It’s January once again, which means it’s time for a ranking of the best movies last year had to offer (in my personal taste, of course; your ranking is just as valid)! 2024 was a year of cinematic extremes, filled with some new favorites alongside notable train wrecks, but I can positively say that I love every single movie on this list. I truly think there’s a movie on here for everyone to enjoy, which is a great showcase of how wonderfully diverse a year it’s been for the movies. 

SOME HONORABLE MENTIONS: Oddity, Love Lies Bleeding, The First Omen, Rebel Ridge, The Substance, Juror #2, Eephus

10. Nosferatu – Dir. Robert Eggers

Robert Eggers started his career out with The Witch, a horror film wherein a woman in a puritanical family in 1600s America is haunted by and comes to be inextricably drawn to the dark recesses of the occult. 9 years later, Eggers has expanded that idea into his lifelong dream project adaptation of Nosferatu, the illicit 1922 German adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and cornerstone of the German Expressionist movement in film. As with Eggers’ previous films and most other adaptations of Dracula, this Nosferatu is supported by lavish production design, meticulous period detail, and a deep, foreboding sense of mood, which makes every scene feel like a nightmare moving ever towards an inevitable deathly end. However, Eggers’ adaptation sets itself apart by focusing explicitly on the interplay between Count Orlok (the German adaptation of Dracula), a “night demon” of horrible power and allure, and Ellen Hutter, a woman with an inexplicable link to the vampire that alternates between possessive desire and paralyzing fear. Lily Rose-Depp as Ellen is stunning, simultaneously a physical performance for the ages that emulates some of the best possession performances ever, and a deeply felt performance of a woman grappling with her inescapable pull towards the darkness at the center of the film. Some pacing issues hold Nosferatu back from being higher on this list or on my ranking of Dracula adaptations– I wish this was either 30 minutes longer or shorter– but no matter what, I really loved this. 

9. Hundreds of Beavers – Dir. Mike Cheslik

Some movies are just so overflowing with creativity and passion that it would be impossible not to love them, and Hundreds of Beavers is a prime example of that. It’s just pure, manic live action Looney Tunes stuff from beginning to end, constructed on a shoestring budget but nevertheless filled with hilarious nonstop slapstick gags. This is a film that runs on pure absurd video game logic, with constant visual pop ups and gamey beaver capture sequences, escalating and heightening in scale and intricacy like video game levels to an incredible third act extravaganza; describing the plot feels inconsequential to describing the total commitment and earnest craft that clearly went into delivering it. Not to mention, it’s just so, so funny.

8. A Different Man – Dir. Aaron Schimberg

You’ve likely heard of The Substance by now, whether through TikTok clips or some other avenue, and though I think that film about an actor who undergoes a procedure to change their appearance to appeal to external eyes is certainly great and one of the best of the year, I think I prefer its brother film A Different Man, which has the same premise described above, but takes a much more grounded and acerbic approach to the idea. A Different Man is a deeply clever film, asking the question: “what if, no matter how much you changed your appearance to appeal to others, there was always someone better at being you?” and decidedly coming up with no easy answers. It’s equal parts tragic and darkly hilarious, with a smart script and a great cast; Adam Pearson is electric, while Sebastian Stan proves his range to be far deeper and weirder than his movie star looks and Marvel movie appearances might lead you to believe.

7. Dune: Part 2 – Dir. Denis Villeneuve

As someone who read the first two Dune books over quarantine after learning Denis Villeneuve would be adapting them and later watched the first film multiple times in theaters, I was basically an easy mark for this grander, more action packed second part. Now that the complex political machinations of the first Dune have been set up, this second part has fuller freedom to dive into the individual journeys of characters, as well as the pure visual grandeur of the source material. Dune: Part 2 is some of the finest crafted spectacle this decade, with breathtaking image after breathtaking image in addition to multiple of the most impressive large-scale sequences I’ve ever seen in a blockbuster. It’s not just style over substance either, as Villeneuve uses his massive scale to tell a story of people dwarfed by and learning to wield the power of prophecy and religious fanaticism, arguably the most powerful theme in the original book. I have my own issues that keep this from being higher on this list, but I’m still waiting with bated breath for Dune: Messiah.

6. Trap – Dir. M. Night Shyamalan

Another year, another M. Night Shyamalan banger has been released and faced unfair malignment. Maybe I’m just a sucker for his recent run of films, but Shyamalan’s newest in Trap was just a real fun time for me, centering on a serial killer who has to try to escape a concert all the while the police slowly close in on him. If you come into something like this looking for airtight, grounded plot logistics, you’re in the wrong place; what Trap does provide instead is a dark comedy of escalating absurdity and adaptation, essentially a live action Hitman level where one man has to scope out his environment on the fly, don disguises and interact with NPCs, and make split-second decisions for survival all while playing it cool. The film knows how silly it all is and revels in it intentionally, using it both for entertainment and to place us inside the protagonist Cooper’s perspective, whereby every person and every place around him is merely an obstacle to overcome and a tool to be used. Shyamalan’s usage of space and POV is as usual excellent and necessary to the film working as a whole, but possibly the most major element here is Josh Hartnett’s performance as Cooper, a tightly cab wound sociopath of a man whose masquerade as a personable family man slowly exaggerates as it all begins to fall apart. The third act perhaps overstays its welcome, but I appreciate it all in the name of the absurd project Shyamalan put together here nonetheless.

5. Cloud – Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa first garnered international acclaim making films as part of the turn-of-the-century J-Horror boom, a wave which included soon-to-be staples of horror-pop-culture like The Ring and The Grudge. Kurosawa’s additions to the genre, most notably 2003’s Pulse and 1997’s Cure, may not be amongst the cinematic wave’s most prominent films, but they rank among some of my favorite films of all time, and I’m lucky enough that Kurosawa is still making films nowadays with as much craft as his early masterpieces, which leads us to the best of his three(!) 2024 releases, Cloud. While Kurosawa’s earlier horror magnum opus Pulse tackled the ways in which a burgeoning internet bred isolation and despair through the realm of the supernatural, Kurosawa’s return to the genre of internet horror in the midst of the internet age takes a more grounded, yet subversive approach, centering on a dropshipper who begins to garner negative attention as a result of upselling fake luxury goods over the internet. That description may sound vague, but I just don’t want to spoil the depths of plot-twistiness and genre bending within this incredible part-horror, part-action thriller, part dark comedy film, which takes the exploitative, harmful anonymity of modern internet capitalism to its most entertaining, yet subtly sickening extremes. If there’s anything to take from this, it’s to watch more movies by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; I totally get if they can be slow, but if you’re willing to meet them where they’re at, there’s really nothing like them.

4. Hard Truths – Dir. Mike Leigh

A deceptively simple family drama premise, of an irritable woman named Pansy who is abrasive to everyone she comes across, from her family to retail workers to strangers in a parking lot, that reveals itself to be one of the most emotionally layered and affecting dramas I’ve seen in years. There’s little I can say about Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths aside from the fact that it’s simply one of the most human films I’ve seen in years– there’s no judgement in Leigh’s camera, only careful observation of people, their actions, and their dynamics with others as they are. The word empathy is thrown around a lot in film criticism, especially by yours truly, but I really mean it when I say that this is a film overflowing with empathy for every person within. It’s all anchored by an earth-shattering lead performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who will almost certainly get snubbed at whatever major awards show you choose to tune into but delivers one of the best, most considered and human performances I’ve seen in years.

3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Dir. George Miller

As much as I love Dune: Part 2, between the two desert-set action sci-fi epics of the year, I prefer the juiced-up apocalyptic tragedy of Furiosa. 9 years after director George Miller’s action magnum opus Mad Max: Fury Road, Miller has returned to the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland of the Mad Max films with new interests and aspirations, creating a film that adds new layers of narrative, thematic, and character depth to the saga whilst being as, if not more exciting than any blockbuster to come out this year. Furiosa, a prequel centered on Fury Road’s stealth protagonist of the same name, totally expands on the mythos of the previous films, diving deeper not only into the factions and general word building of the Wasteland but also the tragedies of the characters within, constructing one of the most powerful revenge stories I’ve seen in years. More than that, it’s also just a visually extravagant adrenaline rush of a film, with some of the best action sequences I’ve seen in any film this decade. 

2. Challengers – Luca Guadagnino

Furiosa may be the best actual action movie of the year, but no movie has gotten the blood and serotonin pumping for me this year quite like Challengers. A part love triangle drama, part nonlinear tale of psychological warfare, part excellent sports movie, Challengers is pure exhilaration from top to bottom, bolstered by a brilliant script, an incredible central trio of performances, a thumping Nine Inch Nails club soundtrack, and top of the line bozo mode filmmaking by director Luca Guadagnino. Challengers may be the most blatantly enjoyable film released this year and this decade, whether you’re getting invested in the twisty dynamics and interpersonal drama (played out incredibly by Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, and Zendaya, all of whom spar so well with one another it’d be difficult to pick a favorite) or hooting and hollering as the camera is finding every ridiculous angle and athletic movement with which to capture the tennis scenes, or you’re simply vibing out to the music (the official score has already made an appearance in my end of year most-played playlist). Watch it and just let it take you along for the ride— you won’t regret it.

1. I Saw The TV Glow – Dir. Jane Schoenbrun.

Back in 2021, Jane Schoenbrun immediately made a name for themself as a filmmaker who acutely understood the interplay between media and young identity in the internet age with their debut film, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. With their sophomore film I Saw The TV Glow, Schoenbrun has already surpassed being a name to look out for and landed themself as a (if not the) quintessential Gen Z filmmaker, delivering a vivid, brilliantly crafted film that, despite its clear cinematic influences, creates an experience that feels genuinely revelatory in a way few modern films ever manage to be. I Saw The TV Glow isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay— Schoenbrun’s film explicitly operates in a mode of symbiotic connection between queer identity and media, exploring how media can act as both a comfort space for queer people and a visceral reflection of subconscious truth that catalyzes both terrifying and necessary revelations, often in the same hazy moment. TV Glow knows it won’t be for everyone, but Schoenbrun’s skill and empathy with which they evoke an experience for the people it will connect with should not be overlooked— it certainly resonated deep with me, and for that, it’s my favorite movie of the year.