After much teasing — offering a portion of this list to radio listeners, as well as my collection of honourable mentions, and the Top 10 documentaries — here are my picks for the best films of 2024.
I needed to see the releases at year’s end to feel like I could offer a comprehensive list (yes, that Nosferatu review is coming) but I have yet to see much-buzzed about 2024 features like The Brutalist or Nickel Boys. So it goes.
I think it’s fair to say 2024 had fewer films that I loved unreservedly compared to 2023, but more broadly many very good films — that honourable mentions list is kinda sprawling. I admit, and I even curbed a few. My third annual trip to TIFF in September brought many of them to my attention, once again a fantastic festival experience. A few of the excellent pictures I saw there are really 2025 releases — including Relay and David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds. Look for them in theatres in the months ahead.
A big tip of the critical hat to Atlantic Canadian filmmakers and the homegrown films that had theatrical and festival runs, like Tara Thorne’s Lakeview and Jason Buxton’s Sharp Corner. I expect them both to have broader releases in 2025. Two of my favourite films from this region in 2024 came from Newfoundland — The King Tide (now on Crave and Hoopla) and Sweet Angel Baby, which should be out in 2025.
Without any further fuss, here’s my Top 10 of 2024.
10) My Old Ass
I first noticed Megan Park in the romantic comedy, The F Word aka What If, which more than 10 years later has to be in the running for the best romcom in Canadian cinema history. It turns out she’s got a lot more going for her than great comic timing as the writer/director of this refreshing, unexpected coming-of-age picture. If that wasn’t enough to garner interest, My Old Ass is also a big part of Aubrey Plaza’s imperious 2024, maybe the best.
9) Challengers
Though some preferred Luca Guadagnino and Justin Kuritzkes late-arriving William Burroughs adaptation Queer, it was this sexy tennis drama that grabbed audiences back in the spring and deservedly so. I predicted movie-goers would embrace movie stars in 2024 more than Intellectual Property, and while the year’s sequel-heavy box office champs suggests I was off the mark, the quality films, especially from independent filmmakers, offered great roles for charismatic, well-lit hotties like Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, and Zendaya.
Kristen Stewart goes from strength to strength in her career choices, this time teaming up with English filmmaker Rose Glass (Saint Maud) to deliver a violent, sleazy, desert-set American noir indebted to Lynch and Hopper, one that takes a weird, somewhat delightful turn in the third act — you won’t predict where it goes.
The most talked-about film of 2024, and if you haven’t yet had the pleasure that could be because body horror isn’t your thing. That’s fair. What you’re missing is a wildly entertaining but, yes, deeply bloody and monstrous thriller about women’s self-loathing around aging and how that is cultivated by fashion and entertainment industries, starring Demi Moore in a fantastically committed performance, directed by the French filmmaker of Revenge.
The newest (and long-awaited) film by the director of great movies like Loving, Midnight Special, and Take Shelter is one of those genuinely American tales of men, misfits, and motorcycles.
Yorgos Lanthimos reteams with screenwriter of his weirdest, absurd material, Efthimis Filippou, for an anthology film — three separate stories featuring many of the same cast, including the magnificent Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. It’s a look at the freakier side of American society from a Greek filmmaking team comfortable with telling the most unique and offbeat kinds of stories.
4) Babygirl
A delightfully sex-positive erotic thriller, so much funnier than you’d expect from a movie in this genre. A lot of credit goes to Dutch writer-director Halina Reijn and her star, Nicole Kidman, for their courage with the material.
Netflix advertised this picture widely as a release on its platform, and while it did get a theatrical release in Canada through VVS Films, it weirdly landed on Hoopla before it finally showed up on Netflix Canada this week. If you passed on in theatres, don’t miss Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, a stone cold thriller inspired by the true story of a California rapist and murderer who operated with so much freedom preying on women that he actually went on the TV show The Dating Game in order to find his next victim. What distinguishes this from so many serial killer movies is it’s wholly told from the victims’ perspective. It proves Kendrick has serious skills behind the camera.
2) Anora
Critics like me have wet themselves over this picture and its screwball energy. What I think distinguishes it aren’t simply the laughs, but the undercurrent of real-life danger and anxiety — the elements that make it feel like a thriller — that also gives the film a bite, that make the laughs potent but also uncomfortable. I’ll be very happy to see Sean Baker take home an Oscar or two for this one.
I’m writing this from London where this film has just opened, reminding me this utterly shattering and wonderfully funny romantic drama totally surprises by indulging and then subverting genre expectations around weepies, relationship dramas, and romcoms. The fact the narrative is told out of regular chronology allows the filmmakers to work their magic on those genre elements, juxtaposing lovely, lively romance and comedy with the challenges of illness, of ambition, and of legacy. I wept when I watched it at TIFF, and I went to see it a second time when it was released theatrically in October and wept even more. We fall in love with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, who totally convince as being in love with each other, as struggling, as finding a way through. Mark my words, this is a classic that will be enjoyed repeatedly in the years hence.
And, for those who are wondering after my list of the worst movies of 2024, I’m just going to send you to a category on my blog where you can read my reviews of this year’s stinkers, last year’s stinkers, etc. I needn’t pile any more crap on these movies (and documentaries), just let them be forgotten and move on. It’s 2025! Thanks for reading FLAW IN THE IRIS. I’ll see you at the movies!
