When looking back on 2024 in film, three adjectives come to mind to describe the year: surprising, daring, and challenging. Every film on my list can be described with one of those words.
Superhero movies reached an all-time low – the only box office success from Deadpool and Wolverine was attributed to an IP that spent two hours making fun of itself. In a post-strike environment, we saw a proliferation of big screen content full of big swings and big misses. New voices are breaking through, and so are under-looked genres. People thought ‘Barbenheimer’ could be repeated, but it can’t (no – ‘Glicked’ is not a thing). I had a lot of fun across the gamut – even if I saw Megalopolis in the cinema four times – going through an emotional rollercoaster that covered hatred, to hysteria, to bewilderment, to misguided adoration.
This list is only limited to films I saw this year – here in Australia I’m still waiting patiently for The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, Queer, and Babygirl.
Honorable mentions include: Wicked, Birdeater, Grand Theft Hamlet, Flow, Memoir of a Snail, Conclave, Young Hearts, Like My Brother, A Different Man, Hundreds of Beavers, and Megalopolis (look, that one’s complicated).
- Love Lies Bleeding
A cosmic and queer scream out into the galaxy. Rose Glass knows how to set the stage in her follow-up to the equally excellent Saint Maud – a well-crafted, neo-noir, body-horror-infused romantic thriller. A film that leaves you frazzled at the lengths women go to find love, both within a queer lens and as a deconstruction of the nuclear American family. People are murdered, beaten, burnt, shot and bitten, but the very talented Glass tells you where these cyclical acts of hurt and torture come from. Katy O’Brien and Kristen Stewart are so beautifully monstrous. Broken, ripped, jealous, angry, rash and determined – they command the tautly paced 100 mins with a sense of unbridled animalism. Clint Mansell needs many awards for his 80’s inspired synth score. We need more metal as hell, “Be gay. Do crime” films filled with rage, please.
- Nosferatu
Chilling, frightening, relentlessly bleak and yet slightly sprinkled with hope. While a respectful remake of Murnau’s masterful 1922 German expressionist silent film – Robert Eggers walks his own more occult, psycho-sexual path, making the narrative all the better for it. The opening scene alone already had me gasping and frozen into a bone-locked daze. Bill Skarsgård’s voice has never sounded deeper, more imposing, and truly violating. Willem Dafoe has rarely been more eccentric, and Lily Rose-Depp handles the phantasmagorical antics under her competent and, at times, contorting shoulders. The primarily monochromatic cinematography by Jarin Blaschke creates claustrophobically Gothic images and tableaus with immaculately crafted intensity. If you ask me, Eggers is four for four in adapting folklore horror with utmost authenticity.
8. All We Imagine as Light
Payal Kapadia has crafted a film that comes to life from the first frame. Raw, tender, authentic – it follows two nurses at different points in their lives, unable to reckon with specific circumstances in and out of their control. Kapadia captures Mumbai with the frantic beauty of modern India. The camera ever moves through the packed and overwrought streets – work and money are why people get up in the morning. It is a great story about women accepting their realities – the light we imagine and the light that’s real. With a subtext surrounding class and Hindu nationalism, it’s a luminous slice of life respecting multiple generations of women. Ones who just needed to process the relationships in their lives and flourish without the grip of patriarchal control. Who doesn’t want to just pack up and move to a seaside village?
- All Shall Be Well
Rey Yeung has made a quiet yet profoundly detailed mosaic of queer love and loss. The family dynamics presented in this Hong Kong drama put the failures of heteronormativity under the microscope. This is a family that holds deep love for one another until legal, ethical, and medical issues arise. Patra Au is exceptional as Angie. She and her partner Pat have been a loving lesbian couple for over 30 years. The legal system there still fails to recognise queer couples adequately. Thankfully, Yeung’s intelligent script puts a spotlight on the reality of living as a queer person in Hong Kong, the nuances inside both family and found family, but most of all – the beauty in what two people share. All Shall be Well is a compassionate film that teaches us that building a life in a space together is essential. Homes are more than just items on a balance sheet. Write your will as early as possible – especially if you’re queer.
- Anora
The most accessible Sean Baker, but also the boldest Sean Baker. An absolute adrenaline shot of cinema into my veins. A facetious yet damning look at the transactional nature of modern relationships. Mikey Madison is spellbinding – the supporting cast is astonishing, and every act feels like the film is reinventing itself. It captures the ecstasy of an early relationship, the plight of sex work, and the class-conscious commentary regarding human beings trapped by systems that limit freedom and autonomy. Sean’s perpetual humanist touch puts you right there inside the whirlwind of Anora’s life. I cheered for her, and I cried with her. The façade of mass consumerism is slowly unmasked for human vulnerability. When the anvil drops, Anora is the anti-fairy tale in all the right ways.
- The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Perfectly paired with Klaudia Reynicke’s excellent Peruvian drama Reinas for stories that extrapolate families as symbols of broken nations. Mohammad Rasoulof’s politically charged thriller-drama combines the fictional narrative of a struggling and paranoic Tehran family with the actual images and video of the 2022-2023 Iranian protests (that were unforgivably and violently suppressed) to extreme effect. At 168 minutes, it does not waste a second – I was unshakably gripped until its rousing finish.
Sisters Rezvan and Sana navigate such a volatile and broken world with their mother Najmeh – a tall order to go along with their father and husband, Iman, who works as a judge in the Revolutionary Court. Things get as chaotic, tense and precarious as Iran’s state today. An extraordinary and unforgettable film about bravery, protest, and the crushing reality of Iran’s theocratic state. An inspiring act of resistance both within and out of the frame.
- No Other Land
I walked out of this film very angry, not at the quality of the film, but at the sheer magnitude of disregard for human life – Palestinian life. Directed by a collective of four Palestinian-Israeli activists, this vital documentary covers the Israeli occupation of Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian region in the West Bank, during the years 2019-2023. Rather than fatally focus on the misery – and there is a lot – it centres on the brave, resilient, and courageous disobedience of a people whose roots go as deep as their prized olive trees.
Basel Adra, a man whose earliest memory is of IDF soldiers raiding his home and taking away his father, is the beating heart of this story. He records with urgent veracity the mass destruction of his homeland, his complicated friendship with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, and most of all, using the camera as a symbol of truth. As Palestine is razed to the ground every day, Basel’s filmmaking is a fearless yet patient step toward freedom. An eternal document of resistance for all to see.
- The Substance
I can’t speak to the experiences of womanhood, but many women I have talked to have experienced Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance almost as if it were a documentary. Personally, across my multiple viewings, while many audience members gawked, screamed, and laughed at what happened to Elizabeth Sparkle – the more I watched it, the more I witnessed these events with a true feeling of sadness. Yes, it’s a divine, epic, maximalist, feminist body horror. Still, at its core, this is a tragic tale about aging, unnatural body standards, and Hollywood’s perpetual fetishization of the monstrous woman. It’s also an enthralling film where Dennis Quaid shoveling his face with shrimp is the most grotesque moment.
Fargeat’s vision is not about breaking the wheel but snapping it into various spokes and rearranging it. She upends the male gaze by hyper-exposing, amplifying, and decomposing the body parts often driven by patriarchal craving. Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore do an award-worthy dance as the maiden and the mother self-immolating to avoid the crone. Ultimately, I love The Substance for being an unabashedly corporeal, feminist response to those who desire more ‘tits and arse’ on the big screen. Demi Moore, Moore, and Moore indeed.
- Challengers
We all need some of Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan in us – for better or worse. She is the conduit for the relentless drive to pursue that which provides you with ecstasy, which, in the case of Luca Guadagnino’s masterpiece Challengers, is a match of outstanding tennis. Caught in the crossfire are Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor’s doting “little white boys” Art and Patrick. Justin Kuritzkes’s multifaceted script allows the audience to analyse each of these twisted triplets under a different light on subsequent viewings – no one is free from judgment. He and Guadagnino also skilfully present the bedroom as foreplay; the sport itself becomes the outlet of desire. Sex is tennis.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have crafted the perfect score – the Berlin-techno inspired electronica is intoxicating as much as it is rhythmic. The final sequence features the euphoric centre of the cinematic year – a synergy between the frame, the characters, the audience, and the soundscape that releases an erotic, explosive climax like none other. Marco Costa should have the editing Oscar in the bag. As I wrote earlier this year, “Challengers is a highly camp, hyper-queer exploration of decades-long rivalry. It is a brilliantly entertaining romp full of sweat, bodily arousal, and cheeky eroticism. It is a game, set, and match for sexy, frisky cinema.”
- Dune: Part Two
It’s almost impossible not to put this at the top of my list. I retweeted the countdown for this film nearly every day for two years. I saw it 8 times in IMAX. I couldn’t finish my full review because I was racing through too many thoughts. I still can’t believe such a tentpole blockbuster can have such a blistering critique of organised religion. So much of it was once considered unadaptable to the screen, but Denis Villeneuve captured Frank Herbert’s text with absolute awe and cinematic majesty. It’s a sequel that has it all. Zendaya’s defiant spirit as Chani. Austin Butler’s sociopathic swagger as Feyd-Rautha. Javier Bardem’s comedically blind devotion as Stilgar. Rebecca Ferguson’s treacherous proselytizing as Jessica. Joe Walker’s tactile editing. Hans Zimmer’s otherworldly score. Greig Fraser’s ravishing cinematography (Feyd’s gladiatorial spectacle filmed with monochromatic, infrared cameras is a sequence for the ages) – the craft, the ambition, the performances, the thematic density, and sheer audacity of the piece is like no other.
Dune is still about one man and his pursuit/fear of power – mingling with the forces above and around him to tell a dangerous tale about politics, allegiance, ecology, oppression, and faith. Timothée Chalamet embodies Paul with a dogmatic edge by the film’s end, making the fanatical moments land with triumphant believability. It expertly puts the audience into a moral crisis about whether to blame Paul himself or those pulling the strings around him – a philosophical unwinding of fate and the hero’s journey. If Villeneuve can pull off Part 3 with this A-game cast and crew, we will witness a true epoch in the history of science fiction cinema. Dune: Part Two is my film of the year because nothing has made me feel more immersed, challenged, and transported. Take the spice, move with the flow of the process, and long live the fighters.
