By Matt Mahler
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2024 has been an excellent year for smaller, weirder, more original films than usual. While there have been some very fun blockbusters (The Fall Guy, Twisters, Inside Out 2, Furiosa, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Deadpool and Wolverine), the best movies of 2024 have tended to be small indies, mid-budget films, or excellent imports from around the world that don't need a Hollywood budget to excel. Perhaps most surprising is the surfeit of wonderful Westerns this year (and one giant multipart disappointment). There have also been numerous brilliant documentary films, making 2024 one of the best years for the genre.
Now that we're past the halfway mark of 2024, take a look at the 35 best films of 2024. Of course, the list leaves out some very good movies (and leaves out documentaries, which have their own list). We also aren't including some excellent films that clock in under 50 minutes or so, such as Leos Carax's mesmerizing self-portrait It's Not Me and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's astounding horror thriller, Chime. These are the most memorable, interesting, entertaining, powerful, and technically masterful movies of the year, ranked.
45 Special Mention: 'From Ground Zero'
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From Ground Zero
5 /5
- Release Date
- January 3, 2025
- Runtime
- 112 Minutes
- Producers
- Rashid Masharawi, Michael Moore
22 Palestinian filmmakers living through war capture their lives in Gaza over the past year, revealing stories beyond the headlines. Their work offers a striking view of life's fragility and the resilience of love in the face of devastation. Each film, ranging in length from three to six minutes, presents a unique perspective on the current reality in Gaza. The project captures the diverse experiences of life in the Palestinian enclave, including the challenges, tragedies, and moments of resilience faced by its people. Using a mix of genres including fiction, documentary, docu-fiction, animation, and experimental cinema, From Ground Zero presents a rich diversity of stories that reflect the sorrow, joy, and hope inherent in Gazan life.
- Studio
- Masharawi Fund for Films and Filmmakers in Gaza and Coorigines Production
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From Ground Zero is in a category of its own for a reason. It can't be critiqued along the same lines as other films, where we judge performances, dialogue, narrative, thematics, aesthetics, and so on. That's because the filmmakers didn't have any of the normal tools for making a movie — because they're Gazans trying to survive a genocide. The film is, as Michael Moore says, "a complete miracle," simply in how it was able to be made and delivered to audiences around the world. It's a collection of 22 very short films made by Palestinians, documenting their experiences since Hamas' attack on Oct. 7th. It's a harrowing, mind-opening, historically crucial text with no comparison.
44 Aisha
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Aisha
3.5 /5
- Release Date
- May 10, 2024
- Runtime
- 94 Minutes
- Director
- Frank Berry
Cast
-
Letitia Wright
-
Josh O’Connor
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
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Aisha is a drama film directed and written by Frank Berry. Letitia Wright stars as Aisha Osagie, a Nigerian woman living in Ireland who is facing the threat of deportation. During her journey, Aisha becomes friends with a former prisoner named Conor Healy (Josh O'Connor).
- Writers
- Frank Berry
- Main Genre
- Drama
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A beautiful, quiet study of two very different but equally lonely people, Aisha has two major stars and yet slipped under the radar of most audiences. In the film, a Nigerian refugee tries to navigate the bureaucratic intricacies of seeking asylum in Ireland and befriends a young ex-convict in the process, with each of them brightening the other's life. Letitia Wright (Black Panther) and Josh O'Connor (Challengers) are fantastic in this moving indie drama.
43 The Last Stop in Yuma County
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The Last Stop in Yuma County
NR
Crime Thriller 4 /5
- Release Date
- May 10, 2024
- Runtime
- 90 Minutes
- Director
- Francis Galluppi
Cast
-
Jim Cummings
-
Jocelin Donahue
WHERE TO WATCH
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Stranded at an Arizona rest stop, a traveling knife salesman gets thrust into a high-stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers who will stop at nothing to protect their ill-begotten fortune.
- Writers
- Francis Galluppi
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Francis Galluppi made a huge splash with his debut feature film, The Last Stop in Yuma County, which caused enough ripples to bring him on as director for an upcoming Evil Dead project. His excellent, unpredictable Western comedy thriller stars the brilliant Jim Cummings as a knife salesman who gets involved in a deadly situation at a diner in the middle of nowhere. There are lots of surprises in this incredibly entertaining little film, spread out among an excellent cast (with the underrated Jocelin Donahue and Richard Brake giving unforgettable performances).
42 Orion and the Dark
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Orion and the Dark
Not Rated
Animation ComedyFamily
4 /5
- Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- Runtime
- 92 Minutes
- Director
- Sean Charmatz
Cast
-
Jacob Tremblay
-
Paul Walter Hauser
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
The thing Orion fears the most is the dark. When the embodiment of his worst fear pays a visit, Dark whisks Orion away on a roller-coaster ride around the world to prove there is nothing to be afraid of at night.
- Writers
- Charlie Kaufman, Lloyd Taylor, Emma Yarlett
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Orion and the Dark should've been one of the more discussed films of the year thanks to the brilliant script by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), but it seems to have been overlooked by most cinephiles. That's a shame, because the animated Netflix film is endlessly creative. Like an alt-rock version of Inside Out, the film finds a neurotically scared young boy having to confront anthropomorphized concepts like darkness, quiet, and insomnia in a journey to face his fears.
41 I Used to Be Funny
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I Used to Be Funny
NR
Comedy Drama 4 /5
- Release Date
- June 7, 2024
- Runtime
- 105 Minutes
- Director
- Ally Pankiw
Cast
-
Rachel Sennott
-
Olga Petsa
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
Sam, a stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD, weighs whether or not to join the search for a missing teenage girl she used to nanny.
- Writers
- Ally Pankiw
Read Our Review
Rachel Sennott has been on a stratospheric rise thanks to her performances in films like Shiva Baby, Tahara, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Bottoms, but she gives her greatest performance yet in the melancholic dramedy I Used to Be Funny. Sennott plays a stand-up comedian with PTSD who enters an existential crisis after a girl she used to babysit goes missing. It's one of the year's best performances, and the film is a dark character study of the highest order.
40 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
R
AdventureSci-Fi
Action 3.5 /5
- Release Date
- May 24, 2024
- Runtime
- 148 Minutes
- Director
- George Miller
Cast
-
Anya Taylor-Joy
Furiosa
-
Chris Hemsworth
Dementus
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
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A prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa is an action-adventure film that tells the origin story of the headstrong and fearless Furiosa. Set shortly after the beginning of the "end of the world," Furiosa is kidnapped and brought before a powerful warlord, now forced to work for him. To find her way back home, Furiosa will adapt to the new harsh and arid world as she grows into the Furiosa she becomes known to be.
- Writers
- George Miller, Nick Lathouris
Read Our Review
Yet another grand action spectacle from the seemingly ageless George Miller, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga retains the high bar set by Mad Max: Fury Road. While the film never surpasses that masterpiece's delirious heights, and Anya Taylor-Joy is arguably miscast (unlike an incredibly demented Chris Hemsworth), the production design, cinematography, score, costumes, visual effects, and action sequences are utterly astounding, giving Dune: Part Two a run for its money in those technical departments. A sort of Christian allegory about how a young child became a vicious warrior of a woman, the narrative is besides the point in Furiosa. It's all about the mad spectacle.
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39 I Saw the TV Glow
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I Saw the TV Glow
PG-13
DramaHorror
4 /5
- Release Date
- May 3, 2024
- Runtime
- 100 minutes
- Director
- Jane Schoenbrun
Cast
-
Justice Smith
Owen
-
Jack Haven
Maddy
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
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- Writers
- Jane Schoenbrun
Read Our Review
Jane Schoenbrun followed up their critically acclaimed film We're All Going to the World's Fair with a much more ambitious and stylistic horror drama that nonetheless captured a similar vibe. I Saw the TV Glow is a Lynchian exploration of nostalgia and, in many ways, a trans allegory that follows two fans of the fictional TV show The Pink Opaque and how the show connects them throughout life. Dark, sad, and bizarre in equal measure, the film is yet another heartbreaking exploration of teenage ennui and the fragility of identity in a post-digital age for Schoenbrun.
Related
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38 The Room Next Door
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The Room Next Door
4.5 /5
- Release Date
- December 20, 2024
- Runtime
- 1h 46m
- Director
- Pedro Almodovar
- Writers
- Pedro Almodovar, Sigrid Nunez
Cast
-
Julianne Moore
Ingrid
-
Tilda Swinton
Martha
Two estranged friends, a novelist and a war reporter, reconnect after years apart, each grappling with their own emotional scars.
- Main Genre
- Drama
Read Our Review
Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut, The Room Next Door has many of the hallmarks of the great Spanish director's style — a focus on women and female friendships; the use of vibrant colors contrasting heavy emotions; soapy, dramatic touches intertwined with small, detailed moments. Perhaps because of the language, it's not one of the auteur's best films, but that's like referring to "a lesser Picasso," if there is such a thing. The Room Next Door feels deeply honest, with the director confronting his increasing age through a story of a dying woman and her estranged friend who shows up for her at the end. It's extremely touching and abundantly thoughtful in its conversations about death, legacy, and joy.
37 Seagrass
Seagrass
4 /5
- Release Date
- January 23, 2024
- Runtime
- 1h 55m
- Director
- Meredith Hama-Brown
- Writers
- Meredith Hama-Brown
Cast
-
Ally Maki
-
Luke Roberts
The film stars Ally Maki as Judith, a woman who is at a family retreat with her husband Steve (Luke Roberts) and their children following the death of her mother, where she and Steve are coping with tensions in their marriage arising from their status as an interracial couple.
- Main Genre
- Drama
A hypnotically gorgeous film with the same rhythm as the waves which accompany its beachside holiday setting, Seagrass manages to communicate complex emotions cinematically, knowing that dialogue can't truly suffice. It's a film which understands the limits of language and the way relationships can reach an impasse that can't fully be solved (or understood) linguistically. Ally Maki (The Big Door Prize) is fantastic as a woman still grieving the loss of her mother who feels increasingly trapped in a family retreat with her husband and children. Seagrass is a quietly simmering, emotionally powerful film that, of course, says much more than it lets on.
36 LaRoy, Texas
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LaRoy, Texas
4 /5
- Runtime
- 112 Minutes
- Director
- Shane Atkinson
- Writers
- Shane Atkinson
Cast
-
Steve Zahn
-
John Magaro
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
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Broke and depressed, Ray (John Magaro) is mistaken for a dangerous hitman and given an envelope of cash. Along with his P.I. friend Skip (Steve Zahn), he must escape the actual hitman to make it out of LaRoy alive.
Read Our Review
While you could call it another great Western from this year, LaRoy, Texas is more of a Western neo-noir comedy thriller straight out of the Coen Brothers playbook (and sometimes feels like a cross between No Country for Old Men, Blood Simple, and Raising Arizona). An impeccably written feature film debut from Shane Atkinson, the film stars a pitch-perfect John Magaro and Steve Zahn as two losers whose paths cross with a hit man, unexpectedly played by Dylan Baker in one of the best supporting performances this year. Very funny but very dark, LaRoy, Texas is a gripping and original little film.
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