The Best Movies of 2024

2024 was a remarkable year for films if you knew where to look. While the animated blockbusters of Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 were underwhelming, animated films abroad like Flow and Wallace & Gromit were impressive animation displays at its highest levels of cleverness. We did get some standard biopics like Unstoppable and The Apprentice, but also some unexpected ones like the strong performances in The Fire Inside and the monkey performance in Better Man. It was a terrible year for comic book movies with such dismal entries as Joker: Folie à Deux and Madame Web, but also an unexpected delight with the Superman documentary on Christopher Reeve. There were also plenty of exciting films from returning directors like Luca Guadagnino with Queer and Yorgos Lanthimos with Kinds of Kindness. But none of these films made my top 10 because the year was that good. Here’s what did make the grade.

10. Memoir of a Snail

Adam Elliot’s stop-motion dramedy has so much humanity crammed into its enduring and weird world. Grace Pudel becomes a character worth rooting for as she suffers the loss of her family and friends with small victories and the love of snails along the way. With its muddy palette and exaggeratedly bizarre characters, there’s a grimy realism that makes every gut-wrenching revelation, charmingly quirk, and sincere acceptance of life’s oddness feel more human than most live-action films. Elliot already crafted one of the finest stop-motion animated films with Mary & Max, but he’s topped himself with what is easily his melancholic magnum opus. Read the full review here.

9. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

George Miller hasn’t lost his touch with his return to the world of Mad Max. It’s no small feat to make another film after the triumph of Fury Road, but he found a way to make this prequel an impressive action adventure. While Fury Road was one long chase, Furiosa’s tale is one of revenge with motivations far more compelling than Mad Max. While Max wanders off into the desert with each adventure, Furiosa remains to protect those she cares about and gut those who wronged her. Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance is as impressive as Furiosa, but Chris Hemsworth shines so perfectly as the villainous Dementus that is so impressive he’s never upstaged by the return of Fury Road’s Immortan Joe. It was also just a lot of fun to return once more to Miller’s wild post-apocalyptic world of absurd characters and intense action sequences. Read the full review here.

8. Hundreds of Beavers

The funniest film also happens to be one of the cheapest. I know how often the term live-action Looney Tunes gets thrown around for absurd comedies, but if there were any single film deserving of that title, it’s Hundreds of Beaver. The film’s plot is simple: A man in the wilderness tries to gain a woman’s hand in marriage. The price for her love? HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS! The underdog sets off into the wilderness for a series of darkly comedic animal brutalizations, all critters looking like football mascots. There isn’t much dialogue, and the whole film is just a series of slapstick killings. They’re all bangers! I could not stop laughing at how this extended Looney Tunes story kept up its creativity and momentum to the very end, making this an easy choice for the best comedy of 2024. Read the full review here.

7. Nosferatu

Robert Eggers manages to not only craft a stylish historical depiction of this classic vampire story, but still make it genuinely terrifying. The attention to detail makes this nightmare of psychosexual and supernatural horror hauntingly intoxicating. The performances are all as stellar as the impeccable cinematography and fluid editing, looking and feeling like a horrible dream you can’t escape from. The atmosphere is so brilliant that the slow reveal of the sinister Count Orlok was a wise call, letting the shadows and creepiness of the darkness take hold firmly. There’s a lot to love about this film, but the bottom line is that it blows every horror film this year out of the water for being scary. Not rollercoaster scary, nor gruesomely scary. It’s pure fright on film, strong enough to make you feel alive with goosebumps. Read the full review.

6. Dune: Part 2

I expected Denis Villeneuve to stick the landing for the second half of the first Dune book. I didn’t expect him to surprise me by further exploring the themes with greater intrigue. Zendaya, who wasn’t as present as Chani in the first film, becomes the real star of this film for being more questioning of Paul’s rise to the level of messiah. The film remains relatively faithful to the book while not making it feel like a rattling off of plot points, fully engrossing the audiences further into this world of sandworms, prophecies, wars, and ridiculous dances not to attract sandworms. I had another fantastic experience with Villeneuve’s presentation and feel fully satiated with what is sure to be seen as the best Dune adaptation ever. Read the full review here.

5. Challengers

Luca Guadagnino merges sex and tennis into one of the director’s most intense movies. The sexual tension of Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist vying for the love of a tennis-thirsty Zendaya was so high. The music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is like rich booze for the ears that it might as well be another romantic partner in the room. The most mind-blowing scenes happen to be the tennis sequences, which never dull for a moment, especially a scene with a POV of the ball being smacked around. Brimming with sweat, passion, and betrayal, Challengers was an exhilarating match of wits that makes other sports romances look like amateur leagues. Read the full review here.

4. Nickel Boys

It’d be easy for Nickel Boys to be portrayed as another familiar dose of trauma for focusing on the lingering racism of 1960s Florida. But director RaMell Ross ensures this movie is unforgettable for never being so easily pinned down. The film darts between the first-person view of the teenagers forced into racist reform school, the third-person view of one of the survivors of the school, a smattering of documentary-style evidence, and a detour to the stars. There’s as much history in the depiction of this coming-of-age drama as there is a greater sense of scale for contemplating our lives and everything that comes with it. Here is a film so engrossed in its staging that something as simple as the slicing of a cake or staring up at a reflection can be as touching as staring down at the Earth from afar.

3. The Brutalist

Few films feel more complete in their scathing critique of the American Dream than The Brutalist. There is so much going on in this historical epic that paints the flawed life of the architect László Tóth, exceptionally played by Adrien Brody. The way he struggles with trying to realize his designs while bitterly handling the decaying health of his wife (Felicity Jones) is compounded by everything that followed in post-WWII America. Antisemitism, capitalism, addiction, and sexual assault all play a role in how frustrating his life becomes. In addition to being a strong story, the reflective nature of László’s towering community center is a sight to behold. It’s a gorgeous-looking film so beautiful, shocking, and surprising that it never bored. Don’t let the 3.5-hour running time scare you off. In the same way that László fights for his designs, this is a film that deserves to be this long for everything that it wants to explore. Read the full review here.

2. Sing Sing

The depiction of Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison feels genuine and not just for the non-professional actors in supporting roles representing their experience in the program. It’s the focus that director Greg Kwedar places on the men in this film and how they learn to connect that made this film so brilliant. The chemistry between Colman Domingo as the cultured John “Divine G” Whitfield and the diamond-in-the-rough Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin as himself is unique for how the two struggle to better themselves in the face of their problems, whether its reciting lines or handling their faltering appeal. Then there’s Paul Raci coming in as the program director, grounding these guys with a level of relatable comfort that is so sincere. The play directed in the film is an interesting pastiche, but there’s so much humanity and charm coursing through the veins of this film that never settles on a designation of prison drama or put-on-a-show dramedy. This is a fantastic representation of male friendships and is overflowing with heart in its mesmerising performances and direction. Read the full review here.

1. Anora

Sean Baker has outdone himself this time with a dramedy so fervently alive you’d have to be comatose not to feel something. Mikey Madison delivers one of the most unforgettable performances of the year as Annie, a stripper who marries her way into wealth with a Russian boy who runs when his rich family comes knocking. Even though Annie has the worst of luck with being targeted by Russian goons and left behind by her husband, she is always in control with how she is constantly on the attack. If she can’t kick or bite, she spits the meanest of acid that stings beautifully. Speaking of beauty, Baker’s 35mm filming makes New York City look as iconic as it did in films like Taxi Driver and Shaft for the luscious cinematography. It’s a good-looking and unpredictable film that was so much fun to get lost within its wondrous mess of feuds. Read the full review here.

Honorable Mentions

The People’s Joker, Love Lies Bleeding, Kinds of Kindness, Queer, Small Things Like These, Flow, Rebel Ridge, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, Kneecap, Daughters, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin