Year: 2024

Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones’s chilling documentary is the scariest horror movie of the year, yet the media ignored it. The film is even more unsettling now than when it came out last spring, since its subject — the network of ideological soldiers that the Christian Right has been putting in place for decades, all in anticipation of the moment when they could take power — now looks, for the first time, like a nightmare with the potential to come true. The Christian nationalists view Donald Trump as a holy wrecking ball, and the film investigates their symbiotic alliance as well as the hidden roots, and hidden might, of this movement. In an era of social-justice filmmaking, “Bad Faith” went further than any film this year in uncovering the conspiratorial impulse toward injustice in America. —Owen Gleiberman      

Audiences this year couldn’t get enough of animation, flocking to massive studio sequels such as “Inside Out 2,” “Despicable Me 4,” and “Moana 2” (those three top-grossing toons made $3.5 billion between them). At the other end of the spectrum was this hand-painted indie charmer from the artistic duo of Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach, which earned in the low five figures but won many of the big awards, from the Cristal at Annecy to France’s César for animation. The vibrant-looking film centers on an exasperated single mom struggling to raise 8-year-old Linda by herself, and works as a roundabout lesson in dealing with grief. Each character is assigned a specific color, making it easy to follow them through an increasingly hectic day. The filmmakers grounded the film by recording all the performances in real-world apartments, stairwells, and parks before adding a dose of magic via songs by “Emilia Pérez” composer Clément Ducol. —Peter Debruge

Everyone gets older, but the ritual of Christmastime stays the same: a guaranteed calendar slot where it’s appropriate for Americans to manically assure themselves that their lives are worth living. That’s the organizing principle of “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” an incandescent mosaic comedy that mellows into cosmic sorrow — and a true breakthrough for director Tyler Taormina and the L.A.-based collective Omnes Films. Brimming with memorable performances of all shapes and sizes, the movie follows an Italian American family converging on its ancestral Long Island home, determined to have a bashful Noel because it might be their last together. The camera moves among the ensemble with a spectral omniscience — even the family dog gets a spotlight — eventually following the teenagers’ hormonal excursion to paint the rinky-dink town red. Taormina has cited Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising” as an influence, even lifting soundtrack selections from the fabled 1963 short, which matched biker iconography with themes of fascism, homoeroticism, and the occult. It’s a left-field progenitor for an earnest holiday story, but both films operate on a similar, engaging tension. As “Scorpio Rising” engaged with both the allure and evil of biker gangs, “Miller’s Point” seems at once pro- and anti-Christmas and, as a result, all the more transcendent. —J. Kim Murphy

The title is an apt, succinct description of this utterly daffy horror romp from German director Tilman Singer. It sets things up tightly, as Hunter Schafer’s traumatized teen heroine moves with her estranged father and his new family into a remote Alpine resort, where the family is to oversee the construction of a new hotel. So far, so sorta-“Shining.” But soon thereafter, “Cuckoo” begins to lose its grip on reality, or even horror-movie reality, before wholly losing its marbles in ways that left audiences divided. Personally, I’m in the camp that believes “Cuckoo” isn’t supposed to make sense, its incoherent plot merely a kind of reflection of the protagonist’s addled state of mind, and effectively nightmarish in its absence of logical coordinates. As a freaky, funny atmospheric exercise, it has more than enough going on, plus a terrific pair of performances from Schafer and a deliciously wigged-out Dan Stevens on no-holds-barred villain duty. —Guy Lodge

A decade ago, Tom Hardy’s “Locke” pulled off an incredible feat, spinning a tense three-dimensional relationship drama around a man taking calls in his car. In her tricky, keep-’em-guessing debut, writer-director Christy Hall does one better, eavesdropping on two strangers (played by Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson) in a cab ride from JFK airport back to Manhattan. Penn plays the chatty taxi driver, who fancies himself an expert on human nature, attempting to psychoanalyze the understandably wary young woman in the back seat. Ever so slowly — and with just the right amount of creepiness — he draws out details about her situation. Johnson’s body language speaks volumes in a performance so good it more than absolves her for “Madame Web.” Hall, who also wrote “It Ends with Us,” has crafted a juicy artichoke of a movie, peeling away the passenger’s daddy issues one layer at a time to get at what really matters to her most: trust. —PD

Want to know what it was like to come of age in the Bay Area in 2008? Look no further than Sean Wang’s fresh and funny directorial debut, a Sundance prize winner that found an audience but deserves a bigger one. Izaac Wang plays the director’s surrogate, a Taiwanese American teenager named Chris who yearns to be cool, yet there’s an angst about him that makes that difficult. He really just wants to be accepted — by his peers, and by the girl he likes (Mahaela Park). They get along online, but in person things are more challenging. Growing up is messy and, at times, wince-inducing, and Wang winningly reminds us of that. There’s tension at home (Chris’ father is away working; his older sister, who he doesn’t get along with, is headed off to college), but Joan Chen as the mother, a failed artist, is phenomenal and heartbreaking. —Jazz Tangcay

It’s been six years since the Coen brothers split, and while there was some gravitas and morbid humor to Joel Coen’s black-and-white “Tragedy of Macbeth” from 2021, there’s a lot more to like about Ethan’s rollicking, Clinton-era joy ride. Co-written with his queer wife Tricia Cooke (the pair have described their marriage as “non-traditional”), the film follows a pair of lesbians trucking to Florida in a rental car, with a mysterious parcel at the center of a political conspiracy nestled in the trunk. As the sexpot Jamie, Margaret Qualley risks a lot with some bug-eyed gawks and a truly goofy Texas fast-talk routine — but her performance sets the larkish, free-wheeling tone, and she nails the tender moments when it counts. Geraldine Viswanathan is no slouch either as the buttoned-up Marian, a droll bedrock who re-centers the script from its swerves. The movie is too breakneck to qualify as “shaggy” (the credits roll before the 80-minute mark), and Coen and Cooke escape some shoddy punchlines by always moving on to the next thing, whether it’s gimcrack scene-transition effects, bowling alley-style animations, or the sight of Matt Damon in a lesbian bar. This is the nigh unseen modern feature made in the spirit of Russ Meyer, and it should be celebrated when our aging institutional auteurs decide, for once, to play things fast and loose. —JKM

Titus Kaphar’s drama about an artist coming to grips with his lout of a father is a movie that sidesteps the clichés of reconciliation. Tarrell (André Holland), who paints dreamy neon-rainbow-hued suburban fantasias, has reconnected with La’Ron, the estranged father he hasn’t seen in 15 years (he’s played with layered brilliance by John Earl Jelks). La’Ron, now gray and grizzled and homeless, is a recovering addict who was rarely around and, when he was, treated his son with a ruthless indifference that edged into violence. Can Tarrell forgive him? André Holland is an actor who knows how to carve emotion out of silence. His Tarrell is fierce, haunted, and alive yet not all there, and the film shows you how everyday trauma can take on the power of personal mythology. “Exhibiting Forgiveness” sends you out on a note of hope, but it’s not a feel-good movie. It’s a feel-the-reality movie, a drama willing to scald, and that’s its quiet power. —OG

Set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in northeast Oklahoma, Erica Tremblay’s poignant, hardscrabble coming-of-age story follows Jax (Lily Gladstone) and her niece, Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), as they search for Roki’s mother, embarking on a journey to the annual powwow where Jax is certain she’ll be. Along the way, the two steal fishermen’s trucks, hustle at card games, and get into all kinds of creative trouble. The most wrenching moment arrives when they finally make it to the powwow and come together in a dance: a magnificent summation of the film’s theme of Native solidarity transcending Native alienation. —JT

A revenge thriller that’s also a uniquely compassionate character study, Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s film is mesmerizing, suspenseful, and heartbreaking. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett plays Jules, a drag performer who gets involved with Preston (George MacKay), the perpetrator of a hate crime against him. Initially seeing Preston only as a target for vengeance, Jules wants to film them having sex to publicly humiliate him; but the genuine romantic relationship that develops between them, amplified by vivid, soulful performances by Stewart-Jarrett and MacKay, challenges them — and the audience — to see the complexity, and vulnerability, of both assailant and would-be victim. In their feature debut, Freeman and Ping develop an irresistible narrative tension through images that manage to be both beautiful and claustrophobic, examining the nature and limits of forgiveness to highlight how causing trauma and healing it are all too often inextricable sides of the same coin. —Todd Gilchrist

The directors of “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” an unexpected hit in 2019, are back with another movie that mixes inspiration and rebellion into a quietly powerful brew. It’s based on the astounding true story of the young rockers and punks in 1990s Cuba who injected themselves with the AIDS virus in order to be sent to government-funded sanatoriums. The mostly Cuban actors pull off this balancing act of a narrative by celebrating youthful imagination while never flinching from the hardship of what they’re portraying. Living in a remote medical outpost in the lush jungle, the youths, led by Hector Medina and the exuberant Eros de la Puente as brothers and by Adria Arjona as their caretaker, attempt to play Nirvana songs, befriend wild horses, and explore their sexuality with the heavy knowledge that it could all go bad. —Pat Saperstein

A quiet stunner out of Sundance, India Donaldson’s first feature follows Sam, a teenager on a backpacking trip with her dad and his friend. It’s a breezy dramedy about three people hiking — until, suddenly, it isn’t, and a subtle transgression paints a world-shattering revelation all over Sam’s face. Newcomer Lily Collias plays a 17-year-old conditioned to please others, as she navigates adolescence and the unspoken tension between her father (James Le Gros) and his buddy (Danny McCarthy), who’s suffering through a divorce. It’s a coming-of-age story with a crafty twist, played out in a 13-minute campfire scene that Donaldson stages with hypnotic empathy and restraint. The rest of the film carries a delicate suspense, exploring the bounds of forgiveness and familial trust. “Good One” had a small release in August, but when Collias inevitably becomes a rising star, it’s sure to find an audience eager to witness her breakout role. —Ethan Shanfeld

Like a cross between a live-action cartoon and a long-lost slapstick film from the silent era, “Hundreds of Beavers” is the bonkers brainchild of out-there amigos Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who cobbled together a feature-length comedy using customized mascot uniforms they bought online. Shot against indoor greenscreens and then transformed via After Effects into an epic black-and-white trek through the frozen north, the endearingly lo-fi (and unapologetically lowbrow) result is alternately aggravating and ingenious. Tews plays a desperate fur trapper tasked with hunting a seemingly infinite supply of buck-toothed rodents. While the industry proper argues over the risks of new technology (notably AI), these guys are showing just how creative they can get with tools that make it possible for anyone to make movies. Well, maybe not anyone. You’ve gotta be the right kind of deranged to come up with something this nutty. —PD

Alessandra Lacorazza’s profound coming-of-age drama captivates you by embracing an unhurried pace in an age of fast, action-packed cinema. A quiet yet mighty piece of storytelling, it invites viewers to immerse themselves in its lush naturalistic visuals, its intimate character portraits, and its subtle storytelling. The performances by rapper-turned-actor René Pérez, as a brusque father who lives alone in the sleepy desert town of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and sees his two daughters only in the summer months, and newcomer Lio Meiel, as the daughter coming to terms with her identity, are raw and heartfelt. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, the film struggled to find a distributor (until Music Box stepped in), and then an audience. Yet this indelible family drama deserves one. The cinematography is a love letter to natural light and open spaces, resulting in an experience so tactile and artful it feels fully alive. —Clayton Davis

The memory of Yorgos Lanthimos’s giddy, riotous, Oscar-approved coming-of-age fantasia “Poor Things” was still fresh when the director’s latest premiered in competition at Cannes, and in theatres the next month. Too fresh, perhaps, for audiences to embrace such a drastic change of pace: After “Poor Things” showed the warmest, most hopeful side yet of the Greek provocateur, “Kinds of Kindness” was a chilly return to the cryptic, nihilistic brand of black comedy on which Lanthimos first made his name. There was some muted critical respect for this wicked triptych of loosely connected tales about American suburbanites tangled up in various forms of toxic power dynamics, and Jesse Plemons deservedly took best actor at Cannes for his droll, dry multi-character performance. But few seemed to really love it, and the conversation around it faded fast. On a second viewing, however, I remain a fan: Consider it a cool, mouth-puckering palate-cleanser for whatever Lanthimos has up his sleeve next. —GL

Megan Park’s amusing and emotional movie caught viewers by surprise when it turned out to be more than a finely observed coming-of-age story. With a sensitive performance by Maisy Stella, the film has more on its mind than young romance, though the romance feels natural and fresh. But it’s the time-travel element, with Aubrey Plaza as the wise, wry older version of Stella’s teen protagonist, that reveals a deeper layer, as Plaza’s character tries to hand down some perspective to her younger self. Park’s Canadian-set indie sneaks up and tugs at your feelings while staying smart and warm. ­—PS

Photographer-turned-filmmaker Luke Gilford takes audiences to the rodeo but from a different angle, via a heartfelt commune for gay cowboys, cowgirls, and everything in between. Against this backdrop — and gorgeous Southwestern vistas — the beautifully observed queer love story follows Dylan (Charlie Plummer), a sheltered teen who’s instantly smitten with the free-spirited Sky (Eve Lindley), who is trans. Hoping to get closer to this enigmatic stranger, he accepts a job on her ranch. The young man’s journey of self-discovery starts off as a beautiful thing, as Sky and her chosen family welcome him with open arms. But Sky is not exactly available, which challenges Dylan’s notions of what relationships can be. The others’ confidence in who they are teaches this hesitant outsider a lesson in love and human connection, a theme that in Gilford’s hands generates emotional sparks. —JT

At first glance, it looks like it might be the umpteenth iteration of the “Groundhog Day” formula, but there’s a crucial variable that makes all the difference this time around. Make that two: the ever-unpredictable Mary-Louise Parker plays a physicist with a week left to live and a bottle of pills that send her back five days at a time, allowing her to extend her life indefinitely. But what she really wants is a cure that will let her move forward. Best not to spoil how writer-director Bernardo Britto manages to transform her existential crisis into something heartbreakingly profound. Just when you thought you’d had your fill of time-loop movies (which might explain why audiences didn’t exactly rush to see this one), along comes an indie with fresh insights into the entire human experience, anchored by Parker’s multi-dimensional performance. —PD

Justin Kurzel’s riveting and explosive docudrama zeroes in on the dawn of the modern American white-supremacist movement in the 1980s. Yet despite stellar reviews, and the resurrected star presence of Jude Law in what might be the best performance of his career, the film remained under the radar, as if this sort of exploratory topical thriller was now too old-fashioned to matter. (Maybe it is.) Pouchy and downcast, Law plays an FBI agent investigating a series of crimes who stumbles onto the terrain of the Order, the scruffy band of right-wing racist terrorists in the Pacific Northwest who are funding an “army” to rise up against the U.S. government. Nicholas Hoult, as the reckless renegade who becomes a leader of the organization, humanizes an extremist, letting us see the righteous belief that can sweep people up into a death cult of hate. The film’s cutting topicality is that it fills in how believing that the U.S. government is the enemy is inextricably linked, in its emotional and historical legacy, to the ideology of white supremacy. —OG    

Saoirse Ronan has always demonstrated a remarkable emotional complexity, and that preternatural talent is on full mature display in “The Outrun.” Ronan, now 30, plays Rona, a woman rediscovering herself after wrestling with alcoholism. Directed by Nora Fingscheidt, and based on the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot, the film employs an innovative narrative structure, weaving three timelines together as Rona circles the drain during her decade in London, then claws her way toward recovery after returning home to the Orkney Islands in Scotland. (Her inner monologue, with brainy scientific observations that relate to her circumstances, serves as the third timeline, and is referred to as her “nerd layer.”) It’s a staggering chronicle of the healing process, one that sees Ronan learning how to lamb (the actor delivered seven babies!) and interacting with Orkney locals and other non-professional actors to produce a cleansing documentary realism. Her performance is as tempestuous as the winds and waves that crash around her at the film’s climax, a moving sequence that braids the timelines together. —Angelique Jackson

The real sequel to “Joker.” After the artistic and commercial flameout of “Joker: Folie à Deux,” a number of forceful voices came to the defense of Todd Phillips’ top-heavy musical misfire. Quentin Tarantino and John Waters both said that they loved it. And the critics who bought into the whole “The movie fails on purpose!” meme seemed to find some deep-dish gratification in their utter delusion that Phillips was trying to piss off “the fans.” But why look so hard into the wreckage of “Folie à Deux” when a truly subversive and enthralling, truly scandalous and hilarious, true fucking Joker movie was right there in front of you for the tasting? Vera Drew, in her underground/midnight/guerrilla-cinema sensation, plays the maniacal Joker of DC legend, who is also an outlaw parody of the Joker, who is also a discordantly sincere trans heroine who is using the Joker’s persona to present who she is to the world. It makes sense that the film remained mostly off the radar, since it was made outside the system, without clearance rights. But it’s being discovered now. It’s an act of pure fan obsession set in a diabolically playful mutating media zone, one that toys with the notion that those who are driven to extremes of cosplay are truer to the spirit of comic books than anyone else. —OG     

These days, apart from Ridley Scott, Hollywood directors seem far more interested in fantasy than grand-scale historical epics. But the format is alive and well abroad, with “A Royal Affair” director Nikolaj Arcel heading back to Denmark (after a disappointing attempt at “The Dark Tower”) to orchestrate a sweeping tale of…agricultural triumph. The film is infinitely more engaging than that description makes it sound, and it should have found a massive audience, especially with the great Mads Mikkelsen at the helm. He plays a stubborn Danish officer with an ambitious plan to cultivate the frozen, seemingly unfarmable moorland, in exchange for a noble title from the crown. He’s heard that potatoes can thrive almost anywhere — though humans have a harder time of it. The movie supplies the year’s best villain in Simon Bennebjerg’s sadistic local landowner, alongside a romance for the ages. —PD