Hello everybody! Yet another year has passed, and as I do every year, it is time for me to unveil my annual list of my top 15 favorite films of this past year (and just like 2023, I'm publishing this list late because there were a few films I wanted to make sure I saw before I finalized it). 2024 was a year in which I traveled to Italy and Hungary, got to screen my short film Would've, Could've, Should've at film festivals (you watch it here), and was blessed to meet my amazing girlfriend Andrea. 2024 also marked my second full year as a PhD student in Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I have continued to have many great theater-going experiences in Madison, mostly making use of my AMC Stubs A-List subscription at the AMC Fitchburg 18, as well as attending my numerous weekly class screenings in Vilas Hall Room 4070 (shout-out to Jeff Smith, Ben Singer, Kelley Conway and Darshana Sreedhar Mini for your awesome screening lists!). Additionally, I got to attend the 11th annual Chicago Critics Film Festival where I saw three films that made my top 15 this year (as well as others that made my runners-up). In fact, with the sole exception of my #15 film, every single film on this list I got to see in a theatrical setting, and they all deserve to be seen that way if at all possible.
Once again, just like the last three years, not only are all of the films on this list more than worthy of strong recommendations, all of them are were awarded 4.5/5 or 5/5 by me on Letterboxd (shameless plug), and they collectively represent an incredible range and diversity of voices telling entertaining, powerful, and important stories that should be sought out by everyone reading this post. And while there are several titles listed below that many have probably have never even heard of, I strongly believe that they are all worthy of viewing and serious engagement even if they ultimately do not work for everyone like they did for me.
Now, as always, before I get into my top 15, here is a list of 10 films from 2024 that I have not seen but definitely want to as soon as possible:
All We Imagine As Light
The Beast
Flow
Hard Truths
Heretic
Hundreds of Beavers
Memoir of a Snail
No Other Land
Nosferatu
September 5
And as I say every year now, these 15 films that I am about to list (and the order in which I list them) may not be what some would consider the BEST films of 2024; but rather, they are my personal FAVORITE films that, for one reason or another, impacted me as a film reviewer and filmmaker and that, in my opinion, speak in some way to the broader world we all live in. So, without further ado, here are my top 15 favorite films of 2024 from 15 to 1:
#15. Hit Man -- There were quite a few films this year that were strong contenders for my #15 spot on this list (they will all be mentioned at the very end of this post in my runners-up), but this one ultimately stuck with me in a special way that resulted in it getting the upper-hand. Those who know me know how much I absolutely adore Richard Linklater and his incredible body of work as a filmmaker. He and Paul Thomas Anderson are my two favorite filmmakers of all time, and Linklater in particular has made such a variety of films that nearly always work on me in a deep and profound way. And while Hit Man is far from his deepest film, it nonetheless managed to be one of the most purely entertaining films I saw all year. Much like Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight was one of the films that formally introduced George Clooney as a uniquely charismatic leading man in the movies, Hit Man gives Glen Powell a full stage to introduce himself as a new A-list leading man in cinema, and he absolutely knocked it out of the park. While I had seen Powell in other films (including three other films directed by Linklater), watching Hit Man on Netflix this past summer with my family, I quickly became 100% sold on him as an actor. The way he carries himself comedically, dramatically, and in both intense and romantic moments was right on par with some of the best work I've seen Clooney do in cinema, and I am fully on board with Powell following a similar career trajectory. Additionally, the supporting performance by Adria Arjona as Powell's love interest is just lovely to see, asserting a strong sense of authority and not being a mere sounding board for Powell, channeling the strength and skill of Jennifer Lopez's performance opposite Clooney in Out of Sight. One particular scene late in the film with Powell and Arjona together in her living room is one of the most brilliantly written, choreographed, and performed scenes in any film that I've seen in a long, long time. But ultimately, the main reason this film is able to transcend the numerous other films that get released and buried in Netflix's algorithm is Linklater's sheer grasp on this material. While a number of filmmakers could have made films to showcase Powell's charisma and ability to charm and seduce women (heck, Anyone But You and Twisters were both considered showcases for that to one extent or another), Linklater imbues many of his own philosophical fascinations about identity and the human condition into this film, disguising it as a crowd-pleasing crime comedy featuring a steamy romance between two sexy people at the center, but one that never even comes close to insulting the audience's intelligence and instead will give people a whole lot to think about once it ends. And while I so wish that I would have gotten to see this on the big screen with a crowd (I was not happy when it skipped Telluride in 2023), I'm just glad it's out there for people to watch. If you've liked Glen Powell in any of this recent films like Twisters or Anyone But You or Top Gun: Maverick, you owe it to yourself to watch him give an early career-highlight performance here. Once again, my man Richard Linklater absolutely knocks it out the park, and Hit Man absolutely earns its spot in my top 15 of 2023 (currently streaming on Netflix).
#14. The Bikeriders -- One of the most criminally overlooked and underrated films of this year, here is one that I actually got to see at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival. At the time, The Bikeriders was supposed to open in time for the 2023 award season, before being removed from the schedule and dropped by 20th Century Studios due to the SAG strike happening at the time. Thankfully though, Focus Features picked this up and gave it a wide theatrical release this past summer, where I was able to take my parents to see it nearly ten months after I saw it at Telluride. And although basically no one went to see it and it was quickly forgotten about, The Bikeriders on both viewings proved to be yet another phenomenal film about middle American life from writer/director Jeff Nichols, one of the great American filmmakers working and an exquisite chronicler of life in the American Midwest and South (his previous films include Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special, and Loving). Working on a much larger scale and budget than he had on his previous films, Nichols paints an incredibly compelling, rich, and meticulously detailed portrait of American motorcycle culture in the 1960s and 70s, one that ultimately becomes a story about America itself during that time, as Nichols shows how the culture of motorcycle clubs started as relatively innocent in the mid-1960s but then drastically changed and became increasingly nihilistic, violent, and deadly following the Vietnam War. And all of this is brought beautifully to life by Nichols' three lead actors. Much like Glen Powell won me over with his natural on-screen charisma in Hit Man, Austin Butler's performance in this film is one that likewise calls out for him to be recognized as an A-list movie star, giving off a James Dean-esque essence that goes well beyond the still frame images of him on his motorcycle with a leather jacket smoking a cigarette and never once feels like a pale imitation. Similarly, Tom Hardy gives one of his best performances in years, commanding each scene he's in with a forceful presence while also communicating a deep sense of pain that slowly begins to break through, especially toward the end. But the most crucial part of the entire film is Jodie Comer, who serves as both the story's narrator and moral compass, capturing the strength, pain, frustration, and inherent contradictions that come when willingly accepting the motorcycle club culture into your life and home. And like Nichols himself said when introducing the film at Telluride in 2023, his ultimate goal with this film was to capture the immersive feeling that he got seeing the Danny Lyon photographs that were compiled in the book that inspired the film, and thanks in large part to the exquisite cinematography and production design that singularly evoke the film's specific time and place wholly, he more than achieves this goal. So while I know some people were critical of this film for being much more conventional than Nichols' previous work and perhaps being a bit too narratively and stylistically indebted to Martin Scorsese (there are certainly shades of Goodfellas here), I still think this is an incredibly thrilling and assured step forward for Nichols as a filmmaker, and as I always say every time he releases a film, I cannot wait to see what he does next, just hopefully it won't take another 7-8 years this time (currently streaming on Amazon Prime and also available to rent for $5.99).
#13. Conclave -- One of the most uniquely surprising films of the year, here is a film that I had heard absolutely nothing about before its premiere at this year's Telluride Film Festival (which I did not attend but had several friends who did). While I liked director Edward Berger's previous film (2022's All Quiet on the Western Front) well enough, I was not prepared for just how deeply effective and intelligent Conclave ultimately turned out to be. As a non-denominational Christian who nonetheless has deep familiarity with Catholicism and the Catholic Church thanks to my amazing grandparents as well as my undergraduate experience at DePaul University, this film presents an incredibly deep, engaging, suspenseful, and at times horrifying portrait of what happens when unchecked sin and selfish ambition and conceit are allowed to run rampant in the Church. Rather than being the sort of blanket condemnation of organized religion that it could have easily been in lesser hands, both Berger and screenwriter Peter Straughan (adapting Robert Harris's 2016 novel) brilliantly foreground human nature toward sin and selfishness as being the root cause of corruption in the Church, always maintaining a hopeful attitude for the future of the Church as an institution and the Christian faith as a whole. And by telling the story from the point-of-view of one particular cardinal, who happens to be the Dean of the College of Cardinals designated to elect the next Pope, Conclave aims to get even the most non-Christian audience member invested in the process that the Church undertakes to choose its next leader. It was also a very interesting experience watching this film at the AMC Fitchburg 18 in Madison literal days before the US presidential election, as Conclave often takes on the feeling of a political thriller, with the cardinals vying to be the next Pope divided into liberal and conservative factions and their tribalism too-often obscuring the true priorities of the Church, just as political tribalism obscures what should be the priorities of countries all over the world. And just as Straughan's rightfully-acclaimed screenplay brings this all to life through tight pacing and intelligent dialogue, the ensemble cast assembled here is never less than a joy to watch on screen. Ralph Fiennes in particular gives the greatest non-villain performance of his career, embodying his Cardinal-Dean character in a brilliantly understated way that allows him to be a deeply effective moral compass for the Church and the story. Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow likewise deliver strong supporting performances, playing off Fiennes effortlessly and embodying their characters' contradictions in convincing fashion, and Isabella Rossellini gives a phenomenal scene-stealing performance with just her very presence. Additionally, the film's score by Berger's All Quiet collaborator Volker Bertelmann infuses the film with a propulsive rhythm that furthers the story's suspense, and the cinematography by Stéphane Fontaine is likewise some of the best I've seen all year. So yes, Conclave is absolutely worthy of all of the awards attention it has been receiving, and regardless of how much it may feel like the film is "Oscar bait" (a term that was also leveled at All Quiet during that award season), it is still a film that deserves to be seen by everyone, but especially people of faith (currently streaming on Peacock and also available to rent for $5.99).
#12. Good One -- The first of the three films on this list that I was honored to see at this year's Chicago Critics Film Festival, India Donaldson's remarkable debut feature Good One really snuck up on me when I first saw it and it has stuck with me in a deep and profound way ever since. Running an incredibly tight 89 minutes and featuring only three characters for the vast majority of its running time, this film is a masterclass of indie filmmaking, one that feels like a chamber piece despite taking place in the vast outdoors of the Catskills, and one that speaks volumes about age and gender dynamics, specifically the damaging nature of toxic masculinity on young women, in an incredibly natural and realistic way. While obviously I have seen many films tackle similar themes (including quite a few on this list), the specific dynamic at work in Good One, where a teenage girl, Sam, ends up going with her father and his recently-divorced friend. While ostensibly the child of the group, and one forced to do much of the menial labor for these two middle-aged men, she quickly asserts herself as the mature member of the group, quietly dispensing insight beyond her years and, in one particular scene, disarming both men with plainspoken honesty about their selfishness and immaturity. All the while, Donaldson maintains a quiet, observational style of filmmaking that not only invokes welcome comparisons to the works of Kelly Reichardt (her film Old Joy has been commonly mentioned in other reviews of Good One), but also reflects the nature of Sam as a human being. Clearly outside of her comfort zone being the only teenager and only female on this hiking trip, she maintains a quiet, observational stance in her situation, until something happens that forces her to speak up, and then both she and the film itself become far more outwardly tense and critical than previously, and that is also when the film goes from being a very well-made and well-acted independent film to something far more powerful, profound, and moving. And much of the credit here goes to newcomer Lily Collias for delivering an exquisite performance as Sam, fully embodying her maturity, intelligence and strength for much of the film before breaking down in the final third in a way that is searing, angry, and heartbreaking. It's an astonishing work of acting that should be getting her far more accolades right now than she's gotten. And while she very much carries the film on her shoulders, James Le Gros and Danny McCarthy also do really great work as her father and her father's friend, foregrounding the humanity in their characters and keeping them from becoming completely unsympathetic. But what ultimately struck me most upon watching this film and what has continued to stick with me since I saw it this past May is the maturity with which it confronts the difficult emotions at the core of the screenplay. While it takes a (deservedly) critical stance in its last third, the way in which it takes that stance is so subtle and nuanced that it keeps the film grounded in its observational and realistic perspective. It's an incredible feat of writing, directing, and acting, and one that unfortunately all but buried by its distributor when released this past summer, but still deserves to be seen, embraced, and talked about by everyone (currently available to rent for $5.99).
#11. Sing Sing -- The second of the three films on this list I saw at the Chicago Critics Film Festival this past May, and the festival's opening night film no less, here is a film that has also stuck with me since I first saw it all those months ago, with much of the cast and crew inside the Music Box Theatre with us receiving one of the longest standing ovations I've ever seen at a film festival. And even all of these months later, that standing ovation is more than justified, as this film is both heartbreaking and triumphant, one that (much like another film I write about below) is a celebration of the power of art (specifically theatre and the works of Shakespeare) to help people heal from trauma and begin working toward a fresh start. Knowing that this film is based on a real-life program that works with incarcerated men to put on theatre productions in various prisons and co-stars many formerly incarcerated men playing themselves, this is one of the rare narrative films I've seen that has the feeling of a documentary. There were so many times watching this film where I forgot I was watching people acting and I felt like the camera was just there in Sing Sing Prison watching these men go through this program. Even Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, the only actors in the film who I had previously seen elsewhere, embody their roles so naturally and beautifully that they just disappeared into them. Domingo especially, who I had seen in several previous films as well as his supporting role on the show Euphoria, gives a phenomenal performance that never once threatens to overshadow the work of his co-stars who don't have his resume. Instead, he blends in with them so well one could easily be convinced that he himself is an ex-convict playing a version of himself. Equally impressive and moving is Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin, one of the real ex-convicts playing himself, who harnesses the full power of his experiences while incarcerated to deliver a pained but powerful performance, going toe-to-toe with Domingo a number of times to thrilling effect. Further helping to add to the film's astonishing realism is the beautifully intimate 16mm cinematography from Pat Scola, which allows the audience to be drawn in close to the characters in ways that can be either warm or claustrophobic depending on the scene, as well as showcasing the power of their facial expressions. This is especially key during the various performance scenes in the film, as well as during a particularly gut-wrenching scene that takes place in a parole board hearing. Even the score by Bryce Dessner (Aaron Dessner's brother) never distracts from the story at hand, only enhancing it by subtly illustrating the men's longings and desires. But ultimately, it is co-writer/director Greg Kwedar's uniquely empathetic vision and observant touch, both in the screenplay and the direction, that allows this film to be as impactful as it is. Never once does this film feel anything less than real and moving, and the film's final scene (before showing real-life archival footage from the program) brings it all home in a beautifully emotional moment, one that surely invites comparisons to the ending of The Shawshank Redemption but in a way that never feels like a pale imitation. So yes, Sing Sing is absolutely essential viewing. It is not always easy to watch, but it's a moving and rewarding one (now playing in select theaters).
#10. A Complete Unknown -- I remember first hearing Bob Dylan's music the same way I first heard a lot of music from classic rock legends: while driving with my Dad as a kid. Although my first memory of Dylan was not any of the classic music featured in A Complete Unknown (it was his early 2000s output, specifically his Oscar-winning song "Things Have Changed" and his Love and Theft deep cut "Summer Days"), it still resonated enough with me that I later made it a point to discover the songs that made him a 20th century American icon in the 1960s. So going into James Mangold's Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, I was familiar enough with Dylan's music and the legend surrounding his pivot to playing straight-up electric rock and roll that it wasn't necessarily a brand-new story to me. However, what Mangold and his assembled cast accomplish here in adapting this chapter of Dylan's life and career to film is nothing short of remarkable. Much like Mangold's previous music biopic Walk the Line, A Complete Unknown is a film that brilliantly captures the essence of its subject, showcasing the time and place that molded Dylan as well as the enigma of him that has fascinated fans and cultural scholars/commentators for more than a half-century. And in capturing said time and place, Mangold also makes a special point to shine light on the other people working in the early 1960s folk music scene in New York City, specifically Pete Seeger (a tremendously important folk singer whose work I was first introduced to via Bruce Springsteen's remarkable album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions) and Joan Baez. And these people are all brought beautifully to life by Mangold's assembled cast, in particular Timothée Chalamet. While I know many people mocked the behind-the-scenes pictures, saying it appeared that Chalamet was "cosplaying" as Dylan, this performance goes far beyond that, as Chalamet completely disappears into the role and comes to embody the full essence of who Dylan was at the particular point in his life. While Chalamet has given many great performances over the last decade, this is the best performance of his career so far, one that should make him an absolute shoe-in for a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Edward Norton likewise gives one of his best recent performances as Seeger, a very understated performance that likewise communciates Seeger's conscience and conflicting emotions as Dylan rises to stardom and then challenges Seeger's mentorship. And both Monica Barbaro (as Baez) and Elle Fanning as a fictionalized version of Dylan's real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo are incredibly impressive and at times heartbreaking, embodying the strength and agency of these women and their willingness to stand up to Dylan when he's being a selfish and arrogant scoundrel so much that they often come off as the most sympathetic characters. So although people might walk away from this film feeling like they still don't know a lot about Bob Dylan as a person, the film's ultimate focus about the sociocultural circumstances that made Dylan and his subsequent impact on the world around him is never not compelling, informative, and entertaining, and Chalamet's remarkable transformation into Dylan is a really incredible sight to behold. Oh, and James Mangold should really just direct every single music biopic from here on out, considering how vastly superior A Complete Unknown (and Walk the Line, for that matter) is to Bohemian Rhapsody and its countless crappy cliched formulaic imitators (now playing in select theaters).
#9. Challengers -- One of the most kinetic, exciting, and just plain sexy films I've seen in a very long time, here is a film I saw back in May by myself at an AMC multiplex in Hobart, Indiana that has stuck with me ever since. While Luca Guadagnino had first blown me away back in 2017 with his heartbreaking masterpiece Call Me by Your Name, he manages to rise to a whole different formal and stylistic level with Challengers. Here, Guadagnino combines his intelligence regarding human relationships and sexuality as shown in Call Me with the hypnotic, propulsive rhythm as shown in his 2018 remake of Suspiria to create a wholly unique work of art that is simultaneously a compelling sports drama with the best sequences of tennis I have ever seen played in a movie, an erotic art film, a meditation on the passage of time and its impact on love and relationships, and a powerful interrogation of gender and power dynamics in the 21st century. There was an interesting moment after I saw this film where I discovered that the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes is married to writer/director Celine Song, the filmmaker behind last year's Past Lives (my #12 Favorite Film of 2023). And while Past Lives and Challengers may seem really different on the surface due to their formal and stylistic differences, they actually communicate very similar ideas and themes regarding how time and aging impact romantic love and what happens when the lack of closure in this area manifests itself at inopportune times (and yes, both films center a quasi-love triangle between a woman and two men). And like Song's screenplay for Past Lives, Kuritzke's screenplay for Challengers is easily one of the best and most intelligent of the year, presenting a fully-fleshed understanding of every single character portrayed and every single theme and idea he raises, making the world he created feel fully realized and lived in. And Guadagnino's direction, of course, is right up there with Call Me and Suspiria in terms of his best work, infusing every frame with unbridled passion, desire, and a genuinely thrilling grasp of his craft that I just felt giddy watching much of this. Adding in the infectiously kinetic editing work by Marco Costa and the hypnotic and throbbing score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (who are simply unmatched in the types of film scores they compose), and Challengers is just a remarkable display of craft on every level of production. And accentuating this craft and infusing the film with their own kinetic energy are the performances by the three lead actors. Anyone still (for some reason) doubting or downplaying Zendaya's acting ability (despite the fact that her performance on Euphoria is one of the greatest performances on television in the last decade) should be silenced by her work in this film, as she commands the screen with such confidence and control that she is all but reasserting herself as a major movie star to be reckoned with. And both Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist continue showing their abilities here, regularly going toe-to-toe with Zendaya and each other in infectious, charismatic ways that are promising to their futures as leading men. And the ending is this film is simply one of my favorite endings of any movie in recent memory. So yes, Challengers is a bold, audacious, and beautiful piece of filmmaking, one that is yet another impressive display for some of the best writing, acting, and overall filmmaking craft of the year, and one that should be seen by everyone (currently streaming on Amazon Prime and also available to rent for $3.99).
#8. Megalopolis -- Speaking of bold and audacious filmmaking, here's a film that I have been fascinated by ever since I first learned about it being a passion project of Francis Ford Coppola's in early 2011. I was almost fourteen years old and was researching and reading as many screenplays as I could when I ended up being introduced to an earlier draft Coppola's Megalopolis script dating back to the early 2000s when he had first attempted to make it. I read all 211 pages of that draft and it fascinated me, and I remember really hoping that one day Coppola would do whatever it took to actually make that script into a film. And, while it took another thirteen years and the sale of his Sonoma County wineries, Coppola did finally make that script into a film, and it is one of the most insane movies I have seen in my entire life, and I loved every second of it. Much like Richard Kelly's Southland Tales and Spike Lee's Chi-Raq, Megalopolis represents the apex of a go-for-broke effort by a filmmaker who's infusing all of his passions and interests and kinks into a singular 138-minute creative manifesto. And at 85 years old, it is completely understandable why Coppola might very well believe he will never be able to make another film, so he is going to spend $120 million of his own money and make this as a final statement. And while I am certainly not going to argue with anyone who calls this film a self-indulgent overstuffed slapdash mess (although I think that exact description, along with several other negative adjectives, is a much more apt one for Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, but that's just me), I do think that Coppola communicates a lot of very timely and thought-provoking themes in this film, particularly regarding the artistic process and ancient Rome's example for 21st century America. In turning New York City into a contemporary version of ancient Rome with an architect clashing with the government of the city as well as various other political forces representing the left and the right, Coppola tells a story that very much reflects the current political realities, albeit in a way that does not necessarily force one particular agenda or point-of-view. In fact, Coppola specifically cast some conservative actors such as Jon Voight to project a sort of unity in the process of making the film itself. And although none of the cast is objectively doing their best work in this film, they do all fit their roles quite well and blend in great with the broader world Coppola created here. But what struck me most about the film after seeing it was the manner in which Coppola effectively pays subtle tribute to his late wife Eleanor Coppola (who died just over five months before the film's release) in it. While much was made about the protagonist Cesar (Adam Driver)'s ability to stop time in the film as being symbolic of the aging Coppola wanting to stop time, a key part of the film's narrative also involves both Cesar and his love interest Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) being able to stop time when together, something that comes to be emblematic of Coppola's 61 year marriage to his wife and their romantic and creative partnership together, and it imbues the rest of the film with an infectious sincerity and emotion that took it to another level for me. So while I completely understand why people would hate this movie or be frustrated by it, I still think it is one of the most unique and thrilling cinematic experiences I've had in several years, and if you are open to a completely insane roller coaster ride of a film, I think you might find it rewarding too (currently unavailable to stream or rent).
#7. Dìdi -- Pretty much everyone who knows me knows how much I love coming-of-age movies (heck, my literal favorite film of all time is Richard Linklater's Boyhood), but it really struck me this year that I am of the age now when other filmmakers who grew up at the same time that I did are going to start making films about their childhoods, and by association, the era that I myself came of age in. And the impetus for this realization was the film Dìdi, debuting writer/director Sean Wang's coming-of-age story about growing up in the Bay Area during the summer of 2008, specifically his protagonist Chris' transition from the end of middle school to the beginning of high school. Having been just three years younger than the character Chris during the summer of 2008, I was immediately struck by the vivid recreation of the era, specifically regarding the dawn of social media. While Boyhood partially takes place around the same time, it notably did not feature social media much at all (possibly a consequence of Linklater basing so much of that film off of his own childhood in an earlier era), while the inclusion of late MySpace and AOL Instant Messenger, as well as early Facebook and YouTube, in Dìdi are enough to take anyone back to that moment in time. But what was particularly impressive about Wang's use of it is how relatively nostalgia-free it is. Rather than waxing poetic on this old technology, Wang keeps the focus of the film solely on Chris and specifically Chris' tumultuous and at times volatile emotional journey during this summer. While several other coming-of-age films depict their protagonists as fully sympathetic and victimized kids, Dìdi takes a somewhat critical approach to Chris, showing him losing friends due to stupid and insensitive comments, mishandling other potential friendships due to immaturity, and even being straight-up mean to his mother and sister. And although lesser films depicting this behavior from a protagonist might cause the audience to become alienated from them, Dìdi is intelligent enough to always allow the audience to understand where Chris is coming from, because the truth is that young teenagers make stupid, insensitive, immature decisions and can be shockingly mean, and it so often comes from understandable places of pain and insecurity that deserve to be understood and empathized with (Wang has repeatedly cited François Truffaut's The 400 Blows as a favorite film of his, and the influence of that film is all over Dìdi). Wang beautifully illustrates this pain and insecurity throughout the film, showing Chris' alienation as the first-generation American son of Taiwanese immigrants, and how his Asian-American identity and expressions of masculinity are mocked and belittled several times, both subtly and overtly. And Izaac Wang, in his first leading role in a film, heartbreakingly portrays Chris' alienation in a nuanced way that nevertheless packs a deep emotional punch. Likewise, Joan Chen is quietly affecting as Chris' mother, particularly toward the end of the film when she reveals that she is as equally damaged and insecure as her son. So although Dìdi may not be on the same level as other recent coming-of-age films like Eighth Grade or Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., it is still a supremely worthy addition to the genre, and one that's unique perspective on universal themes and note-perfect recreation of the late 2000s make it essential viewing for everyone, particularly those Zillennials like myself who, fondly or not, remember being a pre-adolescent in 2008 (currently streaming on Peacock and also available to rent for $5.99).
#6. Kinds of Kindness -- Going to a completely different register of filmmaking now (albeit closer to the register of Megalopolis), here is the latest dark, weird, cringey, hilarious, and altogether singular filmmaking gesture from the brilliant madman known as Yorgos Lanthimos. As I said in my end-of-the-year post last year when writing about Poor Things (my #13 of 2023), I have been a huge fan of Lanthimos as a director ever since I saw The Lobster back in the summer of 2016, although interestingly enough, his two most mainstream films (both Poor Things and 2018's The Favourite) failed to make my top 10 list in their respective years despite receiving myriad Oscar nominations and several best-film-of-the-year placements from critics. However, with his latest film, the completely twisted and misanthropic Kinds of Kindness, Lanthimos finds himself getting back onto the same register with which he made my favorite film of his, 2017's The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and it turns out that this film is my favorite of his since Sacred Deer. Like that film, Kinds of Kindness is a film that feels like a twisted darkly-funny nightmare, taking place in a heightened version of present-day America that interrogates the nihilistic darkness and absurdity at the heart of the modern human condition, particularly regarding the destruction of autonomy and the eternal conflict between stability and freedom. It is also in many ways the film that best sums up his myriad obsessions and kinks in a single two hour and 44 minute anthology. Each of the film's three stories, which feature the same central cast playing different roles, are never not engaging, vacillating between intentionally absurd, off-putting, provocative, hilarious and even occasionally moving. And while there is a natural tendency to want to try to figure out a concrete way in which the three stories the film tells link together, the best way to watch this film is to just let it wash over you while knowing the tone and central themes of the films are what tie them together more than anything firmer. And Lanthimos, still proving himself to be tremendously underrated director of ensembles (even after directing both Emma Stone and Olivia Colman to Best Actress Oscar wins), gets some really wonderful performances out of his cast here. His multi-film collaboration with Emma Stone is continuing to be insanely rewarding, with Stone here delivering much more subtle and nuanced work than her last two Lanthimos films but still killing it every single time she is on screen. But it is Jesse Plemons that is the true revelation here, giving three of the best performances of his career in this film and solidifying Plemons' status in my eyes as the unofficial successor to Philip Seymour Hoffman in terms of his versatility and ability to be an everyman. And the stacked supporting cast including previous Lanthimos collaborators Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and Joe Alwyn, as well as Hong Chau and Hunter Schafer, all get chances to shine and hold their own against one another. So while, like Megalopolis, this film is absolutely not for everyone, I loved every single second of it and even though it is two hours and 44 minutes long, I honestly could have watched another hour of it. Yorgos Lanthimos' weirdness just makes me happy, I love that financiers were ballsy enough to give him actual money to make this, and I cannot wait to see him reunite with Stone and Plemons in Bugonia next year (currently streaming on Hulu and also available to rent for $5.99).
#5. How to Have Sex -- Yet another coming-of-age film in my top 10 but a drastically different one from Dìdi, here is a film, like a quite a few others on this list, that was criminally overlooked and all but forgotten about after being dumped in only 77 theaters this past February. I was lucky enough to get to see this in one of those 77 theaters up here at the Marcus Point Cinema in Madison and it has stuck with me almost a full year later. As I have said many times before, I have long had a profound love and passion for coming-of-age films and films with female lead characters, and this film delivers a painfully realistic coming-of-age story that is distinctly rooted in the female adolescent experience, particularly in the post-#MeToo era. Like my #7 favorite film of 2023, the similarly overlooked Palm Trees and Power Lines, How to Have Sex, despite its intentionally provocative title that may scare some viewers off, is a film that is uniquely intelligent about issues of consent and how even the most aware young women can become victimized due to a myriad of factors that are not completely obvious on the surface. The remarkable directorial debut of cinematographer Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex focuses its story on Tara, a sixteen-year-old British girl on holiday in Greece with her two best friends who, under peer pressure to lose her virginity, ends up being saddled with trauma and regret following two traumatizing sexual encounters. Set against the backdrop of the neon-soaked coastal island resort town of Malia in Greece, Walker is able to brilliantly illustrate the nature of Tara's volatile internal war with herself, as she just wants to drink, smoke cigarettes, and party with her friends while her increasing desperation to lose her virginity, coupled with the opportunistic misogyny and sociopathy of one particular young man, ultimately becomes the source of her trauma. The jarring nature of the cuts between the nightlife/clubbing scenes and the scenes depicting the morning after end up having an incredibly powerful effect and further contribute to the realistic nature of the film as a whole. And it is in those "morning after" sequences that How to Have Sex becomes just as -- if not more -- intense than many horror and thriller films from this past year, as Tara's trauma begins eating away at her and she increasingly feels isolated, particularly from her friend Skye, whose teasing of Tara and attempts to humiliate her make her one of the most unexpectedly loathsome villains I've seen in a film recently (Lara Peake's performance does help to ground this character in reality though). But the heart of this film is really the central performance by Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara. The deeply-felt nature of her performance, from the partying scenes to the scenes post-trauma, is so rewarding to watch even though it can be heartbreaking as the film progresses. And the way in which she interacts with her other two friends in their trio manages to simultaneously communicate a close bond while always foregrounding her being the odd woman out, the only virgin and the one that can serve as the punching bag for Skye's own deep insecurities. And by the time the film reached its conclusion, I knew I had seen a defining film for Generation Z that realistically communicated timely messages regarding consent and sexuality at an intellectual level unlike many current media aimed at them. So while it isn't always easy to watch, it is still an urgently essential film for everyone to see, but especially young women, and it is also one of the best directorial debuts I've seen in some time (currently streaming on Mubi and also available to rent for $4.99).
#4. Inside Out 2 -- And now for a female coming-of-age story that is the complete polar opposite of How to Have Sex, this film marked the single biggest surprise of 2024 for me. As I have said many times over the last decade, I truly believe the 2015 film Inside Out is not only the greatest film in the history of Pixar, but it is also my favorite film with the Disney logo in front of it, and my favorite animated film of all time. It is a film that means an incredible amount to me, and so when I heard that there was going to be a sequel, I instinctively put my guard up and assumed it was yet another unnecessary Disney/Pixar sequel created for the sole purpose of milking their IP for all it's worth, and the absence of Pete Docter as writer and director did not help my skepticism. So needless to say, when I actually saw the film this past summer, I was completely blown away by how much the film manages to live up to the insanely high bar set by the original, and that it is easily the greatest Disney or Pixar sequel since Toy Story 2. While the first Inside Out was incredibly intelligent and painfully realistic in depicting the tumultuous emotions that happen in your pre-adolescent years, particularly regarding fear, anger, and sadness, Inside Out 2 brilliantly follows in its footsteps in depicting the new tumultuous emotions that occur in one's teenage years. Specifically, the film presents a deeply affecting portrait of the impact that anxiety has when it first truly enters in your life. In classic Pixar fashion though, the film tells its story as a kid-friendly adventure inside Riley's mind while Riley herself is at a girl's hockey camp, and both storylines prove to be equally compelling and emotional. While we got bits and pieces of Riley in social situations in the first Inside Out, here she is mostly around other teenage girls, and seeing her awkwardness and the way in which she attempts to navigate these friendships deeply resonated with me even now as someone who has always struggled in social situations. And seeing these struggles in parallel with the personified Anxiety taking over Riley's mind allows the film to build to a climax centered around a full-blown anxiety attack that shook me to my core and made me tear up in the way the best Pixar films always do. And although I certainly expected Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, and Lewis Black to kill once again in their vocal performances as Joy, Sadness, and Anger, I was completely taken by surprise with just how outstanding Maya Hawke's vocal performance as Anxiety was. The way in which she is able to embody the character's good intentions with the naïveté regarding the damage she's causing to Riley is incredibly compelling and, by the end, deeply moving as well. So while Pixar was never going to be able to top the original Inside Out, just the fact that Inside Out 2 is still able to live up to the original's intelligence and emotional power is nothing short of a miracle. And like the original, Inside Out 2 should be required viewing for people of all ages, but especially young girls approaching their teenage years, and should also be used as a teaching tool to show young people how to identify and manage their anxiety. It is really that effective and important (currently streaming on Disney+ and also available to rent for $5.99).
#3. Ghostlight -- So now we are into the top three on this list, and honestly, either this film or my #2 could become my #1 at any time, as they are both incredible works of art and poetry in vastly different ways from one another. But anyway, this is another film that proved to be a surprise for me when I first saw it, this was the closing night film at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May, and what a closing night it was. While the festival opened with the aforementioned Sing Sing, a film about the power of art and theater and Shakespeare to help people heal from trauma, Ghostlight quickly proved to be a phenomenal bookend, since the film, shot on location in the Chicago suburbs by the Chicago-based filmmaking duo of Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson and starring mostly Chicago-based talent, is also a powerful meditation on healing through art and theater and Shakespeare. Specifically, the film focuses on a grieving family and what happens when their patriarch Dan, while trying to hold the family together, is given an opportunity to act in a local community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. Having grown up in community theater in Northwest Indiana, I was overjoyed to see that this film is the most realistic portrayal of community theater that I have ever seen. It not only perfectly captures the sorts of eccentric but lovable people who find family there, but also the way in which said family is forged. The various scenes in which Dan is gradually forced to get in touch with his emotions while rehearsing for this play provide a beautiful, insightful glimpse into what happens at community theaters all over the world, and it brought me back to a lot of what I witnessed myself in those spaces. But ultimately, the main reason why this film is absolutely one of the best of the year (if not the decade so far) is because of how heartbreakingly honest it is about grief and mental health. One particular scene late in the film hit very close to home for me both times I saw it, and it has caused me to reflect on my own past with mental health in ways that only a handful of films (or scenes in films) have ever done. While mental health has certainly been a hot topic in cinema the last several years, the way Ghostlight approaches it in explaining the events that led to the central family's unimaginable loss is so incredibly powerful and relatable on so many different levels. This scene, and so many others, cement Kelly O'Sullivan's screenplay as one of the best and most powerful of the last several years, overflowing with empathy and emotional intelligence that add up to an incredibly powerful viewing experience. Likewise, every single actor in this cast brings their absolute A-game, with Keith Kupferer being an incredible find as the lead, embodying repressed emotion and grief and trauma in heartbreaking fashion, and the rehearsal scenes where he has to act like he is bad at acting are never not an absolute delight to watch. Adding to the realistic nature of the entire enterprise, Kupferer's real-life wife and daughter, Tara Mallen and Katherine Mallen Kupferer, play his on-screen wife and daughter to tremendous effect, with Katherine Mallen Kupferer being a scene-stealing revelation and someone who should be on every Hollywood casting director's radar. So yes, this is a film that has meant a tremendous amount to me since it first wrecked me emotionally upon my first viewing of it in May, and after seeing it a second time with my Mom a month later at one of our local AMC multiplexes in Schererville, Indiana (the fact that this film even got played there is a distribution miracle), it meant even more to me. And as someone who was not a fan (to put it mildly) of O'Sullivan and Thompson's first feature Saint Frances, I am so thankful to both of them for their work and passion in creating this tremendously important masterpiece of filmmaking, and everyone needs to seek this out and support this however they can. The existence of films like Ghostlight is a miracle, and we need to support them so there can be more of them (currently streaming on AMC+ and also available to rent for $3.99).
#2. The Brutalist -- And now for a film operating on a completely different register than Ghostlight, here is another film that could be my #1 of the year at any time (and honestly, a couple more rewatches might get it there). As someone who is a major history buff and loves reading about different chapters in history and imagining both the real people who were involved and hypothetical characters who could have very well existed, I am naturally drawn to historical epics that interrogate their time and place as well as their story. Likewise, as a film history buff, I love any time a filmmaker can bring back old celluloid formats like VistaVision or 70mm, and can also release a film in the roadshow format with an intermission and programs. I first experienced this with my parents seeing Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight on Christmas Day at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, and while The Hateful Eight is probably my least favorite Tarantino film, the experience of seeing it in 70mm with a sold-out crowd of 700 people and the whole roadshow presentation is something I will never forget. Likewise, the experience of seeing Brady Corbet's The Brutalist in 70mm with a sold-out crowd of 700 people the whole roadshow presentation at the Music Box (although we got posters and brochures and a postcard instead of the full-color program) is something I will never forget, and the film itself proved more than worthy of the event-status its scope, length, format, and presentation demanded of it. While I had only seen Corbet's previous film Vox Lux before this and I certainly liked that film, I never would have thought Corbet would have something this epic in him, but he did and he absolutely knocked it out of the park. The Brutalist is a truly breathtaking American epic about the artistic process, the immigrant experience, greed, capitalism, trauma, addiction, the aftermath of the Holocaust and the trauma of the Jewish people, and many other things that will likely reveal themselves upon subsequent viewings. And while many have argued the film loses steam in the second half and certain things don't come fully together, I believe that, while this is a fictional film, it in many ways reflects the nature of life and how things don't always pay off or are hard to understand. Not once watching this film did I feel anything less than completely locked in and mesmerized and in awe of what Corbet pulled off here, and not once did I not believe anything that was happening in this film's narrative. More than once, I was duped into believing that the film was based on a true story and that the characters were real people, and while the film is fictional, the fact that I was ever convinced that it was based on a true story is just another testament to the absolutely brilliant screenplay that Corbet co-wrote with his partner Mona Fastvold. And yes, the film looked absolutely breathtaking in 70mm, with the VitaVision format being fully utilized in depicting the landscapes and architecture in this film, as well as the more intimate moments that are also beautifully shot. Every aspect of this film, from the hypnotic score by Daniel Blumberg to the production design, tremendously important for any film about an architect and architecture, is completely top-notch and it remains shocking to me how this film was only made for $9.6 million, since it often looks more expensive than many $100-200 million films I have seen. And the performances more than rise to the occasion here, with Adrien Brody in many ways equalling his Oscar-winning performance in The Pianist 22 years ago, imbuing his character László Toth with endless amounts of soul and trauma and genius that adds up to a remarkable piece of acting that could easily (and perhaps rightly) win him a second trophy. And the rest of the ensemble cast, which includes Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, and Raffey Cassidy all deliver some of the best work of their respective careers, never once hitting a false note and always contributing to the overall authenticity of the work as a whole. I could continue to go on and on about this film and what a miracle it is that it even exists, but for now I will just say that this is cinema at its grandest and purest and best. Films like The Brutalist give me hope as someone who has dedicated my career to this medium, that other ambitious, visionary filmmakers will be able to realize their visions and get final cut privilege to fully do so, and that cinema of this length and on this scale can exist outside of the soulless corporate franchises like Marvel or James Cameron's Avatar nonsense. It is a deeply, deeply special film (now playing in select theaters, opening nationwide Friday).
And...#1. Anora -- As I said above, deciding my #1 favorite film of this year was an incredibly difficult choice for me. Both The Brutalist and Ghostlight were so impactful for me in different ways that either one of them could have easily taken this spot. However, in my view, right now, there is one film this year that combined the auteurist technical and storytelling mastery of The Brutalist (albeit on a much smaller scale) with the profound personal and emotional impact of Ghostlight in such a way that has stuck with me ever since my first viewing of it, and that is Sean Baker's Anora. Baker is a filmmaker I have held in tremendously high regard since I first saw his 2017 masterpiece The Florida Project at a special screening at DePaul University where he participated in a Q&A. Then going back and watching his early triumph Starlet from 2012 and then getting to see his 2021 Red Rocket in theaters, he has quickly proven himself to be one of the great American storytellers, one whose focus on highlighting the lives of people on the margins is something to be celebrated, as it is putting into practice Roger Ebert's thesis regarding the movies being a machine that generates empathy. And Baker, in making a film that highlights a 23-year-old sex worker living in Brooklyn who is swept in a Pretty Woman-esque fairy tale that ultimately comes crashing down in spectacular fashion, has now made the most fully-realized version of the sort of film he has been making ever since Starlet twelve years ago, and is nothing short of miraculous, remarkable, intense, hilarious, wildly entertaining, and by the end, deeply heartbreaking and moving in a way I was not expecting at all. The tonal balance that Baker pulls off here is one of the greatest magic tricks of screenwriting, directing, and editing I have ever seen, and it's only long after the credits roll that you begin to realize that it should not have worked nearly as well as it did, and yet somehow it did. And while much of the discussion about the film has been (rightly) focused on the absolute triumph of the 28-minute-long home invasion sequence where the film fully makes its heel turn from a romantic comedy to a straight-up thriller, it is in the quieter and more nuanced moments of this film where Baker's gift for empathy and directing actors to a higher level of impact really shine. And speaking of actors, what can I possibly say about what Mikey Madison accomplishes here as Anora? It is simply one of the greatest performances I have ever seen in any film. It is an otherworldly accomplishment of the highest order, one that communicates an entire world of pain, trauma, hurt, struggle, longing, hope, anger, and heartbreak while still allowing for her to be a strong, courageous, empowered women desperate to hold on to her autonomy in the midst of forces seeking to control her. Simply put, if Mikey Madison does not win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in this film (no disrespect to Demi Moore or anyone else here), it will be an all-time travesty. And while the film is undeniably a showcase for Madison's performance, the supporting cast also gets several chances to shine, particularly Yura Borisov as a character whose importance in the final third comes out of nowhere and helps to deliver some of the film's most powerful scenes. In particular, this film's ending is one of the greatest and most powerful and heartbreaking endings to any film I have seen in some time. It communicates an entire world of emotions without verbally saying anything, and resulted in an absolute gut-punch that had me thinking over this film long after I left the theater and even more so in the months since. While time will tell if I end up calling this film Baker's best overall (I still have a special place in my heart for The Florida Project), this is still the film that certainly represents Baker at his most ambitious and arguably in the most command of his craft, and it warms my heart so much to see him finally getting the mainstream awards recognition he has long deserved. And if he and Madison both walk away with Oscars on March 2, I will be happy regardless of whatever other stupid decisions the Academy makes (like giving awards to the steaming pile of garbage that is Emilia Pérez). So yes, Anora is an unqualified masterpiece of American filmmaking, one that, like The Brutalist and Ghostlight, help to reinforce my passion for cinema and why I go to the movies. And also like The Brutalist and Ghostlight, Anora is a film that absolutely needs to be seen and supported however possible, preferably in a theater, as the exquisite cinematography and immersive sound design are best experienced that way. But however you can experience the masterwork that is Anora, you must experience it (now playing in select theaters and also available to rent for $9.99).
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