Best Movies of 2024

[Chris Knipp]

AUSTIN BUTLER IN THE BIKERIDERS

C H R I S__K N I P P'S__2 0 2 4__M O V I E__B E S T__L I S T S

FEATURE FILMS
About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
Anora (Sean Baker)
Beast, The (Bertrand Bonello)
Bikeriders, The (Jeff Nichols)
Blitz (Steve McQueen)
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
Close Your Eyes/Cerrar los ojos (Victor Erice)
Conclave (Edward Berger)
Goldman Case, The/Le Procès Goldman (Cédric Kahn)
Real Pain, A (Jesse Eisenberg)
Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)

RUNNERS UP
Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)
The Damned (Roberto Minvervini)
Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)
Last Summer/L'Été dernier (Catherine Breillat)
Seed of the Sacred Fig, The/دانه انجیر معابد (Mohammad Rasoulof)

BEST DOCUMENTARIES
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton)
Merchant Ivory (Stephen Soucy)
New Kind of Wilderness, A (Silje Evensmo Jacobsen)
No Other Land (Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham)
Suburban Fury (Robinson Devor)
Sugarcane (Emily Kassie, Julian Brave NoiseCat)

UNRELEASED FAVORITES
Afternoons of Solitude/Tardes de soledad (Albert Serra)
Caught by the Tides/ 风流一代 (Jia Zhang-ke)
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Việt and Nam (Trương Minh Quýf) Coming release in early 2025

NOT SEEN YET
Babygirl (Halina Reijn) Dec. 25 release
Complete Unknown, A (James Mangold) Dec. 25 release

A̶ ̶D̶i̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶M̶a̶n̶ ̶(̶A̶a̶r̶o̶n̶ ̶S̶c̶h̶i̶m̶b̶e̶r̶g̶)̶
J̶u̶r̶o̶r̶ ̶#̶2̶ ̶(̶C̶l̶i̶n̶t̶ ̶E̶a̶s̶t̶w̶o̶o̶d̶)̶
Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie) (also unreleased; NYFF)
Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross) Dec. 13 release (NYFF)
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers) Dec. 25 release

LESS ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT THESE THAN SOME CURRENTLY ARE
Brutalist, The (Brady Corbet)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
Janet Planet (Annie Baker)
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
Queer (Luca Guadagnino 2024)
Room Next Door, The (Almodóvar)
Substance, The (Coralie Fargeat)
Wicked (Jon M. Chu)
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COMMENTS (Dec. 1, 2024)

Just a first draft; a work in progress. But I can guarantee that "Best Features" is a list only of new movies I have watched this year with a lot of pleasure and admiration and think you would enjoy. I'll be working on it. I tend to forget things, and there are late arrivals. I also may make it numerical but for now it's alphabetical. I'm expecting a lot of Babygirl, and as always there are buzz-worthy 2024 films I have not yet seen, notably Nickel Boys. I strive to focus on movies available to everyone to watch, but that's less a problem now that there are so many eventual releases on platforms. As for the "Less Enthusiastic" list, I recommend that you watch them too, because people are talking about them - a lot, especially The Brutalist, The Substance, and Emilia Pérez. And then there's Megalopolis. Whether or not they are as great, or for that matter as awful, as some people are claiming, they will be talked about during awards season. Big franchise films are omitted usually here, though Dune II and Joker : Folie à Deux might be worth discussing.

Enjoy - and try to get out to see all you can in a movie theater!

And I practice what I preach, as is indicated by the fact that all the current "best" Feature Films list above with the sole exception of The Goldman Case I watched on the big screen, in a movie theater.

Some films will be added on later. This has been a year with many good ones (if few or no greeat ones). Just realized Ceylan's About Dry Grasses (NYFF 2023) came out in the US in February of this year. It fell through the cracks because it came out early and because I saw it last year (in the NYFF), but it's a great film by a great director. I'm researching films off ogher people's best lists.