Top Ten Movies of 2024
2024 was an odd year in film for me, in that I liked the majority of the movies I saw but didn’t love any of them. It suffers by comparison to 2023, when I loved or really liked not only my top ten but at least ten more that would have easily made my list in any other year. Indeed, as the current movie awards season approached I found myself kvetching about its meager and uninspiring crop of contenders after 2023’s embarrassment of riches. But the truth is that 2024 was a solid enough year in which I ended up liking several movies I didn’t expect to like while generally also liking but not loving the movies I was most excited to see. The result is a weird flattening of the curve: once I identified my top five(ish), I found it really hard to rank the next five to ten in any meaningful order.
Per usual, there were many movies I missed in theaters and have not yet seen on streaming, including Sing Sing, The Substance, The Apprentice, Gladiator II, Queer, Babygirl, The Room Next Door, Hard Truths, Vermiglio (actually, I don’t think that one has opened yet in a theater near me), and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Also, documentaries remain my blind spot; I’ve basically seen none, unless you count National Geographic’s (heartwarming!) Billy and Molly: An Otter Love Story.
With these caveats, here are my top ten movies of 2024, followed by a second band of “alternates”/honorable mentions, and a third band “worth seeing.”
1. CHALLENGERS
Anora; Emilia Perez; I’m Still Here; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; A Complete Unknown; Saturday Night; The Order; The Wild Robot; A Different Man; Hit Man; Fly Me to the Moon; Wicked
I’m as surprised as you that this ended up being my #1, but for my money it was the most purely enjoyable film I saw all year. I’ve been a bit cool on director Luca Guadagnino till now, but I really dug this sleek, sexy romp featuring a trio of sleek, sexy tennis players (Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist) who just can’t seem to quit each other, even as their careers take sharply different turns. Theirs is a love triangle, yes, but a complicated one, with the balance of power perpetually shifting like a good tennis match. It makes for a compelling watch, propelled by the dynamic cinematography and pulse-pounding Trent Reznor-Atticus Ross soundtrack and capped by an exhilarating ending that shouldn’t work yet somehow does.2. THE BRUTALIST
A sweeping Film with a capital “F” that swings for the fences and doesn’t quite make it – more of a triple than a homer – but you have to admire its ambition. Up-and-coming director Brady Corbet spins an engrossing tale of a fictional Hungarian Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) who emigrates to the U.S. after WWII and attracts the interest of a rich industrialist (Guy Pearce). The latter commissions him to build a cultural center, a project that drags on for decades due in part to the architect’s unwillingness to compromise his vision, in part to circumstances beyond his control. Part Great Man narrative, part interrogation of the American Dream, and part meditation on the long shadows of the Holocaust, it's no wonder the movie runs 3.5 hours, including a 15-minute intermission; the wonder is that it held my attention the entire time, even if not everything about it works. Extra kudos go to the spectacular production design and cinematography (plus, ok, a dash of AI) that managed to create, on a very lean budget, compelling images of a visionary architectural work that never actually got built! The acting, too, is spectacular: Brody delivers an impressive performance, at once impassioned and nuanced, while Pearce almost steals the show as the tycoon whose superficial charm can’t hide the darkness beneath.3. SEPTEMBER 5
A lean, tight, absorbing newsroom procedural that’s less about the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre than the making of the massacre into a live TV event. Shot from the perspective of the ABC Sports crew that ended up covering the attack, it touches lightly on classic questions about journalistic ethics but is fundamentally more interested in showing the actual nuts-and-bolts work behind the scenes that captured and to some degree shaped an especially dark day in 20th century history. It succeeds due in large part to a fine cast that includes John Magaro as the guy in charge of the control room that day, Ben Chaplin as his immediate boss, Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, then-President of ABC Sports (later of ABC News), and Leonie Benesch as the translator and only German in the room. (Wisely, the film doesn’t cast anyone as Jim McKay, relying instead on archival footage of his broadcast.) But just as much credit goes to the painstaking physical recreation of the control room and its operations, which gives the film its sheen of authenticity and tangibly analog feel.4. A REAL PAIN
Full disclosure: going into this movie, I was not at all looking forward to spending a couple of hours (ok, 90 minutes: points for trimness!) with a Jesse Eisenberg nebbish and a Kieran Culkin loose cannon whose neck you want to wring after five minutes. Yet I found myself totally won over by this road trip/odd couple movie about a pair of Jewish American cousins who embark on a tour of Holocaust sites in Poland as half bonding session, half tribute to their recently deceased Polish grandmother. Yes, the two actors play to their respective types – Eisenberg the neurotic but conventional one, Culkin the charismatic but manic one who veers wildly between charming and exhausting. But they display a convincing rapport, while Eisenberg (who wrote and directed) manages to strike the tonal balance just right between the awkward comedy of Culkin’s shenanigans and the seriousness of grappling with a heritage of trauma, both historical and personal. The supporting cast – playing the rest of the tour group – is also quite good. And Poland never looked so lovely as it does through the lens of DP and Warsaw native Michal Dymek.5. GHOSTLIGHT
This indie gem – about a construction worker (Keith Kupferer) who works through a devastating personal loss by participating in a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet – largely flew under the radar last year, but deserves broader recognition. Let’s just say I’m glad I had the foresight to bring a packet of Kleenex to my show because I used almost all of it before the movie was over. Not because it’s sad – though the shadow of tragedy hangs over it, both on and off stage – but because it’s an incredibly moving slow-burn catharsis for an emotionally closed off guy who finds a channel for his grief and anger. The relevance of the play to his own life is a bit too on the nose, but the stellar performances by Kupferer and the rest of the cast make it ring 100% true.6. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
This was a film that grew on me over time. Set in current-day Mumbai, it quietly illuminates the lives of three women of different generations and backgrounds who work at a hospital. Each is dealing with her own source of heartache or emotional stress, which director Payal Kapaydia depicts with an interesting mix of intimacy and detachment. In the final act, the trio make a trip to a village by the sea, where they all manage to find catharsis and communion. Kapadia paints an exceptionally delicate and lyrical portrait not just of the challenges faced by women in modern India but of the incredibly disparate, multicultural, multilingual, more than slightly lonely vastness that is modern Mumbai.7. NICKEL BOYS
Confession: I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the Colson Whitehead novel about two black boys – one idealistic, one cynical – who become friends at a “reform school” (read: institute for state-sanctioned abuse) in 1960s Florida. So it’s probably good for me that director RaMell Ross takes a highly aestheticized approach to such grim, even gruesome subject matter. He chooses to film in first person perspective, switching back and forth between the two boys and one of them as an adult, 20 years later. He also chooses to convey much of their horrific treatment via suggestion rather than direct depiction. Both of these choices work surprisingly well, even if the film feels almost too lyrical and impressionistic as a result – like a cross between Malick and Moonlight. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and avoids the trap of misery/trauma porn in favor of lifting up the connection between the boys.8. THELMA
June Squibb (still going strong at 90+) finally gets her spotlight as the eponymous heroine of this delightful comedy, whose response to getting scammed is to hunt down her scammer – with the help of a fellow elder (Richard Roundtree) and notwithstanding the best efforts of her worried family to deter her. Josh Margolin’s debut feature is a very funny yet empathetic look at the challenges of growing old, with Thelma having to learn her limitations even as she rises above them. The movie isn’t perfect – it depends on some creaky plot contrivances, chiefly involving a scooter (partly for the sight gag effect, partly to introduce Roundtree’s character) and a gun, and it drags a little in the middle section – but it’s so endearing its flaws ultimately don’t matter. Squibb is fantastic as Thelma, while Roundtree deserves equal props for the grace, dignity, and warmth he brings as her straight man. This was his last film, and a hell of a high note to end his career.9. THE BIKERIDERS
Another surprise inclusion here; what can I say? Jeff Nichols’ loose chronicle of the rise and fall of a motorcycle club in 1960s and early ’70s Chicago has really stuck with me. It’s more about vibes and images than plot, as one might expect from a film literally based on a photo book, but they’re damn good-looking vibes and images, anchored in damn good-looking – and more importantly, just damn good – actors. Once again, the Brits show they can do heartland America better than most Americans: Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer are great as the leader of the group and the wife of his protégé, respectively. Meanwhile, Austin Butler, as said protégé, looks way too pretty and well coiffed even when he's getting beat up, but exudes enough charisma that we understand just why neither of them can let go of him. The movie is exceptionally good at capturing mood and is often surprisingly funny, even as its portrait of biker culture grows inevitably darker and uglier.10. Tie: FLOW
There’s something at once mystical and familiar about this Latvian animated film centered on a cat whose world is overtaken by a biblical-scale flood and who ends up seeking refuge on a drifting sailboat, along with a very random assortment of other animals that include a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a huge white crane-like bird. There’s no dialogue – the animals all sound and behave remarkably like their real-life counterparts (except for the fact that no one tries to prey on each other) – and no real plot, though plenty of moments of tension, suspense, humor, and even transcendence. You could read all kinds of allegorical meanings into their incredible journey, or you could just treat it as a beautiful dream. I’m inclined to the latter view though I can appreciate the former.and CONCLAVE
I resisted including this one in my top ten because it’s basically a potboiler – based on the novel by Robert Harris about the intrigue-laden election of a fictional pope – dressed up as something more profound than it is. Here’s the thing: it’s a really entertaining potboiler, directed with flair by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), that also offers a fascinating character study of a seemingly low-profile, dedicated servant of the church (a terrific Ralph Fiennes, as the cardinal presiding over the process) whose intentions and motivations are more complex and conflicted than they initially appear. It’s also exquisitely crafted, from the strong cast – including Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, among others, as competing cardinals who range across the ideological spectrum – to the striking cinematography and meticulous production design. And whatever you think of its jaw-dropping dénouement, its final message of empathy, balance, and humility carries a particularly poignant resonance at a time when these qualities seem to be not only disappearing from our public discourse but openly derided.Honorable mentions: Janet Planet
The semiautobiographical debut feature of playwright Annie Baker – tracing one summer in the life of a pre-adolescent girl and her hippie-ish single mom (Julianne Nicholson) in early 1990s western Massachusetts – is not for those with a short attention span or intolerance for ellipses. But if you’re patient you’ll be rewarded with a beautifully studied portrait of a particular moment and place in time and a close mother-daughter relationship observed through the loving but critical eyes of the daughter.Maria
The final installment of Pablo Larraín’s trilogy about Very Famous Women Going Through Turmoil – in this case Maria Callas, played by Angelina Jolie – looks like a cross between museum exhibit and high-end perfume commercial (not a bad thing, actually). But it achieves surprising emotional depth by shifting between flashbacks to the soprano’s prime and her final, futile efforts to recover her lost voice. Jolie brings a startling delicacy to the pathos of those last days without losing the inherent magnetism of a larger-than-life superstar.Dune: Part Two
Visually and aurally, it’s a knockout; and it’s undoubtedly an intelligent and skillful adaptation of notoriously difficult-to-adapt material. However, its overarching cold, ceremonial tone – making everything feel at once heavily manipulated and utterly predetermined – also prevented any real emotional investment on my part, in contrast to the more human-scaled urgency of Part One. More thoughts here.Also worth seeing:
Anora; Emilia Perez; I’m Still Here; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; A Complete Unknown; Saturday Night; The Order; The Wild Robot; A Different Man; Hit Man; Fly Me to the Moon; Wicked