What a year. It’s that time on the calendar when a site like RogerEbert.com is asked to distill the entire year to a list, but the best films of 2024 feel more difficult to summarize than most. There’s a remarkable diversity of tone, genre, and voice in the 20 films featured below, but what do they say about the state of the artistic union? Themes can be hard to pick out, although most of them feel deeply unsettled and dissatisfied with the staus quo. Perhaps more than anything, these ten remind us of the unpredictability of film. A future classic could come from an established master like Mike Leigh or Agnieszka Holland, or it could also come like a bolt of lightning from the next leaders of the form like Jane Schoenbrun or RaMell Ross. One of the best things about loving movies is never knowing for sure when you’re going to see something unforgettable. That’s how we felt about these 20 films, assembled by blending the top ten lists of the regular critics on this site. Enjoy. And watch more movies.
Runner-Ups: “Challengers,” “Conclave,” “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” “Flow,” “Hundreds of Beavers,” “The Monk and the Gun,” “The Room Next Door,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” “Sing Sing,” and “Universal Language”
10. “Green Border“
Agnieszka Holland came up as a director during the tail end of the so-called “Polish New Wave,” an imposed umbrella under which some formidable filmmakers roosted. Much of their work was collected by Martin Scorsese for a touring retrospective and three remarkable Blu-ray box sets, the first of which included an early Holland film, the ironical and daring “Provincial Actors,” from 1979. It’s heartening that several filmmakers that wave are still making meaningful work — Krystof Zanussi and Jerzy Skolimowski have turned out notable films over the past few years.
Holland’s work seems the most vital. While her career took her to Hollywood for a spell, her latest picture, “Green Border,” is fully and knottily engaged with her homeland. Shot in stark and vibrant black and white, the movie lays out an appalling situation with unsentimental bluntness. Syrian refugees are rooked by crass Belarus opportunists into crossing into Poland, where border guards almost invariably turn them back. It is likely not a coincidence that Holland’s parents were journalists: the filmmaker’s eye for telling detail is reportorial in the best sense. The facts the movie presents would tend to lead to a pessimistic perspective, and Holland doesn’t pull punches; nevertheless, she ends the movie on a note of compassion that enables viewers to imagine a better world, one in which we all looked out for each other. – Glenn Kenny
Available on VOD and in the Kino Film Collection.
9. “The Beast“
We carry the ghosts of our pain with us through our lives; what Bertrand Bonello’s latest (his sprawling, daring adaptation of a Henry James novel) presupposes is, what if those ghosts stay with us through the next? “The Beast,” coated with shades of everyone from David Lynch to David Cronenberg, tackles that question in the form of a magical machine that can “purify” your DNA by sneaking through your past lives and cutting out the sources of your strongest emotions. For Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux), a woman living in a soulless AI future intent on purging inefficiency, those emotions tie closely to an intergenerational, time-skipping romance with George/Louis (George MacKay). First, we see them as star-crossed lovers in Belle Epoque France, then as a stalker/stalkee relationship between an Elliot Rodger wannabe and an aspiring actress in 2023 LA. Think “Cloud Atlas” and “Eternal Sunshine,” threaded through with the filmmaker’s anxieties about conveying these emotions on screen (as the green-screen opening seems to indicate).
As inscrutable as “The Beast” can seem on first watch, that first scene becomes a Rosetta Stone to interpreting the rest. It’s a film suffused with existential dread, picking at the scabs of loves lost and opportunities squandered. For Gabrielle and Bonello, identity is something to be performed along the scripts we’re given; rewrite the script, we become someone entirely different. And even if that makes us feel better (or, at least, stops us from feeling worse), isn’t there something deeply tragic about that? – Clint Worthington
Available on VOD
8. “All We Imagine as Light“
Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” is the story of three women struggling to live fulfilling lives in the often alienating bustle of Mumbai. Prabha (Kani Kusruti), Anu (Divya Prabha), and Parvati (Chhaya Kadam) are all at different life stages: Prabha was essentially abandoned by her husband, and she lives in limbo, still married but alone. Restless young Anu is secretly dating a Muslim boy (Hridu Haroon) and Parvati, a widow, faces eviction because her name isn’t on the ownership papers. Each situation contains a political and social critique, of course, but Kapadia does not underline. “All We Imagine as Light” is poetic and visually mesmerizing, the film filled with a sense of insomniac yearning.
Kapadia establishes an almost Edward-Hopper-esque atmosphere, the night sparked with lights, the crowds intensifying the isolation. In the final act, the film transforms, shaking off its former self, letting in a shimmer of magical realism. Magic leads to a deeper understanding and acceptance. In the lingering final shot, colored lights gleam through the night, a vision of fragile and hard-won peace.
“All We Imagine as Light” won the Grand Prix at Cannes in May (the first win for an Indian film in 30 years). “All We Imagine as Light” has won worldwide acclaim, but The Film Federation of India submitted Kiran Rao’s “Laapataa Ladies” for Oscar consideration. Ravi Kottarakara, president of the FFI, explained the unpopular decision of the all-male jury: “[With “All We Imagine as Light”] the jury said that they were watching a European film taking place in India, not an Indian film taking place in India.” His comments highlight some of the faultlines in Indian cinema, but in an industry robuts enough to create both “Laapataa Ladies” and “All We Imagine as Light” in the same year, this is a triumph.
Kapadia is carving out new exciting spaces for Indian film, bringing her dreamy vision to a larger audience who thrill to the delicate tapestry of relationships, the subtle interplay of atmosphere and character. Kapadia is only 38. She’s just getting started. – Sheila O’Malley
In Theaters Now
7. “Hard Truths“
Like it or not, family is forever. That’s one of several “Hard Truths” in Mike Leigh’s latest, a clear-eyed character study that’s delivered with the gentle firmness of a loving parent disciplining a child. Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a full-grown woman, and a parent herself. As a result, her stormy moods — if you can call them that; this particular squall never lifts — radiate outwards, affecting not only her quality of life, but also those of her husband, sister, and adult son. (And not just them: Checkout clerks and dental hygienists hate to see Pansy coming.)
Compassionately, but from a distance, Leigh observes the ripple effects of Pansy’s paranoid anger and hyper-vigilant abrasiveness, which, over time, we realize are coming from a place of torturous psychic pain. Jean-Baptiste’s masterful sense of when to build up Pansy’s walls, and when to let them down, brings breathtaking pathos to a character who is extremely uncomfortable in her own skin.
Beyond just a powerhouse performance, however, what makes “Hard Truths” great is its ability to locate the universal within the specific. This is the first time in his 53-year career that Leigh has made a film with a Black lead, and the story is grounded in a specific immigrant community, in a specific part of London, at a specific moment in history. But, although Leigh takes pains not to diagnose his protagonist, anyone who’s ever seen a loved one suffer from undiagnosed mental illness will recognize the hurt behind this “difficult” woman’s actions. – Katie Rife
In Theaters Now
6. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga“
It will confuse future film lovers that there was a time when “Furiosa” was considered a disappointment. Torn apart by social media vultures that went after the CGI in the trailer before actually seeing the film, this masterful sequel never had a chance to be judged outside of a culture overwhelmed by mediocre prequels. George Miller has been here before. With a pig. Miller’s “Babe: Pig in the City” was a commercial bomb, failing to recapture the popularity of its award-winning predecessor despite a few rave reviews (including Roger’s top ten and Gene’s #1 of the year).
Here we are again in 2024 with a daring, riveting, breathtaking sequel to a George Miller Oscar winner that too many critics and viewers allowed to speed by. In an era when the blockbuster seems to be struggling (if you’re not named Villeneuve or Nolan), leave it to George Miller to deconstruct it, highlighting how great action filmmaking is built on desperate characters, people willing to put their lives in jeopardies to get what they need. The people of “Furiosa” live in on the edge of society and sanity, and Miller uses that volatility to craft a story of Shakespearean intensity.
In a film of masterful risks, he connects this story to “Fury Road” with not a massive set piece but a lengthy dialogue scene between Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, doing career-best work in one of the best performances of the year) in which greed meets vengeance. It is a reminder that George Miller can do anything when he’s desperate enough to make it epic. – Brian Tallerico
Available on Max and VOD
5. “Anora“
Within the glittery escapism of private jets and luxury hotels, the most dazzling element of “Anora” is one you can’t even see: the deft tonal balance Sean Baker achieves as writer, director and editor. He’s always been great at this, but here he’s even more masterful than in his earlier films including “Tangerine” and “The Florida Project.”
Baker has long been interested in exploring the lives of people on the margins, chasing the American Dream, and he does it with understated empathy. In telling the story of an exotic dancer who gets whisked away in a whirlwind romance with the son of a Russian oligarch, Baker gives us hilarity within the danger and redemption within the heartache. These conflicting instincts exist in the same moment in such a seemingly effortless way, it feels like a magic trick.
At the film’s center, Mikey Madison is more than prepared for the movie’s many physical and emotional challenges. She’s a wildly charismatic force of nature as Ani: feisty and tough on the outside and always ready with a comeback or a punch, but vulnerable and tender on the inside. She thinks her relationship with the young and impulsive Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) is her ticket to financial freedom, but it’s clear that she comes to care about him genuinely. Madison’s work is reminiscent of the great Giulietta Masina in Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria,” and it has duly made her a star.
But Ani’s relationship with Yura Borisov, as one of the thugs hired to keep her away from Vanya, ends up being the film’s stealthy heart. These two characters truly see each other in a way no one else does, and the lengthy, silent scene they share at the film’s finale is both a high-wire act and a gut punch. Either way, it’ll take your breath away. – Christy Lemire
In Theaters Now
4. “No Other Land“
For many people, stories about what’s happening in Palestine only intermittently disrupts scrolling through an endless feed – if it even breaks through the algorithm at all. But as the brilliant documentary “No Other Land” patiently explains to outsiders, this conflict is generations old.
Set in the region of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, the film details the fight against Israel’s military after it rezones a local cluster of peaceful villages into a training ground, stripping residents of their ancestral lands and systematically demolishing their homes. We watch as families struggle to save their loved ones, their shelters, their memories. In-between scenes of recent cruelty, we hear from Basal Adra, one of the film’s directors and a local activist who shares his family’s home movies and stories, including that his earliest memory of his father was watching him arrested at a protest.
Adra and co-directors Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Balla, and Rachel Szor witness the erasure of a community by a thousand cuts: one house destroyed, one checkpoint blocking medical access, one arrest to scare a dissenter. Yet, the documentary is also a tribute to the spirit of resiliency and love these families have for one another as they rally around every neighbor in need.
Watching the culmination of this aggression is hard to stomach, but audiences cannot say “we didn’t know” after watching a movie like “No Other Land.” It’s worth noting this film, which you’ll hear about from many year-end lists, still lacks a U.S. distributor, making its message all the more important to seek out. “No Other Land” is not a documentary easily forgotten, nor is it easy to look away and keep scrolling after the credits. – Monica Castillo
Awaiting wide release and streaming distribution.
3. “I Saw the TV Glow“
One of the most prevalent and frustrating questions about “I Saw the TV Glow” concerns its genre: is this trans-themed coming-of-age drama really a horror movie? Well, yeah. It’s a sometimes tragic and mostly romantic mood piece whose enchanting, destabilizing ambiguity reflects a discomfort with narrative tidiness.
In some interviews about “I Saw the TV Glow,” writer/director Jane Schoenbrun (“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”) talks about the essentially “liminal” headspace of their haunted lead protagonist Owen, initially played by Ian Foreman and then later by Justice Smith. That indeterminate setting is where both Owen and the movie live, more so than the movie’s suburban New Jersey locations or Owen’s favorite queer- and/or adolescent-friendly TV shows from 1990s, like “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Twin Peaks,” and “The X-Files.”
Owen’s attachment to his favorite TV show, “The Pink Opaque,” comes freighted with both a world-defining wrong-ness and an eerie beauty, a complex knot of emotions that colors his relationship with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), the only other person that seems to understand how Owen feels.
So even if you’re uninterested or unaware of the movie’s (pretty clear) subtext, there’s a fair chance that you’ll still be able to not only connect with Owen but with his innate sense that the things he sees in “The Pink Opaque”—and that time, and that friendship—reflect the stomach-churning dread and flickering lure of a time capsule in which we can simultaneously bury and maybe, if we’re lucky, also disinter ourselves. – Simon Abrams
On Max and VOD.
2. “Nickel Boys“
It’s quite a feat to take an innately dire subject and tell a joyous story about it. Colton Whitehead managed it in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Nickel Boys. Filmmaker RaMell Ross does it again, in his own way, in adapting Whitehead’s book for the big screen (which is ideally where it should be seen, although most viewers will watch it at home). Set in segregated mid-last-century Florida, in its heart it’s about a relationship between two young men. One is the bright, sensitive Elwood (Ethan Herisse), who gets arrested while accepting a ride from a wanted man and sent to a Dickensian reform school called Nickel Academy. The other is Turner (Brandon Wilson), who’s already in the reformatory when Elwood arrives; he’s a much harder, more seasoned character, completely removed from Elwood’s (unfounded) optimism that the darkest days of the Civil Rights era are behind them and that something better lies ahead. Intriguingly, both Elwood and Turner are mostly removed from each other, with their mutual understanding being communicated mainly through shared glances at the school.
What’s most impressive is the way the movie reimagines the storytelling of its prismatic source novel, not just the story itself. From the opening montage of Elwood as a boy, which has the euphoric, nostalgia-saturated electricity of the opening section of “Born on the Fourth of July” and the first hour of Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” through the subsequent two hours, which switch between deep past, past and present in a nonlinear cascade of scenes, moments and images (including still photos of the segregated south and the prisons therein), “Nickel Boys” treats its central relationship as the perceptual anchor in a whirlwind of information and feeling, conveying how hard it is just to survive this harsh world without letting it demoralize or destroy you. – Matt Zoller Seitz
In Theaters on December 13th.
1. “The Brutalist”
I often find my faith in contemporary American filmmaking shaken. Our potential for spontaneity, daring and imagination are dulled by underuse. The curiosity in the complexities of the human experience, building and breaking reality, pulsating with vitality and stretching the limits of the heart, feels lacking. When I’m at my most low, I think the death knell of a certain kind of filmmaking has finished ringing. But then a towering epic like “The Brutalist” appears.
Our top film of 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” is a grand and tenacious cinematic reawakening whose simple logline suggests a cautionary American dream akin to “The Godfather” or “There Will Be Blood.” Emerging from the bowels of a ship from which the Statue of Liberty’s positioning is skewed, Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody) arrives in America and works in his cousin’s lackluster furniture store until he is discovered and hired by wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) to build a brutalist community center in memory of his deceased mother. There are long awaited reunions: László reunites with his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy)—and the deconstruction and reconstruction of myths: from the promise of America’s post-war boom as a land of acceptance and opportunity to a building that is used to guide the legacy of loss, power, and a people.
This is a film whose thematic heft recalls concrete. It stands as an anti-capitalist work, an endorsement of the creative soul, and yes, a commentary on this country’s role in stoking modern Zionism. Its orchestral score is steady and booming. Its performances—from a tragic Brody to a sinister Pearce—are parables of a country; the sprawling structure is as elemental to cinema’s ability to span and inhabit every walk of life as the dust is to the earth. “The Brutalist” isn’t just the epic of 2024. It restores hope in American moviemaking. – Robert Daniels
In Theaters on December 20th.