Mike’s Top Ten of 2024

I’m not sure we’ll fully know what 2024 was for a long time. At the very least, it’s a year affected by the labor strikes of 2023. Sure, we got some films that were pushed into this year because they couldn’t promote them in 2023, but more so we got a lot of films that got pushed out of 2024 because they couldn’t finish them in time. A lot of those films were big ‘anchor’ films that help define a year. And a year without those anchors becomes a year without an identity.

2024 feels like a year without an identity. Movies came out, some were good, some were fine. We ebbed back from 2023. Theaters were not as robust as they were, and it looks like we continued sliding down the path of streaming and limited theatrical windows becoming the norm, with an increasing likelihood that, unless people actively pay attention to what comes out and seek specific films to watch, a lot of films are going to get buried and not get the audiences they deserve.

I think that’s my main takeaway from 2024 — because most people couldn’t be bothered to go see good movies (especially with a lot of stuff that’s being pushed for them being super expensive, studio-driven, dog-shit films with ‘very long shelf lives’ and ‘multiple verticals’… you know… ‘content’) and because a lot of people probably don’t know about a lot of the good films that came out, I want to, more than most years, want to showcase the cool stuff so people can find it.

Most of the time this list is just something I do to wrap up a year. Increasingly it’s starting to feel like an important service to show people that there’s more than just ‘content’ that comes out each year. One phrase you’re gonna see me say a lot throughout this list is hidden gem — there are a lot of hidden gems this year and I’m so interested in seeing how time does to them.

Mike’s Top Ten of 2024

Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Hit Man

Nosferatu

The Substance

Wicked

11-20: Challengers, La Cocina, The Fall Guy, Heretic, I’m Still Here, I Saw the TV Glow, Late Night with the Devil, Saturday Night, Twisters, We Live in Time

Tier Two: Abigail, All We Imagine as Light, Better Man, The Bikeriders, Blink Twice, Blitz, Civil War, Daddio, Didi, A Different Man, Emilia Pérez, Ghostlight, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, In a Violent Nature, Love Lies Bleeding, Megalopolis, Nickel Boys, Presence, Queer, Rebel Ridge

Tier Three: Alien: Romulus, The Apprentice, Drive-Away Dolls, Flow, Gladiator II, Here, The Instigators, It’s What’s Inside, Juror #2, Kinds of Kindness, The Last Stop in Yuma County, Look Back, My Old Ass, Road House, September 5, Sing Sing, Wolfs, Woman of the Hour, Young Woman and the Sea, Your Monster

Tier Four: The 4:30 Movie, Am I Ok?, Azrael, Butterfly in the Sky, Deadpool & Wolverine, The Fire Inside, The Greatest Hits, The Greatest Night in Pop, Inside Out 2, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Lisa Frankenstein, Longlegs, Moana 2, A Quiet Place: Day One, Sasquatch Sunset, Snack Shack, Sometimes I Think About Dying, Stopmotion, Tom Petty: Heartbreaker Beach Party, The Wild Robot

1. The Brutalist

“No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.”

This is one of those years where, while this may not be the film that I go back and watch the most, it’s the film that I consider the best of the year.

There’s so much going on here. There’s a story of art and artist. There’s a story of artist vs. benefactor, escaping fascism just to fall victim to capitalism (which is arguably worse for an artist), the empty promise of the American Dream, assimilation and the immigrant experience, parallels between the creative experience and immigrant experience. And it’s also a three-and-a-half hour film about a Hungarian architect shot in VistaVision, the first American film to be shot in the format since Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks in 1961. And it has a built-in intermission. Everything about this is what makes me excited about movies.

I know Brady Corbet is not a filmmaker that makes ‘easy’ movies. His first two films are sold on stars (Robert Pattinson, for Childhood of a Leader, and Natalie Portman, for Vox Lux), yet the films don’t have the stars in them until their last half hour (essentially). He eschews traditional Hollywood narrative and makes films that are deliberately difficult and challenging for those who watch them. So I don’t expect everyone to love this film. There are films I know I can recommend to most people. This is not one of them. But, like other films in this position throughout the years, I also feel like achievement and cinematic greatness are something still worth noting. There are loads of classics and films considered among the greatest ever made that not everyone loves, but you see them to at least respect the craft.

Things I love about the film — I love how slowly it brings you into the narrative. How we see the main character bounce around before the primary driving force of the film comes into it. I love how the film creates story threads and then picks and chooses which to develop, giving it a feel like life where sometimes things don’t develop or mean anything (and it’s especially interesting when a film does that, because film has trained us to pick up on every thread and assume it’s going to pay off later on). I also love Adrien Brody. It’s the second-most screen time ever for an Oscar-winning performance, behind Vivien Leigh for Gone With the Wind. (Interestingly enough, he also shares with Vivien Leigh having his only two Oscar nominations being wins.) I love Corbet keeping little threads from previous films (he has Raffey Cassidy play dual roles here, which she also did in Vox Lux). I love the way Corbet slowly brings you into the story and makes you really invested in this guy making a building, only to take a seemingly crazy left turn toward the end of the film to jar the audience out of its complacency with the narrative. I love how the film tacks on a postscript to even further jar the audience, especially giving you that final line, which feels a bit like a final ‘fuck you’ cherry on top.

There’s a ton to love here and a ton you can talk about this film from an academic perspective. Mostly I just love an epic made on a director’s own terms that instantly feels like a masterpiece that exists during a time when it’s nearly impossible to make something that’s not targeted to audiences to make a ton of money or be the shiny box on the streaming service for people to click. These movies feel like they’re going away fast and becoming very few and far between. So having one like this seems like an achievement.

2. A Complete Unknown

“I don’t think they want to hear what I want to play.”
“Who’s they?”
“You know, the people who decide what folk music is or isn’t.”
“Fuck them, I wanna hear you. Make some noise, B.D. Go track some mud on the carpet. “

I was predisposed to loving this film. Bob Dylan movie. Great. Love his music. James Mangold, who has never made a bad movie and has, on his resume: Walk the Line, Logan, Ford v Ferrari, 3:10 to Yuma and Knight and Day, not to mention actually making an Indiana Jones movie that actually holds up decently next to the Spielberg films. Dude’s great. And Timothée Chalamet has already proven himself as one of the greatest actors of his generation. So yeah, I was all in on this.

The thing that struck me most about it is the thing that goes the furthest for me — this movie is so damn watchable. I know because I saw it in theaters and went back again to see it with someone else who wanted to see it. Which I’m not always willing to do for everything. But going the second time was a great way to sit and relax and just hang out with the film. And that’s what convinced me that it belonged here in the #2 spot.

The film feels very rooted in the 60s without feeling aggressively so. It recreates the time period but doesn’t make it theatrical. Chalamet channels Dylan but doesn’t try to do a full imitation. You know within about twenty minutes that you’re watching a masterclass performance. The scene where he plays for Woody Guthrie the first time and you watch him go from a nervous kid to fully coming into his own, and seeing Chalamet nail that with his own singing all in a single take is breathtaking. Mangold provides his usual stellar direction, which is never showy but always makes the most out of his story. The supporting cast is great. Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez is so good. Elle Fanning provides the glue of the film. Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash — I love that he’s simultaneously not the Johnny Cash from Walk the Line but also kind of the more accurate version of Johnny Cash as well. Edward Norton — man, that guy. It’s funny how he bounces around for a couple of years and then busts out this incredible performance that reminds you how he’s one of our very best actors. Oh, and by the way, it’s wall to wall Bob Dylan songs, too.

Watching a film like this, I’m reminded of the Howard Hawks line about making a great movie: “three good scenes and no bad ones.” And this film feels like that. There’s not a single bad scene in it and there are (at least) three really great ones. The one that immediately pops to mind for me is when Dylan pops in on Seeger’s talk show and just casually sits down with the blues musician and immediately just catches on and starts playing with him. There’s a magic about this film, and it’s so great on repeated watches when you can go back and focus on specific moments. That’s a great film.

3. Dune: Part Two

“You are not prepared for what is to come.”

Truly was not expecting this to end up so high, but the year being what it is, this film felt a bit like a comfort film for me.

My love for Denis Villeneuve is well-established. But after the first Dune (which I really liked a lot but didn’t love the way a #3 ranking in a Top Ten list might suggest), I didn’t expect too much more out of this. And I think the reason this ended up being here is two-fold. First, it’s a byproduct of 2024 being what it is for film. And second, I think it’s because the story is a continuation and a build on the first movie. It’s not a sequel in the sense of, “We’re gonna bring back all these characters and put them in a new scenario.” It picks up right where the first film leaves us, and in a sense is the story continuing on from where it left off. And in that sense, it’s kind of a bonus, because everything that previously happened also sort of counts toward this.

What I liked about this film is how much more it settled into its groove. The first film was a lot of world-building, explaining the planet, the people, the politics, the ‘here’s how we pee in the suits’, all of that. And this film delves much more into the religion and the politics and all the stuff that makes a story interesting. The world is established and I get it. Now I get to be interested in all the stuff going on within it. Because you get Chalamet embedding himself within the Fremen, and his mother’s becoming this all-powerful religious figure, meanwhile there’s universe-level politics happening, and then you get the whole interlude with Austin Butler being this bloodthirsty heir who also could be destined for what Chalamet is destined for. Chalamet’s turn where he completely about-faces and becomes this messianic figure and giving up love for political positioning — that’s what makes the movie great. Plus Villeneuve is always good about not overdoing his action sequences. He’s very smart about his set pieces (not that we didn’t already know that from Sicario). That scene where Chalamet and Zendaya take down the spice harvester is terrific. And by the time we get to the all out assault in the third act, you’re so invested in the specifics that it doesn’t feel like Marvel movies do in the third act. Plus the climax, rather than being that, is really a one-on-one duel.

I like the way this trilogy is progressing and I think Villeneuve has, yet again, taken a sci-fi story that I was lukewarm about and turned it into something I think is one of the best pieces of filmmaking of its year.

4. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

“There will always be war. But to get home, Furiosa fought the world.”

In George we trust.

After Fury Road, I think we all knew that anything George Miller did in returning to this world was going to be great. So long as he had the resources and was able to make it his way, we knew it would be great.

What I love about this being the film he chose to make next is that he didn’t have to make the same movie as Fury Road. Because Fury Road, ostensibly, is one giant car chase that never ends. This is… it’s a prequel, yes, but it’s also a fairy tale. And what I like about it is that it allows Miller to keep the elements of what everyone loved but tell a story that’s unique and fresh. Plus it also deepens everything that happens in Fury Road, which is just a bonus.

To me, this film is at its best before it starts directly linking to Fury Road. The opening sequence with Furiosa and her mother is incredible, and all the sequences with Chris Hemsworth are fantastic. I also love the way the film handles his character, how much he changes during the years we don’t see him. I also really love the middle sequence when Furiosa earns her job on the war rig (and even the follow up one, where they encounter the trap at the Bullet Farm).

There’s so much to like about this film and I think the only thing negative you can truly say about it is that it doesn’t have the surprise that Fury Road had. No one truly expected Fury Road to be what it was, and you don’t have the element of surprise the second time. And I truly think the filmmaking here is just as good as it was that last time, but because people are always looking for more, I think some people may have felt this film is either lesser or a disappointment. Meanwhile I think this film is just as good as the other one. I enjoy the Mad Max franchise as a whole, but it’s clear that these past two films are far and away the best of the franchise.

5. Hit Man

“Seize the identity you want for yourself.”

I truly don’t think we, as a society, appreciate Richard Linklater enough. Him and Steven Soderbergh are the two where I go, “I don’t think we’re appreciating what they’re doing while we have them.” And I certainly know people aren’t seeing their films as much as they should be.

Since Boyhood came out (as that is pretty much the definitive Linklater film – singular – for most people), here’s his output to this: Everybody Wants Some!!, Last Flag Flying, Where’d You Go Bernadette, Apollo 10½, and this. These are all great movies, and I’d wager that this is probably the only one most people may have seen. And legitimately, one of those others was a top ten for me and the other one was 11-20. And yet I’m confident almost no one’s seen them.

I’m front-loading the message because I truly want to say — appreciate Richard Linklater more. Watch his movies, because the man is incredible and makes incredible films.

Anyway, this film is the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang to Top Gun: Maverick’s Iron Man in the Glen Powell ascension to superstardom (yes, I realize the timeline does not work as it did there. The point is that it is the lesser known, albeit just as important companion film). It’s an essential building block.

The premise is also so great — mild-mannered professor assists the police with sting operations by pretending to be a hitman for people looking to have someone they know murdered falls in love with one of the targets and begins dating her (though she thinks he’s a hitman the entire time and he’s gotta hide it from the cops). Him creating a new persona for all the victims and getting to do all the different ‘versions’ is so damn fun. And then him and Adria Arjona, my word. The two of them have off the charts chemistry (though I feel like we say that for most of his romantic leads (Zoey Deutch in Set It Up and Sydney Sweeney in Anyone But You being the two most prominent ones).

I tell you — the scene pictured above, at the end of the film, is the sexiest scene I have seen put to screen in a long time. For all intents and purposes, it’s a sex scene. That’s how erotic the whole thing is. It might be the single best scene of 2024.

This is one of those instant recommends for me For anyone. It’s kind of the perfect recommendation because most people are going to like it and you can feel pretty confident that not a ton of people will have seen it. And once again reminds us that Richard Linklater is one of the best directors we have.

6. Conclave

“Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.”

As outspoken I am about religion and religious films — I sure am a sucker for movies where popes get elected. Watching papal votes happening is as riveting to me as a trial sequence is in a courtroom movie.

I think what makes this movie work as well as it does is that it’s almost a detective movie. It’s not that different from Knives Out (though man, imagine that crossover). Sure, there wasn’t a murder of the pope, but it’s still essentially a detective-like figure navigating his way through a cast of characters who all have their own intentions for succeeding a dead person. That’s the film.

I truly do not believe anyone else could have been cast in this film outside of Ralph Fiennes. Also, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow — inspired casting. 10/10, no notes, immediate authenticity as cardinals. Also sneaky brilliant choice casting Brian F. O’Byrne as well (he originated Father Flynn on stage in Doubt).

I also will be honest — I’d have watched two hours of just all the back door machinations and gossiping of the cardinals. If they had just a lot of that and the vote was secondary, I’d have been just as all in as I was with this. But still, I really love what they did here. They took it within the bounds of credulity and somehow made it work. Because they ground it in such reality that so many of the things that propel the plot are absolutely ludicrous, but you also kinda realize that it wouldn’t happen and don’t care. Which is the sign of a great movie.

7. The Substance

“You’re the only part of me I don’t hate.”

The most original film of 2024, that’s for sure.

Coralie Fargeat takes a giant leap forward from her debut film, Revenge (which is amazing, if you haven’t seen it). Revenge is one of the most straightforward, pared down, minimalist stories you can have but directed with such style. This is a high-concept sci-fi that really aims a lot higher in terms of satire, message and just cinematic ambition. It’s incredible.

It’s rare nowadays to get a truly unique premise. And what I like about this premise is that it’s not only smart and original, but it’s used for a purpose. It’s used to tell a story about women and their relationship with themselves and society’s pressures with aging and beauty standards. Everything that happens in this movie is done to make a statement, even if you don’t have to be aware of that statement as it’s made. The most powerful moment in the film is Demi Moore standing in a mirror, wiping makeup of her face.

The film is so rich with memorable imagery and great performances. Not to mention incredible use of Cronenberg-esque body horror, which I’ve heard a number of people (who seemingly missed the entire point of the film) say they hated and made them dislike the film. That’s the fun thing about satire. Sometimes it makes people forget it’s satire.

Anyway, this is one of the best films of the year and is by far one of the most memorable.

8. Nosferatu

“Does evil come from within us, or from beyond?”

After The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, hearing that Robert Eggars was making a Nosferatu movie, I think we all thought the same thing — “Where’s the definite article?” Oh, and also, “I’m all in on that.”

I’ll admit that I was less excited than his previous two films, just because I’m so familiar with Nosferatu that I knew there wasn’t going to be anything exciting for me in the story, so it was just going to be about the execution — the visuals, the production design, the acting, the makeup. Which is fine. I just always like to see exciting filmmakers try completely new things, rather than remaking old things. It’s like when Spielberg remade War of the Worlds. He did it wonderfully, but you also go, “I wish you’d used those talents to tell an original story within this space.”

Anyway, there was a lot that surprised me (in a positive way) about this adaptation. I knew Eggers would go all in on period authenticity, because that’s his interest. Down to the fact that Nosferatu had a giant mustache because there was no way an upper class Eastern European man during that time wouldn’t have one. The big thing that surprised me was Lily-Rose Depp. Her performance is so committed that you cannot help but be impressed by her. And that’s the presiding theme of the film — everything about it is so committed to telling the story that it becomes a fascinating exercise.

There’s two different types of art — there’s art that is free-flowing and passionate and there’s art that is ever-so technically precise. And this is the latter. It doesn’t make one better than the other, it’s just two different disciplines. And this film feels like a technical exercise in which everything is done right. And, like Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, it provides a more recently made definitive screen version of a classic story.

9. Anora

“I don’t like this. I’m not being paid enough for this.”

It’s so funny to me that this was the film that won Sean Baker all the Oscars. I was ready to give them to him for The Florida Project (though admittedly that came out in a very tough year for awards). But butter late than never.

What a fun movie this is. It’s interesting that this movie feels like the most plotted of Baker’s films. Most of them feel like slices of life. This one feels much more story-driven. Which is an intriguing evolution for him. Though much of the film’s best moments come during the frantic middle as things start coming apart than the earlier sections where the film gets its story.

The film is basically sex worker Cinderella, as a stripper ends up having a whirlwind romance with the son of a Russian oligarch and marrying him. And while things seem like a fairy tale… now his parents are on their way, determined to get the marriage annulled. It’s very fun. Mikey Madison is terrific, as are all the supporting cast, particularly Yuta Borisov, Mark Eydelsteyn and Karren Karagulian.

The true talent of Sean Baker is shining a light on corners of the world that few people would and creating films that feel like they ground you in those corners and make you really invested in the people in them that he creates. It’s incredible, and while I’m not surprised he’s made yet another great film, I’m glad that this one will open the door for a lot of people to go back and rediscover all the amazing stuff he has in the catalogue that they might not have known about before.

10. Wicked

“The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

I will say that I spent the majority of 2024 absolutely dreading this movie. Because I was convinced I was going to hate it.

I knew the musical by name (and of course broad plot), I knew the one major song (and probably could’ve been reminded of the second major song, but didn’t really know it all that well) and otherwise had no frame of reference for this past the source material. And yet, watching trailers, all I thought was, “This looks like shit” (which — even with this here, it does make me long for the days when they actually tried with the cinematography in big budget movies). I truly had no expectations for this.

And yet, the reason I loved it — not the story (good), not the songs (great), not the stars (perfectly cast), not the production values (impeccable, minus the lighting), none of it. The reason I loved this movie is because of how damn political the whole story is. I was shocked at how much I became engaged with the sections of the movie that most people probably felt were filler, just waiting for the next big number. The scenes showing Oz’s descent into fascism — amazing. Kinda wish the movie played up those parallels to real life, but it’s Disney and nothing gets between them and more money to put in their Scrooge McDuck vault. I honestly felt like I could’ve went another half hour if they delved into the political stuff, the racism toward the animals and building toward all the stuff that comes out in the third act.

I don’t know if this stays here in five years (I also have zero idea what the second half of the story is going to be as I write this, so how that lands for me may also affect how this goes moving forward), but for the moment, this belongs here.

– – – – –

11-20:

Challengers — One of the defining films of 2024. Luca Guadagnino directs Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor in a story about the relationship between three tennis players. Honestly best to leave it there if you haven’t seen it. It’s just an awesome movie with great performances all around and an amazing score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. One of the consensus best films of the year.

La Cocina — What a movie. I heard about this, and, sometimes you can tell immediately a movie is right up your alley. But this was so good that as soon as it was over, I wanted to see everything else the director, Alonso Ruizpalacios, had made. That’s a movie. This is set in the back of the house of a restaurant in Times Square, focusing on all the people working in the kitchen. It follows them over the course of the day, from opening, to the lunch rush, to the dinner rush, and everywhere in between. It’s gorgeously shot in black and white and is the kind of film that makes me most excited when I come across it because everything about it is exciting, because you feel like a fly on the wall as life just happens around you, and the camera floats among it all, deciding what to pay attention to next. Absolutely love this movie.

The Fall Guy — Just an insanely fun throwback comedy that knows exactly what it is at all times. David Leitch directs, bringing all the fun action he brought to Bullet Train, and Ryan Gosling (no stranger to this exact tone) is the perfect star for this. It’s about a stuntman coming back from an injury to a film directed by his ex, only to have the lead actor go missing (which leads to the uncovering of a conspiracy). Naturally all sorts of set pieces ensue. It’s so much fun. There’s a fine line to doing action-comedy correctly, and Leitch knows exactly how to walk it.

Heretic — An incredible low budget horror movie based more around dialogue than anything else. This is a perfect film for much of it (I think it loses itself a bit in the last act, but the first 2/3 are a perfect film), and Hugh Grant gives an absolutely sublime performance. It’s about two Mormon missionaries who go to a man’s house to proselytize and get caught into a ‘game’ of sorts. It’s so good and so smart (written by the guys who did A Quiet Place, who also know how to create tension and interest in character without going overboard with the horror). Definitely one of the films from this year that has stuck with me most since I saw it.

I’m Still Here — In a year with a wealth of great foreign films, this one packs the biggest punch. Directed by Walter Salles, it stars Fernanda Torres as the wife of a former politician during the days of Brazil’s military dictatorship. What starts as a simple family portrait turns dark one day, as the military police come and take her husband away ‘for questioning’. It’s an incredible film. And what I love most about it is how it never feels like it’s unfolding the way a film with this plot would unfold. It never feels like the story is propelling you forward. It feels like the story is just happening. It’s a masterpiece (and likely why the film ended up winning Best International Feature over Emilia Pérez, which was nominated ten more times than it was).

I Saw the TV Glow — Perhaps the singular film that has stayed with me the most since I saw it, this movie should be talked about in film textbooks for years to come. What an experience this film is. It’s about two troubled high school students who bond over their love of a TV show. It’s one of those films where it’s not really about the plot, because the story is really an allegory for the trans experience. And you can absolutely feel it throughout the film, even if you’ve never experienced it. The film just evokes that feeling of knowing that something isn’t right and realizing what it is. And the film traces both protagonists and what they do once they have that revelation. The filmmaking is absolutely incredible from Jane Schoenbrun, and the ending of the film is absolutely devastating. If I had to boil 2024 down to three films everyone who loves movies needed to see, this would be on that list.

Late Night with the Devil — For someone who is not generally a fan of horror, there sure have been a lot of horror films lately I’ve really liked. This one grabbed me almost instantly and kept me riveted for its entire runtime. The film is framed a bit like a documentary (or the Twilight Zone), recounting the events of what happened during a late night TV show during one particular episode. The entire film pretty much takes place during the taping of the episode, giving you looks backstage between the segments and the segments themselves. It’s so good. One of those films that’s better if you know nothing about it. But watching the slow tension ratchet up to the point where you wonder what (if anything) is going on until the finale is quite something. Highly recommend this (and again, this is coming from someone who generally does not like horror).

Saturday Night — This is a film destined for me to love, it’s the story of the first episode of Saturday Night Live, and all of the chaos that went into the first show, taking place, in near-real time, before the show went on the air. And it follows Lorne Michaels (wonderfully played by Gabriel LaBelle) as he moves about backstage to make sure his vision goes off as planned. The film is directed by Jason Reitman (whose last foray into something similar, The Front Runner, was also terrific), and has a terrific cast about it (most notably Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris and Nicholas Braun playing both Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman). It’s just a joy to watch and a wonderful piece of filmmaking. Reitman has perfected bravura direction that never calls attention to itself despite being technically astonishing.

Twisters — A remake we didn’t need, yet is absolutely amazing. The first Twisters is a perfect 90s movie through and through. Trying to recreate that 30 years later is a near-impossible feat. And yet, they do it. Lee Isaac Chung (coming off Minari) takes Glen Powell right on the cusp of superstardom and Daisy Edgar-Jones (a star that I’m not sure most people realize is a star yet) and a terrific supporting cast of people you sort of recognize or don’t recognize yet but will when you go back to this in five years and makes a really fun movie that evokes the fun those 90s action movies had. The smartest thing this movie does is pull back from a twister sequence and double down on character development and relationships in between, and that creates the perfect overall experience where the action sequences are thrilling but you also care about the characters and are just entertained consistently throughout the film. This is a perfect entity.

We Live in Time — This is the film of 2024 that took me completely by surprise. Now, on paper, a film directed by John Crowley (whose Brooklyn is one of my absolute favorite films of the past decade) and starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, sounds like a winner. But I was not expecting this movie to land for me as hard as it did. It’s pretty much just a romance, told nonlinearly. It’s the story of two people’s relationship and things that come up during it. And there are such small and beautiful moments (some of which would be broad comedy in a different film yet somehow feel okay here). Instead of comedy and tragedy, there’s humor and sadness, not quite reaching the edges the way most movies reach them. The leads are fantastic and their chemistry is off the charts. And the film is one that I immediately found as a comfort film. Generally speaking, there are very few films I watch multiple times throughout the course of the year they came out It’s rare, until I get to creating this article (when of course I go back). This is one I wanted to go back to very quickly after I watched it the first time, and very nearly ended up putting it in my top ten. That’s how much I like it. And knowing the film isn’t perfect and isn’t some all-time classic somehow makes me love it more.

– – – – –

Tier Two:

• Abigail
• All We Imagine as Light
• Better Man
• The Bikeriders
• Blink Twice
• Blitz
• Civil War
• Daddio
• Didi
• A Different Man
• Emilia Pérez
• Ghostlight
• Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
• In a Violent Nature
• Love Lies Bleeding
• Megalopolis
• Nickel Boys
• Presence
• Queer
• Rebel Ridge

Better Man is just your average biopic with a CGI monkey instead of the main character. You know, tale as old as time. The thing that makes it great is, it’s actually done for a purpose. It’s about Robbie Williams, and the reason the film version of him is an ape is because that’s how Williams sees himself, as a ‘performing monkey’. And also, he came up as a boy band star when he was in his teens, and he feels that whenever someone becomes famous, that’s the age they stop growing up (aka evolving). So it was a really inspired choice for the film. And what’s great is, the main character is an ape, but all the other characters are human, and it’s never mentioned. It’s just — there. And the film is so good that you stop noticing after a while, because everything is made really well and is really engaging. It follows a lot of the standard tropes and all that, but there’s a lot of flair to it and the musical numbers are really well directed and staged by director Michael Gracey (who also made The Greatest Showman). It’s easy to dismiss this at first glance, but I promise it’s a really good movie that’s gonna work for you way better than you think it’s going to. All We Imagine as Light is a beautiful film about life for three women in Mumbai that’s so deceptively simple. It’s a story of everyday existence, almost feeling like a documentary at times, the way the city becomes a character and the way the story unfolds in such a realistic, natural way. It’s such a great piece of filmmaking.

Nickel Boys is an adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel about two young Black men coming of age in a brutal reform school with the great conceit of the film being entirely shot from the direct POV of its main characters. For half the film, the camera takes the place of one of the main characters’ eyes and the other half it’s from the other’s. It’s a stunning piece of filmmaking and an incredibly exciting feature debut from RaMell Ross. It’s easy to pigeonhole the film by comparing it to Moonlight (I reject the notion that films about Black characters from Black filmmakers only have to be compared to other films of that type), but I will say this — I haven’t felt this kind of excitement about the particular filmmaking of something since Moonlight. They both evoke that sense of ‘oh wow, I’m watching something special’. And while I ultimately didn’t connect with this film as much as I connected with that one on a purely narrative level, I do think this is one of the most essential films of 2024 and one of the top five to ten films I’d tell people they needed to see from this year. I cannot wait to see what RaMell Ross does next. Civil War is an Alex Garland film, his first that’s not out and out sci-fi. It’s dystopian, so it’s close, but it’s not Ex Machina, you know? It’s about an America that’s devolved into a (insert title here), and a group of journalists who decide to travel from New York to D.C. to try to interview the president. And so the film is this grounded, almost road trip film through a war-torn America. It’s kind of like how 28 Days Later (also written by Garland) is also a low key road trip movie outside of the zombies. It’s a good film on an execution level, even though it’s not exactly something that holds up on a larger-scale political level. But that’s fine. Kirsten Dunst is great here, and the film has some really cool sequences (the sniper sequence, the sequence with Jesse Plemons).

Abigail is by Radio Silence, the guys who made Ready or Not, and let me tell know… they certainly know how to do a slow play horror movie. This one’s about a group of criminals (Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Will Catlett, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand and Angus Cloud) who kidnap the daughter of a powerful criminal for ransom. While holding her in a secluded mansion… well… stuff happens. And it’s awesome. This is what going to the movies is all about. Highly recommend this one. If you enjoyed Ready or Not, you’ll enjoy this. Queer is Luca Guadagnino adapting William S. Burroughs with Daniel Craig. While the film didn’t get as much press as Challengers did, this one’s just as interesting, especially because Guadagnino’s wanted to make it since he was a teenager and has been thinking about how he’d shoot the film for thirty years. The film’s about a queer American immigrant living in Mexico in the 50s who becomes obsessed with a younger soldier who arrives in town. At this point, you know you’re getting quality with Guadagnino, and anyone who’s watched Daniel Craig’s choices outside of the Bond franchise, you know he’s an actor driven by quality and risk. He delivers a hell of a performance here and Guadagnino provides an effort behind the camera that rivals his work with Challengers. Hell of a double bill from him this year. Daddio is a great two-hander with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson. It’s about a cab driver who picks up a woman from JFK to take her back to Midtown, and their cab ride. It’s just them talking to each other in the cab, and the things that come out of their conversation. It’s really engaging and both leads are terrific in it. Sometimes great films come from two people talking.

Love Lies Bleeding is like a fever dream of a film. It stars Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brien (who is well on her way to becoming a star, also being in Twisters and Mission: Impossible right after this) as a gym manager (Stewart) and her bodybuilder girlfriend (O’Brian) who have to deal with Stewart’s criminal family and O’Brian’s obsession with pursuing her bodybuilding dreams (and increasing overuse of steroids). What an experience this movie is. It’s great. Truly great. One of the unexpected delights of 2024. The Bikeriders is Jeff Nichols, who, at this point, could make literally anything and I’d be in. Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special, Loving. He’s earned my complete trust. This is a 60s-set film about a motorcycle club in the midwest. Tom Hardy plays its founder, Austin Butler plays a young hothead member and Jodie Comer plays a a woman who unexpectedly falls in love with Butler. Of course Michael Shannon’s in it too (as are Mike Faist, Boyd Holbrook, Emory Cohen and Norman Reedus). Nichols has this uncanny ability to make small movies of a limited scope that are just endlessly fascinating films about real people. Blitz is Steve McQueen’s first film since Widows. It’s about a young boy during the London Blitz who, rather than be evacuated, jumps the train and makes his way through the city to get back home to his mother. It’s a surprisingly straightforward and sentimental effort for McQueen, who is definitely not known for that type of filmmaking. It’s quite a lovely film, even if it doesn’t pack the punch that, say 12 Years a Slave or Hunger pack. Didi is a wonderful coming of age film in the vein of Mid90s. It’s about a Taiwanese-American middle schooler growing up in Southern California. It’s a slice of life film — he hangs out with skater kids, trying to be cool, has a contentious relationship with his mother, tries to impress the girl he likes — it’s about being a teenager. It’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I cannot tell you how much I loved this movie and recommend that you see it.

Emilia Pérez is one of the defining films of 2024. A musical from Jacques Audiard, it’s a nontraditional musical at that. It’s about a cartel leader who recruits a lawyer to help him fake his own death and disappear to he can transition into a woman. And the rest of the film is later on, when he encounters her again, post-transition, and helps her get back into her family’s lives. There’s a lot that can be said about this film and its depictions of culture and character, but the filmmaking here is absolutely astounding. Jacques Audiard is a master filmmaker and crafts a terrific film with some innovative musical numbers and gets amazing performances from his stars (Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofia Gascon). It’s a tremendous piece of filmmaking and stands out as one of the most unique films to come out this decade. Presence is a Steven Soderbergh horror film about a ghost in a house, shot from the point of view of the ghost. Which on its face is just amazing. I love that Soderbergh, who for a minute there retired from making movies, seems invested in only making movies that interest him. Since his return (after the hiatus in 2013, after Side Effects and Behind the Candelabra), he’s made (to this point) Logan Lucky, Unsane, High Flying Bird, The Laundromat, Let Them All Talk, No Sudden Move, Kimi, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, this and Black Bag. Incredible run, and all really good and interesting films that almost all could have (and were) made low budget, with limited resources, and even in many cases, shot on an iPhone. But anyway, this film is a really great theatrical exercise, since he’s gotta shoot a ghost story from the perspective of the ghost. And I love the way he doesn’t let the camera movement be the ‘traditional’ ghost movements. It’s really well done. Anything Soderbergh is guaranteed to be worthwhile.

Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s dream project. He’s been trying to make it for 25 years and put over $100 million of his own money into it to get it made. It’s an epic about a futuristic New York City (that draws upon Roman history) and is about a visionary architect with dreams for a utopian future and his political battles with the city’s corrupt mayor. It’s such an ambitious, uneven, bloated, wonderful movie. A lot of people are going to hate it. It’s not an easy film to digest. But that’s what I love about it. I love movies that are too ambitious for their own good. And this one has absolute flashes of brilliance at times, and I’ll take a movie that doesn’t work with some great things over something that’s just fine and forgettable any day. I’ve thought about this one more than half the films that came out this year. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is basically Kevin Costner’s Megalopolis. He put a bunch of his own money into this giant saga that is meant to span four films. It’s a hugely ambitious project. Chapter 1 follows a few different stories — a homestead family displaced by an Apache attack, cavalry officers, an aging gunfighter leading a wagon train, a woman who shot her outlaw boyfriend and started a new life elsewhere with her son (with the outlaw’s family in hot pursuit) and the internal struggle between an Apache chief and his son over violence against settlers. It’s one of those films — it’s perfectly solid and watchable. Not gonna change your life. But the effort that went into it, and knowing that it’s such a passion project for Costner, that elevates it into something that’s more than ‘just’ another western.

Ghostlight is one those proper independent films, the kind that’s so independent that even the people who follow independent film might not have heard about it. And it’s quite probably the best independent film of 2024. It’s about a construction worker dealing with a stale marriage, rebellious daughter and a lawsuit he’s got against his son (who committed suicide)’s ex-girlfriend. He ends up joining a local theater company in their upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet. It’s — I can’t even explain just how good this is. It’s so damn engaging, with a terrific lead performance from Keith Kupferer (also cowritten by Kelly O’Sullivan, who wrote and starred in the terrific Saint Frances a few years ago). Truly one of the great (and legitimate) hidden gems of this year. A Different Man is such an awesome film (and the movie that I felt Sebastian Stan should have been nominated for instead of The Apprentice this year. But regardless, part of two terrific performance from him). Stan plays a man with neurofibromatosis that causes his face to become disfigured. He’s incredibly shy because of his condition, despite having a crush on his neighbor, a playwright (Renate Reinsve). He undergoes a procedure to change his face, which cures him of his condition. So he pretends like he’s a new person, (insert title here), and lives life as a more confident person. He discovers that Reinsve is producing a play based on her friendship with him and auditions for the lead role. It’s a great film that shows that having visible differences do not affect who a person is, and fixing the cosmetic ‘issues’ does not fix the issues deep within a person’s core. It’s a great film, also featuring a great performance from Adam Pearson, an actor who actually has neurofibromatosis. Highly recommend this one.

Blink Twice is Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut. And man, does she sure know what she’s doing. The film is about two women who get invited to a charismatic billionaire (Channing Tatum)’s private island. And at first, things are quite great. Except, strange things start to happen, and, well… yeah. Anyone semi-familiar with recent events knows what’s going on when you hear ‘billionaire’ and ‘private island’, but it’s the way the film lets it play out that makes it work. Kravitz really incorporates a lot of visual style into the film and just makes it a really good time. In a Violent Nature is a slasher movie told from the perspective of the killer. For most of the film, the camera follows the killer as he walks through the woods, moving in on his next kill. It’s a brilliant conceit and a wonderful film. It’s so deliberately-paced and such a unique twist on the type of film we’ve seen so many times done so many different ways. Rebel Ridge is a Jeremy Saulnier film. For those who’ve forgotten, he also made Blue Ruin and Green Room, two terrific slow burn thrillers. This film is basically Rambo but about race. Aaron Pierre plays a marine vet who comes into town to bail his brother out of jail and is stopped by local police, who seize all his money. This turns into a standoff between him and the police, who he slowly starts to find out are very corrupt. And, well… you know violence is bound to happen, so it’s just a matter of when and how. It’s a great piece of work and a return to form for Saulnier, who returns to writing his own films to great success. This one’s a real gem.

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Tier Three:

• Alien: Romulus
• The Apprentice
• Drive-Away Dolls
• Flow
• Gladiator II
• Here
• The Instigators
• It’s What’s Inside
• Juror #2
• Kinds of Kindness
• The Last Stop in Yuma County
• Look Back
• My Old Ass
• Road House
• September 5
• Wolfs
• Woman of the Hour
• Young Woman and the Sea
• Your Monster

The Last Stop in Yuma County is another great hidden gem. This film follows in the tradition of the Tarantino-ripoff crime films that populated the late 90s. Which is exactly one of the seminal types of films of my childhood and young adolescence, and is exactly the type of film I gravitate toward when done right. This one is done right. It’s about a knife salesman stranded in the desert who stops at a diner that just happens to turn into a hostage situation. It’s a slow burn that just feels perfect. The setting is perfect, the actors are perfect, everything about it works. This will never be a film that gets a ton of credit, but it will keep you riveted for 90 minutes. Kinds of Kindness is Yorgos Lanthimos being weird again, which I love. His two speeds are ‘weird, but mainstream’ and ‘weird’. This is the latter. It’s an anthology film with all the actors playing different characters in each of the sections. The actors being Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Margaret Qualley and Mamoudou Athie. The stories are about a guy whose entire life is dictated by his boss, a guy whose missing wife returns but is… different, and members of a sex cult seeking someone with the ability to reanimate the dead. I’m telling you, it’s proper weird. But awesome. Plemons in particular is incredible here. For those who like Yorgos from The Favourite and Poor Things, this is probably straining a bit for you. For those who are more in the Dogtooth and Killing of a Sacred Deer realm, this is on that end of the Yorgos spectrum.

It’s What’s Inside is…what’s the best way to describe it… high-concept sci-fi indie movie? You know those indie movies that are basically just about a bunch of people getting together for a party one night and stuff happens? This is that but with a sci-fi twist. Bodies Bodies Bodies is that with a horror twist. This one’s sci-fi. A bunch of friends get together for a party before one of their weddings, when one of their estranged friends shows up with a briefcase that he says allows them to swap bodies with each other. So they all begin a game where they swap bodies and try to guess who’s who, when… well, you know… stuff happens. It’s a lot of fun. A lot of style in the filmmaking here (which I love — not every film needs to look realistic at all times), and just a really great time at the movies. I’m not sure how many people know this one exists, but I sure hope people put this one on. It’s a real good time. Sing Sing is a prison drama about prisoners in a theater group who put on plays. The beautiful thing about the film is that, outside of Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, the rest of the cast are actual members of the prison theater troupe, particularly Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, who practically steals the movie out from under Colman Domingo. It’s a great story about the power of art and how circumstance does not dictate identity. It’s a great film.

Your Monster is another perfect gem of a movie. This year is just banger after banger of films that you can sell with a sentence that actually hold up as good movies. This one’s about an actress whose director boyfriend broke up with her (after she cowrote a show with him and he went and cast his new girlfriend in it) and she’s diagnosed with cancer. Hiding out in her childhood home, she discovers a monster in her closet. And the film is a rom com about a woman and the monster in the closet (and yes, of course the monster is meant to be a manifestation of inner rage. The fact that it works both ways is what makes it good). Melissa Barrera stars and let me tell you — if you did not know she was a star before this movie, you know now. She is great here, and the film has such a terrific sense of humor. And something it has in common with a number of films in this article and specifically in this tier — written and directed by a woman. Seeing women filmmakers get to tell interesting stories is a wonderful thing. Juror #2 is a Clint Eastwood movie. Kind of amazing the man’s still making movies at 94. This one stars Nicholas Hoult, a recovering alcoholic with a very pregnant wife who gets picked for jury duty for a major murder trial, only to realize he might have some information that may potentially sway the verdict. It’s better to discover as you watch, but it’s a really solid little movie. One of those ‘films for grownups’. The kind of mid-budget movie that doesn’t get made anymore. And while Eastwood at 94 (or ever, really) is never gonna wow you with the direction, he certainly knows his way around making a good movie.

Look Back is a great little anime that packs quite the punch in such a short runtime. The film is only an hour long, and is about a talented girl who yearns to draw manga who meets a girl in her class, a shut in, and, through their shared love of drawing and talent, become friends. The film, being as short as it is, takes a very sudden turn near the end, which feels a bit abrupt, and part of me wishes there were an extra 40 minutes of movie to build up to it, but still, what’s there is quite good and accomplishes more in an hour than 90% of animated films do in two. Here is one of those great ‘concept’ movies that unfortunately was made during the wrong era. Had they made this movie 30 years earlier, it would have won awards. But that’s kind of what Robert Zemeckis’ career has been. Good ideas looking for the right time to have made them. Sometimes he hits, sometimes he doesn’t. This film takes place entirely from the same spot (aka camera angle), from the age of the dinosaurs to the present. The bulk of the film deals with the home being owned by several generations of a single family. Stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly. Hanks and Wright get de-aged and play child versions of themselves. Like Zemeckis’ work, it can be overly sentimental at times, he goes a bit too far (unnecessarily) with technology (child de-aged Hanks is weird as hell), but he knows a good idea when he sees one and can still make a good film. I place this in the same camp as Allied, which is a good film that could have been great and isn’t, which is fine. This film unfortunately was made during the wrong era, but is still a good and worthwhile film.

Road House is a Doug Liman-directed remake of the Patrick Swayze movie with Jake Gyllenhaal. And let me tell you something — it works. This movie knows what it is and is not trying to be anything else. It’s fun as hell. It’s got the right vibe and it’s got exactly what it needs (long sequences of Jake Gyllenhaal beating the shit out of people). Also features a really fun bad guy performance from Conor McGregor. The Instigators is also a Doug Liman film, this one starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (which you just kinda know is gonna be fun based on that alone). Oh, and it’s got a bunch of cherries on top — Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones, Ron Perlman. Affleck actually co-wrote it. It’s about two friends who get hired by some mobsters to steal money from a corrupt mayor. Things go wrong and the two end up on the run with one of their therapists. It’s not high art, but it’s a damn fun movie. Lotta character, actors having a good time — this is movies. September 5 is a great real-time thriller set during the hostage crisis at the Munich Olympics, told from the perspective of the TV producers figuring out what to cover and how to cover it in real time as everything unfolds. It’s a great story about media and making big decisions in the moment (and the ramifications of those decisions, some immediate, some long-lasting).

Drive-Away Dolls is Ethan Coen’s first solo film without Joel (Joel’s was The Tragedy of Macbeth). This is wrote with his wife, who is openly queer/lesbian, and is basically a lesbian road trip movie. Stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan (two of the absolute best actors of their generation) as best friends (Viswanathan is the uptight one, Qualley is the free spirit) who end up on a road trip together, unknowingly getting into the wrong rental car that places them in the path of various criminals looking for something that’s in their car. There’s a lot of fun cameos throughout, and it’s just a good time. It’s a B movie, and trying to be a B movie, and knowing that just allows you to settle in and have a great time. Alien: Romulus is yet another great Alien movie, in a franchise that rarely misses. Since they soft-rebooted the franchise with Prometheus, all the films have been good. This one finds a nice way to go back to basics while also incorporating elements we haven’t seen before (that uhh… final boss there…). I liked how grounded the film was for its first half, and how ultimately not a ton happens, which is the core of this franchise. It’s ultimately a film about people on a dead end planet looking for a way out, who happen to happen upon the wrong ship at the wrong time. It’s really well done.

Woman of the Hour is Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, and let me tell you something… it’s apparent within five minutes that she’s paid attention to all the directors she’s worked with. There is some talent there. The film is based on the Dating Game Killer, a serial killer who happened to be a contestant on the Dating Game in the 70s (during his killing spree). Kendrick stars as the woman who unknowingly chooses him during the show. There’s been a nice run of films set in the 70s (Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, Late Night with the Devil, The Luckiest Man in America), and all are great hidden gems that remind you why movies can be great and special (because they don’t all have to be blockbusters or award winners — sometimes just being interesting, unique and well-made is enough). The Apprentice is a biopic of Donald Trump in the 80s, starring Sebastian Stan. Given… everything… most people going into this likely aren’t gonna be sure what they’re getting. But honestly, the result is really engaging. Stan plays him not as a parody or as an impression but rather plays the personality and the mannerisms, and the result is a performance that really works. Also standout is Jeremy Strong, playing Roy Cohn, Trump’s lawyer and mentor. The film is shot really well, making it feel like its era (there’s that grainy, gritty New York quality for the 70s sections, the videotape-look for the 80s, etc), and the whole thing just drops you into its setting really well, and somewhat respectably, doesn’t really get overly political. It’s solid all around, and definitely a way better piece of filmmaking than you think you’re gonna get going in.

Flow is a masterpiece in animation. So much so that it won the Oscar (as an independent movie from Latvia) over American studio films (including The Wild Robot and Inside Out 2). It’s a post-apocalyptic film with no dialogue (and no people) about a cat, after a great flood, who ends up in a boat with various other animals who have to work together to survive. It’s just breathtaking to watch and provides a different type of animation than almost any other mainstream film out there. It’s incredible and is the type of movie that will open people up to the art that can be created with the medium that is animation. Gladiator II is a completely unnecessary (yet not unwelcome) sequel. Ridley Scott returns, and this time he’s got Denzel, Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal. The film was never going to live up to the first one, so there’s no point in trying to talk about it in that sense. The script looks like it was fast-tracked despite not being fully there. But it’s still a good time. Essentially you’re being dropped back into a wold that we all really liked the first time, watching the actors (well, some of them) have a good time and seeing Ridley Scott, still a master craftsman at 87, take what should, by all accounts, be an awful movie and make it into something watchable and quite fun (and no, I do not agree with the revelation that happens midway through and think it broadly hurts the film in nearly fatal ways).

Wolfs is Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Simple as that. Jon Watts (director of Cop Car, who took a detour with the Spider-Man movies) writes and directs, and the film is about two fixers who end up at the same crime scene. And honestly, the plot doesn’t matter. It’s the two of them using every ounce of their movie stardom and having fun together. The script knows how to utilize them and allows them to be funny and have great banter without overplotting itself. Just a really good time. Young Woman and the Sea is a biopic in the classical sense. It’s a Disney biopic, and that makes sense, because it feels like their other films of this sort (think, like, Miracle). It’s about Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim across the English Channel. And it’s very much in that classical biopic model — uplifting, overcoming the odds, people don’t believe in her, misogyny, everything you’d expect. And even though it’s hitting all the notes you know it’s going to hit, the notes land, and the film works. Daisy Ridley stars and does a fantastic job (plus we get a great supporting performance from Stephen Graham, which is the norm for him). It’s a movie that somehow, despite being exactly what you know it’s going to be, is better than you think it’s going to be.

My Old Ass is yet another hidden gem. I don’t know if it’s just this year specifically or if this is gonna be the norm moving forward, but there are a ton of great gems here that are gonna be discovered as either unheralded classics or be seminal films for people who discover them at the right age. This feels almost immediately like a seminal coming-of-age movie almost instantly. It stars Maisie Stella (in a star-making performance) as a teenage girl about to leave for college who ends up meeting her older self (Aubrey Plaza). And the result is a really touching film about the promise of the future and the regrets of the past, and learning to love oneself and enjoy what you have when you have it. This movie will surprise you and sneak up on your and punch you right in your feelings, I promise you.

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Tier Four:

• The 4:30 Movie
• Am I Ok?
• Azrael
• Butterfly in the Sky
• Deadpool & Wolverine
• The Fire Inside
• The Greatest Hits
• The Greatest Night in Pop
• Inside Out 2
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Lisa Frankenstein
• Longlegs
• Moana 2
• A Quiet Place: Day One
• Sasquatch Sunset
• Snack Shack
• Sometimes I Think About Dying
• Stopmotion
• Tom Petty: Heartbreaker Beach Party
• The Wild Robot

Snack Shack is one of those real hidden gem films that people are gonna discover… I was gonna say on cable, but I don’t think cable exists anymore, so whatever the equivalent of that is for kids now. It’s the story (set in the 90s) of two troublemakers who buy the shack at the local pool to make some money over the summer. And the film is just one of those coming-of-age movies. They both meet the cute girl next door, and of course that creates some tension, and then they’ve got some beef with the town assholes… you know how these movies go. There’s a lot of personality and a lot of heart here. Also another great performance from Gabriel LaBelle in between The Fabelmans and Saturday Night, adding to a really impressive resume for him. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the fourth one. A soft reboot of the franchise, taking place dozens, if not hundreds, of years after the events of the previous trilogy of films, it’s not as interesting as the previous films, but the artistry is there and the studio clearly cares enough to try to put out a good product each time, which leads to a franchise that delivers every time out, which is not the case with a lot of them. It’s hard to be as consistent as these films are.

Azrael is an awesome hidden gem of a horror movie. Starring Samara Weaving, horror queen, it’s a film with essentially no dialogue in it. A horror film about lovers on the run from a religious cult that believes speech is a sin (so all its members have their vocal cords removed). So the film is her running through a forest, on the run from cultists, and no one speaks. Oh, and there are monsters, because the film also takes place after the Rapture. It’s a fun one. The conceit of no dialogue really ratchets up the tension. A Quiet Place: Day One is a prequel, showing how things went down initially. Which is actually a better movie than the sequel that came out. This has its own story and its own vibe. Lupita Nyong’o wonderfully anchors the film, getting to play a terminally ill woman who does what she can to survive the horrors (despite knowing she’s gonna die soon anyway). Like all the films in the series, it uses silence and tension really well, and it gives us an awesome final moment. What more can you ask for? They beat franchises into the ground, but at least with this one if they can make them serialized and keep them interesting, they’ll keep this one going for a while and have some good movies to show for it.

Am I Ok? is a terrific little gem of a movie starring Dakota Johnson and Sonoya Mizuno as best friends. Mizuno is in a committed relationship and Johnson dissatisfied with hers. Johnson soon realizes she may actually be a lesbian and, while confronting that reality, also has to confront the fact that Mizuno is about to take a job overseas. It’s such a quietly beautiful film with real emotions that manages to avoid a lot of the tropes of the rom com genre. This is a film that a lot of people will overlook, even the ones reading this list. But I’m telling you — it’s worth the watch. Inside Out 2 is the sequel. It’s not top tier Pixar. It feels rushed and thrown together, even if there is a kernel of a great idea there that kind of lands. It’s a natural extension of the story, but it doesn’t have the magic and charm of the first one. It feels almost like they didn’t trust their audience to go with the more adult, esoteric themes involved (how many six year olds are gonna understand anxiety?). But, like a not of not-perfect Pixar, it’s still very good Pixar. This lands as well as their other second films in series. So it’s fine, overall. Pretty good Pixar is still better than most animated film out there (even if, in their history, it sure does seem like the magic has been replaced by soulless corporate greed and isn’t coming back anytime soon).

The Greatest Hits is the definition of a hidden gem. It’s about a woman mourning the death of her boyfriend who has the ability to travel back in time whenever she hears a song that she associates with him. And the film is her listening to these songs and reliving the memories of the two of them, trying to do what she can to change what happens and make it so he can stay alive. Of course, it’s a film about grief and not letting the past get in the way of your future, but there’s such an interesting twist on it that you can’t help but be charmed by the film. The film is also directed by Ned Benson, whose previous film was The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (another underseen little gem of a film). Films like this I love because even if the execution isn’t perfect and the film isn’t going to be liked by everyone, there’s so much good there and there’s so much to think about with the idea that it keeps you thinking about it long after you see it. That, to me, is worth a film’s weight in gold. Stopmotion is an awesome horror-thriller with Aisling Franciosi (superb in The Nightingale) as the daughter of a famed stop-motion animator who becomes obsessed with finishing the film her mother died working on, much to the detriment of her own psyche. There’s a terrific use of stop-motion for horror, which you don’t see very often, and Franciosi gives yet another terrific performance.

The 4:30 Movie is Kevin Smith’s ode to his childhood, to cinema, and to the experience everyone up to the current generation had growing up — going to the movies to hang out and seeing a bunch of your friends there. Anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s remembers going to the movies and sneaking into multiple showings throughout the day. Smith so clearly is modeling everything on his own life, but there’s a charm to it, the way there’s a charm to all his films that he has an emotional connection with. It’s a simple rom com about a kid going about his day and waiting until the afternoon so he can take the girl he likes out to see (insert title here). Of course shenanigans happen, etc. It’s a formula you’ve seen before, but that’s what I like about it. There’s a comfort here, the way there’s a comfort for all of those movies we grew up with and love even though we know they’re not considered particularly good movies. Moana 2 is a fun sequel. I generally don’t like when Disney makes sequels (theatrically), and while I can’t fully bring myself to feel like this was necessary, I do think it’s a solid film. It feels a bit like an old straight-to-video sequel (the A-level songwriters aren’t there, it’s got the same budget as the first one, eight years later), and that’s fine. It has some really nice ideas among the ‘just okay’ parts. The first one is just so damn good that I’m glad that the drop-off that was bound to happen still led to this being pretty good.

Longlegs is an Oz Perkins (son of Anthony) film, featuring an instant classic horror performance from Nicolas Cage. The film stars Maika Monroe as an FBI agent in search of a serial killer. The plot doesn’t much matter. The story is very straightforward and the pacing is very slow (which will annoy a lot of ‘modern’ moviegoers). The real highlight is the film’s lead performances, particularly those of Monroe and Cage. The movie’s worth seeing for Cage alone, who finally gets a director that can let him go crazy but also keep him fully locked in (not every directly can do that). And the result is truly something to behold. Deadpool & Wolverine is Marvel turning itself into a ouroboros and starting to devour itself. But, while I really could not care less about the different universes and timelines and all of that, what I did like about this film is how it (past all the ‘Wolverine in yellow spandex’ and the buddy stuff and the manufactured ‘I care about this because marketing told me to care about this’ and Reynolds and Jackman) is really a weird love letter to Fox and those movies that this studio and universe have (and quite literally, in this film) erase from existence. And that part I quite enjoyed (even if it is sort of a “Just because we killed MLK doesn’t mean we can’t miss him” situation). The rest of it — fun as all the Deadpool movies are, but part of what has become the diminishing returns of Marvel the past five years since Endgame.

Butterfly in the Sky is a documentary about Reading Rainbow and the cultural impact it’s had. Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood are the holy trinity for children who grew up in the 80s and 90s. It’s a wonderful documentary that really highlights how much the people making it truly cared about their audience and how much they wanted to not only educate children but also expose them to different cultures and races and points of view and make them more well-rounded human beings. It’s a tribute to something we may not see again on a level like this, and I’m glad it exists. The Greatest Night in Pop is a documentary about the recording of “We Are the World,” which, as far as documentaries go, is extremely my shit. The entire film is just about the process — how the song got written (Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie in a room cranking it out), how they organized the recording of it and basically an oral history of what went down as they got everyone together to do all this in a single evening (because all they had was one night to do it before everyone went their separate ways). It’s absolutely fascinating and the kind of music documentary we absolutely need out there while most of the people are still around to tell stories about it. Tom Petty: Heartbreaker Beach Party is Cameron Crowe’s documentary about footage he shot while on tour with Petty in the early 80s (some of which aired on MTV in 1983). It’s an awesome documentary with some great stuff, if you’re a Petty fan.

The Fire Inside is an awesome biopic (written by Barry Jenkins and directed by Rachel Morrison!) about Claressa Shields, a boxer from Flint, Michigan who fought to compete in the Olympics. It’s a boxing movie — and those are always interesting — and its got the undercurrent of being about class and race and really just being about a person who not only has to do something for themselves but also for their town and everyone around them. Flint, Michigan — it’s different than just representing your country at the Olympics. Everything that town has gone through (and is still going through!) adds an extra depth to the story. Plus it’s just such a likable and winning movie, too. Like a lot of films on this list, it’s a shame that it primarily was made to go on a streaming service (even if it did nominally get a small theatrical release), because that means it’s gonna get buried and not seen by the audience it deserves to have. Strange Darling is a fun thriller, told out of sequence, about a one night stand between two people that quickly spirals into… well, it’s more fun when you don’t know. But it’s a hell of a low budget thriller, and the perfect film for those people who like midnight movies. Also, fun fact: Giovanni Ribisi is the cinematographer on the film. Sometimes I Think About Dying is a feature version of a really terrific short film about a shy office worker who, as the title suggests, daydreams about her own death. But then one day she makes the new guy at the office laugh, and soon he starts bringing her out of her self-created bubble. Daisy Ridley is terrific in the lead, and it’s a nice little rom com about the isolation we can impose on ourselves and the complexities within us (how sometimes you can yearn for connection but also think, “No, leave me the fuck alone”). This is the definition of a hidden gem.

Lisa Frankenstein is the 80s, ‘John Hughes meets Heathers’ version of Frankenstein. Directed by Zelda Williams, written (unsurprisingly) by Diablo Cody and starring burgeoning horror queen Kathryn Newton (also incredible in Freaky and Abigail), it’s just an awesome little movie. You know the story, you know the era, you know exactly what it’s doing, but the fun of it is just how they do it and how much fun they have while they’re doing it. Sasquatch Sunset — from the directors of Damsel (hugely underseen movie) and Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (absolute gem of a film), this is a film about a family of Sasquatches. Not a joke. It’s in the vein of films like Quest for Fire and Clan of the Cave Bear, only made by directors with the sensibilities of the Daniels. So of course it’s got absolutely ridiculous scenes and moments in it, played entirely as if it’s a nature documentary, almost. Oh, and the best part? The main Sasquatches are played by Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough. They’re in makeup and prosthetics the whole time and actually playing Sasquatches on screen. It’s wild, and certainly one of the most unique movies you’ll see.

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