2019's Best Screen Animals
Friday, December 27, 2019 at 10:00AM
Different lists each for our "Year in Review"
We had hoped to put the entire cast of Cats on this list of the big screen's best animal characters but alas... very few of them are worthy to ascend to the Heaviside Layer let alone our year end list of the best big screen animals! This list is dedicated to bunnies as those beady-eyed cuties had a rough year at the movies. They were used solely for unsettling mood, multiplying sybolism and raw meat (gross) in Us and later popped up as an instrument of toxic masculine shaming in Jojo Rabbit. Bunnies deserve better in 2020! Which filmmaker will answer the call and treat them well onscreen?
Without further ado let's talk the screen animals we fell hardest for at the movies this year.
11 Dumbo (elephant)
Here's the thing. Tim Burton and Screenwriters and (presumably) Disney corporate were so intent on expanding the movie (it's 48 minutes longer than the original Dumbo!) that it keeps pointing to everything but the star mutant attraction. Dumbo is as adorable as his ears are big but he's a supporting player in his own movie. They lost the thread or Dumbo could've topped the list.
Stay still!
10 Bees
Unlike bunnies, bees actually had it good at the movies this year. They were all "gay rights!" and practically psychic and super-powered in Tell it to the Bees (the climax has to be seen to be believed). Even better their intricate hierarchies, amber beauty, and nutritous bounty grant a richness, metaphysical depth, and profound feeling of protectiveness to Honeyland. You just marvel at the respect that one little boy and one old woman pay them while cursing everyone else for their careless destructiveness.
09 Seagulls
Team Dafoe or Team Pattinson in The Lighthouse? Nope, we're Team Seagulls.
07 Bear (in a Cage)
So we're just going to ignore the bear in the cage? Bless bonkers Ari Aster for his full circle red herring in MidSommar and praise be to A24's insane marketing team for running with it.
09 Old Deuteronomy (Jellicle Cat)
Cats is an easy target of ridicule but I personally maintain that Dame Judi Dench slays her role from that slow reverent introduction to her perfect direct-to-camera comic pretentiousness at film's end. The star turn peaks in the middle though, when she's curled up dreamily in that cat bed gazing hornily at Gus the Theater Cat (Sir Ian McKellen) while kicking out one leg. Why yes she will have (has had) that cream.
06 'Angel Pussy' (kitten)
There was no animal we worried more for this year onscreen than that wee snow-white kitten that Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) adopts and dotes on and drags around with him carelessly from bars to boats in The Beach Bum. The cat is probably an alcoholic now, too, with its spiked bowls of milk but it somehow survives the chaos.
05 The sphynx (cat)
When we heard they were remaking the great Chilean film Gloria into an American Gloria Bell, we only prayed that the hairless feline that our titular heroine resists (until she doesn't) would make a return appearance. Our prayers were answered.
04 Giant Pekinese Puppies
If you heard one thing about the underseen and batshit crazy Portuguese film Diamantino it was probably the presence of hallucinated fluffy dogs that inspire the dim but well meaning soccer star to greatness. They do not disappoint even though their presence was spoiled from the very first review.
03 "Goose" (cat flerken)
SPOILER ALERT. We knew that Captain Marvel was going to give us an origin story for Nick Fury's eyepatch since franchise cinema loves nothing more than to destroy all traces of mystery through exposition, repetition, and origins within origins within origin stories. Despite his annoying plot purpose, this ginger focus-puller stole the whole damn movie.
02 The Water Nokk (horse)
Whatever ones qualms might be about Frozen II, and several people have them, it's hard to not marvel at the technical virtuosity of the animation. That's especially true of the formidable water elemental that Queen Else claims as her own steed, once she's broken it. What a jaw-dropper of a sequence that was. And how photogenic that Nokk proves to be once he's settled into form.
01 Brandy (pitbull)
Sometimes the Palm Dog winner at Cannes is undeniable. Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood is filled with memorable characters, inspired actors, showy costumes, and great setpieces but nothing matches the well-trained precision of this bitch on the endearment scale. Brandy (played by gifted canine actor Sayuri) proved so popular she even got her own character poster and now she's a model, posing for the back cover of the movie's steelbook Blu-ray. Well earned... just like those goopy double-scooped cans of dog food she patiently drools over before her attack.
Previously on our 'Year in Review' Celebration:
- Filmmaker Interviews
- 10 Style Icons
- 7 Stocking Stuffers
- 10 Best Horror Performances
- Mainstream Box Office Hits
- 50 Biggest Documentary Hits
Reader Comments (6)
I worried way more about Zoonie, Berry and Foofoo in Parasite than anyone else - animal or human - in films this year. Bong used them so well in the film.
And Ellen from The Farewell deserves that #1 spot, yet she's nowhere to be found! She managed to charm us without resorting to violence.
This John Wick dogs erasure will not stand
Diamantino is delightfully nutty. It's streaming on Criterion, ya'll. Go see it.
Goose and Brandy are the stars of the year. The latter for being protective for its master and his master's friends. That's a great dog.
I wished the salamander in Frozen had more to do.
(Frozen 2 SPOILERS? I guess?)
I mean sure, you want new toys in your movie and maybe the horse won't really sell, but can you not think of a way to bring him back in Act III?
I'd like to put in a good word for the horse in The Mustang, a film that has unfortunately gotten lost in the year-end shuffle.