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| Top 15 Films of 2024 |
2024 was the year of sequels: Beetlejuice 2, Alien 9, Despicable Me 4, The Omen 5, Ghostbusters 4, Twister 2, Rebel Moon part 2, A Quiet Place 3, Beverly Hills Cop 4, Bad Boys 4, Dune 2, Planet of the Apes 4, Kung Fu Panda 4, Gladiator 2, Joker 2, Moana 2, Smile 2, Venom 3, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, etc.. Thankfully there were some original films. Here are my top 15 and everything else which made the blog (it's got to be at least an A- to make it). Followed by blog-worthy films from last year I only got to watching this year. Then you get blog worthy films from further in the past. Then we have honourable mentions and guilty pleasures of 2024. Finally the worst of and most disappointing films of 2024.
There are a lot of big movies I haven't seen yet, "The Brutalist" for example. It could very well be in my top 15, top 10 - who knows? I can only comment on what I've seen.
Letterboxd tells me I watched 284 films this year to bring you this list.
Enjoy!
These are the best 15 films of 2024
2. Anora
3. Bird
4. Civil War
6. Red Rooms 🍁 - Released only international this year, it gets its proper place on the top 15.
12. Strange Darling
And here is everything else (in no order) that made the blog for 2024 - all worthy of your time.
16. Dogman
17. American Star
18. Land of Bad
19. Seven Veils
20. Immaculate
21. Knox Goes Away
22. Arcadian
23. Monkey Man
24. The Movie Man 🍁
25. In a Violent Nature 🍁
26. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
27. The King Tide 🍁
28. Trap
29. Cuckoo
30. Rebel Ridge
31. Speak No Evil
32. Mother, Couch
33. The Idea of You
34. Thelma
36. The Deliverance
37. Smile 2
38. Ghostlight
39. The Bikeriders
40. Challengers
42. Babygirl
Great Films of 2023 I only watched in 2024
2. Memory
3. Perfect Days
4. Red Rooms 🍁 (released only in Canada in 2023)
5. Origin
Other great films I watched this year from previous years
1. The King
2. Jojo Rabbit
4. Fish Tank
5. Nocturama
7. We Need to Talk About Kevin
8. Stalker
9. The Rover
10. Cure
11. Mikey and Nicky
12. Coraline
13. A Pure Formality
14. Rat Race
Guilty Pleasures/Honourable Mentions of 2024
Dramas
The Old Oak - Ken Loach's last film about a small town coming to grips with foreigners
Silver Haze - Another gritty British drama reminiscent of something by Andrea Arnold
Seagrass 🍁 - A Japanese-Canadian woman and her husband go to B.C. for couples' therapy during the 1980s along with their two kids. Full of moments of honesty and sadness.
Wicked Little Letters - Olivia Colman is receiving nasty letters she believes is coming from her next door neighbour
My Old Ass 🍁- A touching and comedic Canadian coming-of-age romance involving psychedelic mushrooms, sci-fi communication with a future-self, and cranberry farming.
The Apprentice - Sebastian Stan as Trump is fabulous and this film as a portrait of a young, hungry, capitalist-monster on the rise just missed getting a full entry on the Marquee.
A Real Pain - Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, and stars alongside Kieran Culkin in a film about two cousins who go to Poland on a holocaust guided tour trip. It's funny, heartfelt, and I found it far more moving than "The Zone of Interest."
Small Things like These - Cillian Murphy give a great performance in a film about bad nuns running a laundry sweatshop in 1980s Ireland.
Nightbitch - Amy Adams plays a visual artist who has given up her life and identity to raise her son. And she is also turning into a dog. This one has some funny bite to it.
Animated
Flow - Post climate disaster, a cat finds its way with other creatures when a tsunami like flood occurs. Kind of like "The Impossible" but with animated animals.
Thrillers
The Last Stop in Yuma County - A fun Tarantino style stop at a gas station. Try the rhubarb pie, it's to die for.
The Order - Jude Law plays an FBI investigator hunting down white supremacists who are also bank robbers - "Skin" meets "Hell or High Water."
Sci-Fi
The End We Start From - Mass Flooding hits the U.K. and we follow a woman and her new baby through this imagined environmental disaster. A visually gorgeous film. Think "28 Days Later" but replace the zombies with water and add starvation into the mix.
Documentaries
Enter the Clones of Bruce - about the Brue Lee exploitation craze which occurred after he tragically passed away. Staring Bruce Le, Bruce Li, Bruce Lo, The Black Dragon and many more. Over 200 Kung-Fu Bruce Lee style films were made!
Faye - Faye Dunaway, iconic American actor is interviewed about her film roles and her challenges with mental illness. Famous for her roles in Chinatown, Network, Bonnie and Clyde, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Mommie Dearest and many more. If you are a fan, it's must viewing.
Will & Harper - Will Ferrell and his close friend of 30 years, a writer from SNL go on a cross America road trip once he transitions to become a woman. It touching, heartfelt, and worth a your time.
Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare - Netflix doc about a woman in an online relationship for nine years with somebody who wasn't who she thought. It's completely bananas. Up there with Baby Reindeer.
Horrors
Suitable Flesh - It's actually a 2023 film, but I didn't want it missed. From the folks who gave us "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond."
Abigail - it's a bloody good vampire movie
I Saw the TV Glow - two teenagers have an unhealthy relationship with a TV show. This small film almost got a full entry on the blog. If you are looking for something different, seek this one out. It's something right from the Twilight Zone.
Heretic - Hugh Grant gives a great performance and I LOVED the first half of this film. Unfortunately I lost my faith in the second half. Still, it gets an honourable mention here on the Marquee.
Worst Films of 2024
1. Night Swim - as much fun as drying yourself off with your spouse's soggy towel and about as scary too.
2. The Beekeeper - as fun as a kicking a hornet's nest naked
3. Madame Web - don't get caught in this web of boredom
4. The Watchers - Unwatchable
5. Wildcat - Ethan Hawke directed this movie and it's a boring mess
6. Janet, Planent - A pretentious and boring planet; do not visit.
7. A Family Affair - awful, how Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron ended up in this Hallmark like puke is beyond me
8. Humane - you will want to kill yourself
9. Mother's Instinct - A film critic's instinct - don't watch it.
10. Rumours - Guy Madden gives us a giant brain without much thought, plot, or characters. Rumoured to be awful.
11. Emilia Pérez - A Mexican Scareface musical about a trans cartel boss is one of the most tonality bizarre things I've ever witnessed and makes awful musicals look great.
12. Here - Go anywhere but here.
Biggest Disappointments of 2024
1. Dune Part 2 - It lost its way in the desert. The guy down my seat-row was snoring.
2. Bob Marley: One Love - The Music is great, the rest is weak weed
3. The Fall Guy - a stunt gone wrong
4. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - The banana has blackened and turned to a mushy Pablum not even fit for apes or banana bread.
5. Brats - A boring self indulgent documentary about brats which isn't even worth being an extra on a blu ray of "Pretty in Pink."
6. Longlegs - I was hoping to love it and didn't. Nic Cage does give a great performance but the film is surprisingly dull.
7. MaXXXine - the end of the "X" trilogy and it was a letdown. If it were made in the 80s it would have been released directly on VHS.
8. A Quiet Place Day One - After the first two were so good, this one landed without making any noise (see what I did there)
9. Alien Romulus - In space, nobody can hear you yawn. Fan service quickly moves from fun to tedious, eventually birthing out a cobbled Alien monster composed of the better films that came before it.
10. Joker: Folie à Deux - To quote Fleck himself at the end of a boring and pointless film, "Stop signing and just talk to me."
11. Gladiator II - CGI monkeys, rhinos, tigers, and sharks, oh my. There was no fight left in it.
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