Watch the 10 Best Movies of 2019 Before the Year Is Over

Following a cinematic year of reckoning on the heels of #MeToo and #TimesUp, 2019 films signified a time of great humbling, healing, and self-reflection. The last 12 months on the big screen have been less about rage and system shifting as they’ve captured a more resonant human experience today: inner conflict.

The most remarkable cinema of the year has centered on characters who are grappling with their mortality, blurring the lines between hero and villain, and complicating the limits of culture. These films reflect us as we are rather than who we aspire to be: messy, uncertain, heartbreaking, yet trying. From a pair of mothers who move from the stripper pole to blue-collar crime to a promising high school student who uses racial prejudice against him as his own psychological warfare, and from a brother harboring a traumatic secret from his twin to a couple ripping themselves apart one painful impression at a time, this year’s films have shown humanity in its rawest form.

Let’s look back on a truly earnest year in cinema.