20 | The End
2024 was the year of the musical with nearly a dozen (!) musicals released in North American cinemas. Most of these were tired Broadway adaptations or painfully out of touch social musicals disinterested with real world problems. Amidst the onslaught of song and dance stands Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End: a musical so ambitious and beautiful in construction unlike anything we have seen in the genre since Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. The story concerns a rich, isolated family in the apocalyptic secluded deep in a cavern far away from the environmental devastation. Life is forever changed when a young woman emerges from the outside and slowly unpacks the family’s troubled past and inhumanity. Oppenheimer’s camera captures the gorgeous musical numbers in long, uninterrupted takes that showcase the strength of the performances and presents a fantastical element desperately lacking in the genre these days. There has been criticism of this picture from much of the mainstream media about the runtime and supposedly obvious political points that critics seem to disagree with. Sad to live in a world where an original musical shot with this level of craft about the danger of wealth inequality and environmental catastrophe is dismissed at such a widespread level in favor of films with much more obvious politics and far less craftsmanship. Pay no mind to the charlatan critics who prefer the optimism and #resist messages of Wicked and Emillia Perez over the urgent and original The End. – CW
19 | Queer
Perhaps no other contemporary filmmaker better wears the hallowed mantle of Rainer Werner Fassbinder than Luca Guadagnino. He works at an almost infuriating clip yet brings to bear upon each project a distinctive authorial presence (wispy and broad as it might be in certain cases). In Queer, a product of seemingly decades of imagining but materially, only a few months of realization, we strike at his decidedly tender heart. Daniel Craig here serves as his muse who through his MI6 education has unlearned what many contemporary actors proffer blindly as truth: less acting is better. Craig’s William S. Burroughs (I shall not bother with the cipher’s stated name) is a snarling, emotionally stunted wildebeest of a man whose erudition conglomerates with substance abuse and a more than libidinal, a Biblical lust for Drew Starkey into that strangest of all cocktails, a real human being. And all set to the sweeping backdrop of cinema past. The Cronenbergian vomit. Jean Cocteau-inflected superimposition. The Que(e)relle of it all. Bunuelian dreamscapes. And, most revolting and fascinating in equal measure, perhaps the most explicit 2001: A Space Odyssey fetishism these eyes have seen. Here lies Guadagnino, the great remixer of cinema. Just keep him away from the aux. – JS
18 | Hit Man
Linklater’s grand return to critical respectability may be a bit too shaggy and loose to be counted among his very greatest films, but as an opportunity for the great man to play around with more commercial genre fair while still meditating on his typical preoccupation with *ahem* the nature of the self, it’s a home run. It’s also hard to imagine a better vehicle for Glen Powell’s continued ascendancy to superstardom; as many before me have said, his blistering chemistry with co-star Adria Arjona is the most convincing that American screens have seen in years, and his diverse array of disguises allow for Hit Man to function as a Powell demo reel just as well as it does a romcom. The climactic Notes app scene being perhaps the most electrifying 5-minute stretch of any movie this year is a nice bonus, too. – RJ
17 | The Brutalist
Why don’t we make more movies about architecture? For how many films about filmmaking and Hollywood culture get made you would think someone would be clever enough to parlay this mode of storytelling to the art of architecture and arrive at a universal observation on the nature of artistry in a capitalist society. Well folks, Brady Corbet did just that with the ginormous picture The Brutalist. Following visionary architect László Toth after surviving the camps in the Second World War, the film follows László on his immigrant journey to America and his quest to reunite with his family while fueling his artistic desire. A tour-de-force on display from the crew here with the score, costuming, production design, cinematography, and editing supporting the film akin to that of the great musical genius Warren Ellis and his work with The Bad Seeds. Exceptional performances from Adrien Brody, Joe Alwyn, Stacy Martin, Isaac De Bankole, and especially Guy Pearce fuel the narrative and work to make The Brutalist among the very best films of 2024. – CW
16 | The Beast
Betrand Bonello’s dizzying triptych deftly blends Merchant Ivory, hyper-contemporary showbiz satire, and dystopian, post-AI science fiction into a terrifically compelling stew. It’s hard to overstate the power of Lea Seydoux’s shattering, career-best performance, but George MacKay’s turn as an everlasting incel is almost as good, and Bonello’s deft blend of ostentatious white elephant techniques with Adult Swim-inflected aesthetics is as novel a directorial vision as any I’ve seen this year. Perhaps the first worthy iteration on the hyper-digital affect and uncanny horrors of the late David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return. – RJ
15 | Dahomey
On paper, Dahomey would seem to be a precious, academic exercise. In practice (or praxis), it’s a beguiling film whose slender confines contain fertile worlds of imagination and expert actualization. Diop, who in the magnificent Atlantics melded contemporary sociopolitics with magical realism, finds wonder in the embattled environs of museum bureaucracy. Dahomey is a far overdue balm of a much needed cultural reappropriation. – JS
14 | The Substance
While a gleefully nasty horror film isn’t the most common avenue to forge a comeback, Demi Moore showed everyone her acting prowess, genre be damned. A simple parable on chasing youth at any cost to meet the impossible standards of beauty that constrain us all, The Substance executes the basics well, allowing Coralie Fargeat to inject as much body horror as the story can support (which turns out to be quite a bit). Of course, Moore’s performance helps to bring the emotional weight needed to balance out the grotesque, allowing us to understand just how far one will go to appease a system ready to discard you at the first sign of blemish. Ending on a perfect final shot to show the legacy of stars to an uncaring public, let’s hope that Moore’s Oscar nomination leads to more great roles, and that the message of The Substance is as memorable as its shocks. – NA
13 | Rebel Ridge
Reject modernity, embrace S. Craig Zahler. Where Dragged Across Concrete was a movie so unwoke it became woke, Rebel Ridge is a film so woke that it becomes unwoke. Politics aside, as a piece of filmmaking, Rebel Ridge’s straight-ahead nature and clarity of vision prove to be a winning formula. Aaron Pierre, whose role as Mid-Size Sedan in Old swept the nation, absolutely commands the (regrettably, not silver) screen locking horns with Don Johnson, convincing as ever as a man whose bigotry is almost besides the point. While Netflix is a net-evil, funding the latest Jeremy Saulnier film is enough to warrant a stay of execution. – JS
12 | A Different Man
Aaron Schimberg’s Kaufman-esque tale of the dangers of conformity is a gloriously pitch-black parable that delivers some real bite. Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson’s leading turns (as a miserablist incel and a convivial party animal, respectively) form the perfect foils for one another, and Schimberg’s gleefully merciless screenplay is insightful and laugh-out-loud funny in equal measure. – RJ
11 | Trap
The dirty little secret in Hollywood is that M. Night Shyamalan is pumping out his best work this decade. The other dirty little secret is that Josh Hartnett has Jack Nicholson levels of talent. Reckon’ these aren’t secrets anymore. – CW
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