In hindsight, 2024 marked a milestone in Hollywood. Some of the tentpole films range from $451 million at number ten to the top spot with a whopping $1.7 billion, there is a wide variety of genres, including legacy sequels, 80s hits, R-rated superhero films, and animated family adventures. It’s also animated films were able to earn $1 billion worldwide the fastest, comfortably outdoing its 2015 predecessor that earned $858 million.
So, it’s time for us to reflect on the top 10 films of 2024 in our film industry. We have selected our favorites, so please check out what we chose. (Here’s our selections on year 2021, 2022, 2023)
Abe Friedtanzer
It’s What’s Inside
Anora
Wicked
September 5
Dìdi
Sing Sing
My Old Ass
Conclave
La Cocina
Bird
2024 was a great year for film! It’s What’s Inside established an exceptionally interesting ensemble and then went back to the drawing board in the most fascinating and inventive way possible. Anora was carried by a phenomenal turn by Mikey Madison and smoothly switched tones midway through for a head-spinning and captivating experience. Wicked enhanced a beloved stage musical with a sweeping and triumphant cinematic treatment. September 5 respectfully and compellingly dramatized real-world events within a claustrophobic setting. Dìdi delivered a heartwarming and genuinely funny coming-of-age story with family relationships at its center. Sing Sing powerfully conveyed the transformational power of hope and rehabilitation for incarcerated individuals. My Old Ass got creative with a time-traveling premise and stayed grounded with a winning and entertaining story. Conclave drew in a fabulous ensemble cast for the ultimate and drama-filled impactful election movie. La Cocina captured the unending chaos of a busy kitchen with plenty of cultural complications embedded within it. Bird was the latest magnetic movie offering from filmmaker Andrea Arnold with a magic-tinged tale of growing up.
Niclas Goldberg
All We Imagine as Light
Nickel Boys
Grand Tour
Universal Language
Misericordia
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Hard Truths
Viktor
Beloved Tropic
April
From Mumbai’s blue shimmering nights to French village’s brown afternoons, 2024 film year offered a palette of shifting colors from around the world. Newcomer Payal Kapadia triumphs gently and absorbingly with All We Imagine as Light about three nurses in modern India and veteran Mike Leigh returns to form in tragicomic Hard Truths letting an outrageously good Marianne Jean-Baptiste go on verbal rampage. Portuguese Miguel Gomes takes us on an otherworldly beautiful odyssey through colonial Asia in Grand Tour while in stunning Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross travels back to the 60s US with Colson Whitehead’s novel and two abused, young friends. Canadian Matthew Rankin channels Aki Kaurismäki and Iranian cinema in his absurd and funny Universal Language and Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof unsettling The Seed of the Sacred Fig criticizes the Iranian regime as the filmmaker fled his native country for making it. The deaf, philosophical Ukrainian Viktor experienced the Russian invasion through the most unforgettable lens of the year by Olivier Sarbil. Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili quietly disturbs in the abortion drama April while pregnant immigrant and wealthy matriarch forge unexpected friendship in Ana Endara’s wonderful Panamanian Beloved Tropic. The friendships in Frenchman Alain Guiraudie’s weirdly darkly comic Misericordia are unlike any others, so is his exploration of death and desire.
Adriano Ercolani
Anora
A Complete Unknown
The Day of the Fight
Flow
Horizon Chapter 1
Monkey Man
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Small Things Like These
Wicked
Young Woman and the Sea
It hasn’t been the best year for American cinema. I surely doubt that some of the movies in my 2024 Top10 would have been in the chart if released in previous years. Maybe two or three of them, not more. In the end, I chose the ten titles above (in alphabetical order) because they have precise storytelling and in a few cases compelling characters. I embraced Kevin Costner’s vision in Horizon Chapter 1 especially because I consider it a magnificent prologue to what’s about to come next. After watching Wicked with my wife, the day after she made the most clever comment about the movie: “I already don’t remember any of the songs, but I am still so moved by the story and the characters.” Thanks, of course, to the stunning performance by Cynthia Erivo, by far my favorite of the year. I didn’t agree with Cilliam Murphy winning the Academy Award for Oppenheimer last year: if you have seen his silent, subtle, remarkable performance in Small Things Like These, then you know which is his best way to portray a character. James Mangold understood perfectly that Bob Dylan can’t be “explained”, and around this idea wrote together with Jay Cocks a marvelous adapted script. All the members of the cast understood the concept and made it their own, and this is why A Complete Unknown is in my opinion the best American movie of 2024. My last note is about The Seed of the Sacred Fig, my favorite of the Top10: the powerful symbolism of the last twenty-thirty minutes doesn’t deviate from the roots of the psychological thriller, empowering an already strong story and layered characters. An incredible balance between storytelling and a specific vision that is exactly what cinema should look for. Always.
Karen Benardello
September 5
The Piano Lesson
The Fire Inside
Blitz
Black Dog
Small Things Like These
Fly Me to the Moon
I Saw the TV Glow
Back to Black
Challengers
The most compelling films of 2024 feature protagonists fearlessly batting obstacles to achieve their goals. The Piano Lesson is a spiritual journey of a family coming back together under divine circumstances. September 5’s stellar actor performances provide an important perspective on the broadcast of the 1972 Munich Olympic attacks. The Fire Inside chronicles the origin story of Olympic gold medal-winning boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields through a captivating performance from actress Ryan Destiny. The coming-of-age World War II drama, Blitz thrives on its character-driven and aesthetically raw storytelling approach. Black Dog’s realistic sentimentality makes it a relatable, soul-filling homecoming odyssey. Small Things Like These thrives in its slow burn storytelling and Cillian Murphy’s soulful leading performance. Fly Me to the Moon soars in interweaving serious political and comedic romantic elements into its examination of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. I Saw the TV Glow is a thoughtful exploration into adolescence that allows all teens to embrace their self-identity. Back to Black is the pinnacle musical biopic about Amy Winehouse, as actress Marisa Abela embodies the musician’s vocals and physicality. Challengers
Edward Moran
Nosferatu
Queer
Queendom
Maria
A Complete Unknown
Vermiglio
Gladiator II
Duen : Part Two
Tendaberry
The American Society of Magical Negroes
Robert Eggers’s supernatural thriller NOSFERATU, a remake of a classic Dracula horror movie from the 1920s, is bloody good, as are two queer-themed films: Luca Guadagnino’s QUEER and Agnija Galdanova’s QUEENDOM. The former is based on an eponymous novel by William S Burroughs that depicts American expatriates in Mexico in the 1950s, while the latter focuses its lens on the struggles of a drag queen in present-day Russia. Also notable are two biopics about music legends: Pablo Larraín’s MARIA about opera diva Maria Callas, and James Mangold’s A COMPLETE UNKNOWN about a youthful Bob Dylan in the Greenwich Village of the 1960s. Maura Delpero’s VERMIGLIO is a sensitive portrayal of life in an impoverished village in the Italian Alps, while Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR II pays tribute to a slave who seeks revenge upon his captors in ancient Rome. The sci-fi epic DUNE : Part Two, directed by Denis Villeneuve from a novel by Frank Herbert, depicts a colossal interplanetary conflict. Back on earth, Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s TENDABERRY and Kobi Libii’s THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES, both by emerging filmmakers, call attention to the struggles of marginalized people dealing with racism and discrimination.
Serena Davanzo
Wicked
Inside out 2
Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron
En Fanfare
Marcello Mio
Quiet of Set
Man with 1000 kids
America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Well 2024 for me i didn’t have a full top ten films; so I have my top five films and top 4 series that came out. This may be a cliche but hands down Wicked was my favorite movie I have seen all year. It was a beautiful homage to the original musical. Next is Inside Out 2, this movie spoke out to me as once upon a time I was in her shoes growing up and dealing with all of these complex emotions. Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron is a great documentary of Miyazaki coming back to make The Boy and the Heron. It was able to take years of content and compile it into one cohesive film. En Fanfare was the type of feel good movie that people need nowadays with all the hardship that goes on. It’s the type of film that just warms your heart in a sentimental way. That leads me to my next pick, Marcello Mio, this film is also the type of film that people need nowadays, but more in a funny kooky kind of way! Now we head into the series, I really enjoyed a lot of documentary style series this year. Quiet on Set and Man with 1000 Kids were my two favorites as they were quite bone chilling. Quiet on Set really hit home to me as I grew up watching Nickelodeon shows and it’s sad to now really see what these actors went through. Man with 1000 kids just really shows the type of crazy things that can happen in the fertility industry that most of us don’t understand. America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders took a different approach than the CMT predecessor DCC Making the Team, which I liked in some aspects. It didn’t glamorize the work and stuff these young women go through as much which was an eye opening twist. My last pick is not a documentary but a series that I did really enjoy, The Spiderwick Chronicles. I enjoyed this as it took a more adult/mature take on the children’s story so in a sense it grew up with its audience.
Joe Bendel
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Terrestrial Verses
Flow
Youth (Hard Times)
Ghost Cat Anzu
Look Back
Intercepted
The Imaginary
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store
This year, the two best films were “made possible” by the current Iranian regime’s oppression—or rather they powerfully condemn the government’s human rights abuses. Mohammad Rasoulof secretly filmed The Seed of the Sacred Film in Iran, but edited it as an exile in Germany. It is a damning indictment of the Iranian justice system, but it is also one of the most viscerally intense domestic thrillers I’ve ever seen. Likewise, Ali Asgari & Alireza Khatami’s Terrestrial Verses is a deceptively simple, brutally powerful assembly of nine vignettes, focusing on ordinary Iranians enduring a succession of increasingly intrusive cross-examinations from authority figures.
More happily, 2024 was a great year for animation, with the Latvian Oscar contender, Flow representing the best of the best. The dialogue-free film is truly transfixing. In addition, Ghost Cat Anzu is wonderfully weird and sweetly wistful. Look Back might be short, but it packs a devastating emotional punch. The Imaginary also delivers some deeply poignant moments, as well as some spectacular fantastical world building. Strangely, a lot of movie patrons missed the boat on The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, but it is a rousing fantasy that understands and respects Tolkien’s work. Plus, The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store looks cute, which it is, but it is also elegantly elegiac, revealing surprising depth.
Russia and China also were the focus of bold documentary close-ups this year. Oksana Karpovych’s Intercepted shockingly exposes the damage done both to the nation of Ukraine and the soul of the Russian people as a result of Putin’s illegal invasion, by presenting actual radio intercepts of Russian soldiers, speaking to each other, in their own words. In contrast, viewers should feel tremendous sympathy for the young textile workers Wang Bing documents in Youth (Hard Times), the second film in his mammoth trilogy, who endure systemic exploitation, while their government looks the other way. All ten films are extraordinarily accomplished and often unusually distinctive.
Edward Douglas
Flow
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Anora
Eno
A Complete Unknown
Dune Chapter 2
Didi
June Zero
The Brutalist
Sing Sing
One caveat that I’d have to add to my list above is that two of my favorite films that I didn’t get to see until this year were Anh Hung Tran’s The Taste of Things and Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams, the latter which received an Oscar nomination in the Animated Feature category earlier this year. Removing them from the equation, it was still easy to find ten movies that I loved, though I kept the docs down to a minimum of two since otherwise, my entire top 10 might be docs. As it happened, my #1 movie of the year ended up being Gints Zilbalodis’ animated dialogue-free Flow, a film that’s just full-on cinematic storytelling unlike anything else I saw this year.
As with many others, I loved Sean Baker’s Anora so much, not only due to its specific view of New York City, specifically Brighton Beach and Coney Island, but also the terrific performances by Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov. I was quite surprised by how much I loved James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, despite never being a Dylan fan, but I generally love music biopics when done well, which is why the experimental doc, Eno, also made my list.
One movie I hope people seek out and discover is Jake Paltrow’s June Zero, a film set in Israel around the trial and eventual execution of Adolf Eichmann for his involvement in Holocaust atrocities. Oddly, I only had won a big budget studio movie in my top 10 this year, and that was Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Chapter Two, which I found to be so much better than the first movie. I was thrilled to be able to spend most of this year doing interviews for Cinema Daily US, because I got to do a few interviews for some of my favorite movies mentioned above, and here’s hoping that 2025 will be just as exciting for movies as 2024 was.
Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
Maria
Juror #2
Here
Kinds of Kindness
Anora
Wicked
Emilia Pérez
Flow
Inside Out 2
Vermiglio
Angelina Jolie sends shivers down viewers’ spines while bringing back to life the operatic diva, whilst singing with her very own voice in Maria. Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 takes the classic 12 Angry Men on a broader ethical level, something that is explored from a different angle. Robert Zemeckis’ Here portrays with lyricism the places we inhabit, from the dawn of time until today. Through Kinds of Kindness, Yorgos Lanthimos remarkably portrays how far people will go for a sense of belonging.
Sean Baker’s Anora rewrites the Pretty Woman archetype through an international-espionage perspective that moves and entertains at the same time. The two musicals that conquered the scene this year are the brilliant adaptation of the Broadway show Wicked, directed by Jon M. Chu, and Jacques Audiard’s crime comedy Emilia Pérez, that embraces topics of diversity.
The two gems of animation this year are Flow and Inside Out 2. The former — that marks the feature debut of animator Gints Zilbalodis — proves how the power of storytelling can go beyond dialogue, of which it is void. The latter unleashes the nuanced world of emotions, expanding the realm of our moods. The Italian entry for the Academy Awards, Vermiglio, is striking for the quiet torment that is conveyed by the characters of the story, with utter delicacy.
Matthew Schuchman
Rumours
Love Lies Bleeding
The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer
Omar & Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird
Memoir of a Snail
Civil War
Nickel Boys
Kneecap
Anora
Flow
While I didn’t dislike many of the big awards players making the rounds this year, it was hard to be moved by them beyond a single selling point. One film may have amazing cinematography, but the story wasn’t moving; for example. But, here are some thoughts on my favorite films this year. While no one seems to respond to Rumours as I have, it still was one of the best experiences I had watching a film this year. It was wildly hilarious while not losing its aim at today’s socio-political climate.
Love Lies Bleeding hit a note early in the year and it is still sustaining to this day. Why Katy O’Brian is not a major contender in every best actress race is mind boggling. The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, it will be on my list again when it officially comes out. Next to Rumours, I have not laughed that much in years! As a fan of the musical works of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixlar-Zavala I had a lot invested in Omar & Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird, but even those who are unfamiliar with their work will have a lot of glean from this very personal documentary.
Nobuhiro Hosoki
A Real Pain
Emilia Perez
The Seed of Sacred Fig
A Complete Unknown
The Flow
Songs of Earth
Look Back
Nickel Boys
La Cochina
Maria
A Real Pain was one of the surprised treat from the Sundance this year, we know Jesse Eisenberg was talented as an actor, but his audacious debut film cemented his career as a man behind the camera, the chemistry between mismatched cousins played by Jesse and Kieran Culkin were remarkable, and very heartwarming film. Emilia Perez is the July Prize winner of the Cannes Film Festival, a suspense thriller that wrapped in the musical that never a dull moment, it seamlessly intertwines with the musical sequence, three the actresses, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, and Karla Sofía Gascón shined in a dazzling visual and unusual premise.
The Seed of Sacred Fig was entirely shot in secret, due to director Mohammad Rasoulof’s status, and tackled the subject matter that had to flee Iran to live in Germany. An engaging stoy of the Iranian family became increasingly paranoid after losing the gun, which was a great depiction of the current state of Iran. A Complete Unknown is a pure music bio of unmistakable talent, Bob Dylan. The part of the success of the film lies in focusing on his formative years rather than capturing his distinguished time of the last 50 years, Timothée Chalamet dived right into the heart and soul of the music legend.
The Flow is a remarkable animation about a solitary cat who had to leave his flat after the great flood, teamed up with other animals on a refugee boat. The entire film has no dialogue other than the voice of animals and sounds of mother nature, which was also beautiful throughout the film. Songs of Earth was the most immersive experience that I had in recent years. Director Magreth Olin follows her roots with her father through the eyes of Norway’s adventurous valley, Oldedalen in Nordfjord. It made me realize once again that human beings are kept alive with nature.
A comic artist drew Look Back, which revolves around the story of a young female comic artist who is overly confident and meets a shut-in Kyomoto, both of whom enjoy drawing manga. The animator’s original drawings are directly converted into images in this movie to achieve a close approximation of the comic. By keeping the original drawings as they are, the writer’s emotions are directly captured on screen. The movie Nickel Boys is based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, and director RaMell Ross uses exceptional POV and long-shots to depict racial turmoil and portray the resilience of black people.
La Cocina is directed by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios, who updates Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play The Kitchen to a contemporary New York restaurant in black and white. The film’s focus is on the dreams and desperation of undocumented immigrants, who meet with the staff as they chase the elusive American dream in a chaotic kitchen. Maria, during her final days in Paris, Maria Callas, the world’s greatest opera singer, is the subject of this drama set in the 1970s. Angelina Jolie’s fleeting voice and emotional outbursts captured the audience’s attention. Pablo Larran captured a portrait of a depressed and internally suffering woman with an extraordinary last note.
If you liked our selections of Top 10 films of 2024, share your thoughts below!
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