In the year of 2024, many films were so good, and many films that were, well, s**t. Like burning turds cooked up to last two hours to “entertain” us, torturing our eyes and testing our sanity. But, enough about Unfrosted and Joker: Folie a Deux. This is the time to talk about the best in movies, which brought in new names (Karla Sofia Gascon), breakout directors (Jane Schoenbrun), and brought out veterans to give superior work that can finally get them their first Oscar nomination (Daniel Craig, Zoe Saldana) – if not win. Here are my Top 10 films of 2024.
Honorable Mentions: Emilia Perez, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, A Complete Unknown, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Longlegs
10. The Brutalist
Brady Corbet went out to make a three-and-half-hour film that was unlike Martin Scorsese’s three-and-half-hour films and seemingly topped them with this astounding epic. Adrian Brody, Guy Pearce, and Felicity Jones turn in career-best performances of a post-war American being built through the prism of a Hungarian architect trying to make the American Dream work. Complete with an intermission and shot in VistaVision to compliment its 1950s aesthetic, The Brutalist is also among the boldest films to be made in recent years and made with the stunning low budget of $10 million. Yes, Hollywood studios, you can make these movies for a lot less than your precious $150 million stinkers.
9. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
The story of a gamer in Norway whose death from Duchenne muscular dystrophy reveals how many friends he had is quite the emotional pull, even for those who know nothing about World of Warcraft. Benjamin Ree’s documentary reveals why people choose roleplaying to connect, especially the story of a young man entrapped in his own body. It tugs the heartstrings a bit, especially for anyone who knows someone in similar circumstances, and shows how connected anyone in any avatar can be with others.
8. Didi
Sean Wang’s feature film debut is a jolt of energetic youth with life in the 00s being as technically rad as it was; I should know because I was a teenager in that period. Following a Chinese-American boy (Izaac Wang), he goes through the ups and downs of being thirteen years old and being caught up in his immaturity while dealing with the homelife of his older sister and Chinese-born mother (a wonderful Joan Chen), who is alone while her husband is back abroad in China. AOL Chat, YouTube, FaceBook, and all the social media connections of the time – before it went sideways – are all there with the hijinks and awkwardness grounded in reality.
7. September 5
As relevant as ever with current events, the story of the Munich Massacre from ABC’s point-of-view is told tightly and tensely as if the story were fiction. Director Tim Fehlbaum executes to perfection the true events of live television journalism under fire between getting the facts and capturing the action, getting in the grey of ethics while lives are at stake. Peter Saarsgard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, and Leonie Benesch are a strong foursome in this rapid environment where every second and word counts in a frantic 24-hour period long before cable news was around.
6. The Substance
The perfect description of Hollywood’s obsession with age and looks is filled with shock, awe, and the most grotesque imagery you will see in any movie. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are a matching duo as the old-young version of an actress, one who has aged out and been forgotten, and the other who represents the new hot look TV wants. And let’s not forget Dennis Quaid, the blunt TV producer who eats a ton of shrimp and goes goo-goo for Qualley’s character. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat nails it, especially in the last thirty minutes of the film, where it’s peak body horror.
5. Anora
Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, Sean Baker’s modern Pretty Woman finally has a film that has caught the attention of mainstream voters. Mikey Madison is sensational as the lucky stripper who marries the Russian oligarchy, only for the oligarchy to reject her and the chaos that ensues to annul it. Plenty of sex (suck it, you puritanical millennials), a lot of laughs, and all of the emotions that elevate the film to the same heights as the other major studio films. It’s great to see Baker finally getting his long-deserved recognition.
4. Soundtrack To A Coup d’Etat
This documentary blends global politics with jazz music and is one of the year’s most original, eye-popping films. Johan Grimonprez takes the subject of the Congo Crisis from 1960-61 and puts it in a blender with creative animation like reading a newspaper. The intercutting between archive footage in the United Nations with jazz music’s finest at the time gives a wild historiography that runs parallel to current wars in Africa today, sadly, and how colonialism has never gone away. Multiple voices speak to us of first-hand accounts of the conflict, revealing the layers of intricacies that doomed the now-Democratic Republic of the Congo from independence and, even from afar, jazz music and civil rights were always fighting for the rights of others, as well as being pitted against each other in name of the Cold War.
3. Memoir Of A Snail
Nothing made me turn on tears than this claymation from Australia’s Adam Elliot about the tragicomical life of a girl filled with pain but also laughs at every challenge that comes across and the people she meets. Sarah Snook is a natural voice as Gracie, the snail-obsessed orphan separated from her twin brother, raised by nudists and befriends an old lady, voiced by Jacki Weaver, with an appetite for life. It’s not for kids, that’s for sure; there are clay tits and a fetish for body fat that gets ingested, but for adults, it is an emotional trek that hits all the points to get me deeply involved with our past lives growing up alone and trying to make it in this world.
2. A Real Pain
I’m not Jewish, yet, on a very personal level, especially with my closest friends who are Jewish, I felt such a connection to this film. Probably because I love world history and the horrors of the Holocaust are still present as reminders of what happened eighty years ago with the camera going into these chambers of death. And then, there’s the personal pain that Kieran Culkin, your probable Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor, churns out that anyone who can relate to somebody who has one side that is energetic and happy and then another side that is deep in depression. Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore effort is a simple story of reconnection and the gulf between continents where family bonds and generational trauma remain present. It is a movie with a surprising power that lands gently by the end.
- Conclave
Edward Berger followed up All Quiet On The Western Front with this masterwork of religious politics, secrecy, and a trial of faith that does not waste a single second of its runtime. Ralph Fiennes gives his best performance since playing Amon Goth in Schindler’s List and has a perfect supporting cast with John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, and Sergio Castellitto. The script by Peter Naughton is straightforward and brings us in from the start, taking us through every twist and turn as Volker Bertelmann creates a score that isn’t as bombastic as All Quiet but maintains the tension. The production design perfectly confines us to a place where we’re not supposed to be and the tight editing keeps it all balanced. Berger and company don’t leave any stones unturned and the final twist tops off an entertaining film that rings ever so true in today’s society.
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