BEST FIRST WATCHES OF 2019

I started keeping track of my first watches earlier this decade, and this year, was by far the most fruitful in terms of film-watching, and least productive in every other aspect of my life.

I saw 318 movies for the very first time this year. That's too many. I think that's fair to say.

At the top are the Top Bunch of the 318 movies I saw this year in no particular order, and below is the long, long list of first watches. The top is not perfect, but these are the movies that stuck with me the most, the ones I have revisited or thought about the most.

Top First Watches of 2019

Shirkers (2018)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

The Farewell (2019)

The Irishman (2019)

Parasite (2019)

Midsommar (2019)

Pain and Glory (2019)

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Life Itself (2014)

Shoplifters (2018)

Melancholia (2011)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Exit Through the Giftshop (

For Sama (2019)

LA 92 (2018)

The Queen of Versailles (2012)

The Arbor (2010)

The Babadook (2014)

One Child Nation (2019)

Army of Shadows (1969)

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

American Factory (2019)

Little Women (2019)

Uncut Gems (2019)

January 2019

1. Shirkers (2018)

2. Unsane (2018)

3. The House that Jack Built (2018)

4. Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (2018)

5. Collette (2018)

6. Skate Kitchen (2018)

7. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)

8. Reversing Roe (2018)

9. Love Simon (2018)

10. RBG (2018)

11. Double Lover (2018)

12. Christopher Robin (2018)

13. In the Aisle (2018)

14. Damsel (2018)

15. Wildlife (2018)

16. Hearts Beat Loud (2018)

17. Love After Love (2018)

18. A Simple Favor (2018)

19. What they Had (2018)

20. Who We Are Now (2018)

21. What Keeps You Alive (2018)

22. A Futile, Stupid Gesture (2018)

23. Shoplifters (2018)

24. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

25. Juliet, Naked (2018)

26. Burning (2018)

27. The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

28. The Strange Story of the Donnellys (2010)

29. The Black Donnellys (2017)

February 2019

30. A Private War (2018)

31. The Wife (2018)

32. Free Solo (2018)

33. I am not a Witch (2018)

34. Custody (2018)

35. Let the Corpses Tan (2018) <--- When I Finally did my Best of the Year

36. She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

37. Friends with Money (2006)

38. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

39. Let’s Go to Prison (2006)

40. The Ladykillers (1955)

41. Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996)

42. Logan’s Run (1976)

43. A Night at the Garden (2017)

44. Hoop Dreams (1994)

45. Beavis and Butthead Do America (1996)

46. Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa (2013)

47. Silent Running (1976)

48. Major League (1989)

49. Safe Men (1998)

50. Cooley High (1975)

51. Dirty Harry (1971)

52. Amazing Grace (2006)

53. Mindhunters (2004)

54. Norma Rae (1979)

March 2019

55. Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)

56. Death Wish (1974)

57. Car Wash (1976)

58. The Greasy Strangler (2016)

59. Cold Pursuit (2019)

60. Arctic (2019)

61. Captain Marvel (2019)

62. The Condemned (2007)

63. Sneakers (1992)

64. The Marine (2006)

65. Generation Wealth (2018)

66. The Marine 2 (2009)

67. The Marine 3 (2013)

68. Take this Waltz (2011)

69. Wendy and Lucy (2008)

70. Death Proof (2007) April 2019

71. Hopscotch (1980)

72. Youth in Revolt (20

73. Us (2019)

74. Shazam! (2019)

75. Triple Frontier (2019)

76. Teacher of the Year (2014)

77. Hellboy (2019)

78. Hotel Mumbai (2019)

79. Flamen & Citronen (2008)

80. Road House (1989)

81. Kidnap (2009)

82. The Funks (2016)

83. The Stunt Man (1980)

84. Clifford (1994)

85. Army of Shadows (1969)

86. Rubber (2010

87. The 39 Steps (1935)

88. The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

89. The Mustang (2019)

90. Rafiki (2019)

91. I Feel Pretty (2018)

92. Fist Fight (2017)

93. What Men Want (2019)

94. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

95. High Life (2019)

May 2019

96. River of Grass (1994)

97. The Hollywood Shuffle (1987)

98. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (2019)

99. Detective Pikachu (2019)

100. 12 Rounds 2: Reloaded (2013)

101. John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019)

102. Justice league vs. The Fatal Five (2019)

103. A Knight’s Tale (2001)

104. Sabotage (2014)

105. Marc Maron: Too Real (2017)

106. Dog Eat Dog (2016)

107. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

June 2019

108. Aladdin (2019)

109. Dumbo (2019)

110. Drillbit Taylor (20

111. Brightburn (2019)

112. The Deadwood Movie (2019)

113. X-Men: The Dark Phoenix (2019)

114. Her Smell (2019)

115. The Beach Bum (2019)

116. The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

117. Murder Mystery (2019)

118. Booksmart (2019)

119. Back to the Future (1985)

120. Snatched (2017)

121. Escape Plan 2: Hades (2019)

122. The Queen of Versailles (20

123. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

124. Back to the Future Part III (1990)

July 2019

125. Men in Black: International (2019)

126. Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

127. Late Night (2019)

128. The Souvenir (2019)

129. Child’s Play (2019)

130. Toy Story 4 (2019)

131. Anima (2019)

132. Standoff at Sparrow Creek (2019)

133. Dragged Across Concrete (2019)

134. Escape Room (2019)

135. Fast Colour (2019)

136. Little (2019)

137. Midsommar (2019)

138. Rocketman (2019)

139. Pride & Prejudice (2005)

140. Shaft (2019)

141. The Brink (2019)

142. Dick (1999)

143. Greta (2019)

144. High Flying Bird (2019)

145. The Comedian’s Comedian’s Comedians (2017)

146. Crawl (2019)

147. Doug Stanhope: No Place Like Home (2016)

148. Wild Rose (2019)

149. Gloria Bell (2019)

150. Diane (2019)

151. Brian Posehn: 25x2 (2017)

152. 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown (2015)

153. PBS American Experience: The Chinese Exclusion Act (20

154. Doug Stanhope: Beer Hall Putsch (2013)

155. Anthony Jeselnik: Fire at the Maternity Ward (2019)

156. The Condemned 2 (2015)

157. Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook (2019)

158. Stuber (2019)

159. Doug Stanhope: No Refunds (2007)

160. Todd Barry: The Crowd Work Tour (2014)

161. Tom Segura: Completely Normal (2014)

162. The Kids are Alright (2018)

163. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

164. Leonard & Marrianne (2019)

165. Matt Braunger: Finally Live in Portland (2019)

August 2019

166. Deliver us From Evil (2006)

167. West of Memphis (2012)

168. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

169. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

170. The Kitchen (2019)

171. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

172. The Farewell (2019)

173. Luce (2019)

174. Gimme Danger (2016)

175. Jimmy Dore: Sentenced to Live (2015)

176. Whitney Cummings: Money Shot (2010)

177. Trees Lounge (1996)

178. Ready or Not (2019)

September

179. The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

180. Blinded by the Light (2019)

181. Sword of Trust (2019)

182. Good Boys (2019)

183. It: Chapter 2 (2019)

184. Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019)

185. The Blue Umbrella (2005)

186. Piercing (2019)

187. J.T. Leroy (2019)

188. The Hole in the Ground (2019)

189. I Trapped the Devil (2019)

190. The Goldfinch (2019)

191. Hustlers (2019)

192. Official Secrets (2019)

193. Ad Astra (2019)

194. Rambo: Last Blood (2019)

195. Downton Abbey (2019)

October

196. Marrowbone (2018)

197. The Between Two Ferns Movie (2019)

198. Tigers are not Afraid (2019)

199. Braid (2019)

200. Boar (2019)

201. Always, Sometimes, Never (2019)

202. Joker (2019)

203. Banana Splits Movie (2019)

204. Alligator (19

205. The Invisible Maniac (19

206. 3 From Hell (2019)

207. The Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)

208. Lifechanger (2019)

209. See No Evil (2006)

210. Grizzly (1976)

211. Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

212. Splinter (2008)

213. Possession (1981)

214. The Laundromat (2019)

215. The Lighthouse (2019)

216. Gwen (2019)

217. 31 (20

218. Phantasm (1979)

November

219. Zombieland: Doubletap (2019)

220. The Sheik (2014)

221. Serenity (2019)

222. I, Frankenstein (2014)

223. The Perfection (2019)

224. The Rolling Thunder Review (2019)

225. We Will Stand Up (2019)

226. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

227. White Lie (2019)

228. Atlantics (2019)

229. Pariah (2011)

230. The Babadook

231. Amazing Grace (2019)

232. We Were Here (2011)

233. Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

234. Parasite (2019)

235. LA 92 (20

236. Under the Silver Lake (2019)

237. Jojo Rabbit (2019)

238. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2019)

239. Certified Copy (2010)

240. Oslo August 31 (2011)

241. Hale County, This Morning, This Evening (2018)

242. A Bread Factory Part 1 (2019)

243. A Bread Factory Part 2 (2019)

244. Doctor Sleep (2019)

245. Middle of Nowhere (2012)

246. Gook (2017)

247. Stoker (2013)

248. Night Moves (2013)

249. Somewhere (2010)

250. American Factory (2019)

251. Ford vs. Ferrari (2019)

252. Pain & Glory (2019)

253. The Good Lie (2019)

254. The Irishman (2019)

255. Le Jeune Ahmed (2019)

256. The Report (2019)

257. Marriage Story (2019)

258. 21 Bridges (2019)

259. Bisbee ‘17 (2018)

260. 24 Hour Party People (2002)

261. Angel has Fallen (2019)

262. Honey Boy (2019)

263. The Two Popes (2019)

264. Knives Out (2019)

265. Waves (2019)

266. Dark Waters (2019)

267. It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

268. Sur la Corde Raide (2019)

269. Antigone (2019)

December 2019

270. And then We Danced (2019)

271. Sud (1999)

272. Greenberg (2010)

273. A Separation (2011)

274. The Bling Ring (2013)

275. Black Mother (2019)

276. Little Woods (2019)

277. Little Monsters (2019)

278. In Fabric (2019)

279. Berberian Sound Studio (20

280. Field Niggas (20

281. Trial by Fire (2019)

282. Leaving Neverland Part I (2019)

283. Kate Plays Christine (2016)

284. Judy (2019)

285. Jumanji 2 (2019)

286. Faces/Places (2019)

287. Klaus (2019)

288. Finding Neverland Part 2 (2019)

289. I am Mother (2019)

290. Burning Cane (2019)

291. The Comedy (2012)

292. Happy New Year Colin Burstead (2019)

293. Cameraperson (2019)

294. Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

295. Mister America (2019)

296. At Berkeley (2013)

297. Hell Girl (Depraved) (2019)

298. The Arbor (2010)

299. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

300. Richard Jewell (2019)

301. Bombshell (2019)

302. Climax (2019)

303. One Child Nation (2019)

304. Rabbit Hole (2010)

305. Kill List (2011)

306. Life Itself (2014)

307. Melancholia (2011)

308. Young Adult (2011)

309. Little Women (2019)

310. For Sama (2019)

311. Dolomite is my Name (2019)

312. Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)

313. Uncut Gems (2019)

314. A Hidden Life (2019)

315. Jawline (2019)

316. This is Not a Film (2011)

317. The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

318. Knock Down the House (2019)