It’s time once again for the Dallas/Fort Worth Film Critics to recognize the best achievements in film for the past year. As a member of this group in good standing, I come to you to report that Sam Mendes’ 1917, took the top honors as the best film of 2019. The one-take film about the story of two British soldiers carrying out a dangerous mission in German-occupied France also won awards for best director (Sam Mendes), best cinematography (Roger Deakins), and best musical score (Thomas Newman). As of this posting, the movie is scheduled to come out in Dallas on Christmas Day and then reach Tarrant County a couple of weeks later.
In the meantime, Marriage Story may have come up short in the best picture race (it came in second), but Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama garnered three of the four acting awards for Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Laura Dern, as well as the award for best screenplay. It’s on Netflix right now. The remaining acting award for best supporting actor went to Brad Pitt for his turn in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. The best foreign film award went to Bong Joon-ho’s Korean film Parasite, while Apollo 11 was named as best documentary. Toy Story 4 won the award for best animated film, and the Russell Smith Award for best low-budget was given to The Lighthouse.
If you want to see how other films and performances did in this year’s voting, you can click on this link, which gives you the top 10 movies and the top five finishers in most other categories. If you want to know my thoughts on the year in films, stay tuned. I’ll have movie-related listicles in this space, plus the best movies of the year in our Jan. 1 issue and the best documentaries of the year.
