The 20 Best Movies of 2024

10. Chime

A proven hand at creepy, blood-curling thrillers that start slow but furiously dig their way into your consciousness, trailblazing Japanese visionary Kiyoshi Kurosawa blew through last year on an absolute creative high with a triple-header including “Cloud” and a French-language remake of his 1998 cult classic “Serpent’s Path”.

All of them are absolutely worth a watch, but the one you really want to keep tabs on is this overlooked gem about a former chef making ends meet as a culinary arts teacher who loses all grips on reality after hearing a mysterious bell-like noise that drives people to flip out and commit gruesome acts of violence. Keep in mind, there’s also the fact that he may or may not have killed his wife and son.

Running at a remarkably tight 45 minutes, “Chime” cuts straight to the chase but leaves a profound impact with a palpable sense of dread that seeps into virtually every frame. In a just world, you’d see it routinely cropping up on round-up lists of this ilk and propped up as a landmark achievement by one of the genre’s foremost innovators. Sadly, the film never had much of a chance of getting a fair shake overseas as it’s only available to rent online through a shady NFT scheme website (yuck!).

 

9. The Wild Robot

If you’re looking for a feel-good family watch or perhaps a palette cleanser that will lift your spirits and make you swoon at the screen after making it through Kurosawa’s bleak fright-fest, then DreamWorks’ delightful tale of family lost and found is just the ticket.

Be sure to have a box of tissues and some water to rehydrate nearby before you press play on this disarmingly touching novel adaptation based on Peter Brown’s children’s bestseller by the same name, about a man-made helper robot (Lupita Nyong’o) stranded on an island embarking on a journey of self-discovery to find a new sense of purpose as the caretaker of an orphaned baby gosling.

Sure, the set-up is syrupy enough to give viewers a sugar-rush on their first go-round. Nitpickers will also bring up the fact that the film doesn’t bring anything new to the table and subsists on the fumes of better animated touchstones like “The Iron Giant”, “Wall-E”, or even “Castle in the Sky”. But if “The Wild Robot” tells a familiar yarn, it also hits every note just right without overstaying its welcome. Look, we could all use some gorgeously crafted, life-affirming escapism right now.

 

8. Nosferatu

In following in F.W. Murnau and Werner Herzog’s footsteps to take a stab at the time-honored vampire tale based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic novel, writer-director Robert Eggers doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but still manages to surprise and find an elegant expression to his core obsessions with this impeccably crafted tale of repressed desire, guilt, and mass hysteria.

Eggers’ long-gestating dream project benefits from a remarkably committed tour-de-force performance by Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen, a woman haunted in dreams, preyed upon, and torn to pieces by a reclusive Romanian Count (Bill Skarsgård), who unleashes hell and unspoken suffering upon his arrival to 19th-century Germany.

Even the parts that don’t quite work (an extra 20-30 minutes of fat could’ve easily been left on the cutting room floor) are easily neutralized by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s carefully composed visuals, a stacked A-list cast firing on all cylinders, and an unforgettable climax that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. And let’s be honest here: Watching Willem Dafoe in his element rattle off lines like “I have seen things in this world that would have made Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb!” is pretty tough to resist.

 

7. Dìdi

We’ve reached a point in time where movies set in the late-aughts are technically period pieces now, which truth be told, makes one feel positively ancient. But while we quietly turn into a pile of dust, why not take a trip down memory lane with “Dìdi” to revisit the good ol’ days where social media was still in its infancy, flip phones, MP3 players, and digicams were all the rage, and curating your Myspace profile felt like a matter of life and death. Ah, simpler times indeed.

The ups and downs of being an angsty, confused teen in 2008 is captured with pinpoint accuracy in this tender, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age by Sean Wang, which follows 13-year-old Asian-American eighth-grader Chris Wang as he makes his way through the last weeks of summer before starting high school.

It’s a deceptively simple little film in the mold of “Lady Bird” and “Mid90s” that understands well the awkward feeling of bending over backwards and making stupid decisions to feel liked and accepted by your peers; the thrills of first love; and the pent-up frustration where every conversation with your mum seems to turn into an argument. Don’t skip it.

 

6. Hit Man

If watching him outrun tornadoes opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones in last summer’s “Twister” legacy sequel didn’t fully sell you on Glen Powell’s leading-man charms and potential to become the kind of megawatt star you can build a franchise around, allow us to make a bid for his magnetic performance in this genre-bending rom com-thriller by Richard Linklater.

The 36-year-old actor-on-the-rise hits all the right notes and oozes effortless charisma as Gary Johnson, a meek philosophy teacher who earns an extra dime posing undercover as a fake hitman. All seems well at first, but things get a tad complicated when Gary finds himself entangled with one of his targets and decides to break protocol during a police sting operation to talk a woman (a smokin’ hot Adria Arjona) out of a hit on her abusive husband.

It’s a crying shame that this TIFF sleeper hit ended up being completely buried by the Netflix algorithm and got nowhere near as many eyeballs as it deserved. Had it been released in theaters and marketed properly, it would’ve likely played like gangbusters with a crowd, and perhaps even picked up enough steam down the road to make some noise this awards season.

 

5. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

When word got out that a “Mad Max: Fury Road” prequel was in the works, it was reasonable to be a little skeptical. After all, how can you top a film that makes a strong case for being one of the greatest action movies of all time? As it turns out, you can’t. But when your name is George Miller, you’ve raised the bar so high that your baseline is *checks notes* one of the finest, most delightfully bonkers and compulsively entertaining studio releases in recent memory.

It may not reach the highs of its 2015 predecessor, but “Furiosa” is by all means a welcomed addition to the Mad Max mythos and a well-oiled machine that barrels through one jaw-dropping set piece after another for nearly 2.5 hours without ever running out of steam. So kick back, grab a beer, and turn off your brain as you watch Anya Taylor-Joy’s one-armed road warrior fend for herself, keep the pedal to the metal, and go to hell and back to get some sweet payback on Chris Hemsworth’s sadistic warlord. Honestly, I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

 

4. Anora

Writer-director Sean Baker’s knack for small-scale drama and unyielding empathy for social outcasts and working-class heroes comes through loud and clear in this shaggy dog comedy of errors about a New York City sex worker called Ani (Mikey Madison, in a fearless lead turn) who falls in and out of love with the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn).

In years past, the Cannes Film Festival has usually served as the Oscar race’s opening gun, and 2024 was no exception. One part Cinderella romance, one part tart-with-a-heart drama, one part screwball farce, “Anora” rode the momentum off its big Palme d’Or win into a strong awards campaign (while making headlines for all the wrong reasons after becoming a lightning rod for the public non-debate around on-set intimacy coordinators). Best Picture win or not, the film’s stellar reception should propel Mikey Madison’s acting career into the stratosphere and pretty much give “The Florida Project” director Sean Baker’s creative blank check to pursue any unrealized passion project he might be noodling on.

 

3. Challengers

As the public discourse around sex in movies (or lack thereof) raged on throughout the year — seemingly confirming our growing suspicion that Gen Z kids have grown up to be even more prudish than their parents — certified rabble-rouser Luca Guadagnino stirred up a lot of noise and loosened up a little with this steamy ménage à trois, which pits two childhood besties turned pro tennis rivals in the battle for Zendaya’s heart.

The days of yore when grown-up, racy erotic thrillers like “Fatal Attraction” could spend eight straight weeks atop the domestic box office and muscle their way into the Best Picture race may be long gone, but “Challengers” soaring reception suggests general audiences are still champing at the bit to get back to theaters to indulge in their most basic instincts.

Come to watch Zendaya serve an ace performance and play Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor like fiddles as they fight hard to earn bragging rights as the next US Open champ, stay for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ thumping rave score.

 

2. The Substance

Where to begin with Coralie Fargeat’s skin-crawling, gleefully subversive, and unpredictably wild showbiz satire? Like a feature-length Twilight Zone episode by way of David Cronenberg, this character piece about burned-out Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle cleverly plays with the idea of young women being chewed up and cannibalized by the meat grinder that is the entertainment industry, only to be spit out when they reach a certain age that doesn’t conform to its insidious beauty standards.

Strictly as social satire, Demi Moore’s big comeback vehicle is higher in shock value than in nuance or depth. Ultimately though, we’re talking about pulpy B-movie junk-food masquerading as artsy prestige fare, and a film that commands your attention purely on the strength of its sheer forward momentum and pitch-perfect performances (after that speech at the Globes, Moore has her Oscar in the bag).

The sheer number of murmurs, audible gasps, cheers, and early walkouts in my sold-out screening probably made it the single most memorable moviegoing experience of 2024. The only downside? That it plays so well with a crowd that every home viewing is bound to have serious diminishing returns.

 

1. Dune: Part Two

The best movie of the year got off to a bumpy start. Initially, it was supposed to release all the way back in November 2023 but got pushed back amid Hollywood strikes and, at some point, seemed like it would never see the light of day. But just when everyone was ready to declare the moviegoing experience dead, lo and behold, “Dune: Part Two” came along, became the center of the pop cultural universe, and reminded people just how much bloody fun it is to watch an entire theater erupt at the same time.

One could argue that director Denis Villeneuve had his work cut out for him when he decided to adapt one of the most revered and influential sci-fi novels of all time. But the fact that he tapped into the greatness and nailed the tone of Frank Herbert’s text while managing to be something that franchise blockbusters far too often forget — exciting, immersive, and bold all at once — still feels like a miracle.

“Dune” hasn’t budged from the top of my list since last February. But for all the fist-pumping gladiator showdowns, colossal battles, and epic worm-riding sequences, perhaps the film is best summarized in one (subtler) moment: an overhead shot of messianic antihero Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) slowly walking through a crowd of worshipping Fremen zealots before setting the wheels in motion for a holy war that will eventually claim billions of innocent lives in his name. Pretty edgy stuff for a $200 million tentpole release, if you ask me.