The Best Movies of 2024

2024 is officially over and now it is time for my picks for the best movies of 2024. 2024 was an interesting year for movies. While the box office was dominated by sequels like Inside Out 2, Dune: Part Two, and Twisters, the MCU took a backseat and only released Deadpool & Wolverine, which ended up being the second-highest-grossing movie of the year. It was a great year for horror movies with films like The First Omen, Smile 2, Longlegs, and Strange Darling making waves at the box office and with critics, but was a relatively weak year for comedies and animated films.

2024 saw films from modern masters like Richard Linklater, Denis Villeneuve, George Miller, M. Night Shyamalan, Tim Burton, Sean Baker, James Mangold, and Ridley Scott. But, I will always remember 2024 as the year of breakout filmmakers. Directors like RaMell Ross, Greg Kwedar, Arkasha Stevenson, Coralie Fargeat, Greg Jardin, Titus Kaphar, Jane Schoenbraun, and Rose Glass, among many, many others, delivered excellent movies that were either their debut or sophomore films. With half the decade down, 2024 was arguably the most exciting movie year we’ve had in the 2020s because of how many great films were made by new or up-and-coming voices. The future of cinema is in great hands and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

I saw 158 films in 2024, a little lower than in previous years, but still a good amount. There were several movies I missed for one reason or another, like Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, Ryüsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, Steve McQueen’s Blitz, Kevin Costner’s Horizon: Chapter 1 (I saw an hour of this and then the theater lost power. *shrug*), as well as a slew of documentaries and foreign films. I wish I could have seen them all, but I am only one man.

I will first list my Honorable Mentions, ten films that I really liked but just missed the cut. Then, you will get my top ten(ish) movies of 2024 with further analysis as to why I ranked them the best.

Here are my picks for the best movies of 2024.

 

Honorable Mentions

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Tim Burton)

• Tim Burton’s best film in nearly twenty years was one of the best times I had at the movies in 2024.

Conclave (Edward Berger)

• Ralph Fiennes leads an all-star cast in Edward Berger’s firey look at the process of picking a new Pope.

Daughters (Angela Patton, Natalie Rae)

• An emotional powerhouse and the best documentary of the year.

Exhibiting Forgiveness (Titus Kaphar)

• Titus Kaphar’s beautiful debut features career-best work from André Holland.

The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson)

• Arkasha Stevenson crafted one of the best horror prequels ever made.

The Last Stop in Yuma County (Francis Galluppi)

• A tension-fueled chamber piece with a great ensemble.

Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)

• A moody, visually stunning remake of the classic vampire tale.

Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)

• Jeremy Saulnier’s best film to date finds Aaron Pierre trying to stop corruption in a small town.

The Substance  (Coralie Fargeat)

• Demi Moore gives an awards-caliber performance in the most gnarly and gross movie of the year.

The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)

• The best animated movie of 2024.

 

And now, the best movies of 2024.

 

10. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante)/Smile 2 (Parker Finn)

2024 was an outstanding year for horror films and there was certainly going to be a horror film represented on this list. But when deciding which one I wanted in my top ten, I simply could not decide between these two films, so they both made the list.

Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms was the scariest movie I saw in 2024. A Fincheresque courtroom thriller about our obsession with true crime and being too deep on the internet. Plante’s restraint in his pacing and not tying the film up with a neat bow was a stroke of genius. Smile 2 is one of the best horror sequels I have ever seen and is anchored by an incredible performance by my Best Actress winner Naomi Scott. I loved how scary this movie was but enjoyed the non-horror story about a pop star trying to reclaim their fame even more. Both films are expertly made, feature great lead performances, and are scary as hell.

9. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)

I first saw Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist back in October and I am still in awe of it. This 215-minute drama was made for only $10 million, yet with the scale of the story and the production value of the costumes and sets, you would think it was closer to $100 million. The story, following an immigrant architect (played masterfully by Adrien Brody) in post-WWII America, is captivating and loaded with deep themes about art, capitalism, Zionism, the immigrant experience, and American greed. It is shot, edited, and performed to perfection and despite the runtime, never drags or feels slow. The Brutalist is a towering film and a great American epic.

8. Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)

Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing is a beautiful, moving experience about rehabilitation, hope, brotherhood, and the importance of the arts. Colman Domingo delivers the best performance of his career as John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield, a wrongfully accused man serving time at Sing Sing prison in New York, who has formed an in-prison theater group where other inmates come together to write, act, and produce a play.

Much of Sing Sing‘s cast is comprised of former or current inmates who have taken part in the theater program the film is based on, the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program and they all give impressive performances, particularly Clarence Maclin, who gives one of the great breakout performances of the decade and was my pick for Best Supporting Actor this year. Sing Sing is a stirring emotional experience that perfectly balances the harsh times of prison with the beauty of art.

7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)

Even though we know that Furiosa lives at the end of the film due to her role in Mad Max: Fury Road, the film that canonically takes place after this one, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga overcomes this common prequel problem because of its story and expert direction. Director George Miller took the opportunity to not only give us the backstory on Imperator Furiosa (played in the film by Anya Taylor-Joy), but expand the Wasteland world we were already familiar with even more by introducing us to new characters and showing us more of the intricacies of the Wasteland in how they trade, live, and work politically. Furiosa is also a gripping revenge film the likes we haven’t seen since Kill Bill, as Furiosa is hell-bent on avenging her mother’s death by killing Dementus (a career-best Chris Hemsworth).

And, of course, what makes Furiosa one of the year’s best films are the action sequences. Once again, George Miller crafted action scenes that make you scratch your head and wonder how he came up with them and how he created them, including a fifteen-minute sequence that took 78 days to shoot and close to 200 stunt people. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a brutal, bloody, violent film and one of the best prequels ever made. I will never forgive the American public for letting this film be a financial flop.

6. Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

Watching Trap, the newest movie by director M. Night Shyamalan, you can feel how much fun Shyamalan is having behind the camera. He is in complete control of the audience and pulls them in whatever direction he wants, all with a devilish grin and gleam in his eye. The film follows Cooper (Josh Hartnett) a seemingly normal father who takes his daughter (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert of a global pop star only to realize the concert is a set-up to catch a notorious serial killer, who happens to be Cooper.

This first half of the film is a thrilling chamber piece as we watch Cooper try and escape the concert and not be caught by the police while also trying to be a great father to his daughter. The second half is a fascinating look at a monster coming to life and watching his perfect plan fall apart. And at the center of it all is a spectacular performance from Josh Hartnett, who seamlessly transitions from a loving, dorky suburban dad to a terrifying, calculated killer. It’s one of the great unsung performances of the year and one of the best ever in a Shyamalan movie.

5. Ghostlight (Alex Thompson & Kelly O’Sullivan)

Ghostlight is a Chicago-set drama that looks at a construction worker (Keith Kupferer) who secretly joins a local theater’s production of Romeo & Juliet, which unexpectedly helps him cope with a recent family tragedy. This is a deeply emotional, occasionally funny look at the importance of theater and the arts, communication, coping with emotion, and putting yourself out there when others least expect it. Kupferer, my pick for Best Actor of the Year, is sublime as the quiet patriarch of his family who doesn’t know how to express his emotions in the wake of a recent tragedy and finds solace with the theater company. It’s a powerful, raw, authentic performance in a film that will have your heart soaring and tears streaming down your face.

4. Hit Man (Richard Linklater)

Glen Powell gives the best performance of his young and promising career in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. He plays a quiet college professor who gets a job moonlighting as a hitman for his local police department to entrap those who wish to harm others. When he forms a relationship with a woman (Adria Arjona) who enlists his services, it sends them down a path of danger and deception.

Hit Man is the best movie of its kind since Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight. It’s a slick, tricky, funny, sexy crime-thriller with a superb ensemble and top-notch direction from Linklater. Powell and Arjona’s chemistry is effortless and sizzles on screen. The cell phone interrogation scene is one of the year’s best scenes and as exciting as any action set piece you’ll see in 2024. Hit Man is Richard Linklater’s best film in nearly a decade and one of the year’s most rewatchable movies.

3. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)

There are two movies in Challengers. There is a sports drama about how an intense sports competitor who can no longer physically compete can still get their competitive juices flowing. The other is the history of love triangle between two friends and a girl. On their own, both films would have probably been good, especially with director Luca Guadagnino behind the camera and the core cast of Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor. But bringing them together only elevates each one into a spectacular, pulsating, sweaty film.

The love triangle plot works because of the performances by Zendaya, Faist, and O’Connor. Each of them brings physicality and sexuality to the film while using their charisma to have seamless chemistry together. You are invested in each relationship’s ups and downs. The sports movie is excellent because of how exciting the tennis sequences are shot and because of the central story of Zendaya’s Tashi trying to stay competitive when she no longer can physically compete. Challengers is endlessly exciting. It’s a great romantic drama and one of the best sports movies of the last decade.

2. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)

Dune: Part Two does everything a great sequel should do. It furthers the story and characterization of our main character Paul Arteries (an excellent Timothée Chalamet) while also introducing us to new characters, like the psychotic warrior Feyd-Rautha (played by Austin Butler). It advances the story and elevates the strong themes of religion, destiny, and false prophets. It is darker and more tragic than the first film and adds a surprising level of emotion to the story.

And as we’ve come to expect from director Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two is a visual spectacle and technical marvel on every level. Villeneuve expands the worlds we were introduced to in the first film, adding more depth to this seemingly endless world. The production design and costumes are gorgeous and the cinematography by Greg Fraser is some of the year’s best, beautifully capturing the vast deserts of Arrakis and the monochromatic world of the Harkonens. Hans Zimmer’s score is extraordinary, and Joe Walker’s precise editing never allows the nearly three-hour-long film to feel slow or boring. The action is bigger and more exciting. Villeneuve is one of few directors in Hollywood who could make a movie at this scale while also keeping focus on the story.

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)

While I love all the films listed in my top ten and liked a lot of others, no film in 2024 hit me quite like RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys. The film, which looks at the experiences of two young Black boys attending a brutal reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida, is a revolutionary piece of filmmaking from a filmmaker with only one other feature film under his belt. The decision to shoot the film from the perspective of our main characters to see the world through Black eyes is bold and visionary. Ross handles the emotional weight of a film about hope, endurance, and the power of sharing love with delicacy and brilliance.

Nickel Boys is one of those movies I will always remember the first time I saw it. It was at the 2024 Chicago International Film Festival to a sold-out crowd. But watching the film, I was so captivated and moved by what I was watching it felt like I was the only one in the room. I witnessed cinematic poetry, the dawning of a new voice in cinema, and the best movie of 2024.

 

So long, 2024. It’s been a wild one.

 

 

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