Best of 2024 - New Releases
Happy New Year! Here it is, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, my Best of 2024 list! The top ten movies of the year. Yes, top ten lists are impossible and it’s a terrible means of quantifying my enjoyment of an artform I deeply love, but who doesn’t love a list?
Be sure to check out my list of Favorite First Watches from 2024.
The Last Showgirl
Roadside Attractions
My full review for The Last Showgirl is being held for another week or so to coincide with its theatrical wide release. At the risk of spoiling the review (although including it on my Best of 2024 list does just that), I do want to linger for a moment on the dreaminess that’s captured in the movie. Vegas is such a strange, liminal place where dreams feel tangible, but everyone knows it could all just be a mirage. Pamela Anderson’s performance is a total knockout, and I cannot wait for more people to experience it on the big screen.
Amazon MGM Studios
A month ago, I would’ve told you that a first-person POV movie sounded excruciating, but I love that Nickel Boys proved me so very wrong. It’s a hard watch about a reform school in the ’60s, but it’s also one of the most visually staggering works of the year. The first-person structure of Nickel Boys forces the audience to feel as though they’re a character within the film. The viewer has to bear witness to what happened. We cannot forget our shared past if we want to make a better future.
Focus Features
What does Jesus have to say about gossiping? I’m sure he’s against it in theory…but what if it’s really juicy gossip? That’s basically the plot of Conclave. All jokes aside, I do think this film provides a fascinating intersection of faith for both believers and non-believers. Plus, it’s fun to watch cardinals take a rip of a vape pen while in the hallowed halls of the Vatican.
netflix
Angelina Jolie was one of the celebrities I grew up knowing about because of osmosis and the fervor of tabloid magazines in the early 2000s. I don’t think I’d really seen a movie of hers until Maria which feels genuinely crazy to say. I’d seen Beowulf, but I don’t think that really counts, Salt was just your generic action movie, and…I think that was it for me until Maria. Anyway, now that I’ve seen her act, I get it. She’s a movie star in the truest sense of the word. A commanding, heartbreaking presence that pulled me in so effortlessly. Maria was magical.
mubi
What is there to say about The Substance that hasn’t already been said? It’s a bloody, chaotic marvel of a movie about how we treat women as they age. Few films can end the way The Substance does and leave the audience feeling as though its utter mayhem has been earned. The Substance is one of many movies this year that gives older female actresses an opportunity to fully command the spotlight at an age when Hollywood, historically, has wanted nothing to do with them. From Maria to The Substance to The Last Showgirl, this is their year. The Substance just happens to be the bloodiest, loudest, and angriest of them all.
paramount
If Mean Girls (2024) has a million fans, then I'm one of them. If Mean Girls (2024) has one fan, then I'm THAT ONE. If Mean Girls (2024) has no fans, that means I'm dead. Mean Girls: The Book: The Movie: The Musical: The Movie (my version of the title) is the movie musical of the year. Move over Emilia Perez and Wicked, the one-take scene of “Sexy” in Mean Girls (2024) is untouchable. If we’re going to turn a book into a movie and then a musical and then back into a movie, then Mean Girls (2024) should be the blueprint. It’s exhilarating, funny, and captures the liveliness of a Broadway show on the Silver Screen.
mubi
Every time I talk about Dahomey, I have to mention how much I dislike experimental movies. I’m sorry, it’s just not my thing. I like a story. You can make a movie as weird as you want, but I need some sort of grounding aspect to the film in order to have an emotional connection to it. That’s why I think Dahomey’s loose structure and experimental tendencies didn’t bother me. There’s a clear heart to this dramatized documentary about the return of stolen artifacts that made sense to me in a way that’s lingered in my brain.
Focus Features
I don’t know if this is a true statement or not, but it feels true. Dìdi (弟弟) is the first movie I’ve watched as an adult that was made about the era of my adolescence. What I mean by that is I obviously watched a lot of teen movies that were being released when I was a teenager, but this is the first contemporary movie I’ve seen made about my teenage years. Dìdi (弟弟) takes place in the summer of 2008 when the film’s main character, Chris, is about to start high school. Chris is a year younger than me, but that didn’t matter. When I watched Dìdi (弟弟), I felt like I was seeing a distant version of myself. Hopelessly trying to figure out video editing software, trying to flirt on AIM, and trying to be cool despite a tragic bowl cut. Also, if there was any justice in the world, Joan Chen would be frontrunner for Best Supporting Actress.
netflix
I’m a complete sucker for movies where people are confined to one location. Don’t get me started on when it’s a bunch of strangers who are randomly brought together and have to figure out what they have in common. The three main characters in His Three Daughters know what connects them: their dying father. The three women have come to the apartment they grew up in to wait for him to pass and to deal with the unpleasant paperwork that goes with losing someone. The confined space and the reason they’re all here create tension, and long-buried family grievances come to light. Most of the movie is in the hands of Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, and Natasha Lyonne, who prove to be more than capable of running the show.
a24
For decades, teenagers have been forced to read the works of William Shakespeare in their high school English classes. No one cares about Shakespeare as little as teenagers and I get it. Old English is a steep hurdle to overcome, and it sounds like a whole bunch of nonsense. When it’s performed, it’s easier to understand what the words are trying to convey. Even then, though, the old-timey words can sound foreign in the mouths of 21st-century actors. All this to say, Clarence Maclin is one of the few actors who have made me understand what all the rage about Willy Shakespeare was about.
TIFF
Making these year-end lists as someone who watches a lot of movies is confusing sometimes. What constitutes a release year? Is it when the film is first shown to audiences at a festival or is it when the movie goes wide? The reason The Life of Chuck is coming in as an honorable mention is because I saw it at TIFF this year where it’s clear no one was expecting it to take home the People’s Choice Award. However, as a lover of Mike Flanagan, I had faith. It wasn’t until after the festival ended that someone actually bought distribution rights. Supposedly, it’s getting a summer 2025 release, but I can talk about it twice if I include it in this list of 2024 releases.
I love Mike Flanagan’s brand of emotional, sappy horror movies/series. At TIFF, I described The Life of Chuck as “Stephen King by way of Mike Mills, and still so distinctly Mike Flanagan” and I stand by that. He has such a way with words and sweeping monologues about how life is a mixture of joy and sorrow, beauty and pain, loss and hope. I cannot wait to watch The Life of Chuck again.
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