I'll be sharing my midyear ballots (such as they are) over the next couple of days but first let's hear from the whole team. Or, some of them - those that volunteeered their little in progress top fives. The team hopes you enjoy these little peeks into our individual film experiences from January through June at the movies (and in some cases, at home).
Chris Feil's midyear top five
Twitter | Instagram | This Had Oscar Buzz | TFE Articles
01 Her Smell's redemptive anarchy in five acts
02 Ari Aster's hilarious Midsommar -time sadness
03 Claire Denis' sci-fi descent into the black hole of our biology High Life.
04 The haves-and-have-nots horror of Us.
05 Zhao Tao giving another masterclass in Jia Zhangke's Ash is Purest White.
Paolo Kagaoan's midyear top five
Twitter | Instagram | All of Paolo's articles
01 Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce... When Beyonce descended from those steps, Sergei Eisenstein rose back from the dead, burned every copy of Battleship Potemkin, and killed himself.
02 Elizabeth Olsen in Endgame because she reminded me that Thanos is an asshole...
03 The first shot of Apollo 11 because it's steampunk or the 60s version of that come to life.
04 For Sama - Waad al-Kateab really made a documentary in Aleppo while taking care of her daughter while I can barely get out of bed in the morning.
05 The shot Kawhi Leonard made on Game 7 against the Sixers Look it up, it's a movie.
Ginny O'Keefe's midyear top five
Instagram | All of Ginny's articles
01 Everything Chernobyl is and stands for -The acting, the writing, the score, the Jared Harris. Just an amazing show that gave me everything that the final season of Game of Thrones did not.
02 Booksmart - it made me laugh, cry and download the soundtrack off Spotify.
03 Zachary Levi in Shazam! - he's been under appreciated for too long and he was the perfect fit for this fun underrated DC movie.
04 Keanu Reeves in anything - need I say more?
05 The first Stranger Things 3 trailer dropping - I have been counting down the minutes for this damn season so I was pretty well fed after the first trailer dropped and I spent the entire day glued to my computer deciphering each shot. I think I'm gonna have a pretty good summer *knocks on wood*
Murtada's midyear top five
Twitter | Instagram | TFE Podcast | All Murtada Articles
01 The sense of nostalgia that envelopes The Last Black Man in San Francisco. I just rambled on with something stinging my eyes on the podcast.
02 A quiet clap to the sad but beautiful, mournful but funny, tranquil in tone but turbulent in emotion Diane.
03 The prophecy realized with striking image after striking image in Native Son and to the birth of a new acutely visual stylist in Rashid Johnson
04 That the beautiful love story at the heart of Sorry, Angel is also one of mentorship that's realized best when the boy is scolded, in the midst of flirting no less, for not liking Jane Campion's The Piano.
05 Mia Wasikowska continuing to deliver revelatory and peculiar performances in oddities like Piercing.
Eurocheese's midyear top five
All of Eurocheese's articles
01 The Good Place. I laughed. I cried. I can't believe we only get one more season.
02 The craft and appreciation for Marvel as a whole put into Avengers: End Game.
03 One of the most beautiful action scenes I've seen in ages, brought to us by Zhang Yimou and his team on Shadow
04 Julianne Moore dancing to "Gloria"
05 Toy Story 4 stuck the landing with one of their best! I'm so pleasantly surprised.
J.B.'s midyear top five
All of J.B.'s articles
01 The Souvenir, because it gave me all the elegant, quietly devastating An Education vibes I needed, plus Queen Tilda in wealthy matron drag. What more could a person want?
02 The Last Black Man in San Francisco, because this haunting, exquisitely beautiful film hit me like a ton of bricks, right in the heart.
03 Sorry Angel, because this is exactly the kind of warm, tender, heart-breakingly human gay drama the word needs much, much more of.
04 Ash Is Purest White, because Zhao Tao is a badass bitch from hell. Her performance in this piquant emotional crime thriller is nothing short of revelatory.
05 All Is True, because this movie is much better than people give it credit for—an affectionate, insightful examination of what it means to be an artist, and what it means to be part of a family—and Branagh’s Shakespeare schtick stills does the trick for me.
Tony Ruggio's midyear top five
Twitter | All of Tony's articles
01 Scissors in Us - Not many filmmakers have a knack for iconography, but Jordan Peele does and I thank him for it.
02 Matthew McConaughey in The Beach Bum - Career summation work, a free-wheeling embrace of every tic and iota of hippie/hobo identity he’s carved out for himself
03 Shia’s Redemption - The Peanut Butter Falcon, a touching ode to friendship and adventure, redeems perennial bad boy Shia Labeouf and proves he can be a star again.
04 Life’s Mundanities - Paddleton reminded me that ordinary life can be both depressing and fulfilling, often at the same time
05 Pixar Specialty - No animation studio can produce water works quite like Pixar, and Toy Story 4 continues that record with a great parent metaphor.
Lynn Lee's midyear top five
All of Lynn Lee's articles
01 Captain Marvel's bangin' '90s grrrl power soundtrack - what can I say, I'm the target demographic for that kind of nostalgia-baiting. I only wish the songs were available as an actual soundtrack, à la Guardians of the Galaxy's mixtape.
02 The Keanu-ssance no one saw coming - because the man is just so damn lovable (and still delectable after all these years). He was by far the best thing about Always Be My Maybe.
03 MALALA: the unlikeliest of code words, it perfectly encapsulates the delightful goofiness of Booksmart and the hilariously earnest, exasperating, and exquisite friendship at its center.
04 Every scene between Emma Thompson and John Lithgow in Late Night: He softens her edges, she brings him out of the shadows; together they bring emotional shading to what would otherwise be a fun but shallow movie.
05 The final sequence of Ron Howard's Pavarotti showing the late great tenor's performance of his signature aria, Puccini's "Nessun dorma," at the first Three Tenors concert in Rome. As a documentary the film's way too airbrushed, but Howard had the good sense to end on a (literal) high note - it's hard to nitpick when that golden voice is gloriously filling an entire movie theater and reducing you to tears.
Spencer Coile's midyear top five
Twitter | Instagram | All of Spencer's articles
01 Serenity - for being the most inane yet ingenious cinematic experience I’ve had all year
02 Christina Hendricks in Toy Story 4 because no one other porcelain doll could break my heart half as much
03 Long Shot for somehow hacking into my brain and bringing to life a love story between my two major celebrity crushes
04 Someone Great because it introduced many of its viewers to Lizzo and her break-up anthem "Truth Hurts".
05 Jake Gyllenhaal’s nudity in Velvet Buzzsaw because, well… is an explanation really needed?
Jason Adam's midyear top five
Twitter | Instagram | All of Jason's articles
Jason with John Waters !!!
01 Richard Madden rescuing Taron Egerton from that dismal straights party in Rocketman -- we've all been there, watching our friends hook up, dreaming our own Richard Madden would appear to save us -- musicals make our dreams come true!
02 Every sadly romantic frame of Sorry Angel, a film that tenderly lays bare the loss of an entire generation
03 The one of a kind rhythms of The Last Black Man in San Francisco, a movie that moves like the trolleys up and down and up and down that city's streets, blood through its heart, outwards and alive
04 The three exquisite horror films I have seen so far this year haven't come out yet so I'll mention the fourth one, Nicolas Pesce's perverse and befouled anti-romance Piercing, with great work from Chris Abbott and Mia Wasikowska exploiting each other's weak spots... often literally
05 Annette Bening's sassy intergalactic mom dance in Captain Marvel.