There are still a few movies to be released (https://www.movieinsider.com/movies/2024), but it’s still probably a good time to have a look at the best movies from 2024 and discuss them.
There will be similar threads on !showsandmovies@lemm.ee, and probably !animation@lemm.ee
Feel free to comment with the movies you liked the most, ideally one comment per movie so that other people can chime in and discuss.
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Dune 2: Villeneuve knows how to make a film feel BIG and significant. The second part topped the first for me. Only Walkens role was kinda disappointing.
The Substance: This one took me by surprise. I thought I wouldn’t see any more bangers this year but I just watched this a week ago and loved every second of it!
The Zone of Interest: Such an interesting and effective concept. Hard for me to talk about it due to the topic but very recommended to watch.
Furiosa: Does not beat Fury Road but is pretty close! Fun, loud, explosive!
Promised Land: Mads, I will work on your land for free.
Longlegs: While it fell down a bit in the third act, it was a great film with a very cool performance by Cage.
The Holdovers: An oldschool Christmas movie that warms the heart (it was released January in Germany)
Honorable mentions:
Young Woman and the Sea: Very inspiring and great performance by Ridley.
Inside Out 2: Doesn’t get close to the first film but the depiction of an anxious attack hit home for me.
Dune: Part II
Amazing cinematography. I wasn’t the most convinced by the pacing, but it was definitely worth to see it in IMAX
Agreed cinematography, set design and costumes were top notch, same as with part 1, but i agree with you that pacing was an issue. Imo the root cause was a change they made from the books
book/movie spoiler (not sure if the spoiler tag is necessary)
By deciding to keep Alia Atreides (Pauls sister) unborn it drastically shortened the time frame they spend with the Fremen, getting immersed in their culture and gaining their trust/support, from years to to months. That means everything feels rushed and they also e.g. cut the death of Paul and Chani’s first child. But then again this change was probably for practical reasons, because the movie was already long as is and it also avoided having to cast a child actor.
I had the same sentiment about the implications of
spoiler
Alia not being born
in the movie, but I also understand they were already running at almost 3 hours. Maybe an extra montage to show time passing by? Or maybe that’s too cliche. Either way, it’s still the best film of 2024 for me.
Thank you for the spoilers, and bringing up a very good point!
Part 2 was the pay-off for all the set-up in Part 1 and it was a thing of beauty (that B&W sequence really stayed with me). Not my favourite film of the year but a definite contender for top 10.
I still haven’t seen part 2 yet but I bought both in 4k from a black Friday sale. These comments are encouraging. ☺️
Yeah, if you liked Part 1 then Part 2 takes all the groundwork and builds on it.
Deadpool & Wolverine - a blast from start to finish. Probably going to finish the year in my top.three, likely #1.
I worry the movie won’t be able to have staying power.
It was so good and I enjoyed the movie greatly but it’s clearly and very much for the moment film. Touching on the nostalgia and emotions of the end of an entire collective universe and shared history of media that won’t be for people moving forward.
So can it be movie if the year if it’s only valid for this year?
Not a judgement but a question. I’d say yes, but understand it can’t be easily recommended later.
[1/2] Just scrolling through my “recently released” tab on Plex:
The Beekeeper:
Seriously, where did this movie come from?? Ridiculously fun and I usually hate action movies and Jason Statham. A tad long but the movie takes itself exactly as seriously as the audience does and it works so well.
Hundreds of Beavers:
Maybe my MOTY, I’ve just never seen anything like it in a full-length film. Super imaginative with a really cool Lumberpunk aesthetic to it.
Frogman:
Silly, stupid, and fun found footage about the fuckin’ Loveland Frogman. Good movie that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and has a surprisingly decent payoff. Watch with a group.
Civil War:
This movie got enough praise when it came out, so all I’ll say is that I agree with it.
I Saw the TV Glow:
Watched this just the other day finally. Very dreamlike, very surreal, almost Lynchian in that it’s a not-horror movie being played off as one.
In a Violent Nature:
A satire of old '80s slashers. Lots of time spent watching the killer walk through the woods. Me and my friends jokingly call it “In Some Silent Nature,” but it gets my props just for taking such an left-field approach to the genre.
Zone of Interest
The Substance
I didn’t exactly watch a ton of new movies this year but these two were both fantastic. I was thinking about Zone of Interest for weeks after. Still haven’t seen Anora.
Still need to watch Zone of Interest but agreed on the Substance. Great movie that stayed with me for a while afterwards.
I Saw The Tv Glow is 10/10 imho
Why do you like it so much? I really don’t enjoy it though I can respect the cinematography and overall composition of it I find the film itself not worth recommending.
Copying this from another conversation about it:
I saw the Tv glow is horror for queer people. If ur cishet it won’t hit the same
Tap for spoiler
It’s about failing to recognize yourself as trans an the inherent terror of living in a body that feels like a prison.
So if you can’t relate to that the message is probably lost
I’m a cishet and having grown up with quite a restrictive and repressive upbringing, the themes of “well who am I really?” and feeling like your environment and inability to discover who you truly are is slowly suffocating are definitely themes from the movie that resonated with me.
That’s a totally fair point. I just recall people leaving the theater going “what the hell was that all about?” Lol
Tap for spoiler
The other main character advocates for committing suicide as the answer to their predicament.
All bodies feel like a prison. They get old and ache some don’t provide the right chemicals or their brains hurt them. It’s not a problem only belonging to the trans community and the other main character seems predatory while the main character is beyond reach and does absolutely nothing the whole film.
I can relate to the message but the message was bad from my perspective and the execution not better. Maybe because it’s so incredibly pointed that I don’t get it but that doesn’t make it any better that it’s for a specific audience and everyone else is left stranded. I got the message I just thought it poorly faced it.
Tap for spoiler
i didn’t see it as suicide at all but rather as accepting the death of their former self. Trans people refer to their old identity as a dead name after all. 'sides rebirth is a common trope in a hero’s journey wherein you come out of hell (the ground) changed for the better
The Substance
I love a film that escalates and boy did this do that! A few times I thought that if they ended it here it’d be in my top ten and they kept cranking it up to 11.
Just having a look at websites tops (https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-movies-2024/, https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/best-movies-2024-1235079024/), I realize how many movies I missed ha ha
https://www.businessinsider.com/best-and-worst-movies-this-year-critic-ranking-2024
Borderlands and Madame Web are definitely topinv my list of worst. I’ll give the nod to the latter as the firmer seems to have been almost deliberately sabotaged by the studio, while Madame Web was, apparently, exactly the film Sony wanted to release.
Yeah, i am kind of having a hard time with the choice because there are still so much gaps like Anora, the Burtalist or Nosferatu.
Another issue is how to decide which year some movies belong to. For example “Perfect Days” from the rolling stone list.
Perfect Days premiered on 23 May 2023 at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Best Actor Award for Kōji Yakusho. It was nominated for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards
Wikipedia. I assume it made the 24 list because the US release was in February this year, but it debuted last years in other markets and was even nominated for an Oscar.
Personally i find it easiest to just go with whatever year Letterboxd uses, which in this case is 2023. But if for this poll we decide it to be a 2024 movie, then it might get my vote over Dune II.
I just go by the date of first release on IMDb, which should be pretty much the same.as Letterboxd.
Less about movies I missed and more just ones I didn’t see because: a) I have more… “low brow” tastes than some critics and b) they got showings at film festivals but didn’t necessarily trickle down to movie theatres (and/or they are on streaming platforms).
I will likely get around to some of them, I was trying to catch Anora before it left my local multiplex but couldn’t.
Man this was a rough year where even the big movies that we hoped for were mostly middling at best and lots more were outright bad.
But to support something I did like
Smile 2
I actually hadn’t seen Smile 1 before seeing this but it had a really great classic horror movie vibe of tension and uncomfortableness leading up to a payoff of just downright hard horror in the style of Edgar Allen Poe or Hereditary. And a second watch is actually great for picking up a lot of clever writing.I saw Smile 1 and it was fine - Smile 2 took that basic premise turned it up a notch or two. I went I’m with pretty low.expectations but it really delivered. One of the best horror films of the year.
Just watched this last night and like the first it’s a genuinely enjoyable popcorn horror.
What I hate is the goddamn monster. It’s stupid. Personal opinion works much better as an unknown but that’s really my only gripe.
I loved the scene with the dancers and them fighting here it was so creative.
[2/2]
Longlegs:
This movie seems like it got a lot of hate on release because of its marketing campaign. I knew nothing about it going in and loved it. Creepy imagery throughout that isn’t overpowering at the same time, either. Very effective horror flick.
The Substance:
Wow. Genre-bending “body” “horror” with two phenomenal leads and a message more relevant today than every. Come for the hype, stay for the third act.
V/H/S Beyond:
Pretty schlocky 6th entry in a middling horror anthology series, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that it doesn’t end up on many other lists, but I loved it just like I have for every other movie in the series. The final section alone makes it worth the watch even for newcomers, IMO.
Terrifier 3:
You either love the Terrifier franchise or you just don’t love it yet. The success of the series is unbelievable to see but it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving one. Bonus points that Damien Leone knew that distribution for the movie would be fucked up like all the ones so he made it set during Christmas so the people who couldn’t watch it in October didn’t feel like they were missing out.
MadS:
What if 28 days later was a single-shot found footage movie set around some French ravers? Great, fun, and short(!) movie that I loved.
Longlegs and Civil War stuck with me for so long after watching them.
Agreed. Civil War for obvious reasons but I really liked Longlegs. Nick Cage did a really fun performance and like I said, the imagery is really creepy in a way that calls back to older horror movies. I check r/horror every now and again for recommendations and the amount of hate that movie gets on there is absurd
I never got the hate either. It’s creepy and uncomfortable on such a primal level. I’ve seen Cage in some weird roles, but he was so unnerving in this one.
I put it up there with the best horror of the last decade.Long legs:
I think it’s trying to hard. It clearly wants to be a satanist movie and hit all the shock factor of it to make the audience gasp. But a spectacle film where it keeps going out of the way to call itself that feels self feliciating in the way that Nope kinda failed.Plus the twist is weak and it just explains everything for you at the end in a weird way then drips you off at the climax of the film, then another wino to camera and done.
I felt no tension or fear the whole movie.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In - went in pretty blind and loved it, definite Kung-fu Hustle vibes. I’m finalising my top ten of the year but this will end up in the top 3.
Well that’s interesting…
Been a while since I’ve seen anything compared to Kung Fu Hustle
Gping by my Letterboxd reviews, Dune 2 or Conclave. I also liked The Apprentice quite well.
@darakan@lemm.ee FYI for !animation@lemm.ee
Sure, feel free to make one either you or @BoozeOrWater@lemm.ee and I’ll pin it. Otherwise I’ll probably do one in a few days.
You can do it in a few days, no rush!
