Top 10 Films of 2024
A strange year still yields some incredible films.
2024 was the fallout year. Just as the industry began to recover from the effects of the pandemic and get audiences back into theaters, the studios waged a costly and foolhardy battle with both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG). The strikes caused a months-long work stoppage, which led to no films reaching theaters. While streamers could kick back and relax on their stockpiles of finished and international features, in 2024, theaters lacked a steady stream of exciting movies to lure in audiences.
2025 will likely witness a rebound, and the box office returns for the end of the year are a promising sight. But even if there wasn’t a deluge of movies in 2024, there were still plenty of worthwhile films, even if they perhaps didn’t get the mainstream attention they deserved. We’ll still need to grapple with the loss of the monoculture and fight for the movies we believe more love. It won’t fall to algorithms but to individuals to champion films, and I hope that by highlighting these ten movies, I can nudge you to seek them out and watch them in the months to come (assuming you haven’t seen them already).
10) The Wild Robot
I’m surprised that The Wild Robot delivered such an emotional powerhouse without veering into outright mawkishness. Considering how many themes the film takes on—parenting, special needs children, community, friendship, messy humanity in the face of cold technical optimization—Chris Sanders’ animated film should collapse all the subtext. Instead, it soars higher than most other movies this year. The gorgeous animation style underpins the fantastic storytelling and cements The Wild Robot as one of the best movies in DreamWorks Animation’s 30-year history.
My full review over at Decoding Everything. The Wild Robot is now available on 4K, Blu-ray, and VOD.
9) I Saw the TV Glow
I’m a cis-gendered heterosexual man, so I’m not the best person to comment on the power of queer art. However, I still find Jane Schoenbrun’s film speaks to a universal yearning to be your true self even if you can’t easily articulate the particulars of your identity. Sometimes, the best way you can see yourself is in something like an off-beat TV show or another person who mirrors your own fears and desires. The story of two teenagers who bond over a show coded like a SNICK drama or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and Schoenbrun nails the look of these particular shows) may seem unexpected as a vehicle for exploring LGBTQ+ identity, but as more people from that community become filmmakers, we should expand our idea of how they their stories are told. When we do, we get incredible films like I Saw the TV Glow.
I Saw the TV Glow is now available on Blu-ray and VOD. It is also available to stream on Max
8) The Brutalist
I was out walking the other day when I thought to myself, “I’d sure like to see The Brutalist again,” which was a surprising notion considering that the film is three hours and 35 minutes (including a 15-minute intermission) and a deep examination of the immigrant experience, the lies surrounding American exceptionalism, and post-war life for Holocaust survivors. I’m a little annoyed that director and co-writer Brady Corbet appears to have made a masterpiece of an American epic with only his third feature, but then again, The Godfather was only Coppola’s fifth movie. The Brutalist feels both indebted to such a classic and also a story that feels in conversation with where we are today, just as Coppola was in conversation with 1970s America.
The Brutalist is currently playing in theaters in limited release.
7) Sing Sing
The first of two movies on this list about the healing power of Shakespeare, Sing Sing goes far beyond the tropes of the standard prison drama by understanding the importance of being seen not as a caricature or even a paragon but as a fully-formed human being. Colman Domingo is outstanding in the lead role, but director and co-writer Greg Kwedar made a savvy and insightful choice to surround his professional performer with men who were formerly incarcerated and a part of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program. This choice makes Sing Sing more than a story about what happens behind bars. We see these men who, through their desire to perform and partake of communal artistry, make the world a richer place.
Click here for my full article on the film. Sing Sing will return to the big screen on January 17th.
6) The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
There are plenty of days when I want to log off the Internet and never come back. I’ve seen its promise in the 90s and how we now have a system of scams and ad-bloat run by a handful of companies resting their futures on shoddy products. But I suppose that’s my privilege to see other ways I can engage with others or spend my time. In the life of Mats Steen, a young man confined to a wheelchair due to a degenerative muscle disorder he had since birth, he had to find a different way to live, and in Benjamin Ree’s stunning documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, we see how Steen used his online avatar in World of Warcraft, Ibelin, to express himself and connect with others. In Steen’s story, we can see how this technology can be far more than what our tech overlords have allowed it to be.
Click here for my full article on the film. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is streaming on Netflix.
5) Anora
The party has to end at some point, and what makes Anora such a thrill is how writer-director Sean Baker interrogates the morning after rather than only indulging in the fun. The film feels incredibly of the moment as most of us feel like we’re scrambling to clean up the mess made by oligarchs. We know the temptation to feel like we’re in the club, but where we live is in the aftermath. Rather than playing as preachy or pedantic, Anora finds the funny, flawed, and surprising humanity at every turn thanks to Baker’s direction and the terrific performances from Mikey Madison and Yuri Borisov.
Click here for my full article on the film. Anora is currently in theaters and on VOD.
4) Nickel Boys
I’ve never quite seen a film like Nickel Boys, and it’s not just because of the film’s first-person camera. I don’t want to use the word “haunting” to describe the film because the connotation is one of disturbance and melancholy. Those emotions are certainly present in RaMell Ross’ movie, but through his lens, we see so much more life and beauty, even in the darkest places. There isn’t a moment of phony uplift here. Instead, Ross uses his camera to bring us as fully into his characters’ minds and lives as possible, giving them the depth and texture their Jim Crow-era reformatory school seeks to ignore and dismiss.
Click here for my full article. Nickel Boys is currently in theaters in limited release.
3) September 5
I’m a sucker for a good journalism thriller, and they don’t get much better than Tim Fehlbaum’s look inside the ABC Sports control room during the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where the group Black September took the Israeli team hostage. The analog rush of watching these journalists keep up with the story is exhilarating, but September 5 then pulls a neat trick by asking why we’re so caught up in the drama when there are real lives at stake. The larger question is whether live news is possible without falling victim to the incentives of entertainment rather than finding the truth.
Click here for my full article. September 5 is currently in theaters in limited release.
2) Challengers
The most fun I’ve had all year at the movies is Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, and I don’t even care about tennis. Thankfully, the sport is more of a backdrop to an electrifying love triangle between three people who can’t stand to lose. The way Guadagnino bounces us around like a tennis ball between years and character perspectives can be dizzying, but we’re never lost, and we’re always eager for the next serve. Beautifully constructed with three fantastic lead performances coupled with the best score of the year makes Challengers a film I’m eager to revisit even if I don’t plan on watching the U.S. Open anytime soon.
Click here for my full article. Challengers is now available on Blu-ray and VOD and to stream on Prime Video.
1) Ghostlight
One of the things I love about art is that it is not only transformative, but it can be restorative. When we participate in it, as creators or as viewers, we open ourselves up to change and perhaps to change for the better. At a time when we feel further apart due to technological and social forces, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s film shows what can happen if we open ourselves up only a little. If we decide to pursue something creative, something that scares us, something that makes us vulnerable, then we might actually start to heal in the broken places and become stronger than we thought possible. Relying on the real family of Keith Kupferer, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, and Tara Mallen to tell the story of a family reeling from loss and finding solace in community theater, Ghostlight is a potent reminder that filmmaking, acting, and storytelling are not pieces of “content.” They are magic.
Click here for my full article about the film. Ghostlight is now available on VOD and streaming on AMC+.
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, No Other Land, Nosferatu
If you want to see Brutalist again, I’m in.