We all have our personal lists of the best and worst movies of the year,
but there tends to be a certain consensus among critics regarding certain films, which (mostly) unite them in either praise or disapproval. Courtesy of review aggregators Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, we have determined 2019’s five best- and worst-reviewed movies, and now present them to you here. Read on for a look back over the year’s cream of the crop… and its enfants terribles.
Best: Parasite
Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%
Metacritic score: 96
EW grade: A-
Bong Joon Ho‘s twisted (and twisty), genre-bending take on the 21st-century class struggle earned rapturous praise from the moment it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it earned the coveted Palme d’Or. Parasite went on to break several box-office records, and is well on its way to becoming the biggest international film contender at the Oscars in quite some time.
Best: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
Metacritic score: 95
EW grade: A-
This sizzling queer romance from French writer-director Céline Sciamma won’t have a wide release stateside until Feb. 14, but you can rest assured it will be worth the wait. “There’s almost no single moment in Portrait of a Lady on Fire that couldn’t be captured, mounted, and hung on a wall as high art,” EW’s Leah Greenblatt raves.
Best: Little Women
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
Metacritic score: 91
EW grade: A-
In the lead-up to Greta Gerwig‘s take on the beloved Louisa May Alcott classic, some wondered if another adaptation of this much-adapted book was really necessary. The answer? A resounding yes, thanks to Gerwig and her ace collaborators, including Saoirse Ronan, Meryl Streep, and Florence Pugh.
Best: The Irishman
Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%
Metacritic score: 94
EW grade: B+
After years of development hell, countless hours of visual-effects work, getting dropped by financiers, and finally picked up by Netflix, Martin Scorsese‘s epic mob opus finally hit screens this year. Though some took issue with its lack of female representation, most critics heaped acclaim upon the three-and-a-half-hour saga, particularly for Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, all three legendary actors giving towering performances.
Best: Marriage Story
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%
Metacritic score: 93
EW grade: A-
Netflix struck gold this year between The Irishman and Noah Baumbach‘s devastating divorce dramedy. Marriage Story earned Baumbach some of the highest praise of his career; ditto stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, both giving incredibly human and utterly riveting performances.
Worst: The Fanatic
Rotten Tomatoes score: 17%
Metacritic score: 17
EW grade: C-
Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst wrote and directed this bizarre misfire, starring John Travolta as an actor’s obsessive fan. EW’s Christian Holub compared The Fanatic to Tommy Wiseau’s infamous The Room — only lacking the midnight-movie charm that’s made Wiseau’s film a cult classic.
Worst: The Haunting of Sharon Tate
Rotten Tomatoes score: 19%
Metacritic score: 8
EW grade: None
This year being the fiftieth anniversary of Sharon Tate’s murder, there were bound to be more screen adaptations of the tragic real-life tale than Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Unfortunately, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, starring Hilary Duff as the titular actress, turned the story into a derivative home-invasion horror film and gave Tate psychic visions of her impending death, earning the label of “offensively exploitative” in Rotten Tomatoes’ critical consensus.
Worst: Polar
Rotten Tomatoes score: 20%
Metacritic score: 19
EW grade: C-
Early 2019 didn’t lack for snow-based action-thrillers, but you might be better off checking out Liam Neeson‘s Cold Pursuit instead. Star Mads Mikkelsen couldn’t save Polar from itself, “a Saturday-morning-cartoon splatter of sex, violence, and seemingly endless close-ups of bouncy, glistening female body parts,” per EW’s Leah Greenblatt.
Worst: Playmobil: The Movie
Rotten Tomatoes score: 16%
Metacritic score: 25
EW grade: None
This animated kid flick, based on a European toy line, couldn’t rival The Lego Movie for critical acclaim or box office: The film bombed with one of the worst opening weekends of all time, despite an A-list cast including Daniel Radcliffe, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Kenan Thompson.
Worst: Hellboy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 17%
Metacritic score: 31
EW grade: C
Perhaps the apotheosis of 2019’s many reboots and remakes, Hellboy tried to pave a new path after two Guillermo del Toro-directed outings, casting Stranger Things star David Harbour as the big red demon antihero. But the R-rated film didn’t impress critics, many of whom yearned for del Toro’s imaginative visuals and humanism over the bad-attitude blandness of this version.
Bonus: Cats
Rotten Tomatoes score: 18%-20%
Metacritic score: 32
EW grade: C+
Wondering where Cats is on the list of worst reviewed movies of 2019? Like the movie itself which needs an update, the Cats reviews keep rolling in after release, causing the Rotten Tomatoes score to bounce around. Over at Metacritic, the film is sitting at a whopping 32 — higher than the rest of the movies on this list. Maybe filmgoers still need some time to digest every wild thing Cats has to offer.
