It’s been a messy year. The future doesn’t look bright. Blue Sky beckons users to abandon X as if we still ahve agency to distance ourselves from Musk’s reach. For five days an assassin with perfectly coiffed eyebrows was on the loose, scattering Monopoly money behind him like a hoodied folk hero. People tut-tutting in op-ed columns about the dangers of “echo chambers” and the horrors of vigilante justice, may have a point, but have failed to take the national temperature. We’re moving into an uncanny valley. Established norms like fluoride and the polio vaccine are suddenly up for debate. A.I. is transforming human life and there’s no escape hatch from it. They want you to feel resistance is useless. There’s always a “they.”
Hollywood has not had a good year. The SAG strike was greeted with mostly hostile incomprehension by the movie-going public, and the studios refused to come to the bargaining table. In this instance the “they” are the studios and they actually feel: “Wouldn’t it be better to CGI everything, including background extras, so we can remove messy needy humans from all artistic endeavors?” The strike ended, but the threat thickened.
Movies are a reflection of their audience, although just how might not be apparent at the time of their release. Casablanca was a hit in 1942, but there was no sense it would be a timeless classic. The film was standard patriotic fare in wartime America, but what strikes a contemporary viewer is its urgent presentation of the refugee pile-up in north Africa after the fall of France and the problem of displaced people. (Many actors playing small roles in Casablanca were refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe.) Reflections are not always flattering, but truth asserts itself. Movie-going has changed so much in the last fifteen years: most films barely get a theatrical release and are summarily dumped onto streaming platforms as “content.” A new Richard Linklater film like The Hitman is promoted alongside Season 20 of some reality TV series, as though the two things are even remotely comparable. The algorithm buries everything else.
End-of-year movie lists are a part of the film critic racket. Lack of consensus is exciting because it means there was a lot going on. Off-the-beaten path is more interesting than the usual suspects (speaking of Casablanca), although the usual suspects have value too. A film might not even work all the way, but it has value because of what it attempts. I’ve put together an unranked list of the films I loved in 2024. Some of the films speak to How We Live Now. With others it’s not so obvious. All are unique visions. None are cookie-cutter projects made to order.
We’re headed into dark times. We need art now more than ever.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)
Radu Jude is a younger member of the Romanian New Wave, and he brings a savvy irreverent flair to his attacks on controversial flashpoints. “I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (2018), “Uppercase Print” (2020), “The Exit of the Trains” (2020), and his short “The Potemkenists” (2022) forced a confrontation between Romania and its brutal past. Jude understands George Orwell’s chilling wisdom from 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Those who control the present right now are trying to control the past. Jude uses humor as a weapon, making him truly dangerous as a commentator. Filmed during the pandemic, 2021’s “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” expressed perfectly the mind-numbing stupidity of the “discourse” in 2020, and was one of the best films of the year. Jude topped himself with this year’s ”Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” in which he has a long hit list: the frenzy of the gig economy, the menace of multinational corporations, the rampant dehumanization and everyone’s complicity as we stagger through capitalism’s crumbling ruins. The final 40 minutes are a masterpiece: it’s all there, every single thing we hate in today’s world, everything that’s wrong with everything. Jude’s films are often called satires, but this is a category error. He’s more of a caricaturist, and his preferred method is lampoon. Radu Jude is Yossarian in Catch-22, a sane man in an insane world.
Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)
“Green Border” takes place in the midst of the interminable humanitarian crisis which traps Syrian refugees on the border between Belarus and Poland. Holland’s approach is fascinating because she comes at it from all sides: the Syrian refugees, the activists trying to help them, and the Polish border guards roped into an inhumane system. Shot in vivid atmospheric black-and-white, “Green Border” is a harrowing watch, even with its glimmers of hope. If we are ever to get ourselves out of this mess it will be because human beings refuse to dehumanize one another.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
In 2022, Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody for refusing to wear the hijab required of all women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her death sparked a woman-led revolution — the “Woman Life Freedom” movement. The reprisals have been harsh. People have been imprisoned, executed, and “disappeared.” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is set within these paroxysms. A close family is ripped apart by the Woman Life Freedom movement. Rasoulof, and his cast and crew, risked their lives making “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” Just before it premiered at Cannes, Rasoulof (in trouble with the authorities for years) was given an eight-year prison sentence. His passport had been confiscated in 2017, so he (and some members of his crew) fled Iran in secret, moving from safe house to safe house until at last making it to Germany. I know of no other film released this year that was made under such dire circumstances.
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (Marco Bellocchio)
Based on a true story, “Kidnapped” was directed by the 84-year-old Italian master, Marco Bellocchio. In 1857, Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy born in what was then the Papal States of Italy, was secretly baptized by a Catholic maid. Five or six years later, the authorities get wind of this unauthorized baptism, and take Edgardo away from his family to be raised in the “embrace” of the Catholic Church. This was a scandal even then. Edgardo’s anguished family, who refused to convert when given the “choice,” are left with no recourse. They try for years to get Edgardo back. There is no escaping the film’s horror and outrage.
Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice)
“Close Your Eyes”, a mesmerizing exploration of mortality, cinema and memory, was directed by the 84-year-old Victor Erice, and it is his first film in thirty years. The central mystery of Close Your Eyes is an unfinished film and the unknown fate of an actor who walked off the set and was never seen again. “Close Your Eyes” requires a lot from its audience: it is long and it is slow. These are not criticisms. It is a pleasure to be wrapped in the film’s hypnotic rhythm, and the cinematic references enrich its already rich atmosphere. “Close Your Eyes” is elegiac and questioning, the kind of film only a man at the end of his journey could make.
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
On the flip side, “Hundreds of Beavers” is the kind of film only a young person could make. Made for just $150,000, it features people wearing animal costumes cavorting through the snowy woods of Wisconsin. Shot in black-and-white, the film is steeped in the slapstick tradition, with so many jokes and gags and subversive spins on well-known schtick you’re never given a chance to breathe. “Hundreds of Beavers” was dreamt up by Wisconsites Cheslik and partner-in-crime Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (who plays the central character). The whole film is powered by Cheslik and Tews asking themselves: “Why the hell can’t we do this? Who made up the rules? Let’s go for it.”
Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt)
The controversy surrounding Sinn Féin’s Irish Language Act reached a height in 2017-8, and from out of this “discourse” came Kneecap, a West Belfast-based hip hop trio, who rap solely in the Irish language. Peppiatt’s film stars the actual members of Kneecap (Liam Óg, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh), playing themselves, and it is a rollicking trash-talking blast. “Kneecap” is a battle cry for not just the Irish language, but for freedom of speech, in general.
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
Prabha (Kani Kusruti), Anu (Divya Prabha), and Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) all work at a busy hospital in Mumbai. Each woman is at a different stage of life, but they are bonded together in the common effort to find meaning and fulfillment. Mumbai is a vital character, and Kapadia evokes a feeling of urban isolation and bluesy melancholy reminiscent of Edward Hopper, the mood thick and rich with thwarted emotions and yearning. The three womens’ retreat to a seaside village brings a tone-shift where magical realism infuses the narrative with mystery. “All We Imagine as Light” won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the first film from India to compete in 30 years. Kapadia is young. We have a lot to look forward to from this filmmaker.
Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)
Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a program where artists host workshops on poetry, acting and dance for prison populations, started in Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 1996. “Sing Sing” features two professional actors: Colman Domingo and Paul Raci. Everyone else in the cast is a formerly incarcerated man who once participated in RTA. Watching these real-life men do acting exercises, audition for roles, etc., is a raw and pure experience which could not succeed so forcefully with a cast of well-known actors pretending to be prisoners. Clarence Maclin (aka “Divine Eye”) was incarcerated for 17 years in Sing Sing, and credits RTA with saving his life (he now works as a youth counselor and gang interventionist). Maclin is riveting as a man closed off from bonding with other people, and therefore closed off from life. He is hard and tough, by necessity, and over the course of “Sing Sing” you literally watch him emerge from behind the mask in place since he was a child. (My brother-in-law taught acting workshops through RTA and his stories about the experience are similarly moving.) This is a very important film about the healing power of art.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (Tyler Taormina)
Multiple generations of an Italian-American family gather together on Christmas Eve. That’s all that happens. But Taormina’s approach turns the film into an elegiac tone-poem, like it’s made up of memory fragments from long ago. There’s an echo around the action, a free-floating sense of impermanence and loss, none of which is perceived by the characters. “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” was my surprise of the year: it flattened me.
Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)
Based on Claire Keegan’s prize-winning novella, “Small Things Like These” shows a quiet Irish man (Cillian Murphy) awakening to the evils occurring in the convent on the hill above his small town. The Magdalene Laundries were only “discontinued” in Ireland in the mid-90s and the horror perpetrated within those walls are still being discovered and grappled with by the generations left behind. Bill cannot ignore what he has seen. He is just an ordinary man, not a hero, and his wife urges him to just leave it alone. The Church is so powerful. People are afraid. Emily Watson has a chilling cameo as the Mother Superior, but ”Small Things Like These” happens entirely on Cillian Murphy’s face. It’s one of his best performances, and my favorite performance this year.
The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
“The Brutalist” is a sprawling film about brutalist architecture and the curdling of the American dream as experienced by a Holocaust survivor (Adrien Brody). Nobody is going to ask you to make a three and a half hour long epic. Nobody in power wants this, just like nobody is going to ask a director to make “There Will Be Blood,” or “Nashville, or “Magnolia.” You can feel Brady Corbet had to make “The Brutalist.” Obsession powers every frame. Corbet shot it in VistaVision (widescreen technology developed in the mid-50s), and it has screened in 70mm on the festival circuit. The Brutalist opens in limited release on December 20, which means most people will have to watch it at home on their television. If you can swing it, see it on a big screen. Corbet’s two previous films – “Childhood of a Leader” (2015) and “Vox Lux” (2016) — were impressive and ambitious. The Brutalist is wild and unclassifiable. Frankly, it’s a miracle it exists.
No Other Land (Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Balla and Rachel Szor)
“No Other Land” is an infuriating documentary about the destruction of Masafer Yatta, a cluster of villages located in the southern West Bank of Palestine. Collectively directed by a group of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers and journalists, “No Other Land” doesn’t have a distribution deal yet, even though it’s racking up awards at festivals and from every critics’ group in the country. Basel Adra lives in Masafer Yatta, and films the destruction as it’s happening. This is an urgently important film about an ongoing humanitarian tragedy.
Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
Mike Leigh is 81 years old, but he has the energy of a young man. He and his cast work on a project for months before even starting to shoot. The actors improvise and experiment, and the story isn’t created by Leigh so much as it is revealed to him by the actors. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, so excellent in Leigh’s 1996 film “Secrets & Lies,” plays the bristlingly unpleasant Pansy in “Hard Truths,” and it is one of the best performances of the year. Why is Pansy so angry? Does it come from hurt and unmanaged grief? Yes, some of it does. Both Leigh and Jean-Baptiste resist easy explanations and because of this her thrilling performance creates an unexpected catharsis by pulling an audience into the unspoken implications. Maybe Pansy’s answer to “Why are you so angry?” is simple: “Have you looked around at the world lately? The real question is: why aren’t you?”
My First Film (Zia Anger)
What would it look like if a film was a collaboration between the director and the audience? It might look something like Zia Anger’s extraordinary “My First Film.” Years ago, Anger developed a live show on which she regaled the audience with stories about making her first film (listed as “abandoned” on IMDB). Zia turned the live show into “My First Film,” in whcih she creates elaborate re-enactments of that chaotic original shoot, woven together with footage from her own life, and comments directed at the audience, typed on a screen in an ongoing interior monologue. This is Anger, sitting alone, communicating with a future audience, people who are “out there” somewhere, she just needs to find them. We have seen “My First Film now.” The artist found her audience and we have found her.
Janet Planet (Annie Baker)
As a massive fan of Annie Baker’s plays (I saw “The Flick” during its 2015 run at the Barrow Street Theatre), I was looking forward to her directorial debut and “Janet Planet” doesn’t disappoint. 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) lives with her mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson) in Western Massachusetts. It’s 1991. A child’s life was quieter then than it is now. Janet is as unfinished as the house they live in. Lacy orbits her mother anxiously, watching her every move. Elias Koteas, Will Patton, and Sophie Okonedo play characters who float in and out of Janet’s life. Baker films the majority of the action from Lacy’s point of view, hovering on the periphery. “Janet Planet” respects what happens in the silences between the words.
The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
Like “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” “The Beast” is the presentation of our contemporary demons: dehumanization, incels on the loose, A.I. replacing humans, the desire for perfection overriding the actual experience of being human (perhaps the override is the point). “The Beast” is scarier than a horror film. This is the future that’s coming. It is the end of everything.
Between the Temples (Nate Silver)
Nate Silver’s humorous mournful film is about a widowed rabbi (Jason Schwartzman) forming an unexpected connection with an older woman named Carla (the great Carol Kane), who wants to have her long-delayed bat mitzvah and ropes him in to giving her private lessons. The cast is filled with wonderful character actors, and there’s great work done all around, but “Between the Temples” feels like an Event because of Carol Kane. She has been doing amazing work for literally decades, and with Carla she has finally been given a role as an elderly actress worthy of her. It is impossible to imagine anyone else playing Carla Kessler. I’m very proud that the New York Film Critics Circle, of which I am a member, awarded Kane Best Supporting Actress.
Shayda (Noora Niasari)
“Shayda” came out earlier this year and therefore has been absent from end-of-year lists. (Reminder: a “year” doesn’t mean the period between August and November.) Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahim) is an Iranian woman in Melbourne, hiding out with her young daughter in a women’s shelter. Hossein, Shayda’s husband, will not grant her a divorce and his behavior becomes increasingly unhinged. Ebrahim, so excellent in last year’s “Holy Spider,” is even better here. The terror and paranoia Shayda feels, her hypervigilance and desperation, makes the film almost unbearably frightening because you know she’s not imagining things. She is truly in danger.
Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)
Clint Eastwood, at 91, is the oldest director on this list (which already features a trio of octogenarians). “Juror #2”’s release was mishandled in a disgraceful way. Eastwood is an American icon, eight decades into his career, and“Juror #2” was dumped into theatres in limited release with very little publicity. “Unfair” doesn’t cover it. “Juror #2” is a gripping courtroom drama, with an excellent Nicholas Hoult playing a juror grappling with a moral and ethical dilemma. Eastwood, in confident and non-manipulative ways, keeps the heat steady underneath the action. When the final shot comes, it’s not a surprise — you’ve known things were leading in that direction — but it still packs a punch.
Other films I loved that could very well have been on this list: “Oh Canada,” “Conclave,” “Megalopolis,” “Flow,” “Love Lies Bleeding,” “Good One,” “The Fall Guy,” “I Saw the TV Glow,” “Anora,” “Nickel Boys,” (directed by RaMell Ross, whose 2018 documentary and directorial debut “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” was one of the best films that year) “Ghostlight,” “Wild Robot,” “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed,” and “The Last Showgirl” (for Pamela Anderson’s astonishing performance alone.)
I’d also like to shout out two films I saw as a juror at the Florida Film Festival earlier this year: we awarded Best Narrative Feature to “All I’ve Got & Then Some,” co-directed by Tehben Dean and Rasheed Stephens, based on Stephens’ early years in Los Angeles, living in his car and trying to be a standup comic. This wonderful film is now streaming on Tubi and Amazon. We also awarded “Lady Parts” a special jury award for screenwriting. Bonnie Gross based her script on her traumatic experiences with vulvodynia and vaginismus. In a time when women’s sexual health is being legislated and criminalized, “Lady Parts” is a clarion call for education, but Gross still, magically, makes the whole thing hilarious. “Lady Parts” is still traveling the festival circuit. Keep your eyes peeled.