One of my favorite hallmarks of 2019 was the number of movies that I enjoyed for the first time. Between our June tribute to Film Noir to our weekly Saturdays with the Stars to our constant array of OVP movies (to just movies I randomly saw), we got through a lot of pictures both famous and largely forgotten this year. As a result, we're adding a first-time ever list of the Top 10 films that I saw for the first time this year (not including the movies of 2019, which we went through this morning). Without further adieu...
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
Errol Flynn has never been sexier than in this Technicolor marvel, with great action sequences, fabulous costumes, and a frothy, rich score. If this is a classic that you (like me) have been putting off for a while, change that immediately.
Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)
Yes, it's kind of silly that Cyd Charisse randomly lives in an Irish town that only appears once every hundred years. But honestly, when the costumes, sets, and musical numbers are this romantic, you genuinely won't care. Van Johnson has never been better.
Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987)
Holly Hunter becomes a superstar in this ahead-of-its-time comedy about a newsroom more obsessed with ratings than in delivering the truth. Few comedies from the 1980's are this smart some thirty years later.
Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
I've never seen a movie alternate between genius and "is this terrible?" quite at the same pace as Detour, a prototypical film noir with a heart as black as steel. Ann Savage gives us arguably the most dangerous femme fatale in the genre.
Free Solo (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin, 2018)
Not cheating (I saw this after I announced my "best of" list last year) Free Solo is a heart-pounding look at one man and his quest for immortality, even if he doesn't entirely understand why he's pursuing it.
In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
Gloria Grahame gives the performance of a lifetime in this seedy, nasty look at Hollywood's underbelly. In a year where we were given All About Eve & Sunset Blvd as indictments of show business, this is perhaps the most damning picture of what fame can do to a man.
A Letter to Three Wives (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949)
A picture-perfect melodrama featuring Linda Darnell & Ann Sothern in ace roles, A Letter to Three Wives shows us a less glamorous domesticity, and what can happen when a ruthless Celeste Holm comes in and tries to destroy it.
Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947)
Of all of the noir we watched this year, Nightmare Alley stands apart as the bleakest. Cruel in its fate, it shows us what happens when Tyrone Power falls hard...and then realizes there's no end to the pit. Man is Helen Walker great in this movie.
Swept Away (Lina Wertmuller, 1974)
Thought-provoking. Challenging. Possibly sexist. Certainly impossible-to-make-today. Swept Away is considered recent Oscar-winner Lina Wertmuller's magnum opus, and for good reason-the film is a mesmerizing look at sex, power, and what happens in the blue sea of August.
The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944)
Up until the film's final moments, it's pretty much perfect. A brilliant piece of work from Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, & especially Dan Duryea, the movie that would become the prototype for later film noir is genius all on its own.
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