Maybe we should start calling this feature the Top 10 Fiction Films. I don’t include documentaries in this list anymore because I give them their own separate listicle. That’s how I organize things so that I can inform you, dear reader, about more terrific movies in my end-of-year coverage. So, in no particular order, keep an eye out for my list of best documentaries of 2024 as well as performances, enjoy this summary of the best achievements in fiction, and Merry Christmas to you.
1.) I wish I knew what my professor of feminist film theory thought about Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror masterwork. He’s now a man, I just found out recently, and he would have a field day with this. Then again, so did I. The year’s most disgusting movie was a critique of unrealistic beauty standards, a memento mori meditation on aging, and the ultimate vehicle for Demi Moore. The Substance wasn’t subtle, but then, this ain’t exactly the time for subtlety. Spewing 36,000 gallons of fake blood over an audience (and electorate) who thinks that “pretty girls should always smile” seems like an appropriate response.
2.) The discourse about Mohammad Rasoulof’s thriller has understandably been about how the Iranian director shot his movie in secret and had to flee his country afterwards. You don’t have to know anything about that, though, to appreciate this epic yarn about a prominent judge who himself becomes a target of Iran’s theocracy and ends up re-creating the Islamic Republic in miniature in his own home. As our country threatens to slip into religious dictatorship, The Seed of the Sacred Fig offers some valuable pointers about how to survive one.
3.) I saw six films on transgender subjects this past year, and Jane Schoenbrun’s spooky, anti-nostalgia I Saw the TV Glow was the best. The director used a variety of cinematic techniques (including adolescent doodles in the margins of the frame) to infuse their movie about trans identity and TV fandom with a numinous unreality. A cisgender filmmaker could have made this film, but it wouldn’t have been so ineffably alienated. Schoenbrun also stopped the movie dead for a musical performance by Phoebe Bridgers, and I don’t mind one bit.
4.) Vulture recently ran a hilarious article on how to interpret any Oscar-contending film as having an anti-Trump message. That certainly applies here with Wicked, but I’m putting Jon M. Chu’s musical on this list for its brass tacks: the direction, the choreography, the performances, the production design, and the music. It all came together so beautifully that the dual cameos by Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel served as a delightful finishing touch. Just when the popcorn crowd was thirsting for a really good musical, Hollywood delivered like only it can.
5.) After Blink Twice and the federal criminal charges came out, some fans speculated that this was actually about Sean Combs’ freak-offs. It isn’t, but Zoë Kravitz’s horror film applies to so many rich and powerful men and the way they use women as disposable (or, in this case, reusable) playthings. Delirious comedy and sharp scene transitions punctuate this tropical hellscape. Is there anything more rallying than the use of Beyoncé’s “I’m That Girl” on the soundtrack when the women finally take revenge?
6.) “Tiocfaidh ár lá, get the Brits out, lad!” Out of all the wearisomely conventional music biopics this year, Kneecap brilliantly showcases the Northern Irish rap group and what continues to make these Belfast boyos so dangerous and thrilling. The band members portray themselves and deliver some electrifying Irish-language hip-hop while director Rich Peppiatt accompanies them with foul-mouthed humor and DIY cinematic devices to show how much fun protest music can be.
7.) I’m not sure how the French-Canadian chiller Red Rooms slipped under everyone’s radar. Juliette Gariépy delivers a fascinating and largely wordless performance as a Montreal fashion model who cuts friends and relationships out of her life so that she can track down a child murderer who sells videos of his crimes on the dark web. Writer-director Pascal Plante follows the e-trail through all its hairpin turns as our detective attends the accused man’s trial by day and tries to crack the case (and trades crypto and plays online poker) by night in her lonely apartment.
8.) There’s nothing wrong with playing things down the middle when a movie does it as skillfully as Conclave. Edward Berger’s political thriller launched a thousand memes and pissed off the right people as it dealt with the ancient and rather corruptible process of choosing a new pope. The juicy gossip going down amid the carefully re-created interiors of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel made for irresistible drama. As highbrow as this drama is, its infusion of pulp made it into something vital.
9.) This piece of pure insanity (and the year’s most original comedy) was made by Mike Cheslik for around $150,000 and self-distributed. The nearly dialogue-free Hundreds of Beavers plays like a 1940s Looney Tunes comedy, except it’s in black and white and has a lot of people running around in animal costumes as they act out the story of a 19th-century applejack salesman in Wisconsin who becomes a fur trapper after beavers cause the destruction of his apple orchard. The special effects are so bad that they’re actually awesome, and who knew you needed to see beavers launching a spaceship this much?
10.) (tie) The final spot goes to two movies about the complications of family bonds. Titus Kaphar’s Exhibiting Forgiveness is about a Black artist dealing with the reappearance of his crack-addicted father, while Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters is about the three white adult children who reunite to tend to their dying father. These movies didn’t traffic in big ideas or visual flourishes, although Exhibiting Forgiveness does have some great visuals via its artworks. Rather, they existed on their writing and ensemble acting, and these small-scale works used their craftsmanship and insight to achieve a treasurable grace.
Honorable mention: Luca Guadagnino’s libidinous tennis love triangle, Challengers … Megan Park’s appropriately awkward teen weeper, My Old Ass … Denis Villeneuve’s sequel that improved on its predecessor, Dune: Part Two … two raw, violent, unapologetically gay crime thrillers, Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s Femme and Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding … Nicole Riegel’s direct and powerful music drama, Dandelion … Sean Wang’s jewel-like drama of growing up Asian-American, Dìdi … Nora Fingscheidt’s alcoholism story in wind and stone, The Outrun … Richard Linklater’s shaggy and charming caper movie, Hit Man … Sean Baker’s unruly sex (worker) comedy, Anora … Jesse Eisenberg’s uproarious Holocaust road trip, A Real Pain … Monica Sorelle’s tale of Haitians in Florida building family traditions, Mountains … Jeremy Saulnier’s galvanizing racial profiling thriller, Rebel Ridge … RaMell Ross’ first-person look at institutional abuse, Nickel Boys … Brady Corbet’s epic about power and postwar American architecture, The Brutalist … Malcolm Washington’s blazing disquisition on Black cultural legacies, The Piano Lesson … Osgood Perkins’ creepy bargain with the Devil, Longlegs … George Miller’s world-building prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga … Erica Tremblay’s murder mystery about Native American traditions and disappearances, Fancy Dance.
