Best Films of 2024

© Janus Films

2024 was a hangover year for cinema. The Barbenheimer phenomenon that fueled the 2023 box office and carried over into 2024 with award season success cast a wide shadow on the movie landscape, and with the production delay domino effect of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for the resulting 2024 film slate. The summer season in particular felt worryingly thin, even if massive commercial hits like Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Despicable Me 4 kept the box office from sinking as low as analysts had anticipated. Perhaps casual moviegoers who only patronize theaters for the big movies were satisfied with the 2024 offerings, but when I look at the top performers of the year, I am dismayed. Among the top 25 earners at the 2024 global box office, only two are original concepts—and not particularly appealing ones, either (Red One and IF). Everything else is a continuation of a film franchise or an adaptation of existing IP from another medium. That’s not to say franchise/IP entries are inherently inferior (in fact, there’s one in my top ten), but, for me, they rarely excite emotionally, challenge intellectually, impress artistically, or inspire creatively.

Thankfully, we did see a number of big swings from both established auteurs and rising artists. These were films that served up bold narratives, provocative themes, and/or formal experimentation—and in at least two cases, the directors poured hefty sums of their own money into the projects to get them financed. All We Imagine as Light, The Beast, The Brutalist, Civil War, Close Your Eyes, Dahomey, A Different Man, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Emilia Pérez, The End, Eureka, Evil Does Not Exist, Flow, Green Border, Here, Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1, Hundreds of Beavers, I Saw the TV Glow, In a Violent Nature, It’s Not Me, Kinds of Kindness, Late Night with the Devil, Longlegs, Megalopolis, Nickel Boys, Nosferatu, The People’s Joker, Problemista, Queer, Red Rooms, Rumours, Strange Darling, The Substance, Trap, and Universal Language are all idiosyncratic movies that defy expectations. A few of those pictures are terrible, some are just okay, and the rest you’ll hear more about later in this piece, but regardless of my own reaction, we should celebrate their existence.

My feeling right now is that 2024 will not go down in the history books as a major year for movies, and it certainly wasn’t a great one for the old masters. But when I look at the 60 films I liked that I’ve listed below, nearly half, including ten of my top 20, are from new voices or rising artists, which I take as a positive sign for the state of cinema today. And a handful of filmmakers irrefutably had great success over the past twelve months. Here are a few that stood out to me:

• Director Luca Guadagnino, writer Justin Kuritzkes, cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, editor Marco Costa, and composers Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross all collaborated on two memorable 2024 releases, Challengers and Queer. I love to see a crew so in sync in executing a vision! It’s all the more impressive considering how different the two films are.

• Timothée Chalamet confirmed his generational talent and movie stardom by leading Dune: Part Two and embodying Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. His friend and Dune co-star, Zendaya, who dazzles in Challengers, seems poised to do the same ahead of their inevitable reunion for Dune Messiah.

• Three-film breakouts Margaret Qualley and Nicholas Hoult. Qualley co-starred in arthouse oddities Drive-Away Dolls, Kinds of Kindness, and The Substance, while Hoult starred in Juror #2 and Nosferatu and supported in The Order. Both actors impressed and diversified their acting portfolios in 2024.

• Sebastian Stan demonstrated chameleonic acting talent—and a good eye for challenging material—with A Different Man and The Apprentice in back-to-back months this past autumn. Other than Scarlett Johansson, no MCU star of that generation is doing as much interesting work outside the franchise as Stan.

• Finally, a shoutout to two producers. First up is Emma Stone, who in addition to winning her second Best Actress Oscar last year, produced a trio of auteur-driven indie films, Problemista, I Saw the TV Glow, and A Real Pain. And then there’s Olivier Père, who as executive director of Arte France Cinéma, was a producer on About Dry Grasses, All We Imagine as Light, Bird, La Chimera, Dahomey, Eureka, It’s Not Me, and The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Quite the lineup!

Before I reveal my favorites of the year, a point of clarification: in determining a film’s eligibility for my list, I looked for a U.S. commercial release date, theatrical or digital, between January 1 and December 31, 2024. This can get complicated when a film receives an exclusive one-week Oscar-qualifying run at some point during the year, typically late Q4, before getting a proper theatrical run in Q1 of the following year. Some past affected films include 2023’s Perfect Days, Robot Dreams, and The Taste of Things; 2021’s The Worst Person in the World, Petite Maman, and Memoria. This practice is becoming increasingly common as small and/or foreign films depend on Oscar recognition to generate buzz and drive business. For my own sanity, I’ve decided that henceforth such films are eligible in whichever year I see them. That means Hard Truths, Universal Language, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl were eligible for 2024, and I’ll consider Better Man, I’m Still Here, No Other Land, etc., for my 2025 list. Nearly as annoying are year-end limited releases that don’t expand until the following year. We had some notable entries in this regard for 2024: The Brutalist, The Girl with the Needle, Nickel Boys, The Room Next Door, September 5, and Vermiglio. Because I (am fortunate enough to) live in a market where I typically have access to these titles before the end of the year, I will continue to make them only eligible in their official release year. On that point, notable films I didn’t catch in time for consideration include Black Box Diaries, Eno, The Girl with the Needle, I’m Still Here, Matt and Mara, No Other Land, Oh, Canada, and Vermiglio.

Now onto my 2024 selections!

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Recommended Films

About Dry Grasses | Between the Temples | Chime | La Chimera | Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point | A Complete Unknown | Cuckoo | Dahomey | Daughters | Dìdi | Evil Does Not Exist | The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed | Femme | Hard Truths | His Three Daughters | How to Have Sex | Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person | It’s Not Me | Janet Planet | Juror #2 | Kinds of Kindness | Kneecap | Last Summer | Longlegs | Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger | Monkey Man | The Mother of All Lies | Pictures of Ghosts | The Promised Land | A Real Pain | Red Rooms | The Remarkable Life of Ibelin | The Seed of the Sacred Fig | September 5 | The Settlers | Sing Sing | Smile 2 | Spermworld | Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl | The Wild Robot

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Honorable Mentions

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD

No 2024 film captured the way we live now like Radu Jude’s Romanian satirical comedy about a shitposting production assistant tasked with finding the ideal interview subject for a corporate safety video.

FLOW

This Latvian animation wonder from Gints Zilbalodis is an immersive, dialogue-free survival adventure told through the eyes of a cat who must traverse an unfamiliar land suddenly engulfed in water. It features one of the year’s best scores.

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

It’s not quite Fury Road, but it does showcase George Miller’s brilliant instincts for mythic storytelling, gonzo production design, and wild action set pieces. A grand time at the movies!

GOOD ONE

This small-scaled backpacking drama is an impressive feature directorial debut for India Donaldson and a splendid introduction to the acting talent of Lily Collias. It’s reminiscent of the work of Kelly Reichardt in the best ways.

HIT MAN

Glen Powell and Adria Arjona sizzle in this rom-com crime caper about a college professor who poses as a hitman in sting operations before breaking his own code of ethics. A sexy and fun change of pace for auteur Richard Linklater.

MARS EXPRESS

The year’s best animated feature is this French sci-fi neo-noir about a detective and her android partner who find themselves pulled into a vast conspiracy. Fans of Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, William Gibson, and Isaac Asimov will appreciate director Jérémie Périn’s detailed world-building and cyberpunk vibe.

NICKEL BOYS

In a bold act of literary adaptation, director RaMell Ross and DP Jomo Fray use first-person POV to tell this story of two Black teens forced to endure innumerable hardships at an abusive reform school in the 1960s. It’s an enthralling film with arresting photography and period detail.

NOSFERATU

With this latest take on the 1922 silent classic, Robert Eggers delivers another period-precise, compositionally sumptuous horror presentation—this time with chilling gothic flair and supernatural carnality.

SLOW

This tender Lithuanian drama about two sexually dissimilar people with a strong emotional connection is the only 2024 film that had me on the verge of tears. Writer-director Marija Kavtaradzė brings a sensitivity to this uncommon romance.

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT

A damning indictment of the West’s colonialist subterfuge and violence against Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba during the height of mid-century anti-communist paranoia. This jazz-scored documentary from Johan Grimonprez is a remarkable piece of editorial filmmaking.

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Top Ten

© A24

10. QUEER

dir. Luca Guadagnino

A polarizing film, as any proper William S. Burroughs adaptation should be, Queer depicts the restless life of American expatriate writer William Lee (Daniel Craig) in the 1950s as he meanders around Mexico City before venturing further south with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), his reticent object of affection. A quasi-hangout film of sex, sweat, booze, drugs, psychedelia, and anachronistic needle drops, Guadagnino’s romantic drama eventually comes into focus as a character study of a loner seeking an essential connection, whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual, or astral. There’s a striking sensuality and expressionistic artifice on display—as if one fused the cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger—though it’s Craig’s uninhibited, career-best work as the self-destructive protagonist that leaves the lasting impression. The epilogue, in particular, has continued to haunt me.

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© Warner Bros.

9. DUNE: PART TWO

dir. Denis Villeneuve

The long-awaited conclusion to Villeneuve’s cinematic imagining of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel does not disappoint. Part Two, which finds the surviving House Atreides members joining forces with the Fremen people on the spice planet Arrakis, is a portrayal of a young man’s rise to power as well as a potent allegory on the dangers of unbridled political fervor and religious fundamentalism. This picture is a less faithful adaptation of the Herbert text than 2021’s Part One, but the changes are to the film’s benefit. Granting the Chani character (Zendaya) autonomy is a shrewd adjustment to the arc of the story that enriches its thematic underpinning. Dune: Part Two is a reminder that no one is making rousing, visionary sci-fi like Villeneuve right now.

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© Oscilloscope

8. UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

dir. Matthew Rankin

The second feature from experimental Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin is almost impossible to describe. Set in an unreal wintry Canadian landscape that seemingly folds Tehran into Winnipeg, Universal Language weaves together the happenings of a government employee returning home to visit his ailing mother, a local man offering quaint guided tours, and two kids finding money frozen in ice. As the three storylines converge, this minimalist-minded, comic surrealist quest movie gently shapeshifts into an absurdist reflection on humanity. Paying homage to a host of disparate auteurs, including Abbas Kiarostami, Guy Maddin, Jacques Tati, and Jim Jarmusch, Rankin stealthily builds an intellectual, existential arc that resonates dramatically as it concludes on a lovely, poignant note.

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© A24

7. A DIFFERENT MAN

dir. Aaron Schimberg

Schimberg’s breakout third feature follows Edward (Sebastian Stan), a man with neurofibromatosis, who struggles professionally and romantically until he is the subject of a radical medical treatment that cures his facial abnormality. But when he meets another man with the same condition and an unbreakable cheery disposition, things take a psychological turn. Perhaps the most Charlie Kaufman-esque film not scripted by Kaufman, A Different Man is a darkly comic surrealist character study that ventures into body horror and social satire along its unpredictable trajectory. And the cast is terrific: a self-loathing Stan, an elusive Renate Reinsve, and a winsome Adam Pearson.

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© A24

6. THE BRUTALIST

dir. Brady Corbet

Corbet’s third feature often resembles a lost film from the New Hollywood Era of the 1970s. This portrait of a Hungarian Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) arriving penniless in the United States after WWII and attempting to rebuild his career in Pennsylvania through the patronage of a wealthy industrialist is the kind of unhurried American epic, intimate in drama and majestic in scale, that studios no longer finance. The film is a showcase of talent: gorgeous photography, impeccable production design, a vital score, and a sensational Brody at the center of the frame. If I loved the post-intermission sections (Part 2 and Epilogue) as much as the masterful Part 1, The Brutalist would be my favorite of the year. Nevertheless, it’s a major work of ambitious artistry that explores grand ideas: the struggle of the immigrant experience, external restrictions on artistic creation, the abuses and insulation of power structures, and the moral rot at this nation’s core.

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© Janus Films

5. THE BEAST

dir. Bertrand Bonello

Loosely based on the 1903 Henry James novella, The Beast in the Jungle, Bonello’s film effectively starts in an AI-dominated 2044 where Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) undergoes a DNA purification process to eliminate the trauma of her past lives, which include a 1910-set affair with a mysterious young man (George MacKay) and a 2014-set encounter with an incel (MacKay again). Shades of Three Times, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Age of Innocence, and Lost Highway can be found in this foreboding, time-jumping, sci-fi romance, but it is ultimately another intoxicating, singular work from the French auteur about the alluring connection between fear and desire. Seydoux excels, as always.

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© A24

4. I SAW THE TV GLOW

dir. Jane Schoenbrun

With their narrative debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and now I Saw the TV Glow, Schoenbrun is becoming a key artistic voice in how millennials and younger generations consume and engage with media in the digital age. This coming-of-age movie, the latest entry in what I’ve dubbed the “suburban adolescent identity anxiety horror” subgenre alongside films like Mysterious Skin, Donnie Darko, and It Follows, details the decade-spanning bond that forms between two teenage outsiders (Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, both fantastic) over their shared love for a ’90s YA TV series. It’s a neon-soaked mood piece that moves between liminal spaces as Schoenbrun’s trans allegory deftly examines the suppression of one’s authentic identity, the inescapable subjectivity of memory, and obsessive fandom.

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© Janus Films

3. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT

dir. Payal Kapadia

Another exciting new voice in cinema! Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s second feature, All We Imagine as Light, is a rapturous piece of storytelling that explores the parallel lives of two Mumbai nurses (Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha, both superb) whose thorny romantic relationships introduce existential questions. There’s a subtlety and grace to Kapadia’s portraiture of women discreetly pushing back against a patriarchal society and social hierarchy that affords them limited mobility. The formal approach shares some DNA with her previous film, the documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, here using nonfiction-flavored elements to sculpt a city symphony of Mumbai. Kapadia makes yet another clever artistic choice at the midpoint when relocating the story from the bustling, congested urban spaces of Mumbai to the peaceful, rural Ratnagiri seaside, and the picture shifts from realist drama to ethereal phantasmagoria. As I watched this gem unfold, four master filmmakers came to mind: Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Wong Kar-wai, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. That is good company to keep!

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© Neon

2. ANORA

dir. Sean Baker

Baker has been an important figure in American independent cinema for over a decade, so it’s only right that he’s finally getting recognized for his filmmaking prowess. Once again exploring the personal and professional lives of sex workers with a nonjudgmental eye, Baker’s latest and greatest centers on Ani (Mikey Madison, in a knockout performance), a New York City stripper whose young, wealthy Russian client, Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), proposes marriage in a mutually beneficial arrangement, only to see Vanya’s powerful family attempt to annul the union. Baker fashions his Pretty-Woman-meets-Uncut-Gems concept into an exhilarating dramedy that moves from whirlwind romance to home invasion to midnight odyssey to, well, I won’t spoil where it goes. Baker’s films always strike a delicate balance of authenticity, empathy, and humor, and Anora wows as a charming, pragmatic portrait of an outsider making her way in a world where the good life seems just out of reach.

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© MGM / UA

1. CHALLENGERS

dir. Luca Guadagnino

I’ve checked the records, and Challengers is the first great tennis movie in cinema history. Though, to be fair, it’s a weak field. Perhaps a more meaningful claim would be: Challengers is the best sports movie since at least 2015’s Creed and possibly even 1980’s Raging Bull. This sweaty, sexy, scintillating picture presents the athletic rivalry and romantic tension that emerge when two friends and aspiring tennis talents (Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist) contend for the affections of an emerging star (Zendaya). Propelled by stylish direction from Guadagnino, a charged script of structural ingenuity and riveting repartee from Justin Kuritzkes, and a thumping electronic score from Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Challengers intoxicates as both a love triangle romance and a sports drama—either way you slice it, the film is a sharp study of the thrill of competition. The final “Match Point” sequence had me levitating out of my seat, something no other film accomplished in 2024.

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© A24

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Where to Watch the Top 20 Right Now:

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World - MUBI, VOD
Flow - Theaters
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - Max, Netflix, VOD
Good One - VOD
Hit Man - Netflix
Mars Express - VOD
Nickel Boys - Theaters
Nosferatu - Theaters
Slow - VOD
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat - Theaters
10. Queer - Theaters
9. Dune: Part Two - Max, Netflix, VOD
8. Universal Language - Theaters soon
7. A Different Man - VOD
6. The Brutalist - Theaters
5. The Beast - Criterion Channel, VOD
4. I Saw the TV Glow - Max, VOD
3. All We Imagine as Light - Theaters
2. Anora - VOD
1. Challengers - Prime, VOD