The Best Films of 2024

Well, the multiple studios have released all the major films of 2024. This year had a lot of solid films, but maybe only a few "classics" we as a society will go back to. While Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine topped the box office, you won't find them on my top ten films list. Both were excellent entertainments, but for a film to make my end year list, it has to really stick with me. Last year's #1 Dream Scenario was such a film and this year the top ten all stayed in my head rent free this year. Whether they were epic dramas (The Brutalist, Conclave), horror films (The Substance, In a Violent Nature), or just beautiful animation (Memoir of a Snail), this year saw genre pics glow. At the bottom of the list you'll find honorable mentions to check out as well. So enjoy!      

1. The Brutalist 

The Brutalist is a masterpiece. Flat out out, slam dunk, no objections your honor masterpiece. It will be compared to The Godfather, There Will Be Blood, and Raging Bull in that glorious genre of sweeping American epics years to come. Brady Corbet takes the story of a Jewish immigrant from 1947 to 1980 and creates poetry about the hope and darkness America creates, sometimes in the same second. Try to catch this on IMAX or a 70mm screening if you can. 
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2. Sing Sing 

No film moved me as much as Sing Sing did this year. The film is many things. While a prison drama on the surface, it's a lyrical look at how a play is cast, rehearsed, and performed. It’s about inmates dealing with parole hearings and family drama from the outside. It’s a real look into prison reform through the arts, showcasing men being vulnerable in ways society frowns upon. And it’s a wildly entertaining human dramedy with exceptional performances, dialogue, music, and direction. Colman Domingo announces himself as one of the cinema's finest talents here. 
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3. The Substance

The Substance is a masterpiece. Here director Coralie Fargeat's original vision transcends typical cinema. A science fiction fable starring Demi Moore as an ageing star and the lengths she'll go to capture her youth is both a horror genre classic and a great satire. Instead of providing speeches, it asks questions. Is this self mutilation the price of fame? Is the way women feel the need to maintain youth while men grow pot bellies and grey hair a blatant double standard? Is age just nature taking its cruel evolutionary course? By the end we've gone on a full rollercoaster ride of pleasure and pain.
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4. Memoir of a Snail

T​he mystery of life. The poetry of life. That’s where animation can go to many live action films cannot, and Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail is that shiny light of a film. A stop motion claymation three hankie weeper about a sad little girl Grace and how she chooses to connect to a world that has been nothing but cruel to her and her twin brother Gilbert. Rated R for violence and sex, it's a full plate of story and beauty from the opening frame to the closing shot. 
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5. In a Violent Nature

Most horror films are clunky, rushed, and feel like a music video drenched in blood and gore, which is why I truly responded to the quiet, somber opening of In a Violent Nature, as we slowly follow this man-creature through the woods searching for the locket his father gave him to protect. The mixture of fantasy and hyper realism is a nice touch, reminding us of Halloween and how sometimes the scariest thing is the killer staring blankly, methodically, and then attacking with sheer brutality. And boy does In a Violent Nature live up to that title. This film haunted me in ways no film did in 2024.

6. Conclave 

It’s wonderfully refreshing to watch a film of this much talent and skill. Director Edward Berger directed All Quiet on the Western Front a few years ago and showed he’s very capable of making everything feel epic yet intimate. If the film suffers at all it’s in the ending. While the story unravels nicely, after all the plot lines tie together, it seems a bit lost on how to wrap up Thomas’s journey. But like Ralph Feinness doubting Thomas, it's the journey that sustains us more than the final conclusions. 
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7. Nightbitch 

Written and directed by Marielle Heller, Nightbitch isn’t afraid to say out loud the dark internal thoughts all mothers must have about their children, and yet the film isn’t anti-mother, anti-husband, or anti-family. If anything, the film is strongly pro-family. An often funny and poignant deep dive into the mind of the modern wife turned mother questioning her decisions and identity. Oh, and Amy Adams becomes a dog at night, hunting rodents. It's wildly entertaining. 
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8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 

This is a true science fiction action spectacle. A film that creates a world and with methodical precision blows it up beautifully. George Miller (at 79!) takes his Mad Max saga back to the Immortal Joe era and refills the desert landscape with one exciting stunt set piece after another. This is what I wanted the Dune films to create. Pure bliss. There’s very little to not love. At 2 1/2 hours, it might have benefited from a few cuts, but when something is this good, a little overindulgence is worth it on a road trip this much fun.
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9. The Last Showgirl 

Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl builds empathy in characters society and our families have taught us to ignore. It's a poignant and profound work. Pamela Anderson stars as Shelly, a 30 year dancer on the Las Vegas strip for a show called Le Razzle Dazzle, the last show of its kind being shut down in a few weeks. Representing both a dancer and a lost era, Anderson showcases raw vulnerability as a woman who was able to build a life for herself but at the cost of having an estranged daughter and no future outside of working in a shady shadow of a once glamorous Vegas. Jamie Lee Curtis almost steals the show as her best friend. A tragedy wrapped in Vegas glitz. 
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10. Kinds of Kindness

Kinds of Kindness is three short films connected together by the theme of loss and love, desperation and despair, and the pain we feel trying to make others love us. While all three shorts are entertaining, and the 2 hour 45 minute run time flies by. This is a brave, bold, ambitious project, and if there’s anything we can all get from Kinds of Kindness, it’s an artistic and expressive jolt of a true cinematic experience. Yorgos Lanthimos is slowly becoming the X rated version of the Coen Brothers.
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Honorable Mentions

2024 had many other noble efforts and entertaining films. The above films will probably go up and down lists I make in the future, as well as become less or more entertaining on future screenings. If there were an 11, 12, and 13, Pharrell's Piece by Piece was the documentary of the year for me, and June Squibb stole the show in Thelma, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was the best political allegory of the year.  

If you want to watch a masterclass in ensemble acting, A Complete Unknown about Bob Dylan and August Wilson's play adaptation The Piano Lesson deserve all the admiration possible.  

Then there are the highly enjoyable entertainments that I know will be watched again on streaming over the years, as they're sharply written and have some of the best memories I had in a theater this year. Keiran Culkin's face in A Real Pain is a reminder that suffering comes in many shapes. Anora was Sean Baker's most commercial film, about a group of mobsters trying to track down a spoiled brat with the help of his stripper wife. We all felt like we could fly after watching Wicked. Richard Linkletter and Glen Powell wrote the sexy comedy caper Hitman with some big laughs attached. Jason Reitman's Saturday Night retold the story of SNL's first show to great effect, and Challengers was the love triangle of the year. Plus late addition Nosferatu gave us a Christmas day gift that was both a delight and horrifying.   

I saw over 200 movies this year. Not all got reviewed, but if you want read all my hot takes on the films of 2024, click here to go to my Letterbox page. And like Siskel & Ebert used to say, "the balcony is closed" on 2024.