The Best Films of 2024
Well, I did it. I had a goal of watching over 200 new releases in 2024, and I saw around 225. Given recent developments in my personal life — I’m now a father! — there’s a very good chance that will be the most I ever watch in a given year for the rest of my life (or at least the next 18 years).
Was it worth it? Overall, yes. This is probably the “best” year for movie-watching I’ve ever had, and I think that’s simply due to the fact that I watched so many. It’s a numbers game: the number of good movies seen increases as one sees more movies overall. It also confirmed that there will always be films that slip through the cracks. Despite setting a personal record for new releases seen, I still couldn’t make the time to watch everything that I wanted to see (sorry, The Shadow Strays and The Seed of the Sacred Fig). Perhaps I’ll view them one day. Perhaps I won’t. Either way, it’s okay. I have a son to raise, a wife to love, and a bookshelf full of unread masterpieces. Life is short, and it’s beautiful, and while I won’t get to experience everything, I saw a lot of great movies this year, and for that I’m thankful.
In fact, I saw so many good movies this year that to try and narrow a “best of” list down to even twenty is an impossible endeavor. I’ve already written about many of the best movies I saw in 2024 here, here, and here. So, for the purposes of this list, I’ve tried to focus on answering: What are the movies that I can’t stop thinking about? Which burrowed their way deep into my brain and continue to spring to mind, even months later? Some of them have been previously listed. Some have not.
As always, they’re listed alphabetically. And I hope that one or two strike your interest and that you check them out. You can use JustWatch to see where all are available to stream or rent, and if you use the links I’ve provided to do so through Amazon, I’ll receive a small commission. Follow me on Letterboxd to see what I watch during 2025. Updates likely won’t be as frequent as they were this year, but I’ll still be doing my best to carve out time for my favorite artform in between feedings and diaper changes.
Lastly, while they didn’t make the final twenty, these films deserve a special shout-out:
Conclave is perhaps my favorite of the Best Picture nominees, simply because it’s so much fun to watch. This Vatican-set potboiler is willing to portray humanity in its fullness -- nobody is completely blameless, and nobody is entirely a villain. It’s just heavy-handed enough to be noticeable (and make me feel smart) but not enough to feel preachy or didactic. This is the kind of movie that used to get played on cable television all the time, and I mean that as a compliment.
Hundreds of Beavers can’t quite sustain its madcap shenanigans over the course of its 108-minute runtime, but it’s nonetheless a remarkable achievement. This masterclass in low-budget filmmaking (it was produced for $150,000) follows a 19th-century trapper who wants to win the heart of his dream girl… if only it wasn’t for those pesky beavers getting in the way! Looney Tunes by way of 8-bit video games, this movie dazzled me with its commitment to the bit and how every element gradually escalates into a show-stopping finale.
Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces is a two-part exploration of one of my favorite comedic performers. The first part is largely a standard look back at Martin's rise to stand-up superstardom; the second part, however, takes a completely different approach, focusing on how Martin now spends his days writing, spending time with family, looking at art, and trading barbs with best friend Martin Short. At multiple points, the fact people are filming is explicitly acknowledged, as well as that a lot of what's being filmed might be too mundane to be engaging. But it's often the quotidian details -- the way Martin makes breakfast, his bike rides with Short, brief interactions with family -- that make the most impact, humanizing someone who at one time seemed larger than life and who has been very careful about protecting his privacy. It's less about why Martin is famous and more about why he's happy -I would have gladly watched several more hours of him reflecting on the nature of life, death, and art, since he seems like someone who actually has worthwhile things to say.
The Wild Robot is the best American animated film of the year. As a new father, I’ve been feeling more than a small amount of existential dread due to increasing climate crises, polarization, and the rise of oppressive artificial intelligence systems. This movie reminded me that we have more with each other than not, and that by working together we can ensure our children grow up to become exactly who we need them to be in these challenging times.
On to the list!
THE BRUTALIST
Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, about a Hungarian-Jewish architect (a mesmerizing Adrien Brody) who survives the Holocaust and flees to the United States to both literally and figuratively rebuild his life, is a marvel. It’s the kind of old-fashioned period epic that I thought could no longer get made, much less for a $10 million budget. I don't think I've seen a movie since There Will Be Blood that feels so much like one of the definitive cinematic treatises on America and its infamous Dream, with its probing exploration of the immigrant experience and scathing critique of Ayn Rand's brand of industrial-capitalist heroism. I love how it feels so simple (brutalist?) in its construction, with the intermission (more of these, please!) coming exactly midway through and earlier scenes finding their echo later on. When it was over, I had to take a few minutes to sit in silence and ponder what I had just seen. Bravo.
CHALLENGERS
As I wrote previously: “There are only a few moments of actual sex in Challengers, which follows the decade-plus relationship dynamics between tennis star Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), his friend-slash-rival Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), and prodigy-turned-coach Tashi Duncan (an electric Zendaya). But the entire film so effectively evokes an atmosphere of infatuation, jealousy, and chemistry that one could be forgiven for thinking it’s more graphic than it actually is. The cinematography is the most stylish of the year, emphasizing the sweat dripping off athletic bodies, the speed of tennis balls being thwacked over a net, and the simmering heat between three beautiful people who love each other but can’t stop viewing life through the lens of competition. Who needs sex when this is what happens on the tennis court?”
THE DEVIL’S BATH
As I wrote previously: “Though it takes place in 18th-century Germany, The Devil’s Bath feels surprisingly timely in its depiction of religious and societal horror. Loosely based on real events, the film follows Agnes (a haunting Anja Plaschg), a newlywed woman in a rural village who strives to be a good wife: she tries to conceive a child, prays to God every night, and gets up early to try and catch some fish for breakfast. But she finds herself unable to get pregnant, likely because her husband seems sexually uninterested — or is it because she’s cursed?… The horror of The Devil’s Bath is social and political, and it serves as a bleak and powerful reminder that, no matter how easy it may be to blame our problems on an Other, the truth can only be found by looking inward.”
DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD
This Romanian dark comedy from filmmaker Radu Jude is one of the most blistering critiques of our modern late capitalist condition I've ever seen. The film follows a day in the life Angela (Ilinca Manolache), a worker for a multinational corporation who needs to film multiple employees for a work safety video. When she’s not driving all over town visiting interview subjects, she posts satirical hyper-macho TikTok videos as her Andrew Tate-esque alter-ego. Over the course of nearly three hours, Jude holds a mirror up to our soul-deadening civilization, presenting day-to-day working-class life in the 2020s as a series of inconveniences, drudgeries, and indignities that have become as mundane as breathing. One sequence hammers home Bob Black's argument that work is indirect homicide. Another shows how both communism and capitalism blame victims for their own oppression. The irony is bleakly funny: we're all just trying to survive, and in doing so, we're killing ourselves.
Click here to watch Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World.
DUNE: Part TWO
The first half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi masterpiece, struck me as a visually impressive but hollow production, successfully capturing the scope of Herbert’s universe but lacking the substance of his ideas. Part Two rectifies a lot of its predecessor’s missteps, leaning into the way Herbert’s bildungsroman functions as a subversion of the Hero’s Journey: our protagonist, Paul Atreides (Timothy Chalamet) becomes the leader of a resistance movement against the imperial overlords of the planet Arrakis, but he’s of a harbinger of doom rather than a white savior. Villeneuve understands that every character in Dune is trapped by forces outside their control, from the indigenous rebels to the Emperor himself (his daughter’s costume is literally made of chains). The visuals are spectacular — one sequence depicts the striking light of a planet lit by a black sun — but the beautiful exteriors hide the rotten truth: that the only fate is what’s been made for us, and destiny is itself a prison. The climactic images are a gut-punch about the nature of power; I can’t recall the last time a mainstream blockbuster dared to end on such an ambiguous, melancholic note.
FLOW
Made over five-and-a-half years using free and open-source software, Flow is the first Latvian film to be nominated for Academy Awards (deservedly so). It’s a beautiful, dialogue-free fable about a group of animals trying to survive a flood in a seemingly post-human world. Director Gints Zilbalodis presents a vision of planet Earth after climate change has radically reshaped the ecosystem; in doing so, he gives us a model for how we should live as we face the upcoming crises. Our protagonist is a gray cat who finds itself onboard a boat with a capybara, a lemur, and a dog. There are moments of existential dread in Flow, as our cat is confronted with the fragility of life and the cruelty of others, but it’s ultimately a tale of mercy of love. Like the tale of Noah, it suggests that there’s room for everyone to survive the storm — we just have to be willing to make room.
FRESH KILLS
The directorial debut of writer and actress Jennifer Esposito feels like the gendered flipside to The Godfather or Goodfellas, taking the characters who are often sidelined in these types of stories — the wives and daughters — and foregrounding them. Emily Bader and Odessa A’zion star as Rose and Connie, respectively, two teen sisters forced by circumstance to keep a terrible secret: their father is a notorious organized crime boss. Fresh Kills is a compelling exploration of the ways people deny, repress, and twist uncomfortable truths so that they can justify their own behavior (or just survive). There's an entire subplot that other films would milk for intrigue and suspense, but Esposito lets it play out offscreen, only bringing it to the audience's full attention at the most devastating moment possible. It’s a phenomenal work from a first-time director, and it would play well as a complement to Scorsese’s The Irishman.
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA
As I wrote previously: “This fifth installment of the Mad Max series is slower and more sprawling affair than its predecessor, far more interested in the larger world of the Wasteland than stripped-down, high-octane action. But it still boasts some of the most spectacular action set pieces ever filmed, most notably a chase scene midway through that’s one of the most jaw-droppingly creative sequences of the past decade. And it all builds to what may be director George Miller’s most provocative ending, a narrative move that tackles the myth of righteous violence in a way that shook and moved me.”
I SAW THE TV GLOW
As I wrote previously: “I Saw The TV Glow defies easy categorization. Like Schoenbrun’s previous work, it’s one that plays with the intersection of reality and fantasy. Where does one end and the other begin? There’s a nightmarish, dreamy vibe to the proceedings (comparisons to the work of David Lynch are not unwarranted) that unsettles and captivates in equal measure. It’s a lot to process, touching on topics like media representation, systemic oppression, coming out, and above all, the way our identities and lives are molded by forces outside our control… it does such a good job of nailing a particular feeling of anxiety, otherness, and existential despair that I can't help but be stunned. It feels like the kind of movie destined to become a generational classic.”
JUROR #2
12 Angry Men might be the best courtroom drama ever made (even though it doesn’t take place in a courtroom). Watching Juror #2, I imagined director Clint Eastwood watching the premiere as a young man in 1957, only to grumble gruffly under his breath, “That was a buncha bullshit.” The premise is ridiculous — a juror (Nicholas Hoult) on a murder case realizes he himself might have unknowingly killed the victim — but it’s no more improbable than the idea a single individual could successfully persuade eleven of his peers to save a life. Eastwood, one of the best conservative filmmakers, has made a career out of examining how men respond when the systems we’ve created to protect and serve us don’t succeed at the job. Here, he unflinchingly explores what happens when people who prefer to view themselves as morally superior are confronted with the truth that they’re little better than those they deride and ignore. It’s a timely moral parable for an era defined by partisan division, misinformation, and political handwringing. How can we hold each other accountable if we aren’t willing to hold ourselves to the same standard? Eastwood, in his old age, recognizes that the most important (yet difficult) thing to know is ourselves.
MOLLI AND MAX IN THE FUTURE
As I wrote previously: “Every generation needs its own version of When Harry Met Sally; Gen Z’s has a sci-fi twist. Zosia Mamet and Aristotle Athari star as the titular duo, a pair of friends whose lives repeatedly intersect over the course of a decade, forcing them to navigate the constantly changing dynamics of their relationship. Did I mention that one of them is half-fish? Also, there are space cults, interdimensional deities, giant robots, virtual realities, and game shows that could decide the fate of the galaxy. Director Michael Lukk Litwak’s feature debut doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s cheap — the backgrounds are greenscreen composites or LED screens, a key spacecraft is made from a Honda Civic, and Litwak built many of the sets and props as miniatures in his living room — but the DIY vibe just adds to the charm. Molli and Max is proof that a witty script, unique style, and a lot of passion can go a long way to overcoming financial obstacles; it’s the funniest film I’ve seen so far this year and also one of the sweetest.”
THE MONK AND THE GUN
As I wrote previously: The Monk and the Gun is one of the best films about politics — and living — I’ve ever seen… While there have been plenty of other films that expose the potential pitfalls of democracy (the hilarious Please Vote For Me springs to mind), this one does so in a manner that is simultaneously gentle and sharp. It's an invitation to contemplate not only our politics but also what we might do in order to re-center ourselves and our society back toward that which truly matters. In a time when political division is rampant and the Information Age has brought cultural change at a pace far faster than in previous eras, The Monk and the Gun reminded me to slow down, walk outside, and love even those who challenge me.”
NEW LIFE
As I wrote here and here: “New Life, while not explicitly about COVID-19, is still very much about coping with illness and its impacts: the way it frightens and frustrates, the way we inadvertently spread it despite our best intentions, and the way it doesn't care about our desire to "go back to normal" and live freely. I expect we'll be working through the pandemic in our art for years, and maybe decades. I only hope that most of what's created is as good as this.”
NICKEL BOYS
Nickel Boys is a miracle. This sobering, powerful drama shouldn’t work. An adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name, the film follows Elwood Curtis, a young Black man in 1960s Florida, as he’s abducted by law enforcement and sent to an abusive reform school called Nickel Academy (based on the real-life Dozier School for Boys). Director RaMell Ross rests the entire film on a single conceit: it’s shot from a first-person perspective, with the camera lens spending (nearly) the entire runtime acting as characters’ eyes — we see what they see, nothing more. It’s a bold move that risks feeling like a cheap gimmick. But in the hands of cinematographer Jomo Fray, it’s a decision that transforms cinema into the “empathy machine” critic Roger Ebert knew it could be, literally placing viewers in the shoes of another and forcing them to see the world from a different point-of-view. When I realized whose perspective I was experiencing at the end of the film, I wept.
RED ROOMS
When I look at the the state of American society in the 2020s, the word that springs to mind is “alienation.” The lockdown of 2020 exacerbated the disintegration of social bonds that had already been on the decline for over a decade. The promise of the internet was that it would democratize art and information — instead, we’ve retreated behind our screens, substituting digital interactions for genuine social engagement. We’ve become voyeurs of our own lives, and with that has come a perverse peering into the pain of others, as if a screen can protect us from trauma. Red Rooms is a provocative exploration of the psychological toll this has taken. A probing character study, the narrative follows Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariepy), a Montreal fashion model who attends the trial of a man accused of broadcasting his torture and murder of three young girls in an online “red room” on the dark web. It’s unclear why Kelly-Anne is so interested in the case. Is she a herself a victim of a crime? Is she plotting revenge? Or is she some sort of perverse “fan” of the alleged killer? Red Rooms is a simmering, gripping exploration of how the internet and our cultural obsession with true crime has desensitized us to evil, turning murder into something to dissect rather than to mourn. It provocatively confronts the audience with our own complicity — we spy on Kelly-Anne through a screen while she gazes at screens of her own — and dares us to cross the digital divide. Director Pascal Plante has crafted one of the most compelling portraits of our current cultural malaise; I hope more people discover it.
THE REAL BROS OF SIMI VALLEy: THE MOVIE
“The Real Bros of Simi Valley” is a three-season webseries created by Jimmy Tatro (American Vandal) and Christian Pierce. A spoof of reality television programs like “Jersey Shore” and “Real Housewives,” the show focused on the misadventures of a group of Southern California twenty-something manchildren as they navigated jobs, parenthood, and overall adulting. After watching the first episode, my wife and I were hooked, and we binge-watched the entire series in around a week. The movie follows the gang as they prepare for their 10-year high school reunion, and it essentially functions as a 106-minute finale (there’s a two-minute “recap”, but readers are advised to watch the show in advance, since many jokes won’t make sense unless you’ve been with the bros all the way). The writing and performances remain top-notch, satirizing both the artificiality of reality television and the personalities that tend to be featured. It provoked the most out-loud guffaws of any movie this year, and my wife and I spent the next few weeks talking like SoCal surfers.
Click here to watch The Real Bros of Simi Valley: The Movie on Roku Channel.
SHE IS CONANN
As I wrote previously: “Bertrand Mandico’s feminist riff on Conan the Barbarian is a surreal black-and-white fantasy film that follows its titular warrior through multiple reincarnated lives across thousands of years. It’s the cinematic equivalent of an ancient myth, moving from event to event with little concern for logical transitions… She Is Conann is a violent and stylish exploration of how individuals and cultures constantly reinvent themselves. It plays with melodrama, high fantasy, and socio-political satire, and it ultimately feels like a radical call for hope in a chaotic universe. How do we love when life itself seems founded on barbarism? How do we survive the violence done to us without becoming violent ourselves? How the hell do we make art without damning ourselves in the process?… Maybe one day we'll renegotiate that contract and become the people we want to be.”
STRANGE DARLING
As I wrote previously: “Over the course of a brisk 96 minutes, writer-director JT Mollner delivers the most exciting puzzle-box of the year, using non-linear storytelling techniques to craft both a compelling character study and an engaging mystery. Throw in some darkly funny appearances from Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey, and you’ve got the makings of a cult classic. And did I mention that it was gorgeously shot on 35mm film by Giovanni Ribisi (yes, that Giovanni Ribisi)? As far as genre pastiches go, this is one of the best in recent memory.”
WE GROWN NOW
As I wrote previously: “For most of my life, the story I’ve heard about Chicago’s infamous public housing complex is that it was a well-intentioned urban renewal project that fell into disrepair and became a hub for drug addiction and gang violence. While that may be true to a degree, We Grown Now provides an important and necessary corrective to that narrative, focusing on two ordinary boys who call Cabrini-Green home… Here, Black children are presented as capable, creative, intelligent, and fully-dimensional, and their parents aren't deadbeats or criminals… It manages to be sentimental but not maudlin and corrective without looking back through rose-colored glasses. This isn't what could have been. It's what was, for many, and in some ways, for everyone.”
WHAT YOU WISH FOR
As I wrote here and here: “What You Wish For feels like an old-fashioned horror tale, a darker take on the kind of morality stories that might have played on ‘The Twilight Zone’ or ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents.’ It’s a biting satire, not only of the class divide but the way violence and exploitation are often framed as noble and philanthropic by the people who engage in them. Very few films have taken the notion that there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism quite so literally — in doing so, director Nicholas Tomnay confronts us with the horrors of global finance and our own complicity within it, daring us to question the very notion of ‘success’ and what that really means. It’s a brilliant, horrifying descent into class consciousness. I couldn’t look away.”