Even if the internet will try to convince you otherwise, cinema isn’t going anywhere. In fact, plenty of great movies are still being made today on a regular basis. That almost every top-grossing movie in 2024 happened to be based on an existing IP and catered to the lowest common denominator might lead one to believe that last year was a dud, or that Hollywood has (finally) run out of fresh ideas. And sure, there’s even some truth to the notion that general moviegoers seek nothing more than to slip back into old comforts.
But as is always the case, no matter how many disposable sequels, spin-offs, and reboots big studios pump out and force down our throats, there will always be a wealth of smaller gems that blow every forecast out of the water and nudge their way in the broader pop-cultural conversation.
Last year, out-of-nowhere newcomers that will be making even bigger noise in years to come (Coralie Fargeat, Aaron Schimberg, RaMell Ross, and Payal Kapadia) went toe to toe and shared the spotlight with elder statesmen with nothing left to prove (Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Mike Leigh, and Ridley Scott). It was an exceptional year for horror (“Longlegs”, “Trap”, “The First Omen”), everyone from Bob Dylan and Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump got the biopic treatment, while Brady Corbet took a swing at making the next great American epic — with the help of AI, that is. Of course, we couldn’t squeeze in every title worthy of your attention, but our roundup of 2024 movies should have something for everyone.
20. Evil Does Not Exist
After breaking into the mainstream and nabbing a best directing nom at the 2022 Oscars, “Drive My Car” director Ryusuke Hamaguchi kept the ball rolling and set the Biennale ablaze with this modest but conceptually bold cautionary tale about corporate greed and the disruptive effects of rural development.
The stakes are plain: The residents of a small, peaceful village in the outskirts of Tokyo including a widowed father (Hitoshi Omika) gather in a town hall meeting to mull over the pros and cons of accepting a lucrative offer by some big-shot developers to build a large glamping site nearby.
In the hands of a less thoughtful filmmaker, this could’ve easily turned out to be a one-note, paint-by-numbers eco-parable about upstanding, nature-loving townspeople holding their ground and scaring off a bunch of greedy corporate shills. But if you’ve seen Hamaguchi’s previous work, you know better than to expect conventional heroes and villains. Instead, the director paints a rather nuanced portrait of average people with different shades of grey trying to keep afloat with the cards they’ve been dealt.
19. Wicked
Trust me, at this point I’ve scanned through every valid point of criticism of Jon M. Chau’s $150 million Broadway play adaptation. It’s overlong. It’s so poorly lit it looks like a sitcom. It’s barely half a movie at best — or, at worst, a cynical, 160-minute commercial for the next installment. And let’s not even get started on the overeager built-in fan base whipping out their phones and taking pictures of the screen at public screenings as if they were at an Ariana Grande concert.
I get it. But the fact of the matter is that you don’t need to be a theater kid, know your Wizard of Oz lore back to front, or even like musicals at all to understand why “Wicked” — a prequel-slash-villain origin story starring Cynthia Erivo as the titular witch of the west — became a massive cultural juggernaut long before it stormed into theaters and rampaged through the box office with a $700 million global haul to show for it.
Sure, it’s an acquired taste and certainly not above criticism, but instead of harping on the flat visuals and getting unnecessarily worked up over fan antics, why not appreciate the dazzling choreography, catchy songs, and inspired use of practical sets instead? Why not give Ariana Grande her flowers for a change? Believe it or not, it would be a minor travesty if she doesn’t wind up getting her dues this awards season.
18. Drive-Away Dolls
Though we still hold out hope that the Coen brothers can patch things up and work side-by-side sooner rather than later, having both estranged siblings pumping out solo projects simultaneously is a pretty sweet consolation prize all things considered.
While Joel played it too straight for our taste with his sturdy, black-and-white Macbeth rendition, Ethan seems right at home working on a lighter register and trying to replicate the directing duo’s trademark slapstick humor and wry misdirection (“Raising Arizona” and “Burn After Reading” spring to mind) in his own solo venture. Geraldine Viswanathan and Margaret Qualley (thrice represented in the present list) crack and sizzle together as two lesbian twentysomethings who tear across the country in a rental car and inadvertently become embroiled in a shady political cover-up scheme involving a Florida senator and a misplaced briefcase.
Critics bashed it, audiences ignore it, and, frankly, not every gag lands. But as long as you take it for what it is — a knowingly trashy, honest-to-goodness B-movie romp that barely stretches past the 80-minute mark — there’s a little something for every kind of viewer to enjoy here.
17. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
If like us, you’re a person of simple pleasures who gets a real kick out of watching dudes clashing fists, throwing punches, and beating each other to a pulp while doing crazy backflips or jumping off rooftops, do yourself a favor and keep this martial arts extravaganza on your radar.
Set in the 1980s and self-consciously styled after the classic actioners of yore where Jackie Chan, Biu Yen, and Sammo Hung learned their trade and helped turn Hong Kong cinema into a global powerhouse, Soi Cheang’s “Walled In” is like a turbo-charged rollercoaster ride that just keeps on going until your stomach jumps out of your throat.
The plot itself — a mainland immigrant gets sucked into the shadowy Hong Kong underworld and caught in the crosshairs of a brutal feud between rival triad bosses — is serviceable but nothing you haven’t seen a million times before. What makes this movie sing is its uniquely fascinating setting: Kowloon Walled City — a densely-populated, self-regulating no man’s-land of makeshift buildings and narrow alleyways infamous for its black-market trade and rampant gang violence that was torn down in 1993.
16. Look Back
Animation fans were eating good in 2024: This was the year of “The Wild Robot”, “Flow”, “The War of the Rohirrim”, “Inside Out 2”, and another Wallace & Gromit feature, among many other standouts. But by far the one that tugged at our heartstrings and made us bawl our eyes out the most was Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s 58-minute weeper, a fantastic little gem about two middle-school budding manga artists developing a close friendship and successful creative partnership.
The next time some meathead tells you that feeding a bunch of prompts into a generative AI tool entitles one to call themselves an artist, point them to this film so they can grasp the amount of effort, dedication, sleepless hours, sweat, and tears behind authentic creative work. Practically anyone who’s ever picked up a pencil, brush, instrument, or simply pursued their passion in any form to create meaningful art that’ll resonate with others will find “Look Back” deeply relatable. Be warned — this film will also shatter your heart into a million pieces and destroy you into a sobbing mess.
15. Kinds of Kindness
Though considerably more out-there than your average Oscar bait, all the hoopla and pearl-clutching about the spicy sex scenes in “Poor Things” doesn’t alter the fact that it was the most accessible and commercial Yorgos Lanthimos movie to date by a country mile. Especially given the Greek director’s newfound status as a perennial Oscar contender and festival circuit mainstay, you couldn’t really blame unsuspecting audiences for gleefully flocking to theaters to watch his latest on day one expecting to be greeted with yet another cult classic in the making. Well, so much for that.
This three-legged, New Orleans-set anthology piece starring Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley was written off by pundits, barely made a blip at the box office, and, in all likelihood, won’t be cleaning up shop and taking home a pile of awards come March. But if nothing else, watching a critical darling fresh off a 4-Oscar campaign roll the dice and go for broke to get a passion project as uncompromisingly weird as this out in the open is cause for celebration. It almost makes one believe we might even be on the cusp of a new ‘auteur era’ after all (Sweet Dreams, indeed…) That is to say, bring on “Bugonia”!
14. A Different Man
In 2024, audiences were treated with not one but two darkly comic cautionary tales about the perils of the pursuit of beauty. Much like Demi Moore’s character in “The Substance” (more on that title later), Sebastian Stan’s Edward is a failing actor who tries to get his professional career back on track by undergoing an experimental medical procedure that drastically transforms his appearance.
Edward’s desire to reinvent himself as a conventionally handsome guy seems validated at first, as he quickly lands on his feet as a real estate agent, secures a role in an off-Broadway play based on his own life, and begins dating the cute girl-next-door (Renate Reinsve). But writer-director Aaron Schimberg pulls a great bait and switch by introducing Adam Pearson’s Oswald — a man who also happens to be born with disfiguring neurofibromatosis, but who lives life to the fullest, refuses to let his condition define his sense of self-worth, and ultimately replaces Edward in the play. The implication is clear: Edward’s deep-rooted insecurity and need for external validation not only brings him greater misery but also cost him the role he was, in essence, born to play.
13. I Saw the TV Glow
Back in January, sophomore writer-director Jane Schoenbrun kicked things off in striking fashion and earned glowing praise at Sundance with this ’90s time capsule, an unsettling and deeply personal coming-of-age tale tracing the on-and-off relationship between two lonely misfits called Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) who bond over their shared obsession about late-night TV show called The Pink Opaque.
A dreamy, spellbinding cross between Twin Peaks, “Videodrome” and “Donnie Darko” updated for millennials, “I Saw the TV Glow” is very much a thinly-veiled allegory of body dysphoria, and the existential dread and creeping anxiety of being uncomfortable in your own skin.
But Schoenbrun also stirs up deeper truths by examining the way both queer and non-queer people collectively seek refuge in pop cultural artifacts; how fandoms can become so intertwined with our personalities that they define us; and how the content and fictional stories we consume can often feel more real and cuttingly truthful than the outside world.
12. Juror #2
In what shaped out to be one of the most unlikely underdog stories of last fall, this old-fashioned courtroom drama directed by Clint Eastwood, now 94, proved doubters wrong (including Warner Bros.’ infamous CEO and certified scumbag David Zaslav) when it became an improbable word-of-mouth hit on streaming after being unceremoniously pulled from theaters merely a week after its rollout.
Even if the studio made it near impossible to watch at the multiplex, anyone bemoaning the recent demise of adult-oriented, mid-budget popcorn entertainment owe it to themselves to check this slippery morality play starring Nicholas Hault as a small-town average Joe selected for jury duty who suddenly realizes he might be involved with the ongoing murder trial in more ways than one.
The kind of straightforward, meats-and-potatoes legal thriller that’s all but disappeared from Hollywood’s ecosystem as of late, “Juror #2” is destined to become essential cable-viewing fodder specifically made for your dad to watch and fall asleep to in a recliner on a Saturday afternoon.
11. La Chimera
He got the cover of Variety magazine, became a fashion icon after absolutely rocking those plaid tennis shorts in “Challengers”, and landed prominent roles in the upcoming Knives Out instalment and the next sci-fi blockbuster by Steven Spielberg. Now he’s tipped to be playing James Bond.
It’s still not too late to hop on the Josh O’Connor hype train, but if you’re still unsure what all the fuss is about, catch him at his most rugged best in Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s breakout hit to understand why Hollywood can’t get enough of this man. The former “The Crown” alumnus is an understated powerhouse as a crestfallen English archeologist reeling from a tough breakup and a brief prison stint. In order to turn a quick profit, he roams through 1980s Italy sniffing out and plundering ancient relics with his ragtag team of tomb raiders before selling the loot on the side.
“La Chimera” was a major left-field discovery and one of the buzziest premieres at the 2023 Cannes festival, but the film somehow didn’t head stateside until last spring, so technically speaking, we’re not breaking any rules here by including it in our ballots.