Skip to main content

Best of 2024 - End of Year Report

Ho ho, yo yos. Here's my rundown of films in 2024. By my best count I saw 124 films last year, 115 of them new watches (though not necessarily made or released in 2024), and 61 of them at the cinema. Of those cinema trips, 28 were at Luna Leederville, 14 at Palace Raine Square and 10 at the Backlot Perth, with 6 other cinemas making up the numbers. So here are my 10 favourite films from 2024, with a top 5 pod down the bottom...

[Click on the titles for links to full reviews]

10. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

George Miller's follow-up to Fury Road tells us the story of how Furiosa got to where that film started. I reckon this was the best blockbuster of the year, certainly the most entertaining, with one epic action sequence and a couple of fine performances from Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. Great fun.

9. The Taste of Things (2023)

Don't go in hungry! This is a foodie's shan-grill-ah, the high culinary masterwork of the last decade or more. Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel are saucy together but it wasn't their relationship that was causing all the moaning in the cinema. Director Tran Ahn Hung knows how to do lush and he pulls it off here with aplomb.

8. There's Still Tomorrow (2023)

The only Italian film in the list, this strong debut from Paola Cortellesi (who also wrote and stars) is about women's rights in post-war Rome and is brilliantly genre-defying. Shot in black and white, it has hints of neo-realism but is also absurdly comic, all the while making weighty statements about patriarchy and domestic violence. The fact that it succeeds in being a fantastic watch is surely its greatest achievement. 

7. Nosferatu (2024)

Ok, so technically this opens in 2025 in Australia but I saw it late 2024 so let's not squabble when such a stunning looking film is on the table. Robert Eggers' take on the Count Orlok story, first adapted from Stoker's Dracula in 1922. I wasn't taken with his previous film, and so wasn't ready for this beautiful gem (admittedly, his last one also LOOKED very good). Lily-Rose Depp is superb as the object of 'the insufferable one's' desire, as is Bill Skarsgård as the titular old gent. But it's cinematographer Jarin Blaschke who stands supreme here.

6. The Beast (2023)

Another odd combination of genres in Betrand Bonello's AI/time travel/reincarnation/romance, starring the luminous Léa Seydoux and George McKay as her cross-timeline would-be suitor. There's a lot to get into with this film, where personal disasters are juxtaposed with actual events across time. The strangeness, almost inaccessibility is maybe one reason it took me so long to rate this as highly as I now do. A proper sleeper this.

5. Bird (2024)

Andrea Arnold's magic-realism meets the grime of Gravesend on the Thames. It's a story of an angry, disaffected young teenager trying to come to grips with relationships around her. Her chance meeting with an unusual newcomer who's looking for his family, slowly brings her to a sort of equanimity. Barry Keoghan as the young father and Franz Rogowski as the interloper are excellent, but it's Nykiya Adams' debut and she's a brilliant find.

4. Kneecap (2024)

What a blast this is. The Northern Irish hip-hop band of the title have put together an origin story with the help of co-writer/director, Rich Peppiat. The trio of Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and CJ Próvai play themselves with gusto, more than ably supported by Jessica Reynolds and Michael Fassbender. It's vibrant, dynamic and fucking funny, with a suitably high energy score. Top drawer fun.

3. Birdeater (2023)

A young bloke convinces his fiancé to come away with him for his buck's weekend in the Aussie bush. This is clearly a questionable decision and though not exactly a horror film, it certainly plays out like one. It's another debut feature on the list, this time from a pair of writer/directors in Jack Clark and Jim Weir, and a shout out to Revelation Film Festival for screening this belter. Best Aussie film of the year for me.

2. The Teachers' Lounge (2023)

It was very hard to put this in second place - the level of film-making in Ilker Çatak's fourth feature is remarkable. This German drama/thriller is about a high school teacher who makes a decision that threatens her career and well-being. Leonie Benesch is phenomenal as the idealistic young teacher and there are moments of score-enhanced claustrophobia throughout that make this a must watch. An incredible film.

1. The Zone of Interest (2023)

An equally excellent film as the one above, Jonathan Glazer has made an uncomfortable classic with this WW2 suburban family drama. The wrinkle is that the suburb is Auschwitz and the father of the family is the concentration camp commander. Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel play the parents so matter-of-factly that you'd be forgiven for not registering the severity of the situation. Glazer stays resolutely outside the camp but the sounds and sights above the wall are a constant reminder of the horrors occurring. This is essential cinema.


Here are some more thoughts on films I saw in 2024.

Best kids' films: The Goonies, The Croods, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, Ghost Cat Anzu.

Feelgood films: The Fall Guy, One for the Road, Power Alley, The Holdovers, Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself, Merchant Ivory.

Feelbad films (but still good): Killers of the Flower Moon, The Promised Land, 20 Days in Mariupol, Hesitation Wound, Assassins, We Were Children, Memories of Murder.

Weirdest films: Poor Things, The Animal Kingdom, Kinds of Kindness, The Substance.

Best shits and giggles: Speak No Evil, Anora.

Best scenes: The nightclub brawl in Monkey Man; the parent/teacher meeting in The Teachers' Lounge; all the food preparation scenes in The Taste of Things; the 'Stowaway to Nowhere' sequence in Furiosa; the dinner in Birdeater; Margaret Qualley's first appearance in The Substance; another dinner scene, this time in Speak No Evil; Sebastien Stan's one-sided bar 'conversation' in A Different Man; and the stunning crossroads scene in Nosferatu.

Best performances: Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel in The Zone of Interest; Leonie Benesch in The Teachers' Lounge; Frederick Lau in One for the Road; Léa Seydoux in The Beast; Chris Hemsworth in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga; Ben Hunter in Birdeater; Leila George in He Ain't Heavy; Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgård in Nosferatu; Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofia Gascón in Emilia Pérez.

Best songs: Emily Blunt doing a karaoke version of 'Against All Odds' (Phil Collins) in The Fall Guy; 'Dana-dan' (Bloodywood) in Monkey Man; James MacAvoy singing 'Eternal Flame' (The Bangles) to Scoot McNairy in Speak No Evil; 'To Love Somebody' (The Bee Gees) - a false dawn in Joker: Folie à Deux; 'Dreaming' (Blondie) in Anora; 'The Universal' (Blur) in Bird; 'Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying' (Belle and Sebastien) in Days of the Bagnold Summer. Oh, and absolutely fuck all in Deadpool and Wolverine.


[Like last year, I don't fancy going down the 'Worst 10' route but there are some unmentionables that I'll mention here. Megalopolis and Joker: Folie à Deux were awful but the absolute nadir was a film from 1990 that I had never seen, and now wish I'd kept it that way. This was the much-adored Christmas movie Home Alone. I can't get over how terrible this film is.]

Labels:

Comments

  1. hisardigideity7 March 2026 at 03:09

    Best Scrap Car Dealer in Haileymandi
    Call: 9466116726
    https://rss.investorbrandnetwork.com/?s=Best+Scrap+Car+Dealer+in+Haileymandi

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Prosecutors

This Stalinist 'thriller' sets out its stall early, with a snowy prison yard holding our attention (or not) for a good few minutes. Prisoners are herded in, most very old and on the verge of pegging it. One such geezer is tasked with burning hundreds of letters to Josef himself, pleading with him to hear their case. The old guy saves a letter written in blood and so begins the story. The note is from an ex-academic, party member and proud Bolshevik, asking to see someone from the prosecutors office. Enter Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov), newly appointed and eager. His meeting with the ancient political prisoner, Stepniak (Alexsandr Filippenko) opens his eyes to the creeping dread of the times. Kornev makes the trek to Moscow to see the Procurator General (Anatoliy Beliy) to make his case against NKVD corruption brough to his attention by Stepniak. It's not an easy mission. The bureaucracy and interminable fucking waiting throughout the first two acts of the film would make Kaf...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...
2 comments
Read more

Ainbo: Amazon Princess

A young Amazonian girl bounding around on a tree like Mowgli in The Jungle Book opens this Peruvian/Dutch/German co-production. We soon discover that this is the Ainbo of the title, and that her best friend, Zumi, is about to be crowned leader of their tribe. A relatively quick whip- round of characters introduces us to the two leads; a smarmy village thug called Atok; Zumi’s father and current tribal chief, Huarinka; Ainbo’s foster mother, Chuni; as well as two ‘loopy’ spirit guides, Dillo and Vaca (a bespectacled armadillo and a clumsy tapir). The environmental theme is also introduced early on, in the form of dying fish and disease in the village, attributed to a curse but, as we find out later, the result of something more real, and more troubling. Ainbo is convinced by her spirit guides to embark on a trek to find a magical root that will save the village. On her journey she must deal with various perils, ranging from a pursuing Atok, and a gigantic sloth in his volcano home, t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Arco (Me) (Kid)

This is the first feature length film from French writer/director Ugo Bienvenu. It tells the story of futuristic kid, Arco, voiced by Juliano Crue Valdi in the English dub, and Oscar Tresanini in the French original - here I'll explain that I saw the preview of this with the English voice cast, so I'll mention them from now, unless I spy a notable Frenchy. Anyway, Arco is too young to fly to the past like his family do, but like any young ding-a-ling, he decides to chance his arm, and ends up in 2075. This is a more recognisable future for us than Arco's time, as we see climate change writ large on society. In this time-zone, Arco meets Iris (Margot Ringard Oldra) and her domestic robot, Mikki (voiced by a strange combination of Iris's parents, Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo). Iris wants to help Arco return to his time, but they're thwarted by a missing jewel that he needs in order to travel, as well as a trio of bumbling goons (Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg and Flea...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Voice of Hind Rajab

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a very confronting film that uses real emergency recordings to tell the story of Hind Rajab, a 6 year old Palestinian girl trapped under siege in northern Gaza in early 2024. Tunisian writer/director Kaouther Ben Hania apparently paused work on another film when she heard the audio of the calls between Hind and the Palestine Red Crescent Society in order to get this film made. And it's a timely reminder of the crimes of this current Israeli government. The film starts in the offices of the Red Crescent, a West Bank based rescue agency, when Omar (Motaz Malhees) gets a call from a man in Germany explaining that his family are stuck in a car that's been attacked. Omar contacts a young woman in the car but is cut off by the sounds of gunfire. When the call is reconnected, it's soon discovered that the only person still alive in the car is a 6 year old girl, Hind. The sole way to save her is to coordinate with the Israeli army, via the Red Cross to a...
Post a Comment
Read more

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I'm really getting into the 28UoTLCU (28 'Unit of Time' Later Cinematic Universe). This edition is directed by Nia DaCosta, and she picks up the reins from Danny Boyle and slots right into the landscape. The biggest takeaway from The Bone Temple is that Father Figure transference is rife, throughout both of these '28 Years' films, actually. If we choose the obvious link, Spike (Alfie Williams) is passed from parents, Isla (Jodie Comer) and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the first film, onto two polar opposites, Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) in this one, and presumably to a certain returnee in the third installment.  But there are also other relationships in the film(s) that explore the nature of dependency, and we have to assume writer Alex Garland, DaCosta, and godfather Boyle, have other, real-world settings in mind, not purely in the zombie genre. This manifests in the rapprochement of Dr. Kelson towards the 'infected', s...
Post a Comment
Read more

We Bury the Dead

I went along to Luna Outdoor last Friday to see a preview of local lad, Zac Hilditch's Albany shot, Tassie set zombie drama, We Bury the Dead . The premise goes that the US government has accidentally detonated an experimental pulse weapon close to the east coast of Tasmania, killing more than 500,000 people. A side note to this disaster is that some of the dead are rebooting. Daisy Ridley plays Ava, an American physical therapist looking for her husband, who was in Tassie on a work retreat. She volunteers to be part of a body retrieval unit but is told she must not leave Hobart. She meets Clay (Brenton Thwaites) and they manage to cadge a motorbike and hit the road south. On the way, among the rebooted, they run into soldier Riley (Mark Coles Smith), who has his own reasons for being out of the capital. In a Q&A after the film with The Curb's Andrew F. Peirce, Hilditch mentioned that the film started out as a pure grief drama, and zombies were added to the script later. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Goya Murders

The machinations of the serial killer have long been fertile ground for filmmakers but the quality of the final product can vary greatly. For every Zodiac or Se7en there’s one like this. The Goya Murders (or El Asesino de los Caprichos ) starts with a reasonably sound premise – a killer is poisoning his (usually well off) victims and recreating scenes from Goya prints as deathly exhibits. Imagine the murders scenes in Se7en but with less gore and more artistry. Investigating these are Madrid detectives, Carmen Cobos and Eva González, played by Maribal Verdú and Aura Garrido, and though the actors are fine, they have the writing to overcome. Their characters are broadly painted, there’s not a lot of light and shade here. Carmen immediately takes against her younger partner for no apparent reason. Eva is a fun-loving, karaoke singing, happy mother-of-two, while Carmen drinks from a hip flask and drives erratically. At one point a fellow officer tells Carmen that her ‘bad cop’ routine ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Best Films of 2011 to 2020 - End of Decade Report

I realised a few weeks ago that I've been doing the Film Shapes blog since 2011. This got me thinking that it might be a doddle to put together an aggregation of the top tens of each year, a kind of 'best of the decade' list. Not such an easy task. I've had to stretch a mooted ten out to twenty and the order has been troubling me for some days. As it turns out, all these films were actually made between 2011 and 2020, otherwise titles like Inception may have snuck in. Anyway, I'll leave you with this for now and bugger the consequences. 20. Slow West (2015) An odd, melodic Western, directed by John Maclean (of The Beta Band), this has young Scot, Kodi Smitt-McPhee crossing the perilous US west, helped or hindered along the way by their excellencies Michael Fassbender and Ben Mendelsohn. As the title suggests, it's slow-paced but that's what sets it apart from other films of its ilk. Come to think of it, this is a pretty lonely ilk. 19. Bohemian Rhap sody ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mandibles

Mandibles is the latest film from French musician turned filmmaker, Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Oizo). It’s an odd film, veering between lovably surreal farce and nihilistic idiocy. The premise has our protagonists, Manu (Grégoire Ludig) and Jean-Gab (David Marsais), stumbling upon a grotesquely large fly in the boot of a car they’ve stolen. This scuppers the completion of a possibly dodgy job they’re on but these two will not be disheartened. Jean-Gab suggests training the huge fly, which he names Dominique, and putting it to work for them as a kind of thief drone – one that “doesn’t need batteries”. The action takes place in a less than idyllic South of France where Manu and Jean-Gab lurch almost involuntarily from one ludicrous situation to another, all the while giving each other a nerdy hand-shake called ‘The Toro’. After some initial criminal tomfoolery, Manu is mistaken for someone else and invited to a country villa by some young women. Offer accepted, they take advantage of th...
Post a Comment
Read more