2019 Golden Issue Award Winners – Movies

We may already be in 2020 but we’ve still got some business with 2019 left to take care of. At the end of December, we released the full list of nominees for our annual Golden Issue Awards, which celebrate the best movies, comic books, TV shows, and video games of each year. Now that the votes have been cast and the ballots have been tallied, it’s finally time to reveal all of the big winners.

Here we’re just going to focus on the movies from this past year, handing out the Golden Issue Awards for Best Movie, Best Comic Book Movie, Best Director, Best Comic Book Director, Best Animated Movie, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Fight Scene, Best Post-Credits Scene, and Best First Appearance.

2019 gave us Avengers: Endgame, Joker, Knives Out, Shazam!, Us, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and so many more movies that we absolutely loved. Picking just a few nominees for each category was an incredibly daunting task, and picking the winners was even harder. With our entire staff casting their votes, we can officially name the winners of each and every Golden Issue Award.

Best Movie

• Avengers: Endgame
• Joker
• Knives Out
• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
• Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
• Us
• IT CHAPTER TWO

Knives Out is, without a doubt, one of the most fun and enjoyable movie-going experiences of the entire year. The fact that a thought-provoking mystery and an important commentary on classism in the United States turned into a beloved adventure and major box office hit just further proves the talents of writer/director Rian Johnson. This is one we’re all sure to watch many, many more times.

Best Comic Book Movie

• Avengers: Endgame
• Joker
• Shazam!
• Captain Marvel
• Spider-Man: Far From Home

This was a great year for comic book movies, but it should come as no surprise to see Avengers: Endgame named as the best of the bunch by our voters. There’s a lot of love out there for Joker, and for good reason, but Endgame is just the sort of event that only comes around once in a while. To be able to wrap up 10 years worth of storylines while making the majority of a massive fan base happy is already a mind-boggling achievement, but Endgame went even further by turning every fan in the theater into a sobbing, emotional mess. It’s safe to say we love this one 3,000.

Best Director

• Rian Johnson (Knives Out)
• Todd Phillips (Joker)
• Chad Stahelski (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum)
• Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame)
• Jordan Peele (Us)

What is there left to say about Rian Johnson? Knives Out already took home our Golden Issue for Best Movie, and so many of that film’s successes rest squarely on Johnson’s shoulders. Five feature films into his career, Johnson has yet to miss, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see his name on this list when his next movie hits theaters.

Best Comic Book Movie Director

• Todd Phillips (Joker)
• Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame)
• David Sandberg (Shazam!)
• Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Captain Marvel)
• Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Far From Home)

Joe and Anthony Russo have been Marvel Studios staples since 2014 when they delivered the hard-hitting espionage thriller Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Over the past few years, they have grown into the go-to duo for Kevin Feige and the MCU, and Avengers: Endgame proved why. This film shows that the Russo Brothers can handle the biggest action sequences in the industry while also keeping their eye for the small, emotional moments that held it all together.

Best Animated Movie

• Toy Story 4
• Frozen 2
• How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
• Abominable
• Missing Link

2019 delivered an incredible crop of animated movies, but none of them proved as stunning, powerful, or surprisingly zany as Toy Story 4. Most fans of the iconic Pixar franchise wondered why this fourth installment existed after Toy Story 3 delivered such a satisfying conclusion. But director Josh Cooley balanced more introspective, adult themes with some of the strangest and darkest humor of the series in order to make Toy Story 4 a wholly unique experience.

Best Actor

• Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)
• Robert Downey Jr. (Avengers: Endgame)
• Chris Evans (Avengers: Endgame, Knives Out)
• Keanu Reeves (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum)
• Zachary Levi (Shazam!)
• Bill Skarsgard (IT CHAPTER TWO)

Whether you’re a big fan of Joker or not, it’s hard to deny the power of Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Arthur Fleck. From Fleck’s terrifying dance moves to chilling laughs, everything Phoenix was able to do in Joker had audiences either cheering or cringing. It was a truly masterful performance from start to finish, albeit one that will be hard to watch again and again.

Best Actress

• Lupita Nyong’o (Us)
• Brie Larson (Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel)
• Scarlett Johansson (Avengers: Endgame, Jojo Rabbit)
• Florence Pugh (Midsommar, Fighting With My Family)
• Ana de Armas (Knives Out)
• Samara Weaving (Ready or Not)

Speaking of chilling performances, has anyone ever been able to achieve what Lupita Nyong’o did in Jordan Peele’s Us? Nyong’o haunted audiences with her work as Red, while simultaneously making the audience root for her subtle and protective Adelaide. With two of the year’s best performances in just one movie, it was going to take a miracle for anyone else to win this award.

Best Fight

• Final Battle (Avengers: Endgame)
• Cap vs. Cap: America’s Ass (Avengers: Endgame)
• The Library Fight (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum)
• Mysterio’s Mind Tricks (Spider-Man: Far From Home)
• Samoan Showdown (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw)
• Shazam Family vs. Seven Deadly Sins (Shazam!)

There may have been more well-choreographed fights and harder hitting action sequences throughout 2019, but none of them had us cheering like the final battle in Avengers: Endgame. From the shot of Captain America standing alone against Thanos’ army and Sam Wilson flying through the portal, to Iron Man bringing his story full circle with the snap of his fingers, this battle is hands-down the biggest and best in MCU history.

Best Post-Credits Scene

• J. Jonah Jameson’s MCU Debut (Spider-Man: Far From Home)
• Captain Marvel Meets the Avengers (Captain Marvel)
• Superman Show and Tell (Shazam!)
• Ryan Reynolds Annoys the Rock (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw)
• Bill Murray Kills Zombies (Zombieland: Double Tap)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had some really good post-credits scenes over the years, a practice that has become a staple for the popular franchise. As they say, practice makes perfection, and all of those previous post-credits scenes were simply Marvel practicing for its best reveal yet: J.K. Simmons reprising his role as J. Jonah Jameson and yelling on the news about Peter Parker. Have you ever heard a gasp that loud in a theater before? We certainly haven’t.

Best First Appearance

• Billy Batson/Shazam (Shazam!)
• Mysterio (Spider-Man: Far From Home)
• Captain Marvel (Captain Marvel)
• Sofia [Halle Berry] (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum)
• Forky (Toy Story 4)

Spider-Man movies almost always have good villains. While Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2 is still the top dog, none have been quite as charming or manic as Jake Gyllenhaal’s take on Mysterio. This Mysterio begins Spider-Man: Far From Home as an ally to Peter and slowly spirals out of control and into villainy as time goes on, and we can only hope that Marvel finds a way to bring him for another round.

Check out the rest of the winners from ComicBook.com’s 2019 Golden Issue Awards right here!