What constitutes a "2024" movie for the purposes of this list is a bit subjective. Most played theatrically, some went straight to streaming. Two might be categorized as documentary miniseries, but I consider them films (and one was a highlight of the 2024 New York Film Festival). A few will have a theatrical release in 2025, others might continue to float around the festival circuit. Who knows? These are all films I saw for the first time this year.
Time and access always prevent me from giving everything I enjoyed a second watch, and I usually only know if I really like something during a rewatch. I could have easily included Winner, The Apprentice, Bird, The People’s Joker, Between The Temples, Oddity, By The Stream, Rap World, No Other Land, Booger, Hundreds Of Beavers, Juror #2, Rebel Ridge, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, Yacht Rock, Kinds Of Kindness, Chasing Chasing Amy and/or The Shadowless Tower. Not too many of my old favorite auteurs appear on the list this year, although I was happy to see that a couple of 81-year olds, David Cronenberg and Mike Leigh, directed their best films in many years.
I wasn’t able to catch up with Born Innocent: The Red Kross Story, Subject: Filmmaking, Queer, The Last Showgirl, Steppenwolf, Flow, The Sparrow in the Chimney, House Of The Seasons, Sing Sing, The Girl with the Needle, Kalak, The Successor, Only the River Flows, The Featherweight, Agent Of Happiness, Việt and Nam, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl, The Devil’s Bath, Problemista, Stress Position, Stopmotion, Exhuma, How To Have Sex, Kneecap, Bookworm, The Bikeriders, Daddio, Mother, Deadpool & Wolverine, Couch, Coup De Chance, Lisa Frankenstein, Riddle Of Fire, Time Cut, Universal Language, A Grand Mockery, Conclave, The Visitor, Disco Boy, Pamfir, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Sujo, Terrestrial Verses, The Goldman Case, This Life Of Mine, Wicked, The Other Way Around, Messy, Gladiator II, Lousy Carter, Chime, Family Portrait and Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, among many, many others. I’m sure my list would include some of these if I had.
I'm not going to write up a list of the best physical media releases, I'm still trying to find time to go through all of the discs of new-to-me movies from companies like Mondo Macabro, Canadian International Pictures, Severin, American Genre Film Archive, Radiance, Kino Lorber, Criterion, Umbrella, Imprint, Indicator, Vinegar Syndrome, etc. but I'll just say that any year that includes the Blu-Ray (let alone 4K) debuts of (off the top of my head) L' amour fou, Little Darlings, The Music Lovers, First Love, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Hollywood 90028, Not A Pretty Picture, Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Trick Or Treat, The Hitcher, The Legend Of Hillbilly John, Bad Company, Heavenly Bodies, Through The Looking Glass, Deep In The Heart, Happiness, The Ghost Dance, Russ Meyer's Vixen trilogy, Werkmeister Harmonies, Lone Star, High Crime, Daisy Miller, Bully, La Marge, The Linguini Incident, Gummo and Kira Muratov's Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell, not to mention the collected works of Frank Capra at Columbia and first uncensored home video release of Who Killed Teddy Bear?, is a pretty exciting one. And I’m happy for fans of The Keep.
And it was an especially good year for film-related books too, given that we now have Cockfight: A Fable Of Failure (Kier-La Janisse), I Spit On Your Celluloid: The History Of Women Directing Horror Movies (Heidi Honeycutt), Revolution In 35mm: Political Violence And Resistance In Cinema From The Arthouse To The Grindhouse, 1960-1990 (Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan), Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema (Willow Catelyn Maclay and Caden Mark Gardner), Feeding The Monster (Anna Bogutskaya), The Sweetest Taboo (Erica Shultz), The World Is Yours: The Story Of Scarface (Glenn Kenny), David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials (Violet Lucca), The Soul Of Wes Craven (Jospeh Maddrey), A Whole Bag Of Crazy Part Deux: One Last Toke (Pete Chiarella), The Path To Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story (Sam Wasson), The Cinema Coven: Witches, Witchcraft and Women's Filmmaking (Alexandra Heller-Nicholas), Nozone - Reviews Of Art, Cult, and Genre Cinema, 2003-2012 (Tim Lucas), Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman's Skin (Keri O'Shea), Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers (Jared Stearns) and memoirs from Griffin Dunne (The Friday Afternoon Club) and Al Pacino (Sonny Boy).
2024 was the year I lost my dad, Bob Ackerman, after many difficult months of protracted illness. And we lost my friend Lee Gambin, the warmly effusive author, film/television historian and founder of the Cinemaniacs film collective in Melbourne. Does grief play any role in what I responded to most in cinema this year? I hadn't really thought of it until putting the list together, but I suppose a theme of loss carries through quite a few of them.
In alphabetical order:
All We Imagine As Light (written and directed by Payal Kapadia)
Anora (written and directed by Sean Baker)
The Beekeeper (written by Kurt Wimmer, directed by David Ayer)
The Brutalist (written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, directed by Brady Corbet)
Castration Movie Anthology i. Traps (written and directed by Louise Weard)
Christmas Eve In Miller's Point (written by Eric Berger and Tyler Thomas Taormina, directed by Tyler Thomas Taormina)
Cruel, Usual, Necessary: The Passion of Silvio Narizzano (directed by Daniel Kremer)
Daughters (directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton)
The Dead Thing (written by Elric Kane and Webb Wilcoxen, directed by Elric Kane)
Eephus (written by Michael Basta, Nate Fisher and Carson Lund, directed by Carson Lund)
Enter The Clones Of Bruce (directed by David Gregory)
Exhibiting Forgiveness (written and directed by Titus Kaphar)
The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed (written and directed by Joanna Arnow)
Fresh Kills (written and directed by Jennifer Esposito)
Good One (written and directed by India Donaldson)
Green Border (written by Agnieszka Holland, Maciej Pisa and Gabriela Lazarkiewicz, directed by Agnieszka Holland)
Hard Truths (written and directed by Mike Leigh)
Hoard (written and directed by Luna Carmoon)
Kings From Queens: The Run DMC Story (directed by Kirk Fraser)
Love Lies Bleeding (written by Weronika Tofilska and Rose Glass, directed by Rose Glass)
Luther: Never Too Much (directed by Dawn Porter)
Matt And Mara (written and directed by Kazik Radwanski)
Misericordia (written and directed by Alain Guiraudie)
My Old Ass (written and directed by Megan Park)
My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air In Moscow (directed by Julia Loktev)
Nickel Boys (written by RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, directed by RaMell Ross)
Oh, Canada (written and directed by Paul Schrader)
The Order (written by Zach Baylin, directed by Justin Kurzel)
Peak Season (written and directed by Steven Cantor and Henry Loevner)
Pictures Of Ghosts (written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Property (written and directed by Daniel Bandeira)
Red Rooms (written and directed by Pascal Plante)
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig (written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof)
The Shrouds (written and directed by David Cronenberg)
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (written by Johan Grimonprez and Daan Milius, directed by Johan Grimonprez)
Strange Darling (written and directed by JT Mollner)
This Closeness (written and directed by Kit Zauhar)
A Traveler’s Needs (written and directed by Hong Sang-soo)
Turn In The Wound (directed by Abel Ferrara)
Vulcanizadora (written and directed by Joel Potrykus)
