The majority of films are on the list below are compelled to put a halt to something. That something can be anything, but it’s the driving force that makes some of these films approach greatness. The impulse to avoid something or to alter an emotion have consumed the films in my top 10. An aging director in Pain and Glory desperately tries to avoid the bleak fact that his best years, personally and creatively, are well behind him by avoiding drifting into creative obscurity. In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, two ravishing young women must avoid the passionate feelings they have for each other, no matter how difficult such a task is. Quentin Tarantino ruminates extensively on the concept of altering time. His Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood envisions a world where Charles Manson and his disciples get the ultimate comeuppance. In Uncut Gems there seems to be an inevitable ending that its main character cannot avoid, no matter how tirelessly he tries. And in The Irishman an aging gangster wants so badly to avoid his inner conscious that he tries to avoid his true emotions at all costs, but sometimes trying all your might just isn’t enough.

Below are my Top 30 Movies Of 2019…

Now that we’ve seen Part I (#50-26) of my list of Top 50 Films of the Decade, it’s time to take a look at the remainder of list with #25-1.

Ten years are gone just like that. I have been doing my Best Films of the Year list for Geeks of Doom for the last decade. Now it is time for my Top Films of the Decade list. I can remember where I saw all of the films on my list. It’s like my last ten years are bookmarked by the films that I saw. Almost like milestones if you will. I can immediately recall where I was mentally and existentially when I watched The Master in 2012, or the feelings I was enduring when in 2011 I saw Melancholia. It’s truly amazing how re-watching movies can thrust you back in time.

Ten years are gone just like that. I have been doing my Best Films of the Year list for Geeks of Doom for the last decade. Now it is time for my Top Films of the Decade list. I can remember where I saw all of the films on my list. It’s like my last ten years are bookmarked by the films that I saw. Almost like milestones if you will. I can immediately recall where I was mentally and existentially when I watched The Master in 2012, or the feelings I was enduring when in 2011 I saw Melancholia. It’s truly amazing how re-watching movies can thrust you back in time.

Another year has come and gone. 2018 is a year I wish wouldn’t have ended simply because of the plethora of cinematic pleasure that it offered. The majority of the films on my best of the year list possessed an unceasing pursuit to locate and dissect deflated masculinity, crushed egos, and saying goodbye to the thing one loves most. Surprisingly, female directors had an enormous year in 2018 and they were at the forefront at perceiving that masculinity was in peril. Films such as Western, The Rider, You Were Never Really Here, Zama, and Private Life, all of which were directed by women, gave us a glimpse at what happens to a man when their masculinity is wounded. Egos were also susceptible to directors’ probing cameras this year, ripe for endless rumination. How can a priest continue to maintain a strong image when he’s slowly loosing his faith in First Reformed? The women in The Favourite care tremendously about their image and position, and will do whatever it takes to maintain it. An aging director in The Other Side of the Wind does things only his way, hardly listening to anyone within his circle, and the results are catastrophic. And the madman at the center of The House that Jack Built has the biggest ego of all, which eventually paves his way to enter Hell.

Here are my Top 30 Movies of 2018…

Le Samouraï
Blu-ray
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Alain Delon, Francois Perier, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Michel Boisrond
Release Date: October 25, 1967
Criterion Blu-Ray Release Date: November 14, 2017

– Why, Jef?
– I was paid to.

A simple line of dialogue like this has a tremendous amount of substance behind it. The hitman’s ruthless, taciturn response here embraces the rigid mentality of almost all of French director Jean-Pierre Melville‘s characters. In essence, they all remain true to their word. His characters are obsessively dedicated to their particular craft or talent, rendering them masters at what they do.

Just like some of his most memorable ones, such as the priest in Leon Morin, Priest, the gangsters in Le Circle Rouge, the resistance fighters in Army of Shadows, and the Nazi officer in Silence de la Mer, the hitman in Le Samouraï is governed through an austere, lonely landscape by an inexorable code they must adhere to. His code and his talent as a scrupulous assassin are everything he owns.