The Best Movies of 2024, According to Me
My Year In Lists, 2024 — Movies (Part One)
An oft-repeated quote on social media is that if you thought the year was weak for cinema, you just had not seen enough movies. This applies for 2024, which was certainly weak if your scope was limited to unusually disappointing Hollywood fare. And the year’s crop of Oscar hopefuls isn’t nearly as strong as last year. But there are always great people making great movies, and this year is no exception.
I’ll probably watch one or two more films before the year actually ends, but as of press time, these are my stats:
192 features
32 shorts
1 TV show that’s listed on Letterboxd for some reason (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
42% new releases (according to dates used by Letterboxd)
10% re-watches
Top 20 of the Year
I don’t count one-week awards qualifying releases, so some movies in this list are considered 2023 movies by others, and there are titles that I saw this year but will be included (hopefully!) on the 2025 list. That considered, these were my twenty favorite films of the year, along with where to watch them (JustWatch is invaluable for looking this stuff up).
20. Anora
Theaters and PVOD; probably coming to Hulu later.
The entire home invasion/speakerphone sequence is cinema gold.
19. A Different Man
VOD; Max 1/16
Stealthily a very good New York movie, with little grace notes that reflect the surrealism that comes with living here. At one point we see a Mr. Softee truck speed past an ambulance, an evocative image for those who know.
18. Challengers
Amazon Prime Video
One of my friends called this a “foreplay movie.” All of the steamy moments are about the building up of tension rather than its release. It mirrors the tennis matches we see in this game: two people, each focused only on the other, feeling each other out (or up), figuring out how far they're willing to go together.
17. Last Summer (L’été dernier)
Criterion Channel
Of the recent movies in which a woman engages in a sexual relationship with a much younger man, this is the best one. No surprise: it’s French. Perhaps it’s too easy to fixate on the stepmother/stepson relationship and be disgusted. But I don’t think L’été Dernier is “about” taboos, or even about power imbalances, not directly. Catherine Breillat examines the weaponization of that power and the flimsiness of our moral beliefs in a perversely sensual picture.
16. Good One
VOD
Mumblecore pleasantries slowly give way to gendered menace in this deceptively simple film about a seventeen-year-old girl, her dad, and her dad's best friend who go on a backpacking trip in the Catskills. Similar to when I saw Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla: whenever there was a moment that (I presume) evoked an unpleasant adolescent memory, I would hear a sharp inhale, a catching of breath, from women in the audience.
15. Oh, Canada
Theaters; Blu-Ray 2/4
The term “late style,” as applied to Hollywood directors, is usually a nice way of saying “they don’t have the juice anymore but it’s nice they’re still at it.” Fortunately, Paul Schrader still has the juice.
First Reformed: man’s responsibility to the world. The Card Counter: man’s responsibility to country. Master Gardener: man’s responsibility to each other. Oh, Canada: man’s responsibility to oneself.
14. Juror #2
Max
A bummer that the controversy over its bungled release has overshadowed the actual movie. Clint Eastwood delivers a blistering indictment against the American system. Not of the justice system, but of our society: how we're enabled to ignore disquieting thoughts and make little compromises to maintain the status quo. Morality is a mirage; self-preservation is our overriding instinct.
13. Hit Man
Netflix
It's called Hit Man because Glen Powell is a man who is hitting that. Has all the ingredients for a Brian DePalma pastiche, something like Dressed to Kill or Body Double. But swap out the lurid eroticism for a chill vibe and this becomes a Richard Linklater picture instead. Check your police abolitionist views at the door. If this movie got a proper theatrical release I think it would have been much better received; it killed the room when I saw it with a thousand people at NYFF.
12. The Substance
MUBI
It turns out I fucking love body horror because when people in the theater were audibly frightened I was cackling with glee. An EXCELLENT movie to see with a bunch of friends and/or strangers. Extremely high number of “don’t do it… oh she did it” moments.
11. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
AMC+
We tend to celebrate the end of the year as a joyous occasion. But it is still an ending, the foreclosure of possibilities and resolutions we had 365 days ago. Set in a fictional Long Island town, it feels like you've been invited to this family’s Christmas party, but you don't know anyone, so you just wander, listening in on one conversation after another, taking it all in. Fairly experimental and modestly surreal, but I was utterly captivated.
10. Rap World
YouTube
Lately, my friends have been talking about the apparent epidemic of straight male loneliness. Was thinking about their conversations while watching this brutally hilarious mockumentary, directed by Conner O'Malley and Danny Scharar and shot on period-authentic camcorders. It's about three white dudes in Pennsylvania trying to record a rap album over the course of one night in 2009. (Emphasis on "trying.") Part buddy comedy, part picaresque, it's a legitimately devastating work of male millennial malaise, particularly of the ones at a standstill in life.
Self-distribution on YouTube allows for evocative needle drops that would normally be way too expensive. The opening montage, set to Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” is funny, at first, until you realize that these men have identities built upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.
9. Dune: Part Two
Max
Rips apart the mythology of the great man, the Lawrence of Arabia type of figure who claims to liberate a foreign people. There is no such thing as a benevolent colonizer. It should have been a full three hours; the breakneck pacing doesn't allow for natural character development. Florence Pugh is serving in her (limited) screentime. (Bene Gesserit? More like Bene Jezebel.) The word "jihad" is not uttered once; cowards. I need a Dune Messiah movie pronto!
8. Evil Does Not Exist (悪は存在しない)
Criterion Channel
Comforting on its face — Ryusuke Hamaguchi? More like Ryusuke Hygge-guchi. But there's an eerie sense of menace in the background, which slowly ventures forward. I don't care if this is a minor or major work from the Drive My Car filmmaker. It's a great film.
7. Perfect Days
Hulu
My friend Amy was in Japan during Halloween and wore a Tokyo Toilet jumpsuit. But no one was familiar with the film and so they were confused as to why she’d pick such an outfit.
6. Sing Sing
Back in theaters 1/17
Most movies have one scene that could be described as “the heart of the film.” One that's emotionally moving and elegantly revealing of the project’s themes. But in this film, it’s impossible to pick, because there are so many scenes like this.
5. Nickel Boys
Now playing in NY/LA, expanding nationwide in January; eventually streaming on Amazon Prime Video
With actors operating cameras and camera operators standing in for actors, the first person shots could have been a gimmick, akin to projecting an Oculus Rift video game to a cinema screen. But it’s no gimmick.
4. I Saw the TV Glow
Max
A terrific, existentially dreadful film that left me feeling like my own heart was scooped out. There's much that I could say about this revelatory work from Jane Schoenbrun, but I will point you instead to two essays and a Letterboxd review: Emily St. James, on how to (metaphorically) see this film and find optimism in its bleak ending; Grace Robertson on nerd fandom and uncovering her identity; a coming out post in the form of a Letterboxd review by Julie, whom I suspect is not the only person whose eggshell was cracked by this movie.
3. All We Imagine as Light (പ്രഭയായ് നിനച്ചതെല്ലാം)
Now playing in limited release; probably coming to Criterion Channel at some point.
Such a lovely, magical film from Payal Kapadia. She should be considered a major world filmmaker, as NYFF programmer Devika Girish noted when introducing the screening I attended. (Kapadia had a delightful Q&A after; she seems like a good hang!) At its core, it’s a movie about people subtly changing each other and helping each other, some optimism (a ray of light, perhaps) to be found in a world of late-stage capitalism.
2. The Taste of Things (La Passion de Dodin Bouffant)
Hulu and AMC+
Food is ephemeral, but film is forever. Was very sad that I saw this movie — in France! — but only had time afterwards to eat a Royale with Cheese from the MacDo across the street. I haven’t made any progress on re-creating the film’s opening lunch menu. Need to get on that…
1. Robot Dreams
Hulu
I knew this was gonna be cute, and it was, but I did not expect to be so consistently, absolutely devastated. When is it better for someone to exist to you as a static memory than as a growing, changing person? Do you love someone for who they are, or for what they represent to you? What's the right time to replace someone who has left your life? To explore these questions about love and loss, watch this animated movie about a dog and his robot friend, brought together then cruelly separated by the tender indifference of the universe.
Not to make it seem like this is a depressing movie; it’s also a vibrant, life-affirming portrait of New York City, clearly made by someone who spent a long time here. Director Pablo Berger and team elegantly capture the rhythms and textures of Manhattan. One of my friends clocked the realism in the way a character folded a pizza slice. Little things like that, you can't pick up without living here. There is no dialogue, and barely any written text. The story, the characters, and the emotions are all told purely with imagery. I never grew weary of that method, nor did I ever lose my place in the narrative. That in itself is a remarkable feat.
I saw Robot Dreams twice in one month. This is something I never do! My second viewing was in Josh and Mia’s apartment in the East Village. Their walk-up is like 90% identical to the Dog’s in this movie, which is modeled off of the one that Berger lived in once upon a time. Although EV walkups can be kind of samey, the verisimilitude was uncanny.
Potential Blindspots
Among many worthy titles, I did not make the time to see: Pictures of Ghosts, Problemista, The People’s Joker, Green Border, Ghostlight, Daughters, Hundreds of Beavers, Joker: Folie à Deux, Kneecap, Nosferatu, A Complete Unknown, Better Man
Early Favorites of Next Year
Be on the lookout in 2025!
For My Consideration
Some almost made the cut for my top 20, others I didn’t really care for. But I think about them more than some of the ostensibly better movies.
The Worst Movies of 2024, According to Me
Not to end on a bum note but…
Monkey Man
The Book of Solutions
I'm watching Challengers tonight!
Glad to see TASTE OF THINGS rank so high! I need to catch up with ROBOT DREAMS.