The past year was marked by big losses among those who made films or thought hard about them. Jonas Mekas, one of the leading exponents of experimental film in America, died in January, and his passing was soon followed by the deaths of French New Wave director Agnès Varda (now the subject of a traveling retrospective), queer cinema pioneer Barbara Hammer, feminist filmmaker Carolee Schneemann, and Camille Billops, an underrated documentarian who crafted tender films about racism and her own personal traumas. All of these artists opened up inclusive spaces using a medium that has long been sidelined in favor of painting and sculpture: screens.

Thankfully, many artists have taken up their mandate, creating boundary-pushing digital and moving-image works that take their mediums in new directions. What follows is a survey of 2019’s best screen-based artworks.

In Galleries

1. Ed Fornieles at Carlos/Ishikawa

2. Ed Atkins at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

3. Jordan Belson at Matthew Marks Gallery

4. Isaac Julien at Metro Pictures

In Museums
1.  Karrabing Film Collective at MoMA PS1
This presentation of Karrabing Film Collective’s unforgiving works about the legacy of colonialism in Australia was unforgettable. The works sear themselves into the brain, broaching issues such as the destruction of Indigenous land and the loss of history with a directness that’s by turns prickly and mordantly ironic. Taking the form of faux documentaries and fantastical retellings of myths, the 30-person collective’s densely edited films are unlike anything else shown in a New York museum this year.

In Theaters: 

1. Parasite
Bong Joon-ho’s baroque sensibility lends a darkly comic edge to this ingenious thriller that starts out with a poor Korean family colonizing the home of an ultra-wealthy clan and slowly morphs into something else entirely. It’s class struggle made literal—and, because this is a Bong movie, it’s made slyly funny, too.

2. Long Day’s Journey into Night
The young Chinese director Bi Gan director has only just turned 30, but already, with his second feature-length film, he’s created a bonafide masterpiece. Loosely focused on a man searching for an old flame who has mysteriously disappeared, the film culminates in a 59-minute take shot in 3D. Oblique, lush, and puzzling, Long Day’s Journey into Night is the work of someone who’s already a major talent—and not afraid to take big stylistic risks, like holding the film’s opening title card until an hour in.

3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
A recent sea change in the film industry has finally jolted critics and studio executives into paying increased attention to female directors, and in a way, even though it’s set in the 19th century, Céline Sciamma’s wonderful new film is a loose commentary on that very change. With elegant cinematography from the extremely talented Claire Mathon, it follows a female painter hired to paint a woman who is due to soon be married off; the two gradually launch an affair that changes them both. It’s a film about the importance of women representing to each other.