There's no two ways about it: as a year, on the global scale, 2024 was a real annus horribilis. It was also an exceedingly strange film year, due at least in part to the lingering effects of the 2023 writers' strike. I saw plenty of movies I liked, but far fewer than normal that I really loved, and for the second year in a row, I had deep ambivalences about many of the most critically lauded titles, including the Palme d'Or and Oscar Best Picture recipient Anora. As a result, my list arguably looks more idiosyncratic than ever, with a flavorful array of (largely underrated) American and international independents flanking one bonafide Hollywood blockbuster.
Find my top ten films of 2024 after the jump!
10.
Bird, dir. Andrea Arnold
Arnold's first fiction feature in almost a decade sees her return, with characteristic empathy and audiovisual exuberance, to the working-poor milieu of the English council estate. Updating the vérité of Fish Tank with a strain of magical realism, she creates a vibrant, vital, and warmhearted fable of childhood imagination and resilience - and with a rocking soundtrack, as always.
9.
Between the Temples, dir. Nathan Silver
Equal parts New Hollywood throwback and jittery cringe comedy, Between the Temples raucously skewers orthodoxies of all kinds: religious, romantic, and cinematic. Jason Schwartzman at his nebbishy best and Carol Kane at her flightiest are the duo you never knew you needed, leading a great ensemble cast more than capable of keeping up the neurotic fracas.
8.
Hard Truths, dir. Mike Leigh
Reuniting with Mike Leigh for the first time since 1996's Secrets & Lies, Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives a performance of volcanic emotional intensity, swinging from uproariously florid tirades to sullen self-loathing. This is a stingingly unsentimental portrait of infectious pain and loneliness from a master of British working-class observation.
7.
A Different Man, Adam Schimberg
Somewhere between John Frankenheimer's Seconds and the destabilizing psychological tales of Charlie Kaufman, A Different Man is a darkly comic interrogation of identity that provokes philosophical reflection, and genuine discomfort, in how it takes apart notions of selfhood and otherness. Adam Pearson and Sebastian Stan are superb adversaries.
6.
Janet Planet, dir. Annie Baker
The debut feature film from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker is a tactile marvel of mood-building and characterization built around the slippery relationship between a mother and her pubescent daughter who can't quite grasp each other, or themselves. The cinematography and sound design foster a summer atmosphere as entrancing as I've seen onscreen.
5.
Nyoni's social parable of the legacy of patriarchal violence and the societal burden women bear for it is as lacerating as it is compassionate. At times bitterly funny, it's also constructed like a world-class horror film, with shadowy images and an escalating cacophony of voices revealing a dreadful reality that can't be easily hushed.
4.
Wicked Part 1, dir. Jon M. Chu
Full disclosure: Chu's adaptation of the (first part) of Wicked was my first exposure to the beloved musical. Having no knowledge of the story, or most of the songs, I was thrilled and moved by its deep meaningfulness as a clarion call against fascism by means of literacy, curiosity, empathy, self-growth, and defiance, fueled by a feminism that never comes across as simplistic. It's a full-throated big-screen epic musical spectacle executed with rare aplomb.
3.
Thelma, dir. Josh Margolin
Possibly the wittiest and funniest mainstream American release of the year, Josh Margolin's feature directorial debut is an irresistible romp that gives nonagenarian June Squibb the role of a lifetime (in her first leading part ever), and Richard Roundtree a perfect sendoff (in his final role ever). Margolin's blend of genre elements within a poignantly multigenerational exploration of aging and agency is magic; it just might be the loveliest film ever made about, and for, one's grandma.
2.
Nickel Boys, dir. RaMell Ross
No part of a film in 2024 grabbed me at a more primordial level than the opening scenes of Nickel Boys, a series of first-person impressions of a child's being-in-the-world that evoked in me a euphoric sense of embodied childhood memory. While this POV vision persists throughout the film, it becomes profoundly complicated by the ego-fracturing effects of systemic racism and trauma on the dual protagonists. Even more cerebral than it is experiential, Ross's film presents an audacious and uncompromising challenge to our naturalized perceptual and epistemic regimes.
1.
Universal Language, dir. Matthew Rankin
The Canada of Universal Language is a whimsical winter wonderland of endless snowdrifts, brutalist architecture, Kleenex purveyors, turnpike memorials, and a particular abandoned suitcase on a park bench that's become a UNESCO Heritage Site. Oh, and everyone happens to speak Farsi. Folding a most unexpected homage to the Iranian New Wave into his Winnipeg picaresque, Rankin fashions an idiosyncratic celebration of transculturalism that's at once a triumph of droll formal rigor, playful self-deprecation, and anti-nationalist sentiment.
Some terrific runners-up, any of which would be worthy of the list above:
Juror #2, by Clint Eastwood, a layered and tantalizingly ambiguous morality play about the US legal system, with a sensational cast.
Sing Sing, by Greg Kwedar, an uncommonly tender, light-filled prison drama starring real former inmates that extols male camaraderie and rehabilitation through art.
I Saw the TV Glow, by Jane Schoenbrun, a haunting and arrestingly shot nocturnal fable about nostalgia, repression, and queerness.
I'm Still Here, by Walter Salles, a stirring/sobering depiction of perseverance and defiance under authoritarianism, about Brazilian lawyer and activist Eunice Paiva, played by a brilliant Fernanda Torres.
And I have to mention Hundreds of Beavers, by Mike Cheslik, which premiered in 2022 but was only released theatrically and on VOD in 2024. It's a loopy, deliriously clever masterclass in physical comedy and storytelling through image and sound.
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