49 films in 2019

There isn't even any point in me listing my favourite new films I've seen this year – it's just Marvel movies and Kechiche's controversial follow-up to Blue is the Warmest Colour, which I thought was good if a bit icky (and the sequel is apparently just icky). I have been going to the cinema, but it's been the Prince Charles and the BFI to watch old films, which are invariably less likely to disappoint than new ones.

And in 2019 I ended up spending a lot of time in the 90s – not just on the big films of the decade (Silence of the Lambs, Dazed and Confused, Scream, The Piano, Boyz n the Hood) but the second tier (Doom Generation, Jackie Brown, Strange Days, Wild Things) which have often proved more interesting. There's a supposed 20-year-rule in pop music revivals where the generation that gains artistic and commercial influence in their 30s bring with them their formative influences as teenagers, a personal version of which seems to be dictating my film-watching habits.

Should also shout out the London Graphic Novel Network film club for many of the entries here, which has provided an excuse to revisit old favourites (Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, Lost in Translation, Jennifer's Body, Alien) and argue about them in robust and entertaining terms. Many of the links below are to the conversations conducted over email and then published on the site.

New:

Abdellatif Kechiche - Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno [link]
Anthony and Joe Russo - Avengers: Endgame
Jon Watts - Spider-Man: Far From Home [link]
Anna Boden / Ryan Fleck - Captain Marvel [link]

Old:

Guillermo del Toro - Pan's Labyrinth [link]
Alfonso Cuarón - Children of Men [link]
Sofia Coppola - Lost in Translation [link]
Kathryn Bigelow - Strange Days [link]

Karyn Kusama - Jennifer's Body [link]

Quentin Tarantino - Jackie Brown [link]

Walerian Borowczyk - The Beast [link]

Ridley Scott - Alien [link]
Alejandro González Iñárritu - Birdman (or, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) [link]
Orson Welles - Citizen Kane [link]
Takashi Miike - 13 Assassins [link]

Michelangelo Antonioni - The Passenger [link]

Gregg Araki - The Doom Generation [link]
Chuck Russell - The Mask [link]
Gaspar Noé - Enter the Void [link]
John McNaughton - Wild Things [link]
David Eggers - The VVitch: A New England Folktale [link]
Jack Hill - Coffy [link]
Howard Hawks - His Girl Friday [link]

James Cameron - The Terminator [link]

Miloš Forman - Man on the Moon [link]
Mark Waters - Mean Girls [link]

Richard Linklater - Dazed and Confused [link]

Wes Craven - Scream [link]
Martin Scorsese - King of Comedy [link]

Jane Campion - The Piano [link]

John Singleton - Boyz n the Hood [link]
Walter Hill - The Warriors [link]

Jordan Peele - Get Out  [link]

Jonathan Demme - The Silence of the Lambs [link]
Nagisa Oshima - The Sun's Burial [link]
Stanley Kubrick - A Clockwork Orange [link]
Hideaki Anno - Neon Genesis Evangelion / The End of Evangelion [link]

Ingmar Bergman - Summer With Monika [link]

Howard Hawks - The Big Sleep [link]

John Carpenter - The Thing [link]

Brian De Palma - Carrie [link]

Robert Luketic - Legally Blonde [link]

Gregg Araki - Nowhere [link]

Jack Hill - Foxy Brown [link]
Michelangelo Antonioni - Identification of a Woman [link]

Anna Biller - Viva [link]

Jean-Pierre Jeunet - Amélie [link]

Hirokazu Kore-eda - Air Doll [link]

Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained [link]