The year of movie gimmicks both Shyamalan and simian, chemistry at the tennis court and temple, the end of the world spanning comedy, action, and musical, miraculous (and malicious) bodily transformations, and the court room drama they just couldn’t keep down.
By Cody Workman, Joseph Shin, Nathan Alligood, and Reagan Jones
After much consideration and remembering the tribulations of years past, four of our steadfast editors have finally whittled down their lists to the 50 best films of 2024. This list reflects the collective view of these four editors and their decisions stand alone amongst the multitude of lists like it. Both films critically acclaimed and derided were given a fair shake, and some of each found their way onto this year’s abridged list. Please enjoy our choices for the 50 best films released in the United States in 2024.*
*Eligibility based upon U.S. wide release dates, streaming debuts, and whatever screeners made their way to our desks.
50 | Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
There is such an awe element to the fight choreography here that propels Twilight of the Warriors: Walled City to a level of excellence on par with any action film you’ll see on this list. Soi Cheang has crafted a fantastic film and I for one will be spending my 2025 catching up on the maestro’s previous works. – CW
49 | Better Man
The cinema has long held a fascination to bearing visual and aural witness to the musically gifted. Think of the early sound film shorts of Louis Armstrong and his band or Cab Calloway hidee-ho-ing to kingdom come. This impulse naturally gave way to incorporate classical narrative patterns until eventually the music biopic came to being. In the 1940s, we saw Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart, and, in the 2020s, we see a CGI ape as Robbie Williams, and to the eternal surprise of anyone who has not cast a generous eye and ear to either portrayal, the former is far more miscast. If not yet boasting the voluminous pedigree of an auteur, Michael Gracey, who strikes one as a person who speaks of the Freed Unit in hushed tones, has proven a more than capable journeyman in this mode, having cast the likes of known charlatan P.T. Barnum in a heavenly light in the rousing The Greatest Showman. Yet his task to bear might have been more difficult here, in part because of the monkey of it all, but moreso because he had to trade the slick, theatah-ready stylings of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (our contemporary Rodgers and Hammerstein, for better or worse) for the turgid tunes of inevitably Sir Robbie Williams. But, the cast and crew of Better Man make a meal out of a musical morsel and prove an unintentionally salient point about human nature: we find it infinitely easier to empathize with a fellow primate than a human being. -JS
48 | Kubi
Takeshi Kitano, perhaps more than any contemporary director, most fully embodies Monsieur Jerry’s idea of the “Total Filmmaker.” Star, writer, editor, director. Of course, he extends himself into other mediums: painting, literature, TV show host. All come to bear in some way on his oeuvre. In Kubi, he is able to synthesize his own spirit with that of his cinematic predecessors and mentors, Nagisa Oshima and Akira Kurosawa. It is an epic, in the truest sense. War, farce, romance, and political wheeling-and-dealing collide against each other within its large canvas. And while many of us implicitly believe the platitudes offered here (“life is pain,” “power corrupts”), who among us could realize it with such viscera and verve? – JS
47 | Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
When the world needed them most, Wallace & Gromit returned in a 2024 claymation feature warning us all of the dangers of AI in the most cheerfully friendly manner. This entry in the long-running series finds the titular duo dealing with Wallace’s smart gnome, Norbot, who promises to make their lives more efficient by taking over Gromit’s “chores”. Showcasing the dangers of good-intentioned inventions being hijacked for more nefarious purposes, it’s a tale you can find throughout the series, made all the more relevant with the constant talk of AI generated movies or animation on the horizon. As with all Aardman productions, the stop-motion is top-notch, with as many stunning action set pieces as there are small-scale set gags, no doubt thanks to the human hands creating each shot. – NA
46 | Carry-On
I am not an active presence on Film Twitter so I do not have to take this space to renounce Jaume Collet-Serra auteurism as I was never part of the project to begin with. Not that the man hasn’t made handsome films; he yielded the best of Liam Neeson’s Bronsonsploitation pictures in Run All Night after all. In Carry-On, he has the mercenary quality of a Don Siegel, someone willing and capable of mining a premise for all its worth. What could have been humdrum TSA agit-prop becomes a decidedly Hitchcockian thriller assisted by the excellent performances of Taron Egerton, whose handsome pluckiness has not diminished with his A-list status, and Jason Bateman in the kind of against-typecasting that would in an earlier, theatrical context have yielded awards chatter. So good as to almost make me forgive TSA for confiscating my can of SPAM in January. – JS
45 | Sing Sing
Trading the hard edges and looming threats for the dramatic arts, Sing Sing is a radical departure from your standard prison film, focusing on the theater group of the titular facility. Giving its members a much needed outlet for emotion and healing, the film demonstrates that the arts are a way to get in touch with one’s humanity, even in the most dehumanizing of places. As further proof of this, most of the cast is made up of actual former members of the theater group, bringing a realism and shared camaraderie that makes the film shine. It’s a feat and testament to the theater group that hope and light can pervade Sing Sing, where the windows designed to keep them in, can also light the stage for their escape. – NA
44 | Last Summer
Catherine Breillat’s long-awaited return to narrative filmmaking is as gleefully provocative and willfully enraging as her earlier work, a skin-crawling tale of power dynamics and incestual lust that evokes Rohmer (Claire’s Knee the most glaringly obvious reference point) in its lengthy, often electrifying conversational scenes. Also home to one hell of a Sonic Youth needle drop. – RJ
43 | Good One
India Donaldson’s first feature reads on paper as a typically small-scale Sundance indie by numbers, but don’t let the relatively humdrum logline fool you – this is one of the very best debuts in recent memory, a tremendously acted slice of character drama that offers a wicked sense of humor and an unsettling, almost-unspoken touch of menace in equal measure. Donaldson’s Linklater-esque dialogue is whip-smart, her pictorial instincts are right on the money, and boy, is it great to see indie mainstay James Le Gros finally given a starring role worthy of his formidable talents. – RJ
42 | Kill
Touted as one of the most violent films to come out of India, Kill’s monosyllabic title doesn’t mince words in letting you know what you’re in for. The first 40 minutes acclimate you to the plot and slowly ratchet up the stakes before Lakshya’s heroic Amrit Rathod breaks into a murderous carnage. A bold mix of Die Hard, John Wick, and the gnarliest Halloween film you can think of, bones crunch, blood spews, and no one leaves this claustrophobic, high-speed train unscathed in the bleakest action film of the year. – NA
41 | All We Imagine as Light
Equal parts Mumbai city symphony and intimate slice-of-life, Payal Kapadia’s narrative feature debut is among the most entrancing films of the year, a hypnotic and beautifully photographed portrait of working-class life that gradually morphs from a charming neorealist tale into outright Weerasethakul-esque surrealism. The sensitive lead performances from Kani Kursruti and Divya Prabha are also among the year’s most touching. – RJ
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