There's no such thing as "no more original movie ideas."

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say we don't have any new or original ideas for movies and that it's all about adaptations. Obviously, this myth stems from advertising, because people in Hollywood advertise the hell out of adaptations. How are you supposed to do it the same way with original ideas?

However, this DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE NO ORIGINAL IDEAS. I can think of five original critically-acclaimed 2019 movies right off the bat:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Us
The Farewell
Midsommar
Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Other acclaimed originals include:

The Kid Who Would Be King
Crawl
Isn't It Romantic

Other movies that didn't get that kind of reception include:

Long Shot
The Beach Bum
Brightburn
Yesterday

It's obvious this is just a big whopper believed by people who aren't paying attention.

It's hyperbole.

Also, I've only seen two of the films you've listed - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Kid Who Would Be King - but I think it's a stretch to call either of them "original." The former is a re-imagining of history and the latter is a re-imagining of Arthurian legend.

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Who says an original idea can't take place in the past? A reimagining of history still counts if you have your own characters, just like Inglourious Basterds.

"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief..." Bono

I don't intend to be philosophical, but how does one describe originality?

Personally I believe if we start analysing every film, then you are bound to find that it isn't 'Completely Original.' Some or the other aspects of it are recycled or reimagined in a marginally or vastly different way.

Take for example Us - it happens to be the only movie I have watched from the OP. The idea of clones seeking to live like humans...mhh...sounds suspiciously similar to replicants. See, what I did there. I could even point to 'The Island.'There are other movies on clones. So, half of the people will call it unoriginal while others will look at the execution and characters and deem it original.

My larger point is - in most cases it's not the actual movie but the audience and how he/she perceive the film and make their conclusions on the originality.

The problem is that it used to be that most movies were not sequels or part of an ongoing series/franchise. Nowadays, it seems as if the majority of the movies are sequels or part of an ongoing franchise.

Inglourious Basterds, you say...



But seriously, if the bar for originality just amounts to not being directly based on an existing property then of course a lot of stuff will qualify as "original". Brightburn in particular was practically sold as an R-rated horror where the monster is Superman. WrinkledMind sort of has the right idea in that films are only as original as people's preexisting reference points will allow them to be, though that does mean people can miss the forest for the trees by not seeing what these movies do beyond their obvious reference points.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0