Here are New Times' picks for the 12 best films of 2024.
Anora
If there's anything we should take from Anora, Sean Baker's madcap tale of a stripper's rags-to-riches-to-rags romance with a Russian oligarch's heir, it's that the ultra-wealthy exist on a completely separate plane of existence. Beyond the powerhouse performance of Mikey Madison as Ani, who lets herself be taken for a ride by the spoiled yet charismatic Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), as well as from the tremendous supporting cast playing the family's reluctant hired goons, the film impresses with its insight into the lifestyles of the rich and heinous. After a career of cataloguing marginalized lives, Baker finally directs his view up at the people most responsible for all that misery, and the results are as damning — and heartbreaking — as they are entertaining. Read the full review of Anora. Douglas Markowitz
The Beast
Bertrand Bonello's The Beast covers three periods — the past, present, and future — two ill-fated lovers and a single unnamable yet all-encompassing sense of dread. One of contemporary cinema's greatest filmmakers, Bonello crafts an expansive and innovative adaptation of Henry James' 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle with spectacular performances from Lea Seydoux and Georges MacKay at its core. The film is an enigmatic and uncompromising examination of anxiety, horror, and modernity's dual dehumanization and desensitization of the human spirit. From a forbidden affair to incel culture to the impending future of artificial intelligence eradicating human feeling, Bonello's far-reaching audacity is miraculously controlled and focused. The Beast captures the crippling, abject fear at the heart of modern society that James was articulating at the turn of the 19th Century, one that feels as prescient and potent as ever. Just as its protagonist fears "obliteration," Bonello sculpts an ending that does the same to the spectator. Trae DeLellis
The Brutalist
Two hundred fifteen minutes may be more than enough length for most filmmakers. But with a cast doing career-best work, including a staggering performance from Adrien Brody as ex-Bauhausler László Tóth and a ferocious Guy Pearce as his blowhard industrialist patron Harrison Van Buren, director Brady Corbet's astonishing tale of a Holocaust survivor architect seeking sanctuary in Pennsylvania earns its length. The Brutalist has enough insight into the immigrant experience, the dark, true nature of America, and the battles waged by artists for creative freedom and autonomy to fill a movie twice its size. Much like the style that gives the film its namesake, this is a film that stares you down and dares you to misinterpret it. Douglas Markowitz
Challengers
If Janelle Monae once sang, "Everything is sex, except sex, which is power," Challengers swaps the word "power" with "tennis," and, goddamn, does it result in something exhilarating. One of Luca Guadagnino's two treasures of 2024 — the other being his lovely Burroughs adaptation Queer — it's hard to resist the allure of Challengers and the trio at its core: Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist. Just as quickly as a tennis ball flies across the court, so does Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's lens bounce between tennis players who can't do anything but edge each other mentally (and, perhaps, physically). The film's music, featuring some of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' most playful work to date, lures you in even deeper until you're as caught up in the melodrama as the players themselves. That a film about three people who know nothing about how to communicate beyond hitting a ball at each other is so riveting it's frankly baffling, but Challengers stays satisfying down to the climax. Juan Barquin
Dune: Part Two
Resource wars, desert freedom fighters, neo-feudal overlords, religious fanaticism — perhaps it's a testament to author Frank Herbert's perceptive vision of a far future that makes Dune: Part Two feel bracingly relevant. But it's Denis Villeneuve's talent as a director, as well as his taste for thrilling set pieces (The worm ride! The flying Harkonnen soldiers! The monochrome gladiator battle on Giedi Prime!) that makes this film the greatest visualization yet of the sci-fi classic. Adapting the back half of Herbert's novel and making key changes to the text — turning Chani (Zendaya) from a submissive concubine into a tragic warrior fruitlessly lashing back against the co-opting her people's struggle, for instance — Villeneuve's epic brilliantly portrays the transformation of Paul Atreides from refugee to soldier to messianic conqueror. Part three can't come soon enough. Douglas Markowitz
Hundreds of Beavers
Hundreds of Beavers has no right being as funny as it is. It is a film about a man who, while trying to survive, sets out to capture and kill, well, hundreds of beavers. There's more to it than that, but part of the joy of Mike Cheslik's feature debut is witnessing how wildly he escalates every idea he introduces. To say his lead actor Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (and, for that matter, every single stuntman in a beaver costume) is eternally committed to the bit is an understatement, throwing himself into absurd slapstick situations to pull laughs out of the audience. That it is a contemporary silent comedy — save for a precious few words and great music — that takes inspiration from silent comedies from the likes of Harry Lloyd and Buster Keaton, video games (The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario World), and the consistently unhinged humor of a Looney Tunes short, while still feeling entirely unique is nothing short of a miracle. And that every bit of it works and holds up on rewatch — I've seen it four times — is why it's one of the best of the year. Juan Barquin
I Saw The TV Glow
Where many films frame themselves around the idea of coming-of-age, I Saw the TV Glow asks something a little different: What if you never actually came into yourself? What if everything surrounding you forced you deeper into the closet? It's for this reason that Jane Schoenbrun's second feature film is as beautiful as it is harrowing. As Owen, Justice Smith is a portrait of repression – a body that folds into itself and a voice that cracks at practically every word – in a world full of unease. The bounds between reality and fiction are always blurred, so much so that a television show called The Pink Opaque may be more real than the one he lives in. It isn't just that I Saw the TV Glow envelops the viewer in its universe, the kind of film that feels like an episode of television you shouldn't be watching, but that it bakes in the dysphoria that comes with existing as trans into its very cinematic language. Read the full review of I Saw The TV Glow. Juan Barquin
La Chimera
Rohrwachian. It's a mouthful and, technically, may not be a word yet, but any sensible cinephile should start practicing its pronunciation. With La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher establishes herself as one of the most Italian filmmakers since the three Linis (Rossellini, Fellini, and Pasolini). Released early this year after a 2023 festival and awards-qualifying run, Rohrwacher's fourth narrative feature is an intoxicating and improbable blend of neo- and magical realism. La Chimera, the close of a trilogy following The Wonders and Happy as Lazzaro, presents a filmmaker at the height of her cinematic powers. At once tragically romantic and comedically deadpan, Rohrwacher's film about a British archeologist turned tomb-raider (a tombaroli) haunted by his past love is both intimate and mysterious. With it-actor Josh O'Connor's captivating role as Arthur, the antithesis of Indiana Jones, it's no wonder the Challengers actor spent years writing to Rohwarcher for the chance to collaborate. Rohrwacher's storytelling, combined with images from Hélene Louvart, one of cinema's greatest cinematographers, forges a unique amalgamation of myth and the tangible. Trae DeLellis
Nickel Boys
People often forget that Florida is a southern state, with all the racist baggage that implies – slavery, Jim Crow, and police brutality have scarred this state. Behind its sunny image as a vacation paradise is a Florida that the powers in this state don't want us to know about, epitomized in the shameful story of Dozier Academy, the inspiration for the reform school in RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys. The film adapted from Colson Whitehead's novel is a formal achievement, using POV cinematography to put us directly into the minds and memories of its young protagonists, prisoners in the abusive neo-plantation of Nickel Academy. But while impressive as a piece of filmmaking craft, this memory-keeping function makes the film a genuinely provocative work of cinematic art. Douglas Markowitz
No Other Land
To watch the documentary No Other Land — filmed and directed by a collective of Palestinian-Israeli activists including Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor — is to bear witness to four years in the lives of those being displaced in Masafer Yatta. Though No Other Land is framed around Adra's own experiences with his homeland being destroyed throughout his life, including archival footage of decades worth of harassment and assault from the Israeli Occupation Forces, it is as much a portrait of a community that continues to persist in the face of oppression — until they sadly cannot. It is a film that isn't interested in holding your hand and guiding you through nearly a century of conflict. Instead, it simply presents a fraction of what has been going on through a personal lens, in which the threat of displacement and death looms over every single minute of a life depicted. The film has not been shown in South Florida and perhaps may never be screened here. This isn't just disheartening; it's a clear reminder that America is just as complicit in these atrocities. And while the film cannot save anyone, it is essential to remember that it can capture a moment in time and preserve the memory of people and places. Juan Barquin
Nosferatu
Remaking the silent movie classic for a new era, Nosferatu is pure evil, an unhinged epic of sheer terror. Bill Skarsgård and director Robert Eggers transform the iconic vampire into a malevolent force of demonic inhumanity, building out an engrossing world of darkness haunted by the monster's omnipresent shadow. We'll always have a soft spot for The Lighthouse, but let's be real: This is the auteur's greatest film yet, one that cements him as a master of the genre. Douglas Markowitz
Queer
Nobody on Earth is doing it like Luca Guadagnino. As if Challengers wasn't enough, the Italian director also dropped this highly personal, hallucinogenic take on Wiliam S. Burroughs' roman à clef, filled with arresting imagery, compelling performances, and a killer soundtrack blending Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' evocative score with Nirvana, New Order, and Sinead O'Connor. Anchored by a provocative, soul-rending performance by Daniel Craig as the author's slightly pathetic alter ego William Lee, Queer is a unique, unforgettable story of unrequited love and self-revelation, as well as a tribute to one great artist from another. Read the full review of Queer. Douglas MarkowitzIndividual Contributor Top 12 Lists
Douglas Markowitz
- Anora
- The Brutalist
- Challengers
- Dune: Part II
- Hard Truths
- Hundreds of Beavers
- I Saw The TV Glow
- La Chimera
- Nickel Boys
- No Other Land
- Nosferatu
- Queer
Juan Barquin
- The Beast
- Between The Temples
- Castration Movie
- Challengers
- The Colors Within
- Drive-Away Dolls
- Exhuma
- Hundreds of Beavers
- I Saw The TV Glow
- Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity
- The People's Joker
- Stress Positions
Trae DeLellis
- A Different Man
- The Beast
- Challengers
- Drive-Away Dolls
- His Three Daughters
- Housekeeping for Beginners
- I Saw The TV Glow
- La Chimera
- Last Summer
- Love Lies Bleeding
- Problemista
- Rumors
