This was a mediocre year for movies.
You’re not supposed to start your list like that. You’re supposed to open with the comfortable cliche that it was a great year, like last year was and the year before, despite whatever industry trend or high-profile box office bomb would indicate otherwise. Focus on the positives. It was a great year for movies, because a visionary auteur made a glacially paced drama that earned less than $3 million globally. It was a great year for movies because India and Iran and Turkey made movies too and some of them are tearjerkers.
Every critic’s list I checked made that argument. You can hardly blame them for hedging towards optimism. But I am not a professional critic, and my optimism is a limited resource at the moment, so from my vantage point: 2024 was mid.
This is my 9th year making a top 10 movies post. I imagine if you were to read them all in a row, the story arc would be of someone discovering cinema, falling in love with it, devouring everything in sight, then repeatedly swearing off that habit and failing to keep the promise. Of course, I’m too scared to actually reread my past posts to verify that.
This might be the year I was finally successful. The success isn’t in seeing fewer movies. (For context, “seeing fewer movies” means 235 logs according to my Letterboxd, though of course new releases constitute a fraction of that.) The success is that I stopped feeling guilty about it. My usual drive to binge 2024 releases throughout December had evaporated. Maybe I was just distracted by Astro Bot.
I’ve always said the point of a year-end top 10 list is to laugh at it later. Film critic Josh Larsen put my thoughts into words a little more charitably over on Bluesky:
So that’s the attitude I’m taking this year. Focus on curating the internal library over completing any external one. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t bother with this list if it wasn’t for the inertia of the previous 8. I’m grateful I have that.
The only place this logic lets me down is my annual “Most Movie” category. I bet Joker 2 would have been a strong contender. But it comes with the benefit of not having to watch Joker 2.
As always, a halfhearted apology for all the films I heard were good but didn’t make time for (Kinds of Kindness, Janet Planet, The Substance, etc.) and a defeated shrug for all the ones that didn’t open near me in time (Nickel Boys, The Brutalist, Babygirl, All We Imagine As Light, etc.).
Honorable Mentions
- Adam Sandler: Love You
I didn’t watch nearly as many stand-up specials as I often do. Of the ones I did, this stands out… for its narrative? Tune in to see Sandman flex what an effortlessly talented stand-up he is. - An Almost Christmas Story
This charming little animated short dropped on Disney+ with zero fanfare. I only noticed because it was directed by David Lowery (director of A Ghost Story and The Green Knight, which one might call the best movies of 2017 and 2021 respectively.) Keep it in your back pocket for 11 months from now. - Love Lies Bleeding
D.W. Griffith (allegedly) once said all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun. This movie would have killed him. I was already a huge fan of Kristen Stewart as an actor. Now between this and Twisters I guess I have to watch out for whatever Katy O’Brian does next. - ME
Okay, honestly, I’m still not sure what I think about the new Don Hertzfeldt animation, which does feel appropriately like a salvage job. I’m leaning towards not liking it. But it’s so radically unique that I can’t possibly not recommend you seek it out for yourself. - Me
I’m pretty great too. - Will & Harper
Sometimes I say about an LGBT+ movie “I wish I could make people watch this.” Will Ferrell actually has that ability. In this documentary he goes on a road trip with his fellow SNL alum Harper Steele, who is worried such trips won’t be as safe since her gender transition. I admire Will for being so supportive as to throw his professional weight behind this. The passably pleasant result is streaming on Netflix.
“I love him, and I hate him, and I want to kill him, and I want to be him.”
10 // A Real Pain
dir. Jesse Eisenberg // Trailer // Available for rent, coming soon to Hulu
I get the most out of A Real Pain, a road trip movie about a pair of estranged cousins visiting their late grandmother’s home in Poland, by viewing it as a companion piece to the show Succession. How would the world react to Roman Roy if he couldn’t buy his way through it? Would it reject him, or would he win us over anyway? Sure, that’s sort of a backhanded way of saying Kieran Culkan’s retreading worn ground here. But he’s so good at it, and Jesse Eisenberg, who apparently also does directing now, plays the perfect straight man for him to bounce off of. At some level, every David wants to be a Benji. I would know.
“I don’t know enough about the afterlife
to trust in it, so while I’m here, I gotta haunt these motherfuckers myself.”
9 // Rebel Ridge
dir. Jeremy Saulnier // Trailer // Streaming on Netflix
The feel-bad-to-feel-good movie of the fall was Woke Rambo Rebel Ridge. You know how it works: A real dirtbag wrongs a poor defenseless fellow, I sure wish someone would kick his ass, oops guy’s not so defenseless after all, hell yeah. I hope I’m not glibly glossing over the themes of racial inequality and abuse of the justice system (see also: #8) by calling this just a viscerally satisfying movie. Aaron Pierre, recognizable from the excellent miniseries The Underground Railroad, plays quiet, indignant fury just as well as Don Johnson plays, for lack of a better word, dickishness.
“Sometimes the truth isn’t justice.”
8 // Juror #2
dir. Clint Eastwood // Trailer // Streaming on Max…
Table for now the conversation around this film’s frustrating lack of release strategy, the state of Warners/Max, and Clint Eastwood’s legacy. Let’s talk about what the film is actually about: a completely legal failure of the justice system brought on by the apathy of the citizens charged with upholding it. How can our institutions survive when the only people who have nothing to gain from exploiting it just want to go home? Agonizingly relevant. I truly have no idea how Eastwood voted in 2024. I think I’d also rather not find out.
“It felt great chopping wood earlier. I haven’t felt like that in years. I felt like this was the place for me.“
7 // Evil Does Not Exist
dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi // Trailer // Streaming on The Criterion Channel
Hey, speaking of glacially paced foreign dramas – though by Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s standards, 106 minutes is breakneck. But don’t worry, the centerpiece here is a 20 minute town hall meeting about septic tanks. Easy jokes like that won’t prepare you for how prickly the film actually is. It begins immediately from the title, which invites you to think critically about every character’s viewpoint and motivations as if interpreting a painting. Evil does not exist, or maybe evil is so banal as to be unremarkable.
“My job was not to debunk the fantasy, but rather become the fantasy. And I took that part of the job very seriously.“
6 // Hit Man
dir. Richard Linklater // Trailer // Streaming on Netflix
Part comedy, part erotic thriller, part Glen Powell sizzle reel, Richard Linklater’s latest is this year’s highest profile and most heartbreaking Netflix casualty. This should have and could have run in theaters for months. It’s certainly a crowdpleaser, and one of the more playful films about assassination in recent memory. Also, in a Scene of the Year candidate, hands down the best use of the iPhone Notes App in a movie.
Best Video Game Movie
Hundreds of Beavers
Inventory, check. Item combining puzzles, check. Map that somehow reacts to the protagonist’s location, check. Navigable shop menus? Believe it or not, check. Just needed a life bar and it would be more Let’s Play than movie. This hyper-indie slapstick is destined to become a cult classic.
Runners-up:
Flow
The Wild Robot
John Wick Memorial Award for Excellence in Fucking Shit Up
Monkey Man
Not content with being only a suave sexy Oscar-nominated actor, Dev Patel stepped behind the camera to show us how it’s done. And then stepped back in front of it because he’s still the lead and needs to be in the shot. And then whaled on some goons real good. You see some shakiness in Patel’s direction but he’s clearly got a good cinematic eye and I’m automatically interested in anything he chooses to do next.
Runners-up:
The Beekeeper
The Fall Guy
Most Movie
Megalopolis, obviously
Undeniably the product of the same mind that created One from the Heart, this time with less technical restriction and more fear of looming inevitability. Megalopolis gives the sense of leaving nothing on the cutting room floor. The protagonist can stop time; it’s mostly inconsequential. He invented a new building substance called Megalon; no, we don’t learn what it actually is or does. Coppola lets loose all his hope and anxiety about art and America without any pretense of humility or concern for things like “critical reception.” If you can’t appreciate that then what I can say except “Go back to the clu-uuuuu-b”?
Runners-up:
Dune: Part Two
Gladiator II
My Top 5 Films of 2023 of 2024
5. Maestro
4. Poor Things
3. American Fiction
2. Robot Dreams
1 // Perfect Days
Perfect Days reminds me a lot of my beloved Paterson. Both are essential entries in the canon of “Content people living out comfortable routines… unless maybe they’re not??” cinema. Paterson shifts every time I see it and I’m looking forward to revisiting Perfect Days many times over the years as well.
“If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith.”
5 // Conclave
dir. Edward Berger // Trailer // Streaming on Peacock
I can tell I’m getting older because I’m becoming much more appreciative of movies where acting icons just do good work. (Is that what a “Dad Movie” is? Oh nooo.) Ralph Fiennes guides us through a papal conclave as gripping and topsy-turvy as I imagine any could hope to be. Politically relevant, of course, but I especially appreciate the optimism the film has for the future of the Church. At least, I think it’s optimistic.
Also, I really really want Armando Iannucci to make a papal conclave movie. Can we make that happen? Let’s crowdfund it.
“This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal. This isn’t how life is supposed to feel.”
4 // I Saw the TV Glow
dir. Jane Schoenbrun // Trailer // Streaming on Max
If the “movie of the year” is the one you can’t stop thinking about then maybe this should be #1. Only a movie this simultaneously sincere and awkward and beautiful and frustrating can lodge itself at the forefront of my mind the way this one has. I think I hate the ending… and I can’t stop going back to unwrap it. Hyperbolic as it sounds, Jane Schoenbrun may be the voice of a generation. It’s about identity – yes, gender identity – and living vicariously through media until it’s hard to tell apart from real life. That description didn’t make sense to me either until I actually saw it. You must see it too.
“No shame in hate. It’s one of the greatest forces of nature.”
3 // Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
dir. George Miller // Trailer // Streaming on Max
I intentionally tried to avoid comparing Furiosa with Mad Max: Fury Road while watching. It’s an impossible standard. So without thinking about it too hard I’ll say this prequel absolutely earns its place alongside it. It’s easy to imagine a dusty desert-set action movie that decides it doesn’t have to be colorful and practical, let’s wash out the grading and layer on the CGI. I appreciate any movie so tactile, and any movie that fully unleashes Chris Hemsworth’s Australianness too. Plus: a real good “They fly now!” moment that actually works.
“In America, we don’t care about that kind of stuff. We don’t give meaning to names.“
2 // Anora
dir. Sean Baker // Trailer // Still in theaters, apparently
Poverty in the shadow of Disney World through the eyes of a child. A porn star selling drugs and lies in small town Texas. Now, a collision between Russian oligarchy and a Brooklyn stripper. You could accuse Sean Baker of having a formula: enter a strange world through the people lowest on the totem pole, usually sex workers. If so then that’s a formula I want more of, because it is yet to miss. Between Anora‘s electric opening and emotionally complicated ending is a wild, touching, zany, sexy roller coaster that I am restless to ride again. But uh, don’t bring your family.
“We understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It was like we were in love. Or like we didn’t exist. We went somewhere really beautiful together.“
1 // Challengers
dir. Luca Guadagnino // Trailer // Streaming on Amazon Prime
The magic of movies is the ability to convince you that tennis is exciting. A thumping electronic Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score. A steamy love triangle. Symbolic churros. Tennis court POV shots. Tennis ball POV shots. If only real tennis had more of this. Or of the trio that make this movie more than the sum of its parts: Zendaya, of Smallfoot fame; Mike Faist, the breakout from West Side Story; and Josh O’Connor, from I guess that Emma movie that came out during covid so no one but me watched it.
I am going to do something next year to commemorate 10 years of listing. Here’s an embarrassing admission (Sorry, Mr. Larsen): My 2016 list had Zootopia on it. Almost certainly the worst modern Disney Animation Studios release until Wish in 2023. And I watched lots of movies that year! Some things have to be learned, I suppose.
I’m looking forward to doing that at the end of 2025. I hope we all make it there.