The Films of 2019. The 20th annual FiLM BiTCH Awards
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And the Nominees Are...
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Best Picture
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A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Marielle Heller (Sony Pictures) Nov 22nd |
BOOKSMART Olivia Wilde (United Artists) May 24th |
THE FAREWELL Lulu Wang (A24) July 12th |
MARRIAGE STORY Noah Baumbach (Netflix) November 23rd |
PARASITE
Bong Joon-ho (Neon) October 11th |
| Don't expect a biopic. It's a sly earnest and intuitive take on family healing. As serenely disarming as Mr Rogers himself. | A consistently hilarious, femme take on the high school party subgenre. Gets and amplifies the weirdly comic intensity of best friendship. |  A gloriously specific cross-generational long-distance family drama that packs a (gentle) wallop. |
 Who knew that a lacerating drama could stay happily married to a very smart comedy? The actors are a dream. |
 This genre hybrid -- dark comedy + social drama + con artist thriller -- starts perfectly. Only improves from there. A masterpiece. |
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Finalists (Which you can also consider "nominees" if you'd like an Oscar parallel): Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, Neon), Pain & Glory (Pedro Almodóvar, SPC), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, Columbia) and Woman at War (Benedikt Erlingsson, Magnolia) full "Top 10" article here Semi Finalists: Shadow (Zhang Yimou, WellGo), Climax (Gaspar Noe, Neon) and Transit (Christian Petzoldt, Music Box Films) |
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Best Director
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| Pedro Almodóvar PAIN & GLORY |
Bong Joon-ho PARASITE |
Marielle Heller A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD |
Celina Sciamma PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE |
Quentin Tarantino ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD |
| For baring the soul and fiction of an artist, gorgeously intertwined, inseparable, cumulative. What restrained beauty. |
Inspired mise en scene, unerring laser-like control, and the wit of vibrancy of a dark showman. We're going wherever he takes us. |
She's three for three now with that quiet but startling filmography. Unshowy but what range, soul, and depth. | Conjures real passion with formal control, ingenious visual choices, and a sensual gift with actors. | Indulgent? Yes. Great? That, too. Still a master of tense unforgettable irreverent setpieces but a new sweetness creeps in. |
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Finalist: Benedikt Erlingsson for Woman at War and Mati Diop for Atlantics, who are two of the most exciting, fresh, and revelatory new directors in international cinema. Semi Finalists: Zhang Yimou for Shadow, Lulu Wang for The Farewell, Sam Mendes for 1917, Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story, and Olivia Wilde for Booksmart |
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Best Original Screenplay
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| BOOKSMART Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Susanna Fogel |
THE FAREWELL Lulu Wang |
MARRIAGE STORY Noah Baumbach |
PARASITE Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han |
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE Celine Sciamma |
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Finalists: Pain and Glory, Woman at War Semi-Finalists: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Synonyms, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Knives Out, Diane |
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Best Adapted Screenplay
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| A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD Noah Harpster & Micah Fitzerman Blu |
INVISIBLE LIFE Murilo Hauser, Ines Bortagaray, and Karim Aïnouz |
THE IRISHMAN Steven Zaillian |
LITTLE WOMEN Greta Gerwig |
TRANSIT Christian Petzold |
| Inspired by the magazine profile "Can You Say...Hero?" by Tom Junod ... but heavily fictionalized. |
Based on the classic novel "The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusamo" by Martha Batalha. | Mythologized from the non-fiction book "I Heard You Paint Houses" by Charles Brandt which was such a better title for this. | A rethink and balancing act for the novel by Louisa May Alcott in its fourth major motion picture. |
Boldy contemporized from the 1940s WW II novel by Anna Seghers. Or, rather, placed out of time. |
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Finalists: Shadow has a fun byzantine plot based on the legend of The Three Kingdoms, Hustlers is another example that maybe magazine articles are the best thing to adapt?, Luce's thought provoking drama was based on the play of the same name. Semi Finalists: Credit to Avengers Endgame for feeling organic when it was obviously a Herculean feat of retro-fitting, The Report may be dry and exposition-filled but it's also smart and appropriately serious about thee info dump, Toy Story 4 hasn't quite thought up new story beats but the character work and evolution of previous themes is beautifully handled, and Jojo Rabbit |
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BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
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| I LOST MY BODY Jérémy Clapin (Xilam / Netflix) Nov 15th 81 minutes |
KLAUS Sergio Pablos (SPA Studios / Netflix) Nov 8th 96 minutes |
MISSING LINK Chris Butler (Laika / United Artists) April 12th 93 minutes |
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| Evocative, mysterious, and ineffably sad even when you're feeling awestruck by the animated storytelling of a hand trying to find its body. |
Screenplay problems, sure, but breathtakingly animated with an welcome idiosyncratic visual personality. Naughty and nice simultaneously. |
An old school adventure yarn with visual wit, sophisticated humor, and vibrant color to spare. Laika consistently delivers and we love them for it. |
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Finalist: Weathering With You is all too histrionic but the animation is often jawdropping, and Toy Story 4 is beautifully executed with winning new characters if same old same old story beats. Semi Finalists: Frozen 2, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Abominable NOTE: We only offer three nomination spots a year since the Academy's rules there are kind of crazy. You only need 16 features to trigger a 5 wide race with AMPAS. That's about a 33% chance of being nominated if you so much as exist! If Best Picture had the same ratio of existence to nominees, our Best Picture list would be something like 90 nominees long each year! Can you imagine? No, please don't. |
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