NEW YORK (WP) – While much of the world eagerly awaits the upcoming Oscar nominations, former American president Barack Obama decided to give "breaking the Internet" a go by releasing a list of his favourite movies (and a few TV shows) from 2019.
He tweeted his list on Sunday (Dec 29), quickly drawing online praise.
His picks include Apollo 11, a documentary about the moon landing with archival footage; The Irishman, Martin Scorsese's mafia epic; and Little Women, Greta Gerwig's decidedly more feminist take on the classic tale.
American Factory, a documentary about the workers in a former General Motors plant in Ohio during its transformation into a factory for Chinese company Fuyao, also made the list.
It was the first release by Mr Barack and his wife's Higher Ground Productions, as he noted in his tweet.
South Korean movie Parasite also caught his eye.
Notably absent was Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, a rumination on 1960s Hollywood set against the backdrop of the real-life Manson family murders.
While that was the most celebrated movie to not appear on his list, Todd Phillips' deeply divisive Joker and Sam Mendes' 1917, a World War I movie edited to have the appearance of being filmed in one take, were the two other notable Oscar contenders that did not make the cut.
His list included a few surprises, as well.
For example, German-language film Transit, which transposes a 1940s novel about a refugee hoping to flee Nazi-occupied France into the present day without changing the story, received glowing reviews but did not end up on many critics' end-of-the-year lists.
The same goes for Diane, a quiet character study that starred Mary Kay Place as the titular character who spends her days helping others while fighting an internal battle.
Next up are my favorite movies and TV shows of 2019. Of course, theres also American Factory, a film from our own production company, Higher Ground, that was recently shortlisted for an Oscar. Heres the full list: pic.twitter.com/PEcgwotcxm
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 29, 2019
His list of television shows was far Read More – Source
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