I must not have created a list last year. 2024 was an interesting year for movies. Looking at many other top-ten lists, it's clear that few films last year were uniformly considered bests. That is, lists were sort of all over the place. Take Megalopolis and Furiosa, for instance. Some critics loved them and others hated them. I personally had mixed feelings about both but generally did not like either very much. Then, there were films like Challengers and Dahomey and La Chimera that appeared on many lists. There were also underappreciated or even neglected films like Longlegs, Kinds of Kindness and The Taste of Things.
As always, there are many films I wasn't able to see--at least yet, so here are the best movies of the 140 I saw last year. I normally watch over 200, which is probably a little insane.
1. Red Rooms, directed by Pascal Plante. An absorbing and totally original film about a serial murderer of young pre-teen and teenage girls. It follows a model and professional poker player who is obsessed with the trial and does her own investigation on the dark web, attempting to purchase a copy of missing "red room" video of the third victim's crime. The model's nearly expressionless face provides ambiguity about her position on the crimes and her motivations for her research. The film also refuses to exploit or eroticize the brutality of the crimes and we never see anything, though we do hear screams and sounds.
2. Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino. Ostensibly a movie about tennis and two rivals, but it's really obviously about sex and power. Excellent performances all around. The film is propulsive, pulsating, sexy and unique in its filmmaking approach. There is even one dizzying shot where the camera was placed inside a tennis ball. Streaming on Prime.
3.
Evil Does Not Exist Here, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. I saw this film at the Lincoln Center in New York when I travelled there during the summer. I've always wanted to see something there.
Evil tells the story of a small village in the mountains of Japan whose location is desired for use by investors in a luxury glamping site. While the film puts the investors at odds with at least some of the villagers, it refuses to oversimplify or demonize the capitalists. At the same time, there is a bittersweet feeling about loss and change. Modernity and capitalism may not be evil but they certainly don't provide tranquility or happiness.
4. La Chimera, directed by Alice Rohrwacher. Brilliant Italian film by the director of Happy of Lazzaro, one of my favorite films just a few years ago. Starring Josh O'Connor from Challengers, it tells the story of a gifted British man who has lost his true love and spends his time in Italy illegally raiding tombs to sell ancient artifacts. The film goes in directions we don't at all expect. The film shares some themes with Evil and Dahomey in its questioning of who profits from the past and the lengths that some will go to increase their power and wealth. Streaming on Hulu.
5.
Bird, directed by Andrea Arnold. One of my favorite filmmakers, Arnold has focused on documentaries lately, and here she shifts back to her feature film style: realism. But
Bird goes beyond the current realism style; it morphs into magic realism at the end, which I guess is a bit of a spoiler. The film focuses on a 12-year-old girl named Bailey entering adolescence and dealing with her somewhat neglectful father as she lives her day-to-day life in Kent in England. It's a poverty stricken and dangerous place of abusive partners and absent fathers. Bailey forms an unlikely friendship with a strange man named Bird and the two go on a quest to find Bird's biological father. Streaming on Mubi.
5. Rebel Ridge, directed by Jeremy Saulnier. Saulnier has become one of the strongest and most interesting directors of action movies. His earlier film, Blue Ruin, was a unique story of an ordinary man who seeks vengeance, even with his severely limited skills and knowledge. Rebel Ridge tells the story of a skilled Marine who is unjustly robbed of thirty thousand dollars when he is taken down by crooked police in a small Alabama town. Like Blue Ruin, it's another story of vengeance and justice where for once, the the underdog prevails. But the really interesting thing about the new film is that the main character does not use weapons and does not kill anyone, even though he clearly could. A skilled martial artist, he defends himself with alacrity and precision. He is something to be feared and it's a joy to watch. Streaming on Netflix.
6.
Dahomey, directed by Mati Diop. A totally inventive documentary about the return of stolen royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey--modern day Benin in Africa. The treasures narrate in a deep poetic voice while officials examine the objects and answer questions from the public about why only 26 objects are being returned and not thousands. This brilliant film examines the long-term impact of colonialism and the loss of culture as a result of European greed. Streaming on Mubi.
7. Longlegs, directed by Oz Perkins. Starring Nicolas Cage and directed by the son of Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame, Longlegs is a well crafted and very creepy horror movie about the price a parent is willing to make to save her daughter from the Devil.
9.
The Taste of Things, directed by Tran Anh Hung. A French film set in the 19th century about two gourmet chefs in love with food and each other. A sensuous and sumptuous film about the true artistry of making delicious food. Streaming on Hulu.
10. Thelma, directed by Josh Margolin. A hilarious story of an older woman who falls victim to scammers who convince her to send them ten thousand dollars. Once she realizes the truth and that law enforcement or no one else will help her, she sets out to get the money back by herself. Mostly. Streaming on Hulu.
A few other films I really liked in alphabetical order:
Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Alvarez. An excellent sequel and sort of remake of the first film. Streaming on Hulu.
Blitz, directed by Steve McQueen. The alternately terrifying and moving story of a mother and her determined son who try to survive the Nazi bombings in London during World War 2. The son of a black Grenadian father faces the kind of racism that you would expect in 1940s London. The mother is played by Saoirse Ronan, who, as always, is excellent. Streaming on Apple.
Ghostlight, directed by Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan. A working-class father of a son who has recently committed suicide decides somewhat on a whim to join a community theater group who is rehearsing for Romeo and Juliet. His troubled daughter eventually joins him and together they act in order to work on their grief. It's a beautifully acted and tender story of overcoming loss. Streaming on Hulu.
Juror #2, directed by Clint Eastwood. A former alcoholic, played by Nicholas Hoult, is selected as a juror for a murder trial, a trial in which the juror has information that would clear the accused. It's Eastwood's best film in years. An excellent courtroom drama. Streaming on Max.
Kinds of Kindness, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. This could have been top ten for me, but I guess it is a little derivative considering his older films. Lanthimos is known for his comic absurdism. I still thoroughly enjoyed the weirdness and strange and sometimes shocking humor of the film. It's a triptych or anthology film each starring the same actors where they play different characters in each story. Lanthimos likes showing humans behaving as lowly animals and this film is no different. Streaming on Hulu.
MadS, directed by David Moreau. A French horror film shot in a single take. A strange virus has broken out that turns people into vampiric monsters, but the look of the movie and the way the infected behave is like nothing filmed before. Streaming on AMC.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, directed by Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui. An inspiring documentary about the power of positive thinking, optimism and resilience. Streaming on Max.
