My Top 11 Movies of 2024
Jan. 2nd, 2025 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI went to see 20 movies in the cinema last year, and would have gone to see more if I hadn’t had a cold a couple of times or if some of them had been in the cinema for longer than a week. Click the ‘films’ tag below to see what I thought of them and the movies that didn’t make this list at the time. The last year for which I was able to do something like this was 2019. They’re listed in the order that I saw them.
Priscilla – what a balance this pulls off from Sofia Coppola! Telling Priscilla Presley’s story from how she met Elvis as a teenager to how she left him as a woman grown, it has choice details and introduces Cailee Spaney, who had a very good year.
One Life – also based on the true story of the rescue of hundreds of children from Czechoslovakia before the Nazis invaded, and how a modest man lived with having done so. It’s emotive, and somehow Johnny Flynn and Anthony Hopkins convince as the same character in different timelines.
The End We Start From – it’s about surviving a disaster thanks to climate breakdown (so far, so Wyndhamesque), but it’s an intimate look though a female gaze at doing so while becoming a new mother. Jodie Comer carries the film.
Dune – I’d already seen this on the small screen, but it was well worth seeing again on the big screen, to better take in the spectacle. It’s got substance too, with interstellar politics, culture clash and environmental challenges. This is what I want sci-fi blockbusters to do.
Dune – part 2 – or no, THIS is what I want sci-fi blockbusters to do, and why I trust Denis Villeneuve (and have since Arrival). After the set-up in the first film, things get more complex and stranger, and Chani (Zendaya) gets more fully realised. You don’t often get sequels that pull this off (probably helps that it’s adapting a longer narrative instead of having to come up with a screenplay from scratch.)
Civil War – famously not the film the trailers made you think it was. Did it pull its punches, or was it rather the film that Alex Garland wanted it to be? In one way, here was a found family going on a road trip, except they were war journalists reporting from home, not abroad, with striking imagery and memorable scenes.
The Beast – probably the most extraordinary movie I saw this year. It points out its own artificiality as it covers three different periods, meaning it’s a Henry James period drama (in French), a modern thriller about stalking and a fable about a future where AI may be stifling humanity, and a lot else beside. Committed acting roots it.
Inside Out 2 – does not improve on the original, true, but it’s wittier, inventive and more emotionally literate than most family films.
The Count of Monte Cristo – swashbuckler of the year! Injustice, revenge, all done with French elan.
The Batman – another film I’d previously seen on the small screen, but was glad to revisit where it belonged. It’s a new take on Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, emphasising his detective skills as he is forced to face the corruption of Gotham by a very modern Riddler.
Wicked Part 1 – Technicolor, all-singing, all-dancing triumphant adaptation of the stage musical to screen. It’s got substance, and thanks to Cynthia Erivo’s performance heart. It’s long but (unlike The Batman) not too long.
Previous end-of-year film posts here.
Priscilla – what a balance this pulls off from Sofia Coppola! Telling Priscilla Presley’s story from how she met Elvis as a teenager to how she left him as a woman grown, it has choice details and introduces Cailee Spaney, who had a very good year.
One Life – also based on the true story of the rescue of hundreds of children from Czechoslovakia before the Nazis invaded, and how a modest man lived with having done so. It’s emotive, and somehow Johnny Flynn and Anthony Hopkins convince as the same character in different timelines.
The End We Start From – it’s about surviving a disaster thanks to climate breakdown (so far, so Wyndhamesque), but it’s an intimate look though a female gaze at doing so while becoming a new mother. Jodie Comer carries the film.
Dune – I’d already seen this on the small screen, but it was well worth seeing again on the big screen, to better take in the spectacle. It’s got substance too, with interstellar politics, culture clash and environmental challenges. This is what I want sci-fi blockbusters to do.
Dune – part 2 – or no, THIS is what I want sci-fi blockbusters to do, and why I trust Denis Villeneuve (and have since Arrival). After the set-up in the first film, things get more complex and stranger, and Chani (Zendaya) gets more fully realised. You don’t often get sequels that pull this off (probably helps that it’s adapting a longer narrative instead of having to come up with a screenplay from scratch.)
Civil War – famously not the film the trailers made you think it was. Did it pull its punches, or was it rather the film that Alex Garland wanted it to be? In one way, here was a found family going on a road trip, except they were war journalists reporting from home, not abroad, with striking imagery and memorable scenes.
The Beast – probably the most extraordinary movie I saw this year. It points out its own artificiality as it covers three different periods, meaning it’s a Henry James period drama (in French), a modern thriller about stalking and a fable about a future where AI may be stifling humanity, and a lot else beside. Committed acting roots it.
Inside Out 2 – does not improve on the original, true, but it’s wittier, inventive and more emotionally literate than most family films.
The Count of Monte Cristo – swashbuckler of the year! Injustice, revenge, all done with French elan.
The Batman – another film I’d previously seen on the small screen, but was glad to revisit where it belonged. It’s a new take on Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, emphasising his detective skills as he is forced to face the corruption of Gotham by a very modern Riddler.
Wicked Part 1 – Technicolor, all-singing, all-dancing triumphant adaptation of the stage musical to screen. It’s got substance, and thanks to Cynthia Erivo’s performance heart. It’s long but (unlike The Batman) not too long.
Previous end-of-year film posts here.
