Staff Inquiry: Top 10 Best Films of 2024

2024 was a year of big swings and big franchises. Last year, in 2023, the popular films were also some of the year’s best — Barbie and Oppenheimer all showed up frequently in our staff Top 10 picks last year. But for 2024, it’s a different story: Big franchise installments like Deadpool & Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire made boatloads of money, but those aren’t the kinds of films showing up on our critics’ year-end lists. True, there were some good apples like Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Wicked that showed that popular megahits could also be well-made, well-acted, and well-told stories. But huge studios also kept falling on their faces with very public flops like Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, and Borderlands.

Horror in particular had a killer 2024. New voices emerged like Chris Nash (In a Violent Nature), Anna Kendrick (Woman of the Hour), and Arkasha Stevenson (The First Omen), and there were breakout hits for genre favorites like Osgood Perkins (Longlegs), Damien Leone (Terrifier 3), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance), and Robert Eggers (Nosferatu). In a year where there wasn’t really an identifiable cinematic theme (other than two Sony superhero movies flopping really hard), horror was the clear winner in 2024.

Trans stories also quietly ruled the arthouse scene this year. Standout stories by and about trans people appeared in every genre imaginable, from body-snatcher horror with Alice Maio Mackay‘s T-Blockers to Vera Drew‘s superhero pastiche The People’s Joker. Jane Schoenbrun‘s I Saw the TV Glow combines unsettling Lynchian surrealism and pink-hued nostalgia with a trans coming-of-age story, Levan Akin‘s acclaimed Turkish drama Crossing follows a woman (Mzia Arabuli) searching for her trans niece, Josh Greenbaum‘s documentary Will & Harper took a comedian and a trans writer on an educational road trip across America, and Jacques Audiard‘s French musical-cartel drama Emilia Pérez was a wildly polarizing Cannes sensation that has a trans drug kingpin (Karla Sofía Gascón) at the helm. There were so many trans stories to admire this year, and it’s a joy to see trans creators breaking through into the mainstream.

What did Film Inquiry critics love this year? We polled our contributors and want to take you through their top 10 films of 2024.

Faisal Al-Jadir

“Memoir of a Snail” (2024) – source: Arenamedia/ IFC Films

Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot)
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)
Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)
Longlegs (Osgood Perkins)
Monkey Man (Dev Patel)
Crocodile Tears (Tumpal Tampubolon)
Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)
Here (Robert Zemeckis)

Honorable mention: Anora (Sean Baker)

Each film in my Top 10 list has an uncanny use of cinematic language that begs the initiated to experience it on the big screen. For starters, Robert Zemeckis’ underrated comic book adaptation Here has an ingenious use of time and space, effortlessly moving from one set of characters to the next and giving us a portrait of a nation in ways both large and small. On the other hand, the grounded sensibilities of Rebel Ridge offer us an intimate character study with many layers of intrigue in a thrilling tale of corruption and fear.

The Indonesian film Crocodile Tears (a favorite of mine from the 2024 Toronto Film Festival) mixes Hitchcockian psychology with arresting images of the glowing dragon-like gaze of ritual nocturnal predators. In the arena, Dev Patel’s Monkey Man is a beautifully hyper-realistic superhero myth, with strong socio-political themes and enthralling action. Perhaps the most viscerally haunting of the bunch, though, is Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, which has such a strong sense of atmosphere that you’ll check on your way out of the theater that the devil isn’t following you home.

The beautifully heartfelt Flow boasts a freeing sense of animation within the world of a wordless fable. A Different Man features strong performances and an oddly noirish sensibility with a tragicomical flavor. Coralie Fargeat‘s ambitious scope knows no bounds with the masterwork that is The Substance. The film is an adult fairy tale that’s relentless in its brutality but heartbreaking in its revelations. The best comedy of the year, on the other hand, is Hundreds of Beavers. Unpretentious and exuding confidence, Hundreds of Beavers is pure unadulterated joy, its inspirations spanning from Chaplin and Keaton to wacky video game aesthetics while following a simple story. Finally, my favorite movie of the year is the stunning Memoir of a Snail. A sincere portrait of broken people that utilizes the craft of stop-motion animation, this is cinema at its most powerful. I still feel the need to shed a tear.  –Faisal Al-Jadir

Stephanie Archer

“Smile 2” (2024) – source: Paramount Pictures

Smile 2 (Parker Finn)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
Witches (Elizabeth Sankey)
Abigail (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
Late Night with the Devil (Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes)
A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnosky)
Joker: Folie á Deux (Todd Phillips)
The Fall Guy (David Leitch)

2024 was amazing for horror fans. Hit after hit, the genre found audiences new and old who couldn’t wait for the chance to see the latest and greatest. From Longlegs to Cuckoo, Abigail to Late Night with the Devil, The Substance to Speak No Evil — this was the year of horror. Yet it was a sequel that would prove that the horror genre has been reinvigorated once more: For 2024, Smile 2 reigned supreme.

2024 was the first year in a long while that I found myself struggling to see as many films as I had in the past. From festival favorites to blockbuster hits, many films escaped my grasp this year. Yet as is true to my cinematic nature, it was impossible to miss one of the biggest horrors of the year. From the moment I first saw the trailer, Smile 2 captured my attention and demanded to be seen. I felt like there was no escape as the eerie imagery played out on screen, immediately emulating the chills and terror the first captured so well.

And where the trailer built the intrigue, the film delivers on every note. From its bridging between films executed with perfection to its immersive and engaging core premise, Smile 2 does not hold back. It dives into every facet of fear, both for its on-screen protagonist (Naomi Scott) and its audience. One of the best moments in the film works within the marriage of composition of frame and choreography, still delivering a visceral fear of unyielding craftsmanship. While always aware of the history it is built on, Smile 2 becomes a horror all its own that’s worth watching and learning from.

Bloodier and wilder than its predecessor, Smile 2 is a rarity in cinema, let alone in horror, proving that sequels can not only live up to the material that has come before but also surpass it. As the twist of the film’s final moments ticks by, there is a horror that takes hold of the viewers as we witness the true gravity of what is playing out. While good horror movies leave the audience knowing they just saw a well-made film, Smile 2 leaves you speechless and hopeful for more.  –Stephanie Archer

Jules Caldeira

“Thelma” (2024) – source: Magnolia Pictures

Thelma (Josh Margolin)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)
Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt)
Micro Budget (Morgan Evans)
Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go (Sandy Honig)
Immaculate (Michael Mohan)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Taylor Tomlinson: Have It All (Kristian Mercado)
Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams)

I said it last January, and I’ll say it again: Thelma is an incredibly underhyped film. June Squibb, nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Nebraska and with a staggeringly prolific career, has finally come to the big screen in a lead role. She is a phenomenal actress, skilled at both comedy and drama, and brought so much heart and joy to this film. I will never stop talking about how wonderful Thelma is; it knew exactly what kind of film it wanted to be and it nailed it. Did I love Nosferatu? Of course I did. Of COURSE I did. But Thelma hit a special place in my heart, and it’s lodged in like a wooden stake. On a Top 10 list where many titles, even the comedies, tackle dark and heavy subjects, Thelma is a bright light even in its sadder moments.

Three of my top four films are from last year’s Sundance, and that’s no coincidence. It was my first time attending any kind of festival, let alone as a member of the press. It was a genuine privilege to be in Park City, and while Thelma, A Real Pain, and Kneecap are genuinely great films that I have recommended to everyone, seeing them at such an esteemed festival surely added to the experience.  –Jules Caldeira

Dave Fontana

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (2024) – source: Warner Bros Pictures

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Anora (Sean Baker)
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)
A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnosky)
Conclave (Edward Berger)

It’s been nearly 10 years since Mad Max: Fury Road erupted onto screens and changed large-scale action filmmaking forever. In that time, we’ve had numerous homages and attempts at recreating that George Miller magic, but none could quite compare to the original.

How fitting, then, that perhaps the movie that could most live up to Fury Road was yet another film in the Mad Max franchise: the prequel Furiosa. In a lot of ways, this is a slower, more character-focused film than its predecessor, a coming-of-age story for the young Furiosa. We get to see her traumatic upbringing and what led to her becoming the strong-willed character we see in the next movie. The younger Furiosa is played to perfection by both Anya Taylor-Joy and the remarkable young Alyla Brown, who both capture the raw confidence and strength of Furiosa as first exhibited by Charlize Theron.

Of course, since this is a Mad Max film, buckle in. The action here, while more limited, is still just as impressively shot and over the top as in Fury Road, including the addition of flying fan-driven bad guys in the sky, multiple chase sequences, and a truly death-defying escape from Gastown by both Furiosa and Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), the character who takes Furiosa under his wing. Along the way, Furiosa forms relationships with people, learns to trust herself, and above all sets her eye on revenge against the dastardly Dementus (a sneery Chris Hemsworth in one of his best performances). Furiosa is a finely driven character-centered film that also happens to have some of the coolest action scenes of the year.

The ending of Furiosa directly leads up to the events of Fury Road, and it ties in really nicely with this now almost-complete backstory. Though Furiosa did not do particularly well in theaters, it’s my sincere hope that the producers will continue this story in some form in the future. Until then, I believe several rewatches are in order!  –Dave Fontana

Bailey Jo Josie

“Dune: Part Two” (2024) – source: Warner Bros. Pictures

Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
My Old Ass (Megan Park)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Wicked (Jon M. Chu)
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)
I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams)

While Robert Eggers‘ Nosferatu snuck in through the astral plane at the last minute and is a VERY close second, I would be letting down myself, my family, and my friends if I did not say that Dune: Part Two was my number one film of 2024 (I named my puppy after Muad’dib himself for chrissake!)

As an enormous fan of the Dune books, I was so pleased to see the conclusion of Frank Herbert‘s first masterpiece on Arrakis. And while I did have my doubts about whether Timothée Chalamet would make a formidable Lisan al Ghaib, I was blown away by the sheer beauty and distant terror of what’s to come in the story as the credits rolled. Bless the Maker and his Water, indeed.

As for the rest of my Top 10 list of 2024, I have to say that this is probably my first list in years where every single film is majorly rewatchable, which I think is a really lovely conclusion to those 365 days. Damn, it feels good to watch good films again.  –Bailey Jo Josie

Lee Jutton

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (2024) – source: Warner Bros Pictures

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Anora (Sean Baker)
All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
No Other Land (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor)
I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar)
Dahomey (Mati Diop)
The People’s Joker (Vera Drew)
Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)

When Mad Max: Fury Road smashed its way into theaters in 2015, it felt like a breath of fresh air — no small feat for a film that was the fourth entry of a franchise that began back in 1979. But mad mastermind George Miller is not your average filmmaker just looking to cash in on a beloved brand, and his creativity and daring made Mad Max: Fury Road stand out amid a sea of increasingly similar-looking blockbusters focused on bland superheroes. He gave us Furiosa, a baldheaded, one-armed, undeniable badass portrayed in iconic fashion by Charlize Theron. It’s a hard act to follow, and big boots to fill, but Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga manages to rise above even the loftiest expectations.

Miller this time is joined by a fiery Anya Taylor-Joy as young Furiosa and an unhinged Chris Hemsworth as Dementus, a man so deranged with grief that he terrorizes everyone cursed to still be alive in this dying world. Together, they deliver an epic poem of blood and chrome, heartbreak and vengeance — not to mention, some of the wildest action set pieces ever filmed. Show me a more memorable movie image from this year than Chris Hemsworth slowly emerging from a cloud of red smoke emitted by a flare. The only one I can think of is also from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: Taylor-Joy’s final confrontation with Hemsworth in an empty stretch of desert, a scene that feels set outside of time, in a place of misery that the two of them share. If it had come before Mad Max: Fury Road, then Furiosa would have been hailed as a masterpiece. At the very least, it deserves to be recognized as one of the best films of this year.  –Lee Jutton

Ketan Koparkar

“How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” (2024) – source: MUBI

Anora (Sean Baker)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Aawesham (Jitu Madhavan)
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Pat Boonnitipat)
The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)
The Platform 2 (Galder Gatzelu-Urritia)
Girls Will Be Girls (Shuchi Talati)
Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)

These are my favorites of 2024, but one film that has made a special space in my heart is Pat Boonnitipat’s How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. This seriously emotional film helps us understand the true meaning of love that isn’t represented in films most of the time, since romantic films tend to take us to unrealistic worlds where everything is green and everyone is sassy. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies instead takes us to a world of love that people might be unfamiliar with, as it introduces us to love in the form of responsibility.

The film takes us through the life of M (Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul), a teenager who starts taking care of his grandmother (Usha “Taew” Seamkhum) just because he wants her property. But as he starts living with her, his goal shifts, and he starts to crave the love his grandma has to offer. He starts to look at his grandma as a hardworking person rather than some lazy property-holder. He is also slowly exposed to the relationship between Grandma and his late Grandpa, which is a side of Grandma completely unknown to him.

The film tries to talk about love as a responsibility rather than as a superficial emotion. Like every other responsibility, it needs to be performed no matter what you are going through in your life. At the same time, there is a strong contradiction in the movie when we see that M is the only person who cares about Grandma, while her two sons and daughter don’t care about her until they learn about her cancer diagnosis. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies isn’t about comfortable romance or the la-la-landish love of Hollywood films, but about a deep responsibility we have to one another.  –Ketan Koparkar

Wilson Kwong

“The Brutalist” (2024) – source: A24

The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 
The Shadow Strays (Timo Tjahjanto)
My Old Ass (Megan Park)
The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)
All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Anora (Sean Baker)
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)

As with any other year, I compile my Top 10 list under the guise of being a completist, knowing very well that there is still a long list of films I haven’t been able to see. Off the top of my head, films like Chan Mou Yin Anselm‘s The Last Dance, All Shall Be Well, Nickel Boys, and Maria are very much in my wheelhouse and might supersede some of the above films in time.

Looking back on 2024, it was really an exceptional year for cinema. And despite being a lifelong fan of Hong Kong cinema — and in particular, action films from the region — the towering achievement of Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist is simply too hard to deny. It’s a film brimming with artistic mastery that unravels a very personal thesis on surviving life itself. Never before have 215 minutes flown by so quickly.  –Wilson Kwong

Alex Lines

“Juror #2” (2024) – source: Warner Bros. Pictures

Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)
Kill (Nikhil Nagesh Bhat)
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Order (Justin Kurzel)
Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)
It’s What’s Inside (Greg Jardin)
Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)
The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)

A weird list for a weird year in cinema. After only missing a few of the major Oscar players (Nickel Boys, The Brutalist, Babygirl and Queer), my final top 10 is composed of grim, downcast examinations of an America in decay offset by some playful but propulsive genre titles that kept this year exciting.  –Alex Lines

Payton McCarty-Simas

“I Saw the TV Glow” (2024) – source: A24

I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)
Red Rooms (Pascale Plante) 
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 
The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) 
Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)
The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols)
The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson)
Rap World (Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar)

Honorable mentions: 

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)
The Rule of Jenny Pen (James Ashcroft)
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez)
Strange Darling (J.T. Mollner)
The Vourdalak (Adrien Beau)

For all the recent industry prognostication about 2024 being the “year of the sequel,” the past 12 months have also been shaped by idiosyncratic, highly creative works great and small. With fewer mainstream releases to be found in the aftermath of last year’s strikes, films with a lower profile were able to shine at the multiplex, often helped along by notable support by smaller upstart distributors like MUBI, whose efforts have paid off during awards season. This year also provided a veritable banquet of fresh new horror films for aficionados like myself. Fans of the creepy stuff need only throw a severed finger to find unique low-budget or underseen mainstream horror movies of all stripes. All told, with only a handful of exceptions (two festival releases and a YouTube film), I was able to enjoy the majority of the movies on my list at my local AMC, despite the primacy of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. This democratization of arthouse filmmaking in mainstream spaces is, to me, an equally significant hallmark of 2024, and it’s worth celebrating.

The best news of all is that these 10 films (not to mention a set of honorable mentions) are only a handful of the wonderful and wildly distinct films that came out this year. Of course, as has been the case for years, there’s plenty for film lovers to be nervous about looking back on a year full of mega-mergers, “second screen content,” and corporate filmmaking. But oscillating between vibrant and unique new cinematic voices, from a goofy slice-of-life-as-a-burnout throwback (Rap World) to a Fellini-esque Italian drama shot through with magic-realism (the sensuous La Chimera) to a hauntingly sterile Quebecois techno-procedural (the eerie Red Rooms), to a raunchy lesbian neo-noir romp (Love Lies Bleeding), I at least felt spoiled for the choice.  –Payton McCarty-Simas

Mark McPherson

“Anora” (2024) – source: Neon

Anora (Sean Baker)
Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)
The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot)

If I had to describe the common theme of my movie list this year, it’s anger. The anger at the towering forces that make life so hard was at the heart of my picks. Anora wins out for being the loudest scream toward uneven power dynamics, where you want to bite and spit as much as Mikey Madison. Hers was the character I rooted most for this year as the woman who always got the last word and constantly humiliated the corrupt dufuses who deserved it. From the bigotry in The Brutalist to the rising theocracy of Dune: Part Two, there were always towering forces presented against the heroes of these films. Sometimes the heroes won, like in Furiosa, but sometimes it was through sacrifice, as in Nosferatu. Through it all, however, there were refreshing doses of intense romance in Challengers and laughs within Hundreds of Beavers. It’s not every year you can say the funniest film was a movie about slaughtering cartoonish beavers.  –Mark McPherson

Clement Tyler Obropta

“The Outrun” (2023) – source: The Outrun Film Ltd – Roy Imer / Sundance Institute

The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt)
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story (Charlie Hamilton-James)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
Problemista (Julio Torres)
Spermworld (Lance Oppenheim)
Kill Zone: Inside Gaza (Vanessa Bowles)
Miller’s Girl (Jade Halley Bartlett)
T-Blockers (Alice Maio Mackay)

I don’t really have the time (or money) to see every critical darling when it’s released, and it usually takes me until May of the following year to finish seeing everything. So while I do think that everything on this list deserves to be here, who’s to say that in a few months The Brutalist or Anora won’t edge out some of the more left-field choices?

Let’s start at the top: Nora Fingscheidt floored me with The Outrun, an alcoholism story that tackles its subject with sensitivity and visual flair and features Saiorse Ronan’s most powerful performance to date. It’s a singular piece of filmmaking that tells its story with emotionally driven editing, careful choreography, and dreamy landscape shots of the Scottish isles. If the world were a just place, The Outrun would be facing off for Best Picture with the movie about a fur-trapper killing hundreds of beavers.

A tiny National Geographic doc about a man who befriends an otter, Billy & Molly, is also stunning. Both Billy & Molly and The Outrun take advantage of Scotland’s gorgeous scenery, and Billy & Molly also benefits from crisp high-resolution wildlife photography from Charlie Hamilton-James and his team. (I moved to Scotland permanently in 2023, and both movies give me immense national pride.)

In a year where everyone was talking about how Challengers brought sex back into cinema, I’m surprised that I’m the only one who seems to love Miller’s Girl, a smart, erotic (and woman-directed!) drama with Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman. The other films I loved this year range from the technically excellent (Civil War, Nosferatu, and Spermworld) to some picks with little buzz behind them that told stories I’d never seen before (Problemista, Kill Zone: Inside Gaza, and T-Blockers). Special shoutout to Problemista, which feels like a panic attack in movie form. It is a film so specifically accurate and frustrating and dizzying that I don’t feel I ever need to see it, talk about it, or think about it ever again for as long as I live.  –Clement Tyler Obropta

Demetri Panos

“Wicked” (2024) – source: Universal Pictures

Jackson Schreiber

“The Substance” (2024) – source: MUBI

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
Anora (Sean Baker)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
Conclave (Edward Berger)
Wicked (Jon M. Chu)
Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)
Heretic (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods)
Strange Darling (J.T. Mollner)
Didi (Sean Wang)

It was a fantastic year for horror, and as a fan of the genre, my list is a bit saturated with it — there are even some I had to leave out (such as I Saw the TV Glow and Oddity). While a horror film takes the top spot for me, there was also plenty this year that uplifted me, like Didi, which checked every box for a deeply personal and moving coming-of-age story. Strange Darling, while not perfect, was a surprising whiplash of a film that may have made it here on shock factor alone. I loved Heretic’s philosophical discussion blended with horror elements — it was not the best horror of the year, but perhaps it was the most interesting. Nickel Boys stands out as both inventive and the most powerful entry on this list.

Wicked, which I was at risk of ignoring if not for the immense buzz, was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I love it, and you could feel the gargantuan effort by the cast and crew alike to put their all into making the film special. The incredibly sharp Conclave would probably take the “best” moniker for me, but not necessarily “favorite.”

The next three spots are occupied by films from three of the best directors working today, in my opinion. Nosferatu was a lock to make this list for me before I even saw it — it’s Robert Eggers’ best-looking film yet. Anora is an amazingly cast adventure through contemporary life. It’s wonderfully ridiculous, yet always feels natural and full of realism. While I didn’t love the first one, Dune: Part Two is an all-timer theater experience that manages to excel by practically every metric. And my favorite of the year, The Substance, is equal parts deranged and eye-popping. It felt like a blend of many different, interesting influences coming together to create something that really rocks.  –Jackson Schreiber

Kristy Strouse

“A Real Pain” (2024) – source: Searchlight Pictures

A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)
Wicked (Jon M. Chu)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Touch (Baltasar Kormákur)
The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Fresh Kills (Jennifer Esposito)
Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)
Anora (Sean Baker)

Honorable Mentions:

Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)
A Complete Unknown (James Mangold)
Conclave (Edward Berger)
Good One (India Donaldson)
Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
Saturday Night (Jason Reitman)
Skywalkers: A Love Story (Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina)
Thelma (Josh Margolin)

This has been a strange year when it comes to film: an up-and-down, all-over sort of mix. I had a harder time than usual narrowing my list down. But alas: I owe many of my best-of to Sundance 2024. Jesse Eisenberg’s familial com-dram A Real Pain made an imprint on me then and it still hasn’t faded: a true masterstroke. A Different Man has underwhelmed audiences to my shock, but it has some of the best performances of the year. Even Thelma and Kneecap remain amazing. The Substance was my kind of weird, and Wicked absolutely gorgeous (and a huge surprise for me). I also found comfort in indies like the heartfelt Touch, the bold Love Lies Bleeding, and the warmth of Between the Temples. Fresh Kills was another gem that’s been overlooked this year and one I’ll continue to champion. And Furiosa… well, it’s one of the best prequels I’ve seen, seamless in its ability to connect to one of the best action films in recent history.

Sometimes, true beauty is found in the unseen. There are many films I have yet to see from this year, but 2024 has been a unique year of film and one that I’ll continue to treasure. I am always searching for the best, and I will continue my search. May great film continue to reign.  –Kristy Strouse

Jake Tropila

“Close Your Eyes” (2023) – source: Film Movement

Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Red Rooms (Pascal Plante)
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)
Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)
Evil Does Not Exist (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)