It’s hard to believe but 2019 is more than halfway over. Which means that we should pause and take stock. This year’s film conversation has largely been defined by massive blockbusters like “Avengers: Endgame,” which is okay considering how great the movie is, but there are just as many independent movies and smaller studio fare that deserve your love, attention, and fervent Twitter debate. So without further ado, we run down the very best movies of 2019. And don’t worry, we’ll update periodically throughout the year.

‘Always Be My Maybe’

In what is arguably Netflix’s greatest romantic comedy (sorry, “Always Be My Maybe” is refreshingly earnest and quietly revolutionary, a movie you never knew you needed until you watch it.

‘Apollo 11’

A deeply beautiful and optimistic documentary, “Apollo 11” recounts the first manned mission to the moon using only archival footage (much of it seen for the first time) and audio (including candid statements from the astronauts themselves). Soaking in every detail from the period, from the rivets on the rocket’s engines to the design of the Coca-Cola cans onlookers were sipping on as they watched the launch, it’s impossible to not get swept up in the spirit not of conquest but of scientific discovery and utopian ambition. The space race might have been a largely political construct, but it was still, as this documentary brilliantly expresses, quite an adventure.

'Avengers: Endgame'

It seemed like an impossible task -- wrap up more than 10 years and 22 films worth of mythologies, interpersonal character relationships and plot threads -- in a single, super-sized (over 3 hours!) film. And yet, somehow, Avengers: Endgame” managed to not only fulfill even the loftiest expectations but also exceed them. The resulting film, with its wildly different tones, going from a somber examination of survivors guilt to a time travel romp (are there any sweeter words than “time heist?”) to an all-out brawl that manages to dwarf everything that came before it. But the biggest accomplishment of “Avengers: Endgame” is how emotionally resonant it is, from the pre-credits sequence of Hawkeye’s family disappearing, to the conclusion of both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers’ storylines, it was in these moments that “Endgame” became something more; sure, it thrilled, but it also made you deeply feel too.

'Booksmart'

One of the few films out of SXSW this year that felt like a genuine sensation, “Billie Lourd), this is a silly, sublime teen comedy that stands apart thanks to the sophistication of its writing and direction and by its distinctly female point of view, which is progressive, sex-positive and utterly fun. In some alternate (perhaps more just) universe, it has made more money than “Avengers: Endgame.”

'Climax'

If “Gaspar Noe is a notorious enfant terrible, and there are certainly a number of sensational aspects of “Climax” that will probably rub people the wrong way (among them: self-mutilation, child murder, and some incredibly misogynistic dialogue). But it’s also so breathlessly told (with a series of unbroken long takes) and authentically acted that the camp only heightens it. Like an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s “Haunted” set to 90s club music, “Climax” is a future midnight movie classic. Fingers crossed.

'Cold Pursuit'

In Order of Disappearance” with the same wit and dry, dark humor. If you need to scratch that weird, windswept itch before “Fargo” comes back, this will hit the spot.

‘Crawl’

A hurricane floods a small Florida town, leaving a college athlete (Crawl,” released in the dog days of summer, was the perfect antidote for the bloated blockbusters and prestige-y arthouse fare that was basically all you could find. Instead, this was just bloody good fun.

'Fyre' / 'Fyre Festival'

The doomed Fyre Festival, a music festival based solely on artifice, built by charlatans and conmen, was such a colossal screw-up that its story had to be documented by two separate films. Each documentary (Netflix’s “Fyre” and Hulu’s surprise “Fyre Festival”) offer different details about the formation and ultimate dissolution of a festival that every influencer on planet earth simply had to attend, only once they got there realized that the island-set event wasn’t actually set up and that people, who had paid thousands to attend, where huddled in refugee tents, eating cold sandwiches with a slice of American cheese. The ultimate depiction of hubris, hype and the gullibility of millennials, it’s a powerful reminder that if something is a house of mirrors, eventually, it shatters.

‘The Great Hack’

The feel-bad documentary concerns the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the handful of whistleblowers who outed the company following the one-two punch of evil that was Brexit and the 2016 United States presidential election. “The Great Hack” documents how the shady company, which filed for bankruptcy shortly after the scandal broke largely to hide evidence and dodge prosecution, had a history of taking part in disruptive, largely harmful political campaigns all over the world. And it is … sobering. Not even the whistleblowers get away clean, as their motives seem, at the very least, suspect. The only dopey element of the documentary is its framing device, around a goofball New School professor who is suing for his personal date. Everything else is terrifyingly sublime.

'Greta'

The best Isabelle Huppert, having a ball) who is full of sinister secrets. With a svelte 98-minute runtime, it’s able to indulge in a number of the genre’s tropes while also gleefully upending them (particularly in the final act, which has a deliciously empowered message of sisterhood and femininity). It’s a blast.

'Happy Death Day 2U'

2017’s “Happy Death Day 2U” wasn’t the sleeper hit that the original was, which is strange because it isn’t just as good -- it’s better.

'High Flying Bird'

2019 will be graced by a pair of new Bill Duke, it’s a sports movie that feels totally unlike any sports movie you’ve ever seen (and not just because they had to skirt around NBA copyrights like an Olympic speed skater). Whip-smart and paced with a breakneck speed, “High Flying Bird” is the latest triumph from a filmmaker who, we should be reminded, was retired until very recently. Thankfully that didn’t last long.

'John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum'

The first thirty minutes or so of “Mission: Impossible” films, it’s hard to think of an action franchise more pitch perfect or eager to please. Bring on chapter 4.

‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’

Margot Robbie is luminous as the doomed Sharon Tate. Tarantino’s most relaxed film, it beautifully spends time with its characters as they luxuriate in 1969 Los Angeles, with the camera soaking in every period detail (there’s a sequence devoted to various neon signs turning on). Breathtaking and bloody, it’s a film that we cannot stop thinking about.

'The Perfection'

For maximum satisfaction, try to go into Netflix's “Richard Shepard. That’s it. What follows is one of the scariest, most surprising thrillers you’ll see all year, beautifully photographed, richly performed, and totally outrageous. Okay, now go watch it.

'Toy Story 4'

“Josh Cooley proving himself to be a next-level visionary. This is the bittersweet coda you never knew you wanted but now cannot live without.

'Triple Frontier'

It took a long time to get “Pedro Pascal). This tale of ex-military men who steal a lot of money from a South American drug lord is exciting and violent, the kind of muscular, no-frills action movie that they used to make throughout the 1980s and 1990s (complete with a streak of mournful melancholy). It took long enough to get finished, but we’re very happy “Triple Frontier” finally saw the light of day. It’s an edge-of-your-seat wonder.

'Under the Silver Lake'

It seemed like a sure-thing: Under the Silver Lake” was quietly released in a handful of theaters this spring before quickly going VOD. But maybe the home format is the best way to enjoy the film, with its multiple layers of meaning, hidden clues, and tangential narrative paths. (At a whopping 140 minutes, it might also take a few sittings.) Garfield is pitch perfect as a typical LA loser who is more intent on distracting himself with labyrinthine mysteries than dealing with the troubles of his everyday life head on. Also, he might be a serial dog murderer? Rewarding and ramshackle, “Under the Silver Lake” is a movie that will be endlessly analyzed and speculated about. How many other movies can you say that about?

'Us'

Lupita Nyong’o plays a woman who travels with her family back to the seaside town where she had a traumatic event as a child. Soon enough, she and her entire family are menaced by scarred doppelgangers who are “tethered” to their normal counterparts. (There’s a fairly deep mythology established here that never feels cumbersome or too complex.) As the movie progresses, going from a home invasion thriller to something much larger in scope, it manages to fold in the Hands Across America charity event from 1986, an entire underground world of creepy doubles, multiple amazing uses of the 1995 Luniz single “I Got 5 on It” and one of the very best horror movie twist endings ever. “Us” proved that “Get Out” wasn’t a fluke and cemented Jordan Peele as one of the most exciting, original voices in genre filmmaking.

'Velvet Buzzsaw'

“Velvet Buzzsaw” is saying about creativity, art, and criticism’s place in the intersection of the two, it does offer some biting satire and some spectacularly realized, phantasmagorical kills.

'Yesterday'       

“Lily James, as his beleaguered, constantly friend-zoned manager and friend), but complicates your own feelings about the Beatles by adding layers of doubt and regret to all of the songs that you deeply love. The reaction out of Tribeca was muted but know this: “Yesterday” rules.