I came into the 2024 (season 8) knowing that movies were essentially on life support. The landscape has changed, the profit incentive structure for studios has changed and we suffer under a generation of writers who would rather tell their own story then connect with a universal human experience, but I also know there is still filmmaking out there, original work that comes out every year and we just have to mine through the sand to find the gold. While maybe not as stacked as Best of Year’s past we definitely got some gold this year worthy of more people’s attention. So with that, my favorite movies of 2024 –
1) Oddity
An original story, well told. A clever premise with a jigsaw puzzle execution, and a terrific lead performance by Carolyn Bracken in dual role. This Irish horror thriller melds genres beautifully, not quite a horror movie, but more of a supernatural mystery, where a blind occultist seeks the solution (and revenge) behind the mysterious murder of her twin sister, putting herself in the most vulnerable position to find the answer. Tightly scripted, paced and unpredictable right up to its perfect final shot.
2) Nosferatu
In a virtual tie for 1st-place, Robert Eggers’ most mainstream movie yet is still a bizarre, beguiling period piece slow-dipped in atmosphere and haunting visuals. An exceptional remake that pays tribute to the original while making its own path – and in this case that path is as big and bombastic as it can be. A virtuoso of cinema and I loved it.
3) The Substance
French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat knocks it out of the park with extremity for her second feature, a message movie that both beats you over the head hard with its message and also remains riveting as a character deconstruction and a shocking piece of body horror cinema. This movie is angry as hell, in your face and also endlessly inventive, twisting and spinning its own (metaphorical) world until it breaks. Featuring smashing performances from Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid in a Hollywood satire that Hollywood deserves.
4) Red Rooms
Slow-burn psychological thrill ride from Quebec tells the story of our obsession with true-crime through the lens of a model (Juliette Gariepy) who becomes so obsessed with the trial of a dark web murderer that she allows it to swallow up her life. Ice-cold, unrelenting chiller taking the best pages from David Fincher, director Pascal Plante crafts an enticing descent into madness without hallucinations that send us in freefall to some dark places. For all the insanity of The Substance, one scene in this movie dropped my jaw more than anything else this year.
5) Civil War
Wisely avoiding or deliberately confusing the politics of it all, Alex Garland’s movie is about what would happen if the wars America visits on other countries came inside its border. Telling the story through war journalists trying to get the shot without making them heroes, he journeys through a series of vignettes across a war-torn America, ending in an unflinching siege in the White House itself. Visceral and thrilling filmmaking,
6) Late Night with the Devil
A gimmick held together by a terrific lead performance by David Dastmalchian, this high concept found footage movie with heavy re-watchability, lets us watch the full episode of late-night TV show Night Owls on its fateful Halloween night special in 1977 when host Jack Delroy brings on a real-life demon-possessed girl and pushes to exorcise her live on the air. The slow reveal of fun details and easter eggs that tip its hand at the carnage and madness to come, but for me the set up was just as interesting as directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes create an entire world for Night Owls and commit entirely to the 70s Talk Show aesthetic.
7) The Wild Robot
We got lots of good animation this year but leave it to How to Train Your Dragon’s Chris Sanders to turn a story of a robot parenting a duck that intellectually feels very Wall-E and very deja vu, into the most heart-tugging, emotionally overwhelming pieces of art to come along in a minute. The Wild Robot is the music and visual tools of cinema weaponized, sharpened down into a laser focused machine that zeroes into the most jaded movie-goers heart and finds that core soft spot where children want to be guided, parents want to be useful, and innocence is protected by love and willing parental sacrifice. Much of the credit here goes to Kris Bowers for crafting the year’s best and heart-felt musical score.
8) Ex Huma
Long, maximalist and skillful, no matter what is going on in the west you can almost always count on South Korea to continue to make movies. Ex Huma was this year’s best, what starts as a procedural about investigators of holy grounds becomes a big, outlandish and haunting ghost story when the (very) wrong grave is exhumed. Featuring South Korean royalty Choi Min-sik in a delightful, well rounded haunted village story.
9) Maxxxine
The 3rd part of Ti West’s trilogy that started with the equally entertaining X and Pearl changes tones and goals in a way a lot of audiences didn’t like, and I ate up. This isn’t a horror movie or a slasher movie as West has previously made, this is a wish-fulfillment revenge film where he drops his beloved Maxine Minx character into 1980s Hollywood and allows her to unleash vengeance on random perverts, the studio system and, in a piece of Tarantino-esque revisionist history, The Night Stalker. Mia Goth and Kevin Bacon go all out leading a fun all-star cast in a movie that took a hard left turn from what was previously set up and turned into a classic horror homage machine in the process. I thought it was a blast.
10) Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
My love for this series is on full display, I gave the previous film, War for the Planet of the Apes, 5-stars back in 2017 so I was skeptical that this series could continue on its quality trajectory without its lead character Ceasar. It is still a miracle that these movies even exist, big budget CGI spectacles that take time to world-build, character build and tell the story visually instead of spoon-feeding us. Kingdom continues that tradition methodically delivering the thrills without going too bonkers, inching ever closer to connecting to Planet of the Apes itself even more so in this film where horseback apes capture mute humans in nets. Continues to be a spectacular piece of studio filmmaking.
Honorable Mentions:
Longlegs, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Orion and the Dark, September 5, Flow, A Real Pain, Smile 2, Blitz, Inside Out 2, Jenny Slate: Seasoned Professional.