I saw a post on Reddit recently where someone gave an overview of 298 movies that they had watched at the cinema in 2024. Very impressive number, is it not? Sadly (or perhaps gladly), I don’t have the stamina for that level of picture-house visitation. I watched 46 new films this year (some arguably first released in 2023) and a lot of those were through streaming. I feel like it wasn’t a very remarkable year in film, but coming after the year of Barbenheimer and the ‘wow’ releases from Scorsese, Spielberg and Nolan I guess 2023 was always a difficult year to follow. Denis Villeneuve did give a solid go at cinematic spectaculars with his Dune: Part Two earlier in the year, but nothing else in terms of big budget blockbusters really stood after that. The highest grossing films of the year have been Disney Pixar’s Inside Out 2 (haven’t seen it and not in any rush to), Disney Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine (insufferable and unfunny for the most part), Universal’s Despicable Me 4 (how many more of these do we need?), Disney’s Moana 2 (sure, why not?), and Universal’s Wicked (at last, a big movie that’s not a sequel!) I’ll stop at the top 5 mark because the rest of the top 10 is pretty miserable – spoiler: there are more sequels.

It seemed to be a successful year for independent films with many breaking through to a wider audience via theatre release and/or streaming after receiving accolades and plaudits at the various film festivals around the world. A few notables for me (I do admit not seeing that many) were: Late Night with the Devil, a simple but very smart and effective horror from Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes; Strange Darling, a deeply unsettling and twisting Mid-West thriller from JT Mollner and Giovanni Ribisi; and I Saw the TV Glow, a neon-lit ‘elevated horror’ that explores themes around the transgender experience from A24 and director Jane Schoenbrun.

To the festivals: Sean Baker followed up his burgeoning repertoire as an Americana genius with Anora, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Pedro Almodóvar followed up his already brimming repertoire as one of the greatest European directors of all time with The Room Next Door, which won the Golden Lion at Venice. Dahomey, a documentary from Mati Diop about France’s legacy of stolen material from West Africa, won the Golden Bear at Berlin. A Stephen King adaptation from director Mike Flanagan called The Life of Chuck won the People’s Choice Award at Toronto. None of these I have seen yet but they all come highly recommended, obviously.

Here are some films I finally got around to watching from 2023: Bottoms – a common complaint I hear around the internet these days is that there are not enough good comedy films like there used to be, and yet here we find one in plain sight, a gem from Emma Seligman. Reality – much madness occurs at the mere mention, let alone sight, of Sydney Sweeney, but here she gives the perfect performance in a re-enactment of an actual FBI audio recording of the at-home interrogation of Reality Winner over some leaked highly classified documents (no, its not about Trump) and its very good. The Beasts – possibly released first in 2022, but it doesn’t matter, this is an extraordinary film set on the Spanish side of its border with France where the local yokels psychologically and sometimes violently clash with a blow-in and his family. May December – Todd Haynes only makes good films and here he places us in the uncomfortable position of trying to figure out who is good and bad between a woman (Julianne Moore) who is married to a much younger man whom she started seeing when he was 13 and another woman (Natalie Portman) who has been tasked to play her in a clearly exploitative film about her life.

Like I always do, I want to finish off with the crème de la crème – my top 10 films of 2024. But before I do, I want to remind you that I have already reviewed one of my favourite films from the year here: Hayou Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron.

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The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin) – released in February 2024, running time: 132 minutes

A film based on a true story from the world of American wrestling may be off-putting to some, but Sean Durkin found one that is worth re-telling and putting on the big screen. The Von Erichs are an all-American wrestling family from Dallas – a dad who tried to win the highest award in heavyweight wrestling but failed, his silently-suffering but committed wife, and their four gifted sons who one-by-one get pulled into their father’s obsessive dream of leading at least one of them to ultimate victory in world wrestling. The story is permeated by constant tragedy, which makes this film hard to digest but it is very intriguing and watchable, and the performances, often very emotive-driven, are solidly good: ‘The Bear’ himself, Jeremy Allen White, as an aspiring discus thrower, Harris Dickinson as the ‘broken dreams’ alpha male dad, and a Hulk-looking Zac Efron as the most reasonable son who provides the film’s much-needed heart.

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Challengers (Luca Guadagnino) – released in September 2024, running time: 131 minutes

Much continues to be made about sex in film these days, or is it just that vapid columnists feel the need to constantly explain their opinion about it? Regardless, we are starting to see the concept of sex, sexuality, and ‘sexiness’ on film in more considered ways and in non-traditional formats, and this is no bad thing. Sometimes it is nauseatingly boring, such as in shows like Bridgerton, but here in one of the ‘sexiest films of the year,’ we find a love triangle between beautiful, young, fit people presented in an irresistibly compelling way. Indeed, they are all tennis players so you can expect a lot of sweat, working out, and making sex noises on the court. Sexual tension is everywhere. And that is basically the point. There is an intriguing plot and it twists and turns through a non-linear storyline. But what impressed me most was the way in which the film was choreographed, particularly in line with Trent Reznor’s typically brilliant and pumping score. It is kinetic film-making that we don’t see enough of these days.

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How to Have Sex (Molly Manning Walker) – released in February 2024, running time: 91 minutes

Speaking of sex, the Brits came out with an excellent film on the subject late last year. But more specifically (and responsibly) it is about young people’s contemporary approaches to sex. Let’s be clear, this is not a school sex education film, but rather in the same vein as the TV show Sex Education (and not at all like Euphoria), it provides an entertaining and funny lens on the excitements, the pressures and the pitfalls that come with presenting one’s sexuality when you are out in the world for the first time. Somewhat autobiographical for its young director, Molly Manning Walker, the film sets itself on that renowned partying (and once upon a time known more for its archaeology) island of Crete where a group of British 16-year-olds are experiencing their first holiday without their parents. Among several great raw performances, Mia McKenna-Bruce is the core of proceedings. Her quickly unravelling journey through a frightful labyrinthine full of older and same-aged party-goers, where trust and consent can be overwhelming concepts to grasp, is deftly controlled by Walker’s impressive direction.

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Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt) – released in August 2024, running time: 105 minutes

I watched Kneecap in the cinema, and throughout the screening there were two women below me carrying on as if they were was no one else watching. I mean literally rolling around and repeating jokes loudly to one another. It was fairly distracting. However, at the end they came up and apologised and said they just really enjoyed the film. I couldn’t argue with that, and really, I wasn’t that annoyed…I’m just getting older. Kneecap was a total hoot, and I imagine everyone involved with its making enjoyed it too. Indeed, the story of these three lads, however embellished the movie makes it, could only be an instant classic. Liam Óg Ó’hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó’Cairealláin and JJ Ó’Dochartaigh all play themselves in the Belfast-set tale of how they came to be known as the Irish Language Hip Hop trio, Kneecap. Sure, the film may get a bit too playful with the very complex socio-political context than it is willing to accept, but we are in no doubt that the world it inhabits is very much make-believe and at the end of the day the message it tries to impart is not about peace in Northern Ireland but more about an erosion of cultural heritage and language. Everything about Kneecap the act is about rebellious youthful energy, and the film does a superb job of pitching that to the masses, even if it might upset the Royal Family and its loyal subjects.

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Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass) – released in March 2024, running time: 104 minutes

Well now, this was quite the film. I am very much enjoying the revival of the pulpy thriller, of which this is. But its also a lot more. It has some magical-realism, and Kristen Stewart continues to provide us with intriguing characters in unforgettable films. She plays a gym manager in a back-water town on the edge of the desert, whose father is caught up in some shady business and whose sister is married to a horrible little domestic abuser. A vagabond bodybuilder rolls into town (played by actual bodybuilder Katy O’Brian) and they commence a relationship (but not before the bodybuilder prostitutes to the domestic abuser for cash). It’s a good start, and beyond that, things get more sex, murder and…well, weird. Director Rose Glass plays with Lynchian tones, experiments with some Cronenbergian body horror and pays homage to Tarantino-esque bloody set-pieces, and she makes something that works on its own. Also, Stewart and O’Brian are a great screen couple. This is definitely worth your time.

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Perfect Days (Wim Wenders) – released in February 2024, running time: 124 minutes

Taking the foot off the gas here, and wandering over to Tokyo for a bit of downtime. With Perfect Days, the legendary director Wim Wenders has produced his best film in a long time. Here we have a subtle film, one that has no assured course of action but offers more of a snapshot of someone’s life. In that snapshot, we are transported into something very profound. Hirayama (played masterfully by Kōji Yakusho) is a middle-aged public-toilet cleaner who leads a very simple and apparently satisfying life, where he drives around in his little van listening to his prized cassette tapes of rock legends such as Lou Reed and The Rolling Stones. He takes photos on his ‘old tech’ digital camera. He pops into little street-side kiosks for dinner and watches baseball. And he reads books by Faulkner and Aya Kōda. There are fleeting interactions with other characters, and they basically serve to show Hirayama’s deep warmth and humanity. There are subtle messages about how people cling to the past and some obvious implications that Wenders disapproves of some modern sensibilities. But what stands out mostly is the quiet beauty found in the ‘silent’ moments.

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The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) – released in September 2024, running time: 141 minutes

I cannot recommend this heavy dollop of phantasmagoria to everyone, but it is what it is: an astounding cinematic vision and experience that communicates a straight-forward rebuke of the entertainment industry and its continuing hideous treatment of ageing women. There are flashes of cult classic influences everywhere: the general structure and vibe of Requiem for a Dream is an obvious one, while David Cronenberg’s intellectual treatment of the body as grotesquerie is wholly borrowed here. Peter Bradshaw lauded the film in his review in The Guardian, glibly referring to it as ‘cheerfully silly.’ Whereas it does play with the absurd, it has an admirable structure, a commitment to new types of horror, and a fearlessness in going all the way (something that is often hindered in other films of this ilk). Demi Moore provides a surprising ‘all-in’ performance as the throw-away ‘aged’ celebrity (she’s meant to be only 50!), while Dennis Quaid calls upon his apparently real-life Trump-supporting persona to give a perfectly OTT, Joker-smiling take as the misogynistic villain. I cannot say this is a treat to watch, but it has the hallmarks of being a future cult classic treat.

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The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) – released in February 2024, running time: 105 minutes

Films on World War II and the Holocaust are numerous, but when you think there are no new ways of documenting the horrors and brutalities of those years something like this comes along. There have been many films that offer a ‘Nazi point-of-view,’ but I don’t think anyone has really explored it in such a compelling and affecting way. Enter visionary Jonathan Glazer with a copy of Martin Amis’ 2014 novel under his arm. Glazer focuses on the story of Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his family who seemingly live the perfect life in a cottage with ponds and gardens located adjacent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where Höss works during the day. This is an extremely unsettling film but it is neither grisly nor gruesome. The horrors lie in the edges of the frame (literally). We are presented with scenic images of the family Höss enjoying sunny days in the garden with non-Jewish prisoners tending to the flowers, while in the distance across the high boundary wall we notice black smoke billowing from chimney stacks – I felt physically sick when I noticed this for the first time. Then, there are barely audible sounds of trains, gunshots and screaming as the mother Höss speaks about mundane things with her husband and children. Glazer allows room for the audience to take everything in at almost every moment. It is masterful film-making.

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The Holdovers (Alexander Payne) – released in January 2024, running time: 133 minutes

Moving to something more uplifting and on to Alexander Payne’s best film since Sideways. The Holdovers is an instant Christmas classic – and I mean somewhere between Home Alone and Die Hard type of Christmassy, in that it is an adult film but the whole family could well enjoy it too. Paul Giamatti never disappoints and with one weirdly non-moving eye, he controls this lovely little Christmas holiday tale with a grumpy, stubbornly intellectual, and inevitably generous characterisation. He plays a teacher with a chip on his shoulder in a boys boarding school located somewhere in snow-covered Massachusetts in 1970. The students and teachers leave for the Christmas break but events conspire for him to get the unenviable task of care-taking all the students who have to stick around. Alongside Giamatti’s hugely enjoyable character are equally well acted parts by Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa. They become a trio that offer the audience as much warmth as they do challenges. Its really just a delightfully funny, down-to-earth, excellently-made, feel-good film, and it need not be taken too seriously. The setting and the 1970’s feel do make you believe that the film may have come straight from the archives, such is the attention to detail and the subtle film craft on show.

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All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh) – released in January 2024, running time: 105 minutes

Andrew Haigh has managed to convey deep human emotion perfectly in all his films thus far, but with All of Us Strangers he has hit upon a masterpiece. Partially based on a 1980s Japanese novel by Taichi Yamada, Haigh transports the setting of that novel to England in the same decade and calls upon his own experiences growing up as a gay person in a generally homophobic society to produce a beautiful, romantic, metaphysical, and often tragic tale of two lovers. Irish actors Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal embody the necessary emotive heft that Haigh’s screenplay calls for in the most extraordinary way, both fully committed to the often strange and ambiguous story. Scott’s character takes centre stage as he journeys (almost Kafkaesque) through London and mopes around his flat, unclear as to what it is he is in search for. Then, Mescal enters and changes his whole perception. Love is at the core of the film and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘The Power of Love’ aptly provides closure – I would have happily included this as an entry in my ‘Power of Love’ series from a few years back. It’s up there with the greatest love stories of all time.

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