, Gabriel Byrne, Lola Kirke, Dean Winters)
86. Aaron Sorkin‘s Lucy and Desi — The lives and careers of television pioneers Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Note: It’s apparently shooting now, presumably with Sorkin at the helm…but I’m not 100% sure. (Cate Blanchett)
87. Gavin O’Connor‘s Torrance — Struggling with addiction, a former basketball attempts to comeback by becoming the coach of a disparate, ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater. (Ben Affleck, Janina Gavankar, Al Madrigal, Yeniffer Behrens)
88, Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out — A modern murder mystery in a classic whodunit style. (Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans)
89. Roger Michell‘s Blackbird — A terminally ill mother arranges to bring her family together one last time before she dies. (Kate Winslet, Lindsay Duncan, Rainn Wilson, Susan Sarandon)
90. Andy Goddard‘s Six Minutes to Midnight — Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English sea side town to learn the language and be ambassadors. (Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, James D’Arcy, Eddie Izzard)
91. Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves — Two young couples navigate through the emotional minefield of growing up and falling in love. (Lucas Hedges, Sterling K. Brown, Alexa Demie, Taylor Russell)
92. Yuval Adler‘s The Operative — A woman recruited by the Mossad to work undercover in Tehran. (Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman, Cas Anvar, Werner Daehn)
93. Zeresenay Mehari‘s Sweetness in the Belly — Orphaned as a child, Lily experiences her parents homeland of England, escaping civil war. She becomes the heart of a disenfranchised community in London. (Dakota Fanning, Kunal Nayyar, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Wunmi Mosaku)
94. Jennifer Kent‘s The Nightingale — Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. (Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman)
95. Adrian Noble‘s Mrs. Lowry and Son — (Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Spall, Stephen Lord)
96. Bobby Moresco‘s Lamborghini — The life story of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of Lamborghini. (Antonio Banderas, Alec Baldwin, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Leonardo Salerni)
97. Dexter Fletcher‘s Rocketman — Elton John biopic, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin. (Richard Madden, Taron Egerton, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jamie Bell)
