Before I could finalize this list, it was rather fitting that the last movie I caught up with was Hundreds of Beavers.
While it did not make the list (despite being hilarious), it summed up the 2024 movie year with one word: Ambition.
Filmmakers were taking big swings left and right in 2024: the aforementioned Hundreds of Beavers (a film you truly have to see to believe), Coppola’s return to the big screen with Megalopolis (with, let us say, not the best of results), a sequel with the clown prince of crime in a musical, and (probably the biggest swing of all) a foreign language musical thriller about a sex change (Emilia Perez) are just some of the main ones.
Yet none of those made my list. On my Letterboxd list of the nearly 90 films I saw that came out in 2024, I still had a few blind spots I did not get to in time (most notably Hard Truths, Nickel Boys, The Fire Inside, All We Imagine as Light, The Seed of a Sacred Fig, and I’m Still Here). As for the ones I did see, I had more than enough movies that I ranked 4 out of 5 (maybe my cynicism is becoming more apparent little by little as I age?)
That left only a few spots left for certain movies, and others that did not make the cut:
- Anora
- A Complete Unknown
- Didi
- Heretic
- Fancy Dance
- A Real Pain
- The Substance
- Suncoast
- Turtles all the way down
- The Wild Robot
Okay, enough of the practice volley…let me start my top ten up with a serve…
10.
Luca Guadagino had two movies in 2024, and while I missed Queer (which I heard was so so, aside from a good performance by Daniel Craig), but I did catch up with his first film in the year, Challengers.
A coworker of mine recently told me he did not intend to see what he called the “Zendaya Sex” movie. I get what he means, in that it is entirely how the trailer is selling the movie. Yet that is not the main idea of the film, in the same way that Luca’s film Bones and All is not mainly about young cannibals.
It is also about how Tashi (Zendaya) is able to play a game of manipulation between the Mike Faist and Josh O’ Connor characters, while they play back…and forth…and back…and forth…
9.
I am not sure what knowledge one needs to know about the papacy to enjoy a film like Conclave, but mine was none too high and I still was enthralled.
Edward Berger’s film stars a who’s who in stellar actors, from Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci to John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. The twist was indeed one I doubt many people saw coming, and I can understand it turning people off to the film. Still, they got to admit it was at least a fun journey getting there.
8.
Remember what I was saying about 2024 and ambition? Very few movies of recent years have dealt with the idea of ambition than that of The Brutalist. Then again, very few movies of the last decade or so have had so many ideas to begin with.
I’ve only seen it once, but it is clear the film is far more than about a holocaust survivor (Adrien Brody) trying to make it in the United States. A number of rewatches are in order to find out the ideas with the ideas. Director Brady Corbet’s film is a solid reminder of how talented Brody, Guy Pierce, Felicity Jones, and the whole cast are genuine actors. Bah dah dah duh!!! (I can’t get those four notes out of my head).
7.
In the past ten years, I can only think of a few directors who have had films on all of my top ten lists, and one of them is Robert Eggers (the others I know of would be Nolan, Tarantino, and Scorsese). That trend continues with his version of Nosferatu.
Taking inspiration from the century plus old Murnau classic, Eggers adds his own unique look to the film (not to mention Bill Skarsgard and a transcendent Lily-Rose Depp) with blood curdling visuals, nearly palpable realism, and a long stench of dread that truly turns you skin white.
6.
In my review of Dune: Pt 2, I mentioned how my friend Rudy said it was The Godfather, Part 2 of Sci Fi movies. He still holds onto that critique, but I do remain skeptical.
Yet he does have a point: this is one sequel that clearly holds its own to Part 1 (and admittedly surpassing it in some ways). Seeing this on IMAX may have been as close as I have gotten to seeing Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen as possible so far.
5.
A movie like Civil War is definitely one I don’t want to be prophetic, but some of the tones do sadly resonate with our world today.
Alex Garland’s film does have some far fetched ideas (Texas and California banding together, for one), but that is not what one remembers. What is remembered is the tension (looking at you Jesse Plemmons) one feels when you realize certain people could make this country turn upside down quicker than we think. Lee (Kirsten Dunst) has that great line that sums it all up: “Once you start asking those questions you can’t stop. So we don’t ask. We record so other people ask.”
4.
Back in 2014, I ended up seeing the movie Whiplash three times in theaters. There are only a true handful of films I have managed to see that many times in the theaters.
Then Wicked: Part 1 came out, and I saw it three times in the span of ten days.
Sure, it has its flaws, but it is such a good time for me personally (it came out at the right time for me in High School) that I saw over them. I ended up seeing it a fourth time in theaters, something I had not done since I was 7 with The Lion King in 1994.
As for those haters that may be out there, I say you need to stop studying strife, and learn to live the unexamined life…follow my lead and yes indeed you …will…be…defying gravity…wait, sorry, popular…
(I’ve listened to the soundtrack so much it is jumbled in my mind).
3.
Movies like Evil Does Not Exist are movies that make me wish I took more film classes growing up.
The film by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (Drive my Car) has many a thing going for it that I am not entirely sure how to explain, but I totally felt it. It felt like a field trip for my eyes and my soul. While the film does in fact feel very Japanese (at least in the modern sense), it still speaks to all at a universal level.
2.
Over the past summer, I went to my cousin Amy’s wedding. With time to kill prior to the event, I managed to see two movies. One, sadly, was Reagan (nothing else needs to be said about that). The other was Sing Sing, a prison drama starring Colman Domingo as a prisoner veteran of a theater program (that actually exists IRL).
I’m not sure what the strategy was for this film’s release, but I truly hope people seek it out. Domingo will almost certainly be nominated, but the other actors are just as powerful (especially Clarence Maclin). This was the only movie in 2024 to get me to tear up.
1.
I had a feeling 2024 would be a year in which none of my top ten were animated films (even though I did really like The Wild Robot). Then, like a tsunami, came the movie Flow.
A film from Latvia, Flow is a simple tale of a Cat who encounters a flood and must survive on a boat with a true menagerie of animals. The thing is, the film has no dialogue as each animal is played by it’s real life counterpart (except for the Capybara, I believe). The animation is truly nothing short of remarkable, the film has some of the best book end shots in recent memory, and it (along with Sing Sing) ends by injecting the audience with something our world truly needs nowadays: Hope.
Nothing else to say 