Top Films of 2024

 Top Films of 2024

Honorable Mentions:

Dune: Part Two - Dir. Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve's sequel to his 2021 sci-fi epic "Dune" continued the story of Paul Atreides and his ascension to become the spiritual and political leader of the natives of the planet Arrakis. The film is nothing short of visually breathtaking, as Villeneuve fills the screen with lush, engaging images. For mainstream general audiences, this is the kind of direction and cinematography that needs to continue to be cultivated. This space epic has the making to become a sci-fi classic for years to come. With its stacked cast, vast world-building, and visual lushness, "Dune: Part Two" has what it takes to be the biggest blockbuster of the year.

Furiosa - Dir. George Miller

Extending his "Mad Max" film series to the backstory of the character of Furiosa from "Mad Max: Fury Road," George Miller once again brings us back into the Wasteland. In this post-apocalyptic world of survival and chaos, a young girl seeks revenge on the man who killed her mother. "Furiosa" mirrors the aesthetics of "Fury Road," but is an entirely separate story all together. While "Fury Road" is a chase film, "Furiosa" is a revenge epic. Anya Taylor-Joy plays the young Furiosa, quietly seething with rage and resentment in a world of unimaginable horror and cruelty. 

Megalopolis - Dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola audacious "Megalopolis" is a film that should be on everyone's "Honorable Mention" list for the year, not because it is something of the upmost quality. Rather, the sheer daring and audacity to make something so bonkers and baffling, while also maintaining some semblance of artistic innovation. It's a film so intoxicatingly disorienting in its execution, performances, and plot that you can't help but ponder the film well after viewing. Is the film bad? Well, certainly. The film almost feels as if it is intentionally trying to be as bad as audaciously possibly while synonymously taking itself with the upmost seriousness. The tone that births forth from this concoction is something unlike anything cinema has seen before and almost certainly will never see again. 

RANKED: 

5. Emilia Perez - Dir. Jacques Audiard

"Emilia Perez," a film that centers on a Mexican cartel leader who decides to restart her life with a gender-affirming operation, is more than meets the eye. Because of its gender-blending subject matter, the film decides to parallel this with a genre-bending output. The film is a domestic drama, a straight-up thriller, and even a surprising musical. The carousel of blending doesn't stop there, as the film is a French-produced, Spanish speaking, American actor filled, Mexican focused film. The complete disregard for order and structure is center to the film's existence, especially its thematic plot devices that wants to take down the established order that exists in our current world full of violence and oppression. The array of what this film could be and what it is completely undermines the expectations for film structure and film cohesion and for that, it becomes all the more engaging and notable. 

4. The Substance - Dir. Coralie Fargeat

When one thinks about the subjective experience of being a modern woman, what's the one film genre that comes to mind that would best encapsulate that? If you said 'body horror,' then "The Substance" is the film for you. The film centers on an aging fitness star who attempts to become 'young again' with the help of the mysterious substance. One week, she is her current aging self. The next, she is a young woman again. Problems begin to emerge, however, when the two sides of herself begin to take advantage of one another. "The Substance" is full of grotesque and nightmarish imagery that seems to encapsulate many aspects of the female experience and all the horrors and anxieties that come with it. It is a horrifying, grotesque nightmare to be a woman, especially with the current beauty standards aided and abetted by Hollywood, advertisements, and more damagingly, social media. With "The Substance," French director Coralie Fargeat is able to demonstrate how subjectively damaging these notions are and how it deforms and abuses the psychology of women everywhere. 

3. Challengers - Dir. Luca Guadagnino

Centering on a love triangle between three insanely talented tennis competitors, one begins to wonder whether the characters are discussing tennis or romance in Luca Guadagnino's sports romance "Challengers." The balance between attraction and competition runs rampant in this film, as the viewer bounces between the affections of its characters, between varying timelines, and between who you root for and sympathize with. It's a tale of passion and drive, all encircling around the lives of young people trying to find out what to make of their lives and how the sport they're playing fulfils them. "Challengers" is an utterly captivating romance and sports film that managers to pull you into its web of affections and overall competitive spirit.

2. Kinds of Kindness - Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

After his most commercially viable film, last year's "Poor Things," Yorgos Lanthimos goes right back to his typical style of audience-alienating absurdism with "Kinds of Kindness." Bringing back some of his usual players like Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley, Lanthimos also enlists Jesse Plemons, Joe Alwyn, Hong Chau, and Mamoudou Athie. "Kinds of Kindness" is three episodic stories of people trying desperately to prove their love or demand love in return. However, all of the behaviors of the characters only ever seem to stem from selfishness based on delusional and warped perceptions. Filled with Lanthimosian absurdist logic and structure, the film is like a Rorschach test for the viewer to project how their own personal relationships to others parallels to the relationships found in the film. Lanthimos sets these absurd scenarios in present day and makes this notion ever-present, which only points more to how our contemporary landscape reflects these cold and hollow characters desperate to find connection to someone or something. All the while, nothing they do is ever for anyone else's benefit. Rather, it is to satiate their own restless need to feel safe and secure in their own warped reality. It's a film that won't leave you soon after watching and will continue to rattle around in the corners of your mind.

1. Anora - Dir. Sean Baker

With the 2024 entry into his filmography, Sean Baker takes his typical neo-realist style of documenting a fiction narrative around the lower class echelon of American society, and pushes his style to newer, greater heights with "Anora." Centering on a young exotic dancer who gets swept away by romance with the 21-year-old son of a rich and powerful Russian oligarch, the film details the bitter halt to the aspirations of its characters. The film revolves around themes of authenticity, and more specifically, the truth about one's self and one's circumstances. The array of characters that come into our protagonist's life, including the protagonist herself, all try to be a version of themselves that they are not. They posture, they have expectations, and they want better circumstances for themselves. However, there is a difference between the person you project to be and the authentic person you really are. There is a difference between your desired destination and the circumstances you find yourself in. In the current model of society, economics, and politics, we find ourselves trapped by our situations in contemporary life, dreaming and aspiring for more, both for our circumstances and who we are as human beings. Baker's film takes the format of a neo-realist screwball comedy and injects a sense of tragedy into its story that sweeps you off your feet only to hit a brick wall by the end.