My 20 Favorite Films of 2024

My relationship with film was at a bit of a low point this year.  I was looking at my Letterboxd stats before writing this and I only logged 134 movies in 2024, which is much less than my days of logging around 300 a couple of years ago, but even less than the 186 I did last year.  It's not just a raw numbers thing, though -- I was recently telling a friend that I got too trapped in the new release rat race this year, and as a result my film watching felt less fulfilling.  My usual rationalization is that staying current is helpful both for the purposes of making these lists and also for strengthening my critical faculties, but at a certain point I have to ask myself what is the value of seeing a film I know I'm going to hate like Deadpool & Wolverine over one of the many Jia Zhangke movies I have in my backlog, for instance.

So next year I'm going to try to shake myself out of that, which is something I've said a variation of before, but I really mean it this time.  Maybe.  I think.  In the meantime, please dig in to some of my favorite 2024 releases!  No Madame Webs were harmed in the making of this list.

The rules: Any film that got their first non-festival release in 2024 -- whether that's theatrically, on VOD, or exclusively on a streaming service -- qualifies for this list.

Honorable Mentions (25-21)

Streaming movies for teens tend to not be worth your time, but Sweethearts is funny and sweet, with a refreshing platonic friendship at its center.  Turtles All the Way Down skillfully adapts John Green's lovely novel into a moving depiction of struggling with OCD.  The realities of teen girl sexuality, and how the world tries its best to soil it, is rendered in harrowing high definition in How to Have Sex.  Improving on its predecessor, Dune: Part Two has immersive scale and impressive spectacle that surpasses most modern day blockbusters.  Somehow magical realism and hyper-realism at once, La Chimera conducts a slippery excavation of memory and loss.

20. Lisa Frankenstein (Directed by Zelda Williams)

We all know how I love Ricki and the Flash more than anybody in the world, so it only makes sense for me to have a soft spot for the latest movie with a Diablo Cody-penned script.  Jennifer's Body already proved that she has genre chops, though the appeal of Lisa Frankenstein comes not from the supernatural romance at the center of all the marketing, but in the relationship between goth protagonist Lisa and her stepsister Taffy.  The moments where they share the screen are when the film is at its warmest, funniest, and most specific.  Tonally, Lisa Frankenstein is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster itself, but it returns back to its strengths enough that watching it is always a very good time.

19. Girls State (Directed by Jesse Moss & Amanda McBaine)

If you watched 2020's Boys State, the great documentary about the weeklong mock government program that many states hold for their best and brightest high schoolers during the summer, your first thought at the end was probably, "Now I want to see what Girls State looks like."  Thankfully, the directors had the same thing in mind when deciding to film 2022's Girls State program in Missouri.  Though there's less friction than there was in Boys State, when the film does find a place of tension, most notably in the inequalities that exist between the Boys and Girls State programs, it comes alive.  The focus characters are also more interesting to watch.  They're all sweet, thoughtful, and compelling -- even the conservative girl Emily, who goes on a very moving arc about finding her place in it all.  There might not be much to feel positive about when it comes to the future of real politics, but Girls State makes a stirring case for the good of individual people.

18. My Old Ass (Directed by Megan Park)

Megan Park's greatest work will always be delivering the "my dad died because I had incredible sex" line on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, but she's also carving out a career as a very interesting director lately.  Like The Fallout before it, My Old Ass rides on the back of a splashy premise, following a teenage girl (Maisy Stella) who meets the 39 year-old version of herself (Aubrey Plaza) during a mushroom trip the summer before going away to college.  But it's less heady than that logline would imply, downshifting into a personable coming-of-age romance from there.  Park is a filmmaker who's amazing at micro-tuning into soft little moments of humanity in her characters, and she gets ample help from Maisy Stella.  Somehow this is Stella's film debut despite being famous as a musician and recurring actor on the show Nashville since she was a kid, and she's a total revelation here.  All the camera has to do is arrive at a searching close-up on her face, and she delivers magic without fail.  My Old Ass sneaks up on you with its gentle charm.

17. Coma (Directed by Bertrand Bonello)

Now that we're mostly past the COVID crisis, the idea of pandemic-era stories feels so uninteresting.  Coma skates past any hesitations around its circumstances by being a larger portrait of the isolation, alienation, and disorienting nature of wading through a rapidly changing culture while contending with the specious nature of online fulfillment.  On paper, it's about a teen girl who's trapped inside due to quarantine requirements, but it tells that story through so many eerie abstractions that veer wildly from humorous to horrifying.  The film premiered at festivals in 2022, but didn't release in America until this year, so Bertrand Bonello stumbled into having two movies in 2024 that captured the sensation of existence in the 2020s.  Coma starts and ends with him speaking directly to his daughter, who was 18 at the time of filming, the same age as the nameless protagonist.  What a beautiful way to tell a loved one, and the next generation in general, "I see, I know, and I'm sorry."

16. Hit Man (Directed by Richard Linklater)

Though it may seem like an unassuming trifle on its surface, under the hood of Hit Man is a blend of all of Richard Linklater's pet interests.  An electric sense of romance, gentle touch, and wide-eyed philosophy all get peppered into this comedic caper about a professor who works with the police to entrap people by pretending to be a hit man.  Linklater moves the story along with an endearingly shaggy pace, but a surge of energy courses through the film whenever Glen Powell and Adria Arjona share the screen.  That they're so fun to watch is what makes the knotty morass Linklater has them wade through all the more challenging to consider.  It's another clever sleight of hand from a filmmaker whose depths always have a way of surprising you.

15. Rebel Ridge (Directed by Jeremy Saulnier)

There's a big turning point well into Rebel Ridge, where we learn a key piece of information about our stoic protagonist who's been given the runaround by cops in the midst of a civil asset forfeiture scheme, that's as satisfying as anything you'll see all year.  It's also the ideal example of what makes Jeremy Saulnier's brainy, brawny genre exercises a cut above everything else in this space.  He's got an ability to tease out the intensity of a scene, always going exactly as big as he needs to go and never more.  He finds the perfect vessel in Aaron Pierre, who plays the lead role with an exacting amount of calm and an imposing stature.  Together, they elevate Rebel Ridge into an elemental force about getting back at unfair institutions.

14. Blink Twice (Directed by Zoe Kravitz)

Blink Twice is the first post-Get Out social commentary horror/thriller that feels like an iterative step as opposed to a lateral move.  It's a film of big swings and ideas, skeptical of new age spiritualism and therapy speak, to the extent that their proliferation has only allowed for bad faith actors to be more effective manipulators.  Here, that's Channing Tatum's billionaire tech mogul character, who says things like "we don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with" to women, a sensitive facade to hide a sinister interior.  Consent cannot be freely given if it's given under false pretenses, and Blink Twice explores that to its logically queasy ends.  Actor-turned-director Zoe Kravitz is a clear film lover, as evidenced by the homages to Boogie Nights and many other great movies, but she's got a talent of her own that shines in her compositions and ability to manage tone as the tension escalates.  This one's no mere vanity project -- it's got some real teeth.

13. Trap (Directed by M. Night Shyamalan)

At this point, M. Night Shyamalan's greatest power might be his ability to create films that divide viewers into such extremely polar camps.  You're just as likely to read a worst-of list with Trap on it, and while I do get where the people who hate it are coming from, I can't see it as anything other than another riveting thriller from a filmmaker on a wild hot streak.  Trap, like all Shyamalan films, takes an enticing premise -- "What if the police were trying to catch a serial killer at The Eras Tour?" -- and uses expert visual craft to escalate things in exciting and riotous fashion.  What makes it a special film though, is the added meta self-examination that he layers on, where a man having to reckon with his compulsions getting in the way of him being a good dad gains more power given Shyamalan's choice to cast his own daughter as the pop star holding the concert.  That bleeding emotional core is what keeps Trap on track, even as it asks you to swallow its wackier turns in the third act.

12. Sometimes I Think About Dying (Directed by Rachel Lambert)

The winds of fame are often fickle.  You'd think that after being the lead of a Star Wars trilogy, the world would've been Daisy Ridley's oyster, especially since she's excellent in those films.  Strangely, that hasn't happened. If the lack of superstardom leads to roles like the one in Sometimes I Think About Dying, though, I'll take that trade.  Ridley gives one of the best performances of the year as Fran, a solitary, regimented woman who works a desk job where she keeps interactions with her coworkers to a minimum.  The film's world is well-drawn, both in the perfectly location-scouted, sterile office where Fran works and in the home where she goes through her isolated motions.  Whether her distance from the world around her is the result of fear or a real personal deficiency is the central question, but in trying to get to the bottom of it, Sometimes I Think About Dying offers, in its own odd way, an optimistic view of humanity and its desire to connect.

11. Anora (Directed by Sean Baker)

Sean Baker likes to center his films on those existing on the margins of society: sex workers, takeout delivery men, uh...more sex workers.  So Anora offers an interesting spin on his typical formula, exploring the intersection of his usual lower class protagonist with a taste of wealth. In this story, stripper Ani (a firecracker performance from Mikey Madison) gets the Pretty Woman treatment when she enters a whirlwind transactional romance with the son of a Russian oligarch.  Baker's easygoing naturalism is key here, imbuing his characters with enough charm that they feel real and watchable.  And his ease with laughs is some of his strongest ever here, particularly in the loud, frantic comedic setpiece that takes place in the middle of the film.  Anora switches modes easily, such that by the time you're at its aching finale, you'll feel like you've been completely wrung dry from its rollercoaster of emotions.

10. Janet Planet (Directed by Annie Baker)

For being the directorial debut of playwright Annie Baker, Janet Planet doesn't have the trappings of a film that's from someone used to the stage.  That isn't to say it's not writerly.  Its characters are filled with complexity, ambiguity, and life to them that's nestled right underneath the page.  But the film is also surprising in its willingness to use techniques unique to cinema to tell its story.  The camera functions as a conduit to share information about a scene at the perfect time, to tell you about the movie's characters where the sparseness of its words won't, to tune the viewer in to every object's relationship to one another in a space.  This is a film that's rendered in gossamer, containing the hazy consistency of a daydream or a distant memory.  It's quiet, delicate, and sun-speckled, and through its relaxed observations it captures a kid's perspective perfectly, what it's like to know the adult world but not fully understand it.

9. Perfect Days (Directed by Wim Wenders)

"She uses the same words we do, but when she does it's different," one character says to another when describing the writing of Japanese writer Aya Koda.  It's a perfect description of Perfect Days' pleasures, how it highlights the poetry in the quotidian.  So many films try to tell you that life is special, while this one shows you all the ways in which it is.  It tunes you in to the little things we've become inured by, like the delicate way shadows can dance on the ground, or the first glimpse of the morning sky.  I love how it comes at its main character, who we watch spend his day cleaning toilets in Shibuya, and his life sincerely, never with a sneering irony of "He's a janitor...but he's happy?!"  There's a repetition and routine that's almost Jeanne Dielman-esque, but instead of trying to give the audience a perspective of ennui, it exudes peace and harmony instead.  Perfect Days asks you to sit with the act of observing, and maybe if you do it with enough time and intent, you can find some light too.

8. Sing Sing (Directed by Greg Kwedar)

There are so many lives that society is content to just throw away.  Many people don't care about the rehabilitation of those who have done wrong, and even some who do claim to aren't invested in examining what that looks like.  Sing Sing does the work in its story based on a real-life arts program at the titular maximum security prison, where inmates rehearse and perform plays of their own choosing.  Led by an excellent Colman Domingo, and former participants in the actual program more than holding their own playing versions of themselves, the film and its cast digs in to paint a moving portrait of people processing pain.  It makes you realize how rare it is to see art with multiple scenes devoted to men expressing themselves, finding the words for their feelings, hugging, and saying they love one another.  And the direction sits in those scenes and doesn't shy away from the emotions in a way that's almost uncomfortable.  If you allow yourself to buy into that experience wholly, Sing Sing is massively rewarding.

7. Red Rooms (Directed by Pascal Plante)

The most fascinating character of the year lives at the center of Red Rooms in the form of Kelly-Anne, a woman making her money through modeling gigs and online poker playing, who becomes intrigued by a serial killer on trial for murdering three girls in grisly fashion.  Where her interest comes from, as well as what makes her tick in general, never becomes fully clear, but actor Juliette Gariépy plays her with an iciness that you can't look away from, as she befriends a murder groupie at the trial or spends time in her sterile apartment hunting for footage of one of the girls' death on the dark web.  Red Rooms progresses at a slow creep, all the better for its unsettling nature to get its hooks in you, and its reflections on true crime obsession and isolation in the digital age will leave you rattled long after the credits roll.

6. Drive-Away Dolls (Directed by Ethan Coen)

If you wanted -- and I do want to -- you could read Drive-Away Dolls as a thesis about partnership.  Ethan Coen was a part of one of the most famous film partnerships ever for decades, and here he is making his first solo directorial effort that's all about the give and take of two different people working towards a common goal.  (Icing on the cake: Coen wrote the script with his romantic partner Tricia Cooke).  That idea is there in the main duo, a pair of platonic lesbian best friends with opposing personalities who embark on a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, and it's also there in the two henchman tasked with chasing them down for the important package contained in their rental car.  The film makes a point of their parallels, and how one in each pair is trying to teach the other how to live a better, happier life -- often cutting from one duo having a conversation directly to the other duo having a similar one.  It's a densely packed film -- a screwball comedy not just in its sense of speed but also its love of language, a surprisingly tender love story, and a sneakily philosophical adventure too -- that didn't seem to get a fair shake upon release.  But I'd take this charmer over Joel Coen's dour Macbeth adaptation any day.

5. The Beast (Directed by Bertrand Bonello)

The Beast, the enigmatic and constantly shape-shifting latest film from Bertrand Bonello, is the best Rorschach Test of the year.  You could read it as a generation-spanning romance, a forward-facing piece of speculative fiction, or the most trenchant examination of what it feels like to live at this very moment, and any of those interpretations would be valid.  In reality, the film is a combination of all three, but that last angle might be its richest one.  Taking cues from other totemic works of disorientation -- a sprinkle of Twin Peaks season three, a dash of Certified Copy -- it uses scenes that feel not quite right to capture the sensation of being stuck in a world where the cancerous growth of AI and an impending environmental collapse are always at the front of the mind.  Where even amidst all kinds of technological advancements we're still supposed to sacrifice our time to labor.  The Beast's thrilling individual moments may not seem like they're adding up as they're happening, but they cohere into something that's unshakeable.

4. Challengers (Directed by Luca Guadagnino)

It takes a special caliber of film to crumble your critical faculties to nothing but action words like "crackerjack" and "dynamite."  But that's Challengers: part sports anime drama, part libidinous comedy, all entertainment.  Luca Guadagnino's playful direction, Justin Kuritzkes' non-linear script, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' pulsating score, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's wild camera work, and electric performances from its three leads all come together in a breathtaking symphony, one that works the audience into a frenzy and caps off with the perfect moment.  "Love" means "nothing" in tennis, and Challengers finds endlessly fun ways of expressing that idea.  It's a psychosexual romp for the ages.

3. Good One (Directed by India Donaldson)

There comes a time when you're a teenager, especially if you're a smart and mature one, where adults begin to see you as an equal.  It can be exciting, but there's also something scary and overwhelming about it.  Good One explores that through the eyes of 17 year-old Sam (newcomer Lily Collias), who ends up going on a camping trip with her dad and his best friend in the Catskill Mountains.  The film pays an almost procedural level of attention to Sam -- it's her we watch listening, observing, and acting, even when the camera would usually cut to other characters.  It's a big responsibility for an actor, but Collias is an absolute revelation here, imbuing Sam with such a naturalism that she feels real.  And what seems like a gentle, lightly emotional film eventually pivots on a major moment of inflection for her, where being seen as an adult curdles in a way that feels like betrayal.  What's heartbreaking about Good One is that it depicts a moment that probably won't be the first time the world fails somebody like Sam.

2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Directed by George Miller)

Kill Bill Vol. 2 was on my mind in many moments of Furiosa.  Both stare down the prospect of following up a delirious action bonanza and decide to take a left turn, stretching out to make a revenge tale that soaks and ruminates.  That sense of epic proportion only makes the moments where the film indulges in Fury Road-styled spectacle more explosive.  Even while pushing octogenarian status, George Miller is peerless when it comes to the staging and rhythm of an action scene, and Furiosa's extended setpieces are overwhelming in their visual poetry and escalation.  It's some of the most thrilling filmmaking since, well, Mad Max: Fury Road.  We can't take a movie like this for granted.

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Directed by Jane Schoenbrun)

Jane Schoenbrun's films are always hard to write about because they hit on such a gut level.  I Saw the TV Glow, like We're All Going to the World's Fair before it, captures an ineffable feeling of longing and emptiness that has a telepathic connection with those it resonates with.  Even if the story's potent trans allegory doesn't directly translate with you, the visceral way it conveys the sensation of not feeling quite right within yourself and throwing your whole soul into the art you find solace in can still crack you like an egg.  That's because of Schoenbrun's command of the image, which has only gotten stronger since their last effort, conjuring up visuals that feel otherworldly, yet eerily tangible.  It's a paradox that extends to the lingering effect TV Glow has on you, at once bleak and hopeful.  You may not be able to accept what's true, but there's still time.

Thanks for reading!  I love reading other lists, so feel free to share yours in the comments.  Or if you have any thoughts on my list, then you can do that too.  To see a complete ranked list of all the 2024 films I've seen this year, along with a list of my favorite performances and some other data, you can find them on this Google Doc.

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