Retrospective 2019- A Year in Film

After recovering from a difficult 2017 at the box office with a bumper 2018, the global film industry witnessed its biggest player go into overdrive in 2019, as Disney completed a colossal takeover of 20th Century Fox and launched their streaming platform Disney+, while dominating ticket sales and exceeding $10 billion at the global box office—breaking its own record for a studio by over $3 billion—thanks to superhero Goliaths like ‘Avengers: Endgame‘ and ‘Captain Marvel‘, and animation sequels ‘Toy Story 4‘ and ‘Frozen II’, as well as ‘live action’ remakes of Disney classics ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Lion King‘.

Disney’s box office dominance was only briefly challenged by blockbusters like ‘Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw’, ‘Alita: Battle Angel‘ and ‘Pokémon Detective Pikachu‘, while other big boys like ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix‘ and ‘Terminator: Dark Fate‘ underwhelmed and unperformed. But of the films which bothered the box office and left an impression, it was Tarantino’s latest ‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood‘ and Todd Phillips’ Scorsese-inspired supervillain origin story ‘Joker‘ which defined the year for us—both subverting and broadening the comic-book sub-genre along the way.

Meanwhile away from the lucrative tentpole fare, the year proved another eclectic one thanks to smaller studio and indie releases, including daring horror films like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster’s sophomore directorial efforts ‘Us‘ and ‘Midsommar‘, as well as Jonah Hill’s directorial debut ‘Mid90s‘ and this year’s British rock legend biopic ‘Rocketman‘—while the year’s best picture Oscar winner ‘Green Book‘ made an impact, and Martin Scorsese provided next year’s big Netflix hopeful with his latest mob masterpiece ‘The Irishman‘.

FilmPhonic chronicles the people, events and films that have shaped the movie world in the last twelve months, let’s hope 2020 is at least as fruitful and eventful . . . but a little less scandalous.

January

Awards Season Scramble

Image sources: 20th Century Fox, EOne, Universal & Disney

As per usual the year began with award season contenders as UK audiences got the chance to catch up with their American cousins through the likes of unique Yorgos Lanthimos costume drama ‘The Favourite‘, Adam McKay’s scathing Dick Cheney biopic ‘Vice‘ and biographical drug addiction drama ‘Beautiful Boy‘.

British moviegoers also got to see historical European costume dramas ‘Mary Queen Of Scots’ and ‘Colette‘, and more contemporary biographical tales like political scandal drama ‘The Front Runner’ and Clint Eastwood’s latest ‘The Mule‘, as well as the culmination of M. Night Shyamalan’s superhero/villain trilogy ‘Glass’ . . . or was it?

And the Award Goes To…

Golden Balls Time

Image source: Getty Images

January brought the first major stop on the awards season railway in the form of the 76th Golden Globe Awards for film and television, here are the notable movie winners this year;

Best Motion Picture – Drama

• Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

• Green Book

Best Director- Motion Picture

• Alfonso Cuarón for Roma

Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

• Rami Malek for Bohemian Rhapsody
  

and

• Glenn Close for The Wife

Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

• Christian Bale for Vice

and

• Olivia Colman for The Favourite

Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in supporting role in a Motion Picture

• Mahershala Ali for Green Book

and

• Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk

You can check out our breakdown of all the night’s movie winners here.

Those We Lost

As is unfortunately the case every year, 2019 saw some tough losses for the movie industry, so we pay tribute to some of those that the year took from us.

Image source: HBO, Universal, ABC & Warner

January saw the loss among others of American TV comedy veteran Bob Einstein (76) (Super Dave, Curb Your Enthusiasm) and legendary screen and stage star Carol Channing (97) (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hello Dolly), as well as Oscar-winning French composer Michel Legrand (86) (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Yentl) and veteran American actor Dick Miller (90) (Gremlins, Project X).

February next page>

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