2024 is another banner year for cinema, and, once again, the annual best-movies selection becomes a challenging but rewarding responsibility.
I gladly experienced 188 new films in 2024 and proudly chronicled my 20 favorites.
“We Grown Now” just missed my list. Don’t let that impressive flick pass you by, and I hope you also explore the following motion pictures, my Top 20 Films of 2024.
20. “Bird” – Bailey (Nykiya Adams) doesn’t have a stable homelife in director/writer Andrea Arnold’s movie. She lives in a questionable apartment with her irresponsible dad (Barry Keoghan) and half-brother. Bug (Keoghan) declares his engagement to a woman he barely knows, and Bailey turns to an eccentric adult named Bird (Franz Rogowski) for support, albeit not at first, and meanwhile, he needs assistance too. They form a friendship and help one another with their separate out-of-reach connections on a nomadic pilgrimage, one rooted in compelling performances by Adams, Keoghan, and Rogowski.
19. “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” – M’s (Putthipong Assaratanakul) cousin Mui (Tontawan Tantivejakul) cares for their grandfather during his final days, and she inherits his home. When their grandmother, Amah (Usha Seamkhum), is diagnosed with cancer, M, a lazy video game streamer, is inspired to follow Mui’s lead and tends to Amah for a potential payday. Director/co-writer Pat Boonnitipat’s dramedy offers rich characters and frank insights about family faults and devotion. This cinematic trip flows in a foreseeable direction, but “Millions” is an enjoyable, moving, and rewarding journey, and Assaratanakul and Seamkhum are exceedingly prosperous as on-screen kin.
18. “Conclave” - “It is a war, and you have to commit to a side.” Director Edward Berger’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” (2022) won four Oscars and was nominated for five others. His new film, “Conclave”, about an entirely different type of war, is destined for Oscar nominations too. Set in the present day, a conflict embroils Vatican City. The Pope dies of a heart attack, and Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is placed in charge of the Catholic Church’s conclave, where the acting cardinals will elect a new leader. Berger weaves a gripping drama where a talented ensemble (Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto, Isabella Rossellini, and Carlos Diehz), in their hallowed forms, repeatedly converses in dark corners and open spaces within the Vatican as arguments between liberal and conservative views play out like private confessions and comprehensive sermons.
17. “I’m Still Here” – Former Brazilian Congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) turned away from politics. He’s a successful businessman now and lives with his wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their children, who reside only a few steps away from Rio de Janeiro’s beach scene. Life is beautiful until it’s not. Director Walter Salles (“Central Station” (1998), “The Motorcycle Diaries” (2004)) chronicles a Paiva family biopic about their deeply personal and unjust encounter with Brazil’s military dictatorship during the 1970s. Salles’ film is a cautionary tale of extreme government overreach, while Mello and Torres deliver absorbing performances during this unsettling and inspirational watch.
16. “Didi” – Thirteen-year-old Chris “Didi” Wang (Izaac Wang) has trouble navigating life in his world of Freemont, Calif. His grades are average. He often fights with his college-bound sister, Vivian (Shirley Chen), and regularly tells white lies to cover for his naivety. He wants to get the girl, Madi (Mahaela Park), but doesn’t know how, and he also unwittingly alienates himself from his few friends. Director/writer Sean Wang crafts a hopeless existence for Didi that every teenager and former teenager can recall while offering a nostalgia trip to 2008 and the online connections of that recent era.
15. “Nowhere Special” - “He’s a happy wee boy.” John (James Norton), a single dad, proudly declares about his four-year-old son Michael (Daniel Lamont). The two take a deliberate but solemn journey in Belfast as John faces the abyss. He suffers from a terminal illness, and with no other relatives in sight, he’s forced to give up Michael for adoption. Director/writer Uberto Pasolini regularly spends the father and son’s time with simple, tranquil scenes and avoids the cliches of introducing forced arguments. Explosive conflict between the two doesn’t materialize. What appears is a beautiful, encouraging story about the devoted bond between father and son but one wrapped in ever-present heartbreak and vulnerabilities.
14. “Nosferatu” – Director/writer Robert Eggers adapts the classic vampire story, and he and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke incarnate a sinister visual stunner. This 132-minute tale of doom divulges Count Orlok’s (Bill Skarsgard) looming assault on 1838 Wisborg, Germany to reunite with Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), his victim and object of his desires. Eggers and Skarsgard invoke dread and hopelessness, as a male collection of would-be protectors (Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Ineson) do not inspire confidence, and that’s by design during this unsettling tale.
13. “Love Lies Bleeding” – Director/co-writer Rose Glass’ crime drama might best be described as “Blood Simple” (1984) meets “Pumping Iron II: The Women” (1985), when an upcoming female bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian), strolls into a small New Mexican town on her way to a Las Vegas competition and starts a relationship with a local gym manager, Lou (Kristen Stewart). Jackie and Lou have good intentions, but trouble finds this pair due to Lou’s disruptive family, as Glass and co-writer Weronika Tofilska’s constantly fascinating 1980s noir flexes claustrophobic circumstances in the wide-open American Southwest.
12. “Hard Truths” – Director/writer Mike Leigh is back with his first movie in six years, and he does not disappoint. Neither does Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Secrets & Lies” (1996)), who delivers the best female lead performance of the year. Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) is possibly the most cantankerous matriarch portrayed in cinema since Violet Weston (Meryl Streep) in “August: Osage County” (2013). The difference here is that Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy carries massive swaths of comedy during her astonishing rants, ones that rival Allison Janney’s Oscar-winning work as Tonya Harding’s mother, LaVona, in “I, Tonya” (2017). The other characters, in this English family drama, attempt to cope with Pansy’s angst while Leigh offers no easy answers to reach harmony, as only he can.
11. “Vermiglio” – Director/writer Maura Delpero whisks us to a gorgeous, mountainous setting in Northern Italy for a sensitive family tale at the end of World War II. Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a war veteran from Sicily, arrives in town and meets Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the daughter of a revered teacher, Cesare (Tommaso Rango). Lucia is shy but smitten, and she and Pietro begin cordial flirting, which blossoms into something more. Delpero develops several intriguing supporting characters, and she and the actors easily allow our immediate investment into following their destinies in this beautifully shot and crafted picture.
10. “The Shadow Strays” – Holy smokes. Director/writer Timo Tjahjanto’s modern-day martial arts film is a wildly entertaining, crowd-pleasing bloodbath. Granted, this critic doesn’t often catch flicks in this genre, but I can’t recall a more violent movie, which is Tjahjanto’s point. Set in Jakarta, a gifted, efficient assassin named 13 (Aurora Ribero) embarks on a ferocious campaign against a vast, vicious criminal organization. Well, its nefarious members are in trouble! Twenty-year-old Ribero, with only four months of training, is a wondrous, charismatic phenom, and Hana Malasan plays 13’s mentor, Umbra, as her coercing, cutthroat co-star. Swordplay, knife fights, machine-gun fire, slugfests, ruthless swings of a baseball bat, and more bombard the screen for 144 minutes!
9. “The Village Next to Paradise” – The sun always shines on a modest oceanfront village in Somalia. Still, there isn’t enough commerce for residents to save for a rainy day. Mamargade (Ahmed Ali Farah), a gravedigger by trade, can’t find enough work and even asks a colleague if any deadly drone strikes have recently struck…to help support his day job. He lives with his sister Araweelo (Anab Ahmed Ibrahim) and his young son, Cigaal (Ahmed Mohamud Saleban), but Mamargade leans on her for financial support while she also grapples with the depressing economic status quo. Director/writer Mo Harawe’s tranquil pacing and commitment to the three leads’ arcs are mesmerizing.
8. “Santosh” – Santosh (Shahana Goswami) loses her husband, a police officer, when he is killed in the line of duty; however, through a government-sponsored program, as a widow, she is offered his position within the force. With no background in law enforcement, Santosh attempts to navigate her new career in a male-dominated arena but finds an ally, a toughened female veteran, Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar). They follow a troubling case that leads to raw, explosive choices for the new constable. Santosh and Geeta cooperate, endure, and duel during their complex relationship in director/writer Sandhya Suri’s impressive effort, her first narrative feature.
7. “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” – Angela (Ilinca Manolache) is stressed out. This 30-something attractive but gruff Romanian drives around Bucharest for long hours every workday and captures videos of potential actors for corporate safety videos. It’s a thankless job, but Angela doubles as a social media star during her shifts by reciting caustic and crude insights for 60-second snippets at a time in director/writer Radu Jude’s bonkers comedy. Jude’s unorthodox production runs for 163 minutes, and he includes oodles of scenes where the camera simply sits in the passenger seat as the audience witnesses Angela dealing with local traffic. However, the movie doesn’t suffer from pacing issues for those fascinated by Manolache’s industrious performance because we’re constantly reeling from her last encounter or diatribe while wondering what uninhabited curiosity she’ll execute next.
6. “The Fox” – Franz Streitberger (Maximilian Reinwald), a farmhand, needs work, so he enlists in the Austrian Army in 1937, but he does not anticipate that WWII will erupt two years later. As a military motorcycle messenger, he certainly didn’t foresee that he would adopt a fox cub, who lost his mother, and care for it during the middle of the war. This unlikely pairing during this improbable time is based on a true story, and director/writer Adrian Goiginger is Franz’s great-grandson. Goiginger, Reinwald, and the four-legged actor(s) lend profound care in capturing the duality of the gentle bond between Franz and Foxy under stressful and impractical living conditions. “The Fox” is a must-see for animal lovers…and everyone else. Bring tissues.
5. “The Substance” – When 50-something actress Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) feels the effects of Father Time, she turns to a mad-scientist treatment, a mysterious green liquid known as The Substance, and suddenly, her 20-something self (Margaret Qualley) appears! How cool, right? Well, there’s a catch. Uh oh! Director/writer Coralie Fargeat’s (“Revenge” (2017)) sensational body-horror tale gorges on gore and proudly holds up a maddening mirror to society’s demand for impossible beauty standards. Moore and Qualley are terrific, both inside and out!
4. “Anora” – Director/writer Sean Baker’s boy-meets-girl movie is an electric and turbulent exotic-dancer-meets-Russian-billionaire love story. Anora (Mikey Madison), or “Ani” as she prefers, dazzles Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) with seductive charm, and his freewheeling charisma and monetary excesses astonish her. This dynamic duo disregards their safety belts on their wild rollercoaster affair. Baker’s films (“Tangerine” (2015), “The Florida Project” (2017), “Red Rocket” (2021)) live on society’s fringes, but this high-roller flick frequently lives in lavish spaces. With kinetic camerawork and captivating performances, this comedy – with grounded drama too - flies as Baker’s most vivacious film.
3. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” – Director/writer Mohammad Rasoulof’s troubling picture is set in modern-day Tehran, where a family of four – at first - internally struggle with the differing generational outlooks on the 2022/2023 hijab protests. However, the focus changes once the patriarch, Iman (Missagh Zareh), faces a specific work crisis that spills into the home. Rasoulof fills his whodunit with paranoia as Iman, Iman’s wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and their girls, Rezvan (Masha Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), attempt to cope with their in-house commotion as well as country-wide turmoil. A jaw-dropping experience.
2. “Flow” – Director Gints Zilbalodis’ lead actor is a cat, a black cat with gold eyes, and this curious, improvisational star stars in an animated tale, a touching and wondrous 85-minute odyssey which no one addresses him in English, Zilbalodis’ native Latvian, or any other human-spoken language, and he doesn’t have a name. Our feline protagonist meets a capybara, a yellow lab, a lemur, and a secretary bird, and no one breaks into “Hakuna Matata” as they work together to survive a cataclysmic flood. They encounter wondrous sites made by human civilizations and Mother Nature that are spiritual, soothing, and awe-inspiring with a Machu Picchu-like quality on a captivating, unconventional canvas from beginning to end.
1. “The Girl with the Needle” – Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a seamstress, can’t make ends meet in Copenhagen while her husband fights in The Great War. She’s forced to move into a dilapidated flat that sets in motion her desperate journey where harsh lines of economic classes and limited choices for women lead her to an unexpected landing spot with a new friend (Trine Dyrholm). Director/co-writer Magnus von Horn’s gorgeously shot black and white picture contrasts and compliments the exceedingly bleak narrative, a film that examines the horrors that war brings home and even darker existing pursuits in broad societal daylight. Sonne and Dyrholm shine brightly with Oscar-worthy performances in von Horn’s disturbing and ghastly masterpiece.
