2024 is a lot like 2021. While there are movies to like this year, none of them landed in that special rarified air only my great films get to. Perhaps this was to draw attention to a Sean Baker movie? His 2021 Red Rocket is one of the two best of that year, and Anora is one of the best of this one as well, likely to coronate him with bigger budgets to tell his excellent stories.
I’d feel more despondent if it weren’t for the writer’s strikes, which pushed most of the great films this year into 2025 and beyond. That, and the 2024 United States presidential election left a general malaise over the world at large, which expressed itself all over the movies this year, with most of the best films being dark, cynical fare.
But fear not families! Hope is not lost: 5 of the 10 Honorable Mentions on my list are 5 animated films, in 5 different styles, from 5 different countries!
That’s…AMAZING! Nothing I’ve ever experienced before. And what keeps me going back to the movies, over and over again.
Ok now let’s get to the big hitters of the small year. Did Anora put Sean Baker at the top again? Could he best established kings like Denis Villeneuve and Richard Linklater, or newcomers like Brady Corbet and RaMell Ross?
Or did all that darkness and cynicism claim the top prize of 2024 like it did with the Honorable Mentions?
In US history classes you read a lot about Native American destruction for the sake of US manifest destiny. However, Yintah is the first time that history gets to play out, right here, right now…just over the border. History comes magically, terribly alive as we watch the First Nations in the Pacific Northwest battle the combined forces of big business and the Canadian government as they desire to put an oil pipeline through the native lands. This is one of those special documentaries that feels more like a thriller than a documentary, as we see the battle of wills and rules/regulations for the First Nations to simply live on the land they have spent generations on.
No, this isn’t a musical. Sing Sing is a prison in upstate New York, where Colman Domingo, and some real life ex convicts show us what their lives were like there, specifically inside of the arts program that puts on shows for the other inmates. Using real life people here blurs the lines between fiction and reality, as well as side steps the normal plot points of a prison movie, instead delivering something rich and fresh, including a breakout performance from Clarence Maclin.
It takes a real life artist to make a movie that feels like pure art in motion. Titus Kaphar’s movie is rich every second onscreen, tackling all sort of heavy themes (generational trauma, parenting techniques, healthy outlets for pain, etc) in the most beautiful ways possible, eliciting all sorts of emotions, but in a way that feels like you experienced some sort of new way to learn and grow watching a movie, with a cast ready to deliver these messages expertly, especially Andre Holland and John Earl Jelks.
I hate that this is becoming a trend in Iran. Like his fellow director Jafar Panahi in 2022, Mohammad Rasoulof filmed this movie in secret because of a warrant out for his arrest speaking truth to power. His story is as amazing as the movie he directed: an incredible critique of the hypocrisy and fascism of the rulers of the country. Rasoulof weaves in the tragedy of Mahsa Amini into a complex family drama/political thriller that twists and turns and keeps you tense throughout its lengthy runtime, reminding everyone to be vigilant as the powerful try to scare you into submission.
The best doc of the year so far, about a daddy daughter dance. But not just any daddy daughter dance. This is a pilot program in Virginia, giving incarcerated fathers a chance to spend one evening with their daughters, some of whom they haven’t seen in months. What follows is an incredible journey through the fallout of US criminal justice, as seen through the eyes of the innocent children forced to deal with the same sentence as their dads. Complex, emotionally powerful storytelling at its best.
Every year there’s a movie that shows why a director deserves to be considered among the best working today. This year Sean Baker elevated out of his indie moviemaking roots into the mainstream with his beautiful, modern, honest take on Pretty Woman. The movie subtly changes what it is as it goes on, but always feels like it’s part of the same story, thanks to Baker’s direction and his incredible cast, including a star in the making Mikey Madison.
The swash buckling Edmond Dantes goes back to his roots, with tremendous results. France’s 2024 adaptation of this famous story shows the brilliance and flexibility of one of history’s great fictional tales. This time, we excise and reduce a few characters, but in doing so, allow the tale to go from a TV miniseries into a movie epic entertainment extraordinaire, while also maintaining the essence of the novel’s themes of perseverance, love, revenge, and the right way to live. We always wait, and hope, for another great Count of Monte Cristo adaptation, and it will probably be a LONG wait and hope for another adaptation to surpass this incredible one.
No superhero movie could turn up the heat like this Luca Guadagnino masterpiece, maybe his best film. Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor play a double pair of tennis players, completely entranced by Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan. What follows is a propulsive, intoxicating, adult, messy affair, wonderfully stitched together by Guadagnino and acted by the three leads, turning the normally uptight tennis into the sexiest sport ever, at least for a couple hours.
And darkness/evil wins! How Hollywood uses and abuses women for the sake of entertainment is pretty gross. So Coralie Fargeat simply takes that icky feeling and puts in onscreen for all to see. She eviscerates the industry with brutal, direct force, and incredible clear direction to drive home her feelings, which will make you want to hurl. Plus, Demi Moore finally gets a chance to show that she’s not just some dumb sexpot; this is likely the best performance she will give in her career.
It takes a village. In this case, the 1972 Olympic Village. That horrific fateful 1972 Munich Olympics Hostage situation, which we know the result of, is transformed into a pulse pounding thrill ride as we go behind the scenes with the news crew that brought the story to the world. A bench of great character actors like John Magaro and Peter Sarsgard help create a new version of a journalism movie: one that can shapeshift and unfold in real time, while the journalists have to shapeshift and transform with it as it unfolds, with exciting, scary results.
