By Larry Lee
The voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have spoken, and their opinion of the best movies of 2024 are (in alphabetical order):
1. Anora2. The Brutalist3. A Complete Unknown4. Conclave5. Dune, Part Two6. Emilia Pérez7. I’m Still Here8. Nickel Boys9. The Substance10. Wicked
Nine of the these are interesting and creditable films, and they are—for various reasons— worth seeing. Their appearance on the Acadamy's coveted list is, in some part, attributable to the millions of dollars the studios have spent promoting their films as “important” and/or “noteworthy.” Fair enough; the history of the Oscars teaches us that the “best” movie generally (but not always) exhibits some degree of social importance, some moral or historical gravitas, or some unusual creativity. But judge for yourself; here are the last 11 winners:
2024: Oppenheimer2023: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once2022: CODA2021: Nomadland2020: Parasite2019: Green Book2018: The Shape of Water2017: Moonlight2016: Spotlight2015: Birdman2014: 12 Years a Slave
The one exception this year, for me, is Anora. That it is the odds-on favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar is mysterious and confounding to me. The movie addresses no issue of social importance (compare it to The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, or even The Substance), nor does it bear any apparent moral or historical gravitas (see A Complete Unknown, I’m Still Here, or Nickel Boys). I also found it not particularly creative (compare it to Dune, Part Two, Emilia Pérez, or Wicked). It was more like a long, shaggy dog story populated by unpleasant people. It’s not really even a comedy, despite its occasional absurdist moments. Perhaps we can understand the movie’s ascent as representative of the rise of Donald Trump and the values he represents.
Anora seemed to have little chance to actually win until controversy began to swirl around the then-front runner, Emilia Pérez, and its star, Karla Sofia Garcon. Now the buzz in the mainstream media seems to be coalescing around Anora as the favorite. If it wins, it will surely go down in history as the Best Picture winner with the most full-frontal nudity and simulated (one hopes) coitus, ever. I was not impressed when I saw the movie when it was first released in November 2024. I found this seedy, sideways take on the hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold story unbelievable from the get-go. Did Ani (BAFTA and Independent Spirit award winner Mikey Madison) really believe she could make a life with the brainless Ivan? Did she really think his ultra-wealthy family would accept her? Was she honestly offended when people called her a hooker? I recently re-watched Anora and this second viewing confirmed my initial reaction. Perhaps it is time to retire the story of the compassionate sex worker: Claire Trevor in Stagecoach (1939), Melina Mercouri in Never on Sunday (1960), Shirley MacLaine in Irma la Douce (1963), Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (1990). It’s been done, and much better.
[Editor's note: for an alternative perspective on Anora, compare Len's glowing review from last October.]
A quick word on the other Oscar nominees that, while worth seeing, do not appear on my year end list:
Conclave A handsomely staged, well-acted story of the horse trading that goes on behind the scenes when the cardinals gather to pick a new pope. I loved this movie until the last 20 minutes. No spoiler alert here because I’m not telling, but I felt the film went a bit off the rails at the end. But still well worth seeing. [Len Weiler's Review]
Wicked I did not participate in the craze that accompanied Wicked on Broadway, so did not go into the film with the songs ringing in my head. I must say I was a bit disappointed, as I found the songs not particularly memorable. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are fine as the protagonists and the movie’s production values are suitably lavish, but I found the film tried just a bit too hard. What shou
ld have been a light and airy soufflé instead felt just a bit on the heavy side after consumption.
The Substance This one creatively addresses Hollywood’s relentless pursuit of beauty and youth in women. And maybe not just in Hollywood. But what begins as an amusing cautionary tale turns into full-on horror in the end (think 1986’s The Fly, with Jeff Goldblum). I very much liked this movie until the final 20 minutes when, for me, it jumped the shark.
Nickel Boys Director RaMell Ross (winner of the Director’s Guild Award for first-time directors) has turned Colson Whitehead’s bestselling novel into a very creative film. The story, about the oppressive and unrelenting injustice and cruelty of a juvenile facility housing mainly African-American boys and young men in the Deep South, is told mostly in point-of-view shots, as if one of the boys in the group is also holding the camera. This brings us right into the action but at times makes the exposition vague. But this is an important story, well told.
Dune, Part Two In another universe, this would be the odds-on favorite for the top prize. Nuanced yet epic, terrific performances, addressing gigantic themes in a wholly-imagined fantasy world, there is really nothing bad to say about this movie. I know science fiction is not really everyone’s bag, but this one is so good, it threatens to transcend the genre. Caveat: One should probably see Part One before seeing Part Two.
Studios usually hold back their most worthy films until the second half of a given calendar year, trying to maximize their golden statuette potential, which can lead to increased sales, profits, and fame. It is no surprise, then, that most entries on my Half-Oscars™ list have been surpassed by year’s end. To remind readers, here is my list of the top ten movies released in the first half of 2024:
2. Origin
3. One Life
4. The Old Oak
5. Wicked Little Letters
6. Dune, Part Two
7. Hit Man
8. The Golden Years
9. Bob Marley: One Love
10. Driving Madeleine
As noted below, three of these movies showed staying power in my mind. Before getting to my Top Ten, here are three more notable second-half films that just missed my top ten list:
A Real Pain (Hulu, Prime rental) is in some ways the polar opposite of The Brutalist. Clocking in at a brief 90 minutes, the film is about two very different cousins, so close in age they seem like brothers. Once very close, their adult lives have diverged dramatically and they have grown apart. After their beloved grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, passes away, they attempt to bridge the distance grown-up life has imposed on them by joining a tour visiting the Majdanek concentration/death camp. Despite this background of great sorrow, the movie is sometimes funny, at times outrageous, and you will be touched by the end. Also, your bottom will not be as sore as it will be after 214 minutes of Adrien Brody in The Brutalist.
Even if, like me, the older you get, the less the coming-of-age genre of movies interests you, 2024’s My Old Ass (Prime) may change your mind. The movie gives a nice twist to the coming-of-age genre, and boasts great performances by Audrey Plaza and Maisy Stella, who recently (and deservedly) won the Critics Choice Awards for Best Young Actor/Actress. Stella plays a teenager named Elliott who tries some psychedelic mushrooms and sees her older, 39-year-old self, played by Aubry Plaza. This one is full of surprises and feels different from your run-of-the-mill, coming-of-age story.
All three movies are well worth your time and just barely missed making my top ten list. But ten is ten, so here are my top ten movies of the year:
My Top Ten
10. September 5 (available soon) I think anyone who was at least 10 years old in 1972 will find this one fascinating, for who among us oldsters could forget the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. We all followed it on our little TVs, often black and white ones, but now comes the behind-the-scenes look at how ABC Sports covered the attack, pivoting from covering sports to news with their video and transmission equipment seemingly from the Stone Age. The story plays like an out-and-out thriller, although of course none of the camera operators or sound technicians were ever in any danger. (OK, reporter Peter Jennings was pretty close to the danger zone.) And like in so many movies about historical events, we know the outcome from the start, but it’s the journey that is so fascinating.
9. Exhibiting Forgiveness (Prime rental) Trauma can lead to great art, but that is sometimes little solace to the person who experienced the trauma. When one has been emotionally wounded by a loved one, should we assume that forgiveness is always possible? People often have complicated, messy lives, and although we know that only those without sin should throw stones, is that really realistic? And aside from the family drama, this movie shows something that is notoriously hard to portray: an artist’s creative process. I saw this in the theater and although it does not show up on anyone’s top ten list, ignore Hollywood’s publicity machine and remember that only dead fish always swim with the current. Fascinating and moving.
7. Origin (Hulu, Prime rental) If one could be shielded from the hum of the Hollywood publicity machine, it would be easy to see that many worthy films get no publicity, no buzz, no push, and are just quietly released and then predictably fall through the proverbial cracks. Here is one. Director Ava DuVernay has crafted an unusual movie with a compelling premise: that when one group in society disadvantages another group, it is less helpful to think of it as racism and better understood as the maintenance of a caste system. But whether or not you are convinced by the intriguing argument, the movie—based loosely on the best-selling book by Isabel Wilkerson—is a wonderful, explanatory narrative/documentary hybrid, weaving together stories of Wilkerson’s personal stories of loss, the treatment of African-Americans in America’s Deep South during the Jim Crow Era, the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, and finally the Dalits (so-called “untouchables”) in India. Along the way, there are small but great performances by Jon Bernthal, Audra McDonald, Nick Offerman (in a MAGA hat!), Niecy Nash, Vera Farmiga, and others. Although this movie was released in January 2024, it is well worth a look.
6. One Life (Paramount+, Prime rental) This was the only movie that activated my tear ducts so perhaps it should be #1 on my list. It’s a shame the film came out so early in the year (I saw it in May), for Anthony Hopkins would surely have been considered for his seventh Oscar nomination and third Oscar win had the studio opted for a Thanksgiving or Christmas release. This holdover from my Half-Oscars™ list survives the onslaught of late-season Oscar bait by relating the true story of a single, otherwise unremarkable person, and the profound and continuing effect he had on the lives of complete strangers. At a time when the world is turning meaner, and the national ethos is trending towards the idea of “Every Man for Himself,” to see someone wholly reject that idea is emotionally satisfying.
5. The Goldman Case (Prime rental) This movie had only a limited theatrical run but deserved so much more. I love a good courtroom drama (Absence of Malice, A Few Good Men, even, or especially, My Cousin Vinny), and it’s really interesting to see how a foreign courtroom works (see, e.g., last year’s Anatomy of a Fall). This one has the additional spice of being based on a true story. In our current political climate, where the radical actors all seem to be white nationalists and neo-fascists, it’s easy to forget that not so long ago, radicals from the other side of the political spectrum dominated the news. Pierre Goldman, the son of Polish Jews who fought in the Polish Resistance, was a radical communist who refused compulsory military service in France, traveled to Cuba to hear Castro speak, and later fought with guerillas in Venezuela. Back in France, he committed three robberies to raise money for his cause but was apprehended and convicted of those crimes, which he did not deny. He was also tried for two murders committed during a robbery of a pharmacy, crimes he vehemently denied committing. This movie is the story of his trial for those murders and shows Goldman as an intense and articulate advocate for himself and for his version of social justice.
* Side note: Missing was directed by world cinema master Costa-Gavras (Z (1969), a 2-time Oscar winning movie), starred Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, and was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in a time when the Academy nominated only five movies a year for the honor. (The other nominees that year were Gandhi (the winner), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Tootsie, and The Verdict. Other movies released that year were Das Boot, My Favorite Year, Victor/Victoria, An Officer and a Gentleman, Blade Runner, and Sophie’s Choice. It was a very good year.) Missing was also nominated for Best Actor (Jack Lemmon), and won an Oscar for its screenplay. It is a tragedy that this movie is not available to stream anywhere. It makes me long for a Blockbuster video store.
3. Seed of the Sacred Fig (still in theaters) This is a remarkable movie, especially when you consider that it was filmed in secret in Iran. People associated with the film are now being persecuted in their home country for their participation in the filming, although director Mohammad Rasoulof successfully fled Iran after learning he would be taken into custody for his “criminal convictions,” connected to his previous films and activism, and would be required to serve 8 years in prison. The movie, in Farsi, but submitted by Germany for consideration for the International Feature Film Oscar, is an indictment of the Islamic Revolutionary Court that sentenced Rasoulof, showing how the court is the target of dissatisfaction and destabilization in Iranian society, and how regular people keep the government’s oppression machine chugging along by just continuing to do their job. In this case, the regular person is a low-level judge who continues to make rulings he assumes the government wants instead of independently dispensing justice. Consequences for his actions appear not at work but in the bosom of his once-loving family, completely unbalancing his life and mind. Recommended.
2. Civil War (Max, Prime rental) This was a tough movie to watch when it was released in April; 2024 but has acquired new resonance with the election of Donald Trump. It asks a pertinent question: How should we react if a president doesn’t leave office, violently suppresses civil dissent, co-opts the Department of Justice, the judiciary, and the U.S. Military? How would you react? In this amazing (and, hopefully, not prescient) movie, director Alex Garland (Men, Annihilation, Ex Machina) gives us an idea of what our world would look like in those circumstances. Many of the critical background facts of the story are revealed only obliquely or even not at all; this aspect of the movie has led to some criticism of it by commenters. Yes, we don’t really know why California and Texas seceded from the United States and joined together to form an army called The Western Forces to fight the rest of the country. But I reject the criticism and maintain that it is enough to learn our country is at war with itself. Instead of focusing on the cause of the rift, the story instead zeroes in on Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a war photographer, and Joel (Wagner Moura), a journalist, as they attempt to make their way from New York City to Washington D.C. to interview and photograph the President (Nick Offerman), who we learn is in his “third term.” (Sound familiar?) The Interstate 95 corridor has been decimated by war, requiring the duo to detour into Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where they get an up close and personal look at how the civil war has affected people in the country. But as we all found out in other times of disaster and unrest, the beast that lives inside many of us can easily escape if we are not diligent in maintaining respect for all people and do the hard work to ensure peace and prosperity in our country. Witness Hurricane Katrina. The Watts Riots. Kent State. Central High School in Little Rock. And more recently, Charlottesville. And January 6th at the Capitol. This movie is sometimes hard to watch, contains violence of a very real sort (i.e., not cartoon or superhero violence), but is important and fascinating. And despite its failure to appear on many other Top Ten lists, I believe it is destined to become a classic. I hope it is not for the wrong reasons. [Len Weiler's Review]
A Few Overlooked Films
And speaking of complete unknowns, here are three fairly unknown movies that I quite liked:
Knox Goes Away (2024, Max) According to the World Health Organization, there are 55 million people in the world suffering from dementia, and there are 10 million new cases every year. Sooner or later, the condition will—statistically speaking—affect a working hit man. That idea is this movie. Handled with nuance and skill by director and principal star Michael Keaton, this is a twisty, clever little movie with a satisfying ending.
Lee (2024, Hulu, Prime rental) This one came and went in theaters with dismaying quickness. That’s hard to understand, as it told a compelling true story—about the life of former fashion model-turned-war photographer Lee Miller—and starred Oscar-winner Kate Winslet (The Reader (2008)), in her finest work of late. And that is saying something, as she has an impressive 7 Oscar nominations next to her name. She is ably supported by comedic actor (and Berkeley High grad!) Andy Samberg in a rare dramatic role, Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose (2008)), and Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie (2022)).
