To sum up the state of cinema in 2024, it’s best to paraphrase the poets known as Smash Mouth: “Well, the hits keep coming, and they don’t stop coming.” And it was an industry-wide scramble to see, after being fed to the wolves of tumultuous circumstance with COVID and strikes, if they could hit the ground running. The answer was… sort of? The house is still on fire on the Hollywood side. To name a few examples: Warner Bros. is once again barely solvent (though their fortunes might be turning around), Larry Ellison’s children now own Paramount, and Disney’s still navigating the post-Chapek new normal. The streamers are still doing their thing – Amazon remains the lone candidate in the field with a good understanding of what works theatrically, Netflix is doubling down on live events and brand-building their stars, and Apple TV+ had a surprisingly quiet year.
As you might expect, the indies were where it was at. A24 had a banner year — they’ve got the most films of any distributor on my list and released what I consider to be the best film of 2024 a few weeks ago – but IFC Films, bizarrely enough, seized the opportunity provided to them by Skinkamarink and put a bunch of great horror into theaters (Shudder is still the best value that a streaming service offers a movie nerd, even if they’re not Rock and Shock attendees). Mubi, once the ever-present podcast ad-read, had a phenomenal year: The Substance, listed below, was fantastic and an exceptional crossover hit, uniting the arthouse crowd and the blood-and-guts normies. Everybody, it seems, could agree on watching Demi Moore turn into neo-Brundlefly.
So, as we head into an uncertain future, I don’t have any grand pronouncements about what the upcoming year might look like, especially concerning my little corner of the universe. I know that this wasn’t the best year for movies or anything else, but I do know that plenty of things make life so unexpectedly richer if you’re willing to engage. “Get more out of life,” that old pre-roll announcement says, “go out to a movie.” Except I just think you should get out, in general – you should go see one of the twelve films listed below because they’re fantastic – but you should see friends, touch grass, or get nauseous after eating stale popcorn at the multiplex. Like the heroes say in Warren Ellis’ and the dearly John Cassiday’s magnum opus Planetary: It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way. Engaging with art, community, nature, whatever: That’s how you keep your slice of this planet weird.
To quote Clint Eastwood when he’s calling cut, “Enough of that shit.” Here’s your 2024 Honor Roll (with our respective reviews linked accordingly):
Anora, Alien: Romulus, Babygirl, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Blitz, Don’t Move, Emilia Perez, The First Omen, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Gladiator II, Immaculate, It’s What’s Inside, Joker: Folie a deux, Kinds of Kindness, Late Night with the Devil, Longlegs, Luther: Never Too Much, Megalopolis, Monkey Man, A Real Pain, The Shadow Strays, Sing Sing, Smile 2, The Contestant, Tuesday, Twisters, We Live in Time
A special shout out to Robot Dreams, which got its full theatrical release this year. I included it on last year’s list, but it’s a masterpiece – one of the best movies of the century – and I’ll take any chance I get to yell about it.
Finally, I’d like to thank each one of you for journeying through this weird and wild cinematic landscape with me, and to everyone on the V team, both for making my dreams continue to come true and for being the best damn bros one could ask for. Now, without further ado, here are my favorite films of 2024, along with links to the original reviews and added superlatives.
Most Likely to Get a Film Nerd with Claire Denis Posters on Their Wall to Buy Cactus Jack Merch: AGGR0 DR1FT
“Yes, Harmony has made Trash Humpers for the Spring Breakers generation, a movie that is so painfully prescient that it feels old and worthy of a mocking shrug. It is inherently alienating and dismissive towards the people who thought he was making his way towards some amount of respectability, that he’d ‘grown up’ or whatever and decided to finally make movies for adults or at least films that resemble other films. This is a mid-life crisis movie (or, hell, for the Letterboxd generation, a quarter-life crisis movie), but not in the way that you’d expect, because he’s not depicting his own: Rather, he’s helping his audience have theirs. That was the great thing about Trash Humpers: After months of ragging and 0% Rotten Tomatoes scores or whatever, they’d go on to some impossibly-cool-seeming film blog and discover that some globetrotting kid critic that was coming up in the world had slotted it in highly on their end of the year list, only eclipsed by a few of the true greats and eclipsing a good many others. Imagine, if you will, shutting your laptop screen, scoffing. Then, the doubt sets in. Did they see something that I didn’t? Do I just not get these things anymore? Am I… old? And as you age further and further into a solidified future, Korine somehow manages to stay as young as he ever was, seeing the present clearer than you ever saw his past.”
Most Likely to Convince an Aging Allston Hipster to Move to New Hampshire so They Can Ride a Motorcycle Without a Helmet: The Bikeriders
“Nichols wisely hammers how much these characters have lost because of this vibe shift, with the high watermark of this subculture hitting a few years before Hunter Thompson found his own in Vegas. Henry Hill got his just desserts but eeks out a comfortable existence after betraying his idols, and Dirk Diggler may not be a star anymore but he’s still got All The Friends He Made Along The Way, but these guys are either dead, servants to a new gang leader, or wishing they were on the road again from easy chairs, mourning the newfound solitude of real adult isolation. Their hearts really were left out on the streets, but if you look closely at one of Lyon’s photos, you might still be able to find their scorched tire marks on the American cultural road.”
Most Likely to Have the Audience Questioning Their Sexuality, and, More Importantly, If They Should Watch Tennis More Often: Challengers
“It’s in the way that Guadagnino and Kuritzkes communicate the professional athlete’s worldview through their characters and this structure that the comparison to Eastbound and Down presents itself. All of Kenny’s interpersonal conflicts are external manifestations of the way he sees the world from the mound – unless you’re there to field the ball when he allows a batter to get a hit, you’re most likely the person he’s hurling fastballs at – and the piece-by-piece way in which all of his interactions lead him towards a goal (fame, etc.) mirrors his path to the World Series in earlier parts of his career. The length of the baseball season lends itself well to television, but Challengers preserves the ephemeral nature of a championship game. We learn the context, realize the stakes, watch as our core trio makes their way to Match Point, and celebrate the astonishing release that follows the final point. The pair behind the scenes and the trio in front are working at the top of their game, and each seizes the moment. If this is Zendaya’s big moment in which she fully moves into the world of ‘adult’ cinema (as opposed to TV soaps and sci-fi epics), it’s one hell of an audacious one. Faist and O’Connor are deliriously strong as a pair of recognizable athlete stereotypes who still transcend the cookie-cutter boundaries of that descriptor. Ultimately, Challengers is everything its audience writes onto a high-stakes tennis match when they watch one in real life – breezy, dramatic, intense, absurdly funny, weirdly sexy, and, above all else, thrilling to witness unfold.”
Most Bizarre Continual Cultural Phenomenon (But We Definitely Don’t Mind It): Dune: Part Two
“But I do worry about how people will react to the film’s ending, which is a deviation from Herbert’s book and potentially audience-alienating. Based on the sacrifices made to bring the text to the screen, it’s understandable why some of this happens the way it does – time compression is an important aspect in making this interpretation of events work – but there are a few things that might make some think twice, as well as the whole realization that this particular Hero’s Journey isn’t exactly one that anybody would want to follow. Villeneuve must have received assurances that he’ll be able to bring Dune Messiah to the screen; otherwise, I’d doubt he’d end it like this: It sets up a finale, and if you’ve read these books, it’s going to be difficult to bring Messiah’s anti-story to the screen. If anybody can do it, however, it’s Villeneuve, who has given science-fiction cinema a much-needed shot in the arm and has made the kind of Dune adaptation that makes everybody see what your cooler nerdy friends saw when they read the books back in high school.”
Most Glen Powell: Hit Man
“Hit Man spends pretty much every moment directly with its protagonist – things happening outside his purview would ruin a lot of the reveals – and Powell, who has never managed to find the kind of lead role that would show off his absurd talents, soaks up every second of it. This is a dynamite performance, full of life and ebullience, as Gary slowly starts to Daniel Day-Lewis himself into something approaching a sexy beast through all of his research and the roles he creates. It’s an ugly duckling story if the young swan was planning on sending those mallards a few counties over for a ten-year bid, and if the swan didn’t just stop at ducklings and moved on to all the waterfowl in the area, and Powell plays it as such, emphasizing the inherent comedy in this kind of transformation. Importantly, this is a role that is directly informed by Powell’s most recent work – try and count all of the variations of Tom Cruise that Powell winds up inevitably doing when Gary meets with suspects, and you’ll probably have a headache (hell, there are even references to roles that Cruise didn’t get as little in-jokes along the way). It is, in truth, tremendous work, the kind of thing that would deserve a year-end nod if awards ceremonies cared about comedy (or if the ones that did hadn’t essentially promised their statuettes to Ryan Gosling, courtesy of Warner Bros.’ breaking banks with Barbie).”
Best Use of a Martin Rev-Written Track: Love Lies Bleeding
“Yet all of this would be for naught if she didn’t have someone to fall in love with in the first place performing at and often above her caliber. Kristen Stewart is an actor that I’ve had an odd relationship with — I like a number of her post-Hollywood roles, but no one could ever characterize me as a Stan. She’s often left wanting by writers and directors looking for something different than what she brings to a role, and though the mismatch can be interesting (Spencer, for one), it’s often disharmonious, at least for me. Yet Love Lies Bleeding gives her the strongest characterization since Personal Shopper, another genre-tinged film that Stewart brought her A-Game to, is practically built from the ground up to complement all of her strengths without either party having to sacrifice. As Lou, she’s able to harness the components that make her such an ideal lead for a number of projects and present them to us in a way that buffets the film’s setting, style, and feel. She’s awkward, slightly traumatized, fiercely loyal, petty as hell, passionate, and nervous: In short, she’s the ideal protagonist for a neo-noir, embodying the same kind of sweaty energy that’s alluring and, once combined with the dark cloud that hangs around her, becomes a type of magnet for would-be saviors who don’t understand that she can save herself, and, more importantly, the trap they’ll get stuck in should they try to.”
Best Fred Durst Performance: I Saw the TV Glow
“I Saw the TV Glow relishes in the uncomfortable fact that the good times never truly were that good, yet deeply understands that these amber-preserved moments are still stuffed with a deep and yearning meaning. It is one of the essential new additions to the canon of Millennial Art, capturing those last few moments in adolescence before the internet began to consume everything slowly and forever alter our relationships with each other and ourselves. I was worried that Schoenbrun would stay in the online-adjacent world after World’s Fair and make relevant movies about relevant topics for relevant short-lived moments, but they have instead made great strides towards capturing the eternally ephemeral: That brief moment in young-adult lives in which we make our first connections with others and media.”
Most Likely to Have an Audience Full of Horror Hounds Hooting and Hollering Over How Gory It Is: In a Violent Nature
“The only real misstep comes near the end, in which a diversion is taken that is in keeping with the film’s ethos yet executed with a little less vigor than one might hope – it’s a moment in which we catch our breath and let tension build, following a scene in which someone flees through the woods a la Under the Skin – but Nash recovers beautifully, with a haunting and tension-filled final few moments that strike at the core horror of the notion of ‘the final girl’. It’s in these scenes that I think the Glazer influence emerges the most, though I’d also agree with some of my peers that there’s some Malick present in the aesthetic stew, as the violence of the killer contrasts with the serenity of the deep forest. Like Under the Skin, In a Violent Nature gives us an abstract view into a different kind of consciousness, with the alien being substituted for a resurrected mass-murderer hellbent on a form of simplistic revenge. This is my preferred view of the movie, with a lot of the silence echoing the void that is our protagonist, with one or two moments of true character-establishment emerging along the way. There’s a strangely heartbreaking moment in which we’re reminded of the reality of this character in a way that is genuinely effective (and surprisingly unexplored in so many horror films that feature similar supernatural murders): It reminds us of his former innocence, as his dead and cloudy eyes comprehend something he found on the ground and begins to play with.”
Most Likely To Have You Wondering Which Skarsgard Was Actually In This: Nosferatu
“If you’ve read my writing on Eggers before, you know what this last paragraph will entail: Once again, you’ll be reminded that this guy is the most metal motherfucker working in mainstream horror cinema. The Northman was a Sleep-like banger of stoner metal power, and Nosferatu is one of those high gothic funeral doom records that have nerds of all stripes wailing about how fucking heavy it is, perhaps even released alongside an alternate recording of the same tunes done by a full orchestra. It has a broader appeal than those bands typically do, but it’s perhaps the best representation of that vibe put on screen in recent years.”
Most Nauseating Depiction of Shellfish Consumption: The Substance
“At 140 minutes, The Substance has an epic length for a genre picture, and Fargeat oscillates between those three stylistic dimensions at a ferocious pace, ensuring that any frame isn’t wasted. Yet the most interesting aspect of her work here is its consistency – its contradictions are its characters, and the film would be lesser than if it weren’t for Moore and Qualley’s work inhabiting different dimensions of the same character. It is impressive how much shit they put up with here and how much they were given in return by their director. It ranges from how Elisabeth’s initial discomfort at running into an awkward guy she went to high school with turns into a painfully dashed attempt at restoring her self-confidence during the throes of Sue-Mania; to how Sue’s dreams of stardom come so close to being a reality only to be dashed, one tooth and fingernail at a time, at a pivotal moment, with Ren and Stimpy Gross-Ups of bleeding gums – it’s brave work, rooted in deep-seated emotional discomfort as much as it is physically.”
Best Gag Involving the Presumed Deaths of Baby Possums: The Wild Robot
“Conversely, The Wild Robot may be about ‘parenthood’, but its approach is closer to ‘responsibility.’ A kid who’s raised a pet — a puppy, a kitten, or a parakeet — or has grown up alongside a parent’s will be able to relate to Roz, and anyone who’s ever felt estrangement from a parental figure, whether they know to call it that or not, can see some of themselves in Bill. But the journey is more entertaining and rewarding in Sanders’ hands — it’s an adventure with the frights and thrills that accompany it, endowed with a generous sense of humor. Had Dreamworks made movies like this from their inception, they’d be pound-to-pound favorites in a match with this century’s Pixar and perhaps wouldn’t be in a position where they’re outsourcing their future productions instead of creating them in-house. But if The Wild Robot is truly the end of Dreamworks as we know it, it’s one hell of a way to go out.”
Best Movie of 2024: Queer
“Behold, then, the man: An intelligence governed by lust, a hungry heart in need of sustenance. The body may be gone, but the yearning remains, captured in this masterpiece, evoked through Craig’s soulful performance, soundtracked by some of the best Prince needledrops you’ll hear since the Purple One passed on. Queer is yet another feather in Guadagnino’s cap and perhaps the more impressive of the two scripts Kuritzkes has written over the course of his short career as a screenwriter. There may be no filmmaker better at presenting the beauty and horror of longing working in cinema today, and he’s only getting better when paired with a writer and cast of this caliber. But, even more importantly, it may be the Burroughs film that Burroughs himself would have paid to see. Perhaps he’d have seen someone like himself on screen, a little different but close enough, and feel that someone, somewhere, might have gotten it right.”