This year I saw 125 new releases in 2019. I’ve seen people saying that this was a great year for movies, and in a way, that’s true. The films that made my Top 10 this year are films I can easily see myself revisiting in the years to come. But I also think this was a year where a lot of movies were fine and forgettable. There wasn’t anything particularly bad about films like The LEGO Movie 2, Dark Waters, Frozen II, and others, but they’ve already largely slipped away from my memory. There was so much that was middling that I couldn’t help but admire audacious movies like Serenity, which may be bonkers and unwieldy, but at least was taking more chances than films like Last Christmas or The Aeronauts.

And yet when I look back over this year, I find that there are plenty of other good movies that deserve your attention. But I’m firm believer that year-end lists should be functional. They exist for folks who don’t get to see 125 movies in a year (and it should be noted, that with maybe a few exceptions, I saw these movies at press screenings or festivals, so I’m aware that I’m avoiding a budget limitation that faces other movie fans). They exist for people who want to know if there are only ten movies they should see in a given year, it should be these ten.

10. I Lost My Body

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Image via Netflix

This one snuck up on me at the end of the year, and I’m so glad a friend and fellow critic brought it to my attention. Jérémy Clapin’s animated movie (which is now available on Netflix) follows a severed hand trying to get back to its owner. While that may sound silly and little macabre, Clapin weaves it into something really quite beautiful as we cut back and forth between the hand’s journey across the dangerous Parisian streets with the life of the hand’s owner, Naoufel (Hakim Faris). What I Lost My Body does so beautifully is show the chaos and randomness of life while counterintuitively showing the leaps of faith required of us in order to grow. Rather than trying to control everything, we sometimes need to take a risk if we’re to heal, and the way the film gets to that point is surprisingly heartwarming for a movie where one of the main characters is a disembodied appendage.

9. Hustlers

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Image via STX Entertainment

I was very late to the party on this one. I had heard nothing but good things about Hustlers out of Toronto International Film Festival but didn’t manage to catch the movie until a couple weeks ago. I’m glad I did because that way I didn’t miss out on Lorene Scafaria’s vibrant, scathing indictment of who our country treats as criminal. Taking place in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, the film is based on the true story of strippers who fleeced their Wall Street clientele for tens of thousands of dollars. What these women did may have been illegal, but Hustlers makes a good case that it was far from criminal when you look at the victims—rich white guys who crashed the economy and got away with it. The film is a masterful look at the intersection of gender and capitalism held together by Scafaria’s stylish direction and excellent performances from the whole cast.

8. The Irishman

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Image via Netflix

This won’t be Martin Scorsese’s last movie (he’s already gearing up to film an adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon), but it makes for one hell of a swan song as the auteur returns to the gangster genre to tell a story about mortality and regret. The digital de-aging works better than expected and allows us to follow the life of teamster and hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) as he forms friendships with mobster Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), which turns into a combustible relationship that exposes how cheap loyalty is in Frank’s world. It’s a powerful film that also manages to be immensely entertaining despite coming to an painfully sad conclusion. The Irishman ranks among Scorsese’s best, and that’s saying something when you look at his filmography.

7. Ad Astra

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Image via 20th Century Studios

Brad Pitt gives the best performance of his career in the quiet and devastating Ad Astra. James Gray’s movie follows an astronaut who prides himself on his stoicism and emotional detachment tasked with a mission to send a message to his missing father (Tommy Lee Jones). The sci-fi story is a fascinating meditation on masculinity and loneliness, and how those two frequently intertwine. It’s a film that looks at the abyss, sees the abyss stare back, and then asks, “What do we owe to each other if we’re the only ones out here?” Through its quiet, pensive attitude paired with some stunning cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema, Ad Astra burrows into your soul and you can’t really let it go. You don’t really want to, either.

6. Knives Out

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Image via Lionsgate

Rian Johnson’s brilliant little whodunnit is the most fun movie of 2019. The film starts with the suspicious death of mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), but then starts to twist and deepen thanks to the investigation of the charismatic and magnetic Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). If we’re lucky, Knives Out will be the start of a Benoit Blanc franchise, because the character is utterly delightful (his “Donut Hole” speech is magnificent), but if not, we’ve still got a terrific whodunnit with some serious social issues on its mind. What sets Knives Out apart is how it’s not just a whodunnit, but a social critique of the frail bonds tying white, wealthy Americans to regular people, particularly immigrants. The second you change that power dynamic you see how benevolence turns to malevolence. The fact that Johnson wraps it all up in such a delightful package makes Knives Out into a marvelous sneak attack against the audience.

5. Little Women

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Image via Sony Pictures

After hitting it out of the park where her debut feature Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig made an ambitious follow-up with the eighth adaptation of Little Women. Instead of paling in comparison to previous versions, Gerwig made a movie of the moment that never feels gratingly anachronistic. Instead, she finds the youth and vibrancy of the March sisters and their friend Laurie while taking the episodic nature of Louisa May Alcott’s novel and restructuring it to a more cohesive and thematically rich framework. Through Gerwig’s version, we can better see the March sisters’ ambitions, their regrets, their hopes, and their shortcomings. It’s a beautiful tribute to Alcott’s classic novel that Gerwig manages to make all her own.

4. The Report

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Image via Amazon Studios

Scott Z. Burns’ telling of the story behind the Torture Report plays like a journalistic thriller devoid of the genre’s clichés and focused on the importance of accountability. The tale of congressional investigator Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) has all the hallmarks of a man-against-the-system story but provides a timely look at the importance of truth running up against political expediency. While new scandals pile up daily in our news cycle, we can’t let the sins of past administrations (and both Bush and Obama are held culpable here for different reasons) get swept down the memory hole. While some may like to say we’re in a post-truth world, that only benefits those who are invested in lies. The Report shows why those lies need to be obliterated.

3. 1917

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Image via Universal Pictures

Movies made to look like they’re done in a single take usually come off like gimmicks, but not Sam Mendes’ riveting 1917. The one-shot conceit highlights the urgency of the story, which has two World War I soldiers (George MacKayand Dean-Charles Chapman) racing against time to deliver a message to stop an assault that will lead to a massacre of their fellow British troops. What Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins are able to accomplish in 1917 is nothing short of a technical marvel, but it’s all in service of keeping you at the side of these two men and witnessing the cruelty and brutality of war. To have a camera that doesn’t stop and doesn’t provide any reprieve is a perfect metaphor for the first mechanized war.

2. Marriage Story

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Image via Netflix

Noah Baumbach has crafted a heartbreaking and deeply compassionate look at the end of marriage. Drawing from his own experiences and refusing to take sides, Baumbach paints a heart-wrenching portrait of the painful divorce between Charlie (Adam Driver giving the year’s best performance) and his wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson in the best performance of her career), and rather than say who was right or wrong or even try to hold up marriage as the best way forward, Baumbach finds life in the banality of it all—the good intentions, the custody battle, the lawyering, the moments in between, and it all comes together beautifully. Marriage Story is not an easy movie to watch, but it is a necessary one.

1. Parasite

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Image via NEON/CJ Entertainment

Bong Joon-ho’s dark satire isn’t just the best movie of 2019 but one of the best movies of the entire decade. As the flaws in capitalism become more and more apparent with each passing day, Parasite draws us into the harsh realities of economic inequality with a scathing parable showing how we’re all trapped in a system that deprives us of our humanity in exchange for survival. The trappings may be nicer than a hunter-gatherer system, but the cost is also much higher.

The whole film is such an astounding high-wire act of balancing between tones, but Bong shows his complete mastery of cinema by never losing sight of his characters, their conflicts, and the larger themes of his picture. Rather than just making a character a mouthpiece about the shortcomings about capitalism, Bong does what any good cinematic storyteller does and shows us. Given where the world is headed, Parasite will likely be a painfully relevant movie for years to come.

Honorable Mentions: The Art of Self-Defense, Avengers: Endgame, Blinded by the Light, Fast Color, Ford v Ferrari, The Kid Who Would Be King, The Nightingale, One Cut of the Dead, and Rocketman