Cinema always has a leg up in the race for year-end best-of lists. The timing of these annual recaps happen to perfectly coincide with that final awards season push, meaning critics and audiences spend the waning months of the year gorging themselves on Oscar contenders and epic musical adaptations, indie darlings, and even a Draculian experiment from the disturbed and brillaint mind of Robert Eggers.
It truly is the most wonderful time of the year … for film fans at least.
But as UPROXX’s team of movie critics rehashed some of the standout entries in 2024’s pantheon of pop culture, we were reminded that we’ve been spoiled for choices ever since Denis Villeneuve’s blockbuster sequel made themed popcorn buckets a thing. That was all the way back in March, which means we’ve got plenty of great films to add to your watchlist — if you havent’s seen them already. Let’s get to it.
A Different Man
Sebastian Stan’s off-Marvel choices have cemented him as one of Hollywood’s least predictable actors. These roles included, most recently, a fine young cannibal in Fresh and Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy, but Stan further cranked up the excitement factor with this year’s transformations. We won’t talk about that movie co-starring Jeremy Strong (you know the one), but in A Different Man, Stan reaches the apex of his gift for black comedy. He delivers an overall awe-inspiring performance, but Stan’s gutsiest move was not in portraying an actor who undergoes a mysterious procedure to treat his neurofibromatosis, only to be frustrated by the results. Rather, Stan’s most daring deed lies in how he palpably cedes the spotlight halfway through the film to Adam Pearson, and the give-take of that energy is what made this film truly exciting to witness. That’s the mark of a performer who’d rather be a character actor (he did, after all, disappear as Jeff Gillooly) than a leading man (despite his leading man looks), and Stan deserves every accolade coming his way. — Kimberly Ricci
A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain is a densely packed road movie through Poland with two cousins in pursuit of a better understanding of their family history and the Holocaust. It’s about the importance of trying to be there for people no matter how frustrating they can be, the eternal struggle between feeling too much and nothing at all, the antiseptic way the Holocaust is discussed, and accepting that some catharsis comes up hollow.
An established playwright helming his second feature film, Eisenberg’s direction is largely passive in the very best way, establishing Poland as a main character while following his and Kieran Culkin’s characters on meandering walks and awkward rooftop smoke sessions.
While A Real Pain is expertly directed, the most likely awards season noise will come from Eisenberg’s original screenplay and Culkin’s work as Benji. Palpably coming undone while wearing the mask of the chatty extrovert, Culkin gives a bounding, vulnerable performance that defies any expectations you may have had if you were more used to his more snark-powered prior work. –- Jason Tabrys
Anora
No line reading has stayed with me more this year than the way Mikey Madison says “fraud marriage” in Anora, the latest masterpiece from filmmaker Sean Baker. It should be her Oscar clip. And boy does she deserve an Oscar: her performance as Anora, a Brooklyn-based stripper who marries the childish son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, is funny, sweet, and brash. It would be a fraud ceremony if she doesn’t win. — Josh Kurp
Babygirl
If you watched Halina Reijn’s 2022 slasher comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, you might not know exactly what kind of filmmaker the Dutch director was aiming to be. Babygirl, which delves into erotic tension and power dynamics, is certainly not an expected next step, aside from both films being an entertaining blast. And if Reijn’s career will continue to be marked with genre switches and playfulness, work that can walk the tightrope between prestige and irreverence, then she will certainly be a crucial filmmaker to watch in the coming years. Anchored by two fantastic leads, Nicole Kidman will get a lot of attention for her brave turn as a CEO who finds unexpected excitement by losing power. Meanwhile, Harris Dickinson affirms his rising star status with a sly charm that holds his own next to the great actress. Also, we always need a new unconventional holiday standard to throw into the rotation. Welcome to being a new Christmas tradition, Babygirl. — Philip Cosores
Challengers
In Luca Guadagnino’s world, tennis isn’t just a sweat-drenched, Gatorade-glugging, primal-screaming metaphor for sex, it’s also a battleground for Queer desire, both realized and repressed. He recycles some of his go-to motifs for Challengers – a sports drama starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist that’s been meme’d and gif’ed to death by this point. Love triangles, unrequited desire, Queer symbolism steaming up the screen by way of towel-less sauna confrontations, half-eaten bananas, and grunting hunks batting each other’s balls around. It’s all there, as is a deliciously charged meeting between Faist and O’Connor that does for churros what Call Me By Your Name did for peaches. But what stuck with us once the voyeuristic thrill of watching beautiful people behave very badly faded was the film’s bone-rattling score, mesmerizing cinematography, and the undeniable chemistry of its leads. — Jessica Toomer
Civil War
Love it or hate it, Alex Garland’s Civil War was made to be talked about. That’s evident in every choice the director makes, from the premise of an American collapse thanks to a power-hungry president (Nick Offerman, of all people) to the bombing of recognizable landmarks, the killing of journalists, the secession and alliance of diametrically opposed states like Texas and California. Every plot point exists to push people’s outrage button, but when you look closer, at the stellar performances from Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, and Wagner Moura as journalists documenting tragedy with their cameras and navigating catastrophe after catastrophe with an eerie sense of apathy, the film becomes more. More of a rumination on how easily a nation pedestaled by its own moral righteousness can fall into disarray, succumbing to the same conflicts it often tries to “rescue” others from. More of a reflection on how we desensitize ourselves to violence and the slide into chaos that it helps to spark. More of a movie worth talking about. — Jessica Toomer
Conclave
“What if an episode of Gossip Girl took place inside the Vatican?” is both a terrific description of Edward Berger’s high-stakes papal drama and an actual tweet that Focus Features should have used in every piece of marketing material for this Ralph Fiennes’ starring Oscar contender when it dropped just a few months ago. Because if the thought of watching Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, and John Lithgow float around in their bedazzled Catholic Christening dresses, muttering prayers and backstabbing each other all in the name of holy tradition doesn’t bring to mind the Chanel-accessorized uniformed jungle of Manhattan’s Upper East Side elite, well, your adolescent binge-watching habits were more sophisticated than ours. Crank the camp up to the max, mix in a bit of religious ritualism, and stir the patriarchal pot with a few progressive twists that’ll have your Italian grandma clutching her rosary, and you’ve got one of the most entertaining movies of the year. – Jessica Toomer
Didi
Time comes for us all. If you are of a certain age, this period picture from the recent past might make you feel very old. But that speaks to what Sean Wang – fresh off an Oscar-nominated short – accomplishes in his debut full-length. Wang isn’t mining nostalgia here. Rather, he’s using his own personal experience to craft a vivid vision that only he could tell. It’s the kind of coming-of-age story that’s becoming less of a rarity, coming from a perspective that’s typically marginalized, balancing with deftness the universal and the highly specific. Didi is often funny without lowering the emotional stakes, treating the idea of discovering your own sense of self with the importance it deserves without cluttering it with unneeded plot contrivances. Plus, the world is just a better place when Joan Chen is on our screens. — Philip Cosores
Dune 2
Austin Butler takes a decisive turn away from being too handsome in this sequel that puts him on the weirdest leg of his career so far. That’s only a tiny slice of what’s going on here, too. Timothée Chalamet riding a sandworm grabbed most of the headlines, but do not sleep on Zendaya coming into her own this year, both with this movie and another tour-de-force turn in Challengers. Denis Villeneuve also cued up Florence Pugh’s character for more, similar to how the first Dune remake set up Zendaya for future greatness. And I would be remiss to not mention Rebecca Ferguson owning the screen as Lady Jessica. This film and cast is too stacked to give it fully adequate treatment in a mere blurb, but that’s a fine problem to have while writing about movies. — Kimberly Ricci
Exhibiting Forgiveness
Vibrant paintings of childhood memories that conjure reflections of trauma for their creator loom large in Tarrell Rodin’s studio of solitude. Created by Exhibiting Forgiveness’ writer and director, Titus Kaphar (a renowned artist telling a semi-autobiographical story), these paintings serve as a way into conversations about the uneasy relationship between highly personalized art and the products those expressions become. But primarily, this film is about the complex mish-mash of pride and pain that comes from estranged father/son relationships.
André Holland (as Rodin) and John Earl Jelks (as his father, La’Ron) bring such raw emotion and humanity to what Kaphar is trying to say about a father who brought a lot of pain on his way out the door and a son who is carrying the weight of his father’s misguided attempts at toughening him up. The burden of nurturing a grudge is also considered, but Rodin’s experiences aren’t invalidated in the name of his father’s pursuit of redemption – which seems like the norm in these kinds of stories. Instead, we get an ending that expands on what forgiveness can look like and announces Kaphar as a major new voice in film. — Jason Tabrys
Hit Man
Is Glen Powell the next Tom Cruise? Nope. That would oversimplify both actor’s trajectories and is a discussion beyond this list entry. However, it’s clear that Glen has the “It” factor that has propelled him through a vast array of action and comedy flicks, including this Richard Linklater-directed dark romantic comedy (co-starring the also intriguing Adria Arjona) that acts as a study on identity. Powell stepped up as a dramatized version of real-life undercover officer/fake killer-for-hire Gary Johnson in this movie inspired by Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article. No matter what shoddy disguises Powell wore for this role, his body language conveyed the subtle shades behind every persona that he adopted. That ability, along with his undeniable charisma, volleyed his performance beyond any gimmick. The end result: Hit Man is the perfect vehicle to foreshadow the endless permutations that we will see in Powell’s incredibly bright future. — Kimberly Ricci
I Saw The TV Glow
2024 has seen the release of a trio of unique films from young transgender filmmakers: Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker, Theda Hammel’s Stress Positions, and Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow. But as Schoenbrun told Bright Wall/Dark Room, “Three films by three white trans girls does not a trend make.” She’s right! But it’s still great to see so much trans cinema representation in theaters, with the A24-released I Saw The TV Glow — a captivating coming-of-age story about two outcasts who bond over a cult TV show — leading the way. Also great: the soundtrack. — Josh Kurp
My Old Ass
This high concept sci-fi coming-of-age story is both a feel-good rehash of some familiar genre tropes and a totally inventive ode to adolescence, adulthood, and the confusing limbo in between. Aubrey Plaza delivers a dependably sardonic turn as a psylocibin-fueled ghost of Christmas future, guiding her younger self – a slightly selfish, freewheeling teen named Elliot — through a tumultuous summer of first love, first heartbreak, and the pains of growing up. But it’s a breakout performance from her co-star Maisy Stella that really leaves an impression. Fearless and charismatic, Stella imbues Elliot with hope and the optimism of youth, selling the comedic moments just as easily as the more heartfelt ones. As far as movies about growing up, Gen Z could do a lot worse. — Jessica Toomer
Nickel Boys
I know this is an unranked list, but I’m gonna say this: Nickel Boys is the best film of the year. Full stop. ReMell Ross’ narrative debut about the tribulations of two Black boys in the last gasp of the Jim Crow South is a boundary-pushing, crucial work; a movie that stretches the idea of what literary adaptations can be. But what has bothered me about some early discussions around the film is how it is presented as cold or hard to crack. It’s a film that demands attention and makes its own rules, sure. But it quickly gives you the tools needed to find your way in and let the dichotomy of gorgeous imagery and harrowing experiences wash over you. It’s groundbreaking cinema that’s built to last, a movie whose log line (or best of the year blurb) can’t do it justice. Out of Telluride, even with overwhelming critical acclaim, there was some worry that Nickel Boys might get overlooked come award season as too challenging or esoteric. But those in the know have been recognizing it for what it is, a major work from a major new voice, and one of the most exciting artistic accomplishments in recent memory. — Philip Cosores
Nosferatu
Robert Eggers’ take on the vampire classic is a masterclass of vision. From the production design to the top hats, the makeup to the sideburns, Nosferatu makes every moment, every detail, every rodent count. But for a story that’s been told many times, maybe what’s most exciting about Eggers’ take is how fresh it feels. He gets career-best work from both Lily-Rose Depp (best physical performance of the year) and Bill Skarsgård (best vocal performance of the year), true scares that never feel cheap or easy, and enough gross-out fun to ensure that fans of his previous work are pleased. As admirable as it is enjoyable, this Nosferatu can stand (float?) proudly next to those that came before. –- Philip Cosores
Sing Sing
There is a much more cynical, worse version of Sing Sing that could exist, and might in the heads of people who have not seen the towering film. It could have been a gimmick to use mostly a cast of former inmates to tell the story of the benefits of an acting program inside the titular prison, a selling point that was more about the sale than the product. But this is not what the movie is at all. Instead, the pasts of the actors in the film inform every scene and give it a richness and honesty that can’t be faked, led by the colossal Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin in a story he helped develop. The result is a film that testifies to the power of the arts, and how they can provide refuge and rehabilitation. Filming in lovely 16mm that often uses windows and rays of light to accentuate the freedom’s distance, both literally and figuratively, only adds to achievement. — Philip Cosores
The Brutalist
They say you can’t dance about architecture, but you sure can make an instant-classic motion picture about it. Brady Corbet’s ambitious The Brutalist tells the story of decades in the life of a Hungarian architect’s move to America following the experience of the Holocaust, and has foregrounded its “serious filmmaking” bonafides, right down to its VistaVision filming, 70mm exhibition, and an intermission in screenings. But the thing is, while this might make film geeks’ mouths water, the movie strongly stands up to such bold signifiers. Nothing is done for the sake of saying it was done, it all adds to the experience. And The Brutalist is an experience, one that sticks with you long after the credits finish, that gives the freedom to ask as many questions as it answers, and will see debates at just how it fits into our present political climate. — Philip Cosores
The People’s Joker
Vera Drew’s long road to actually getting The People’s Joker played at fests and available to the general public is a fascinating story and a testament to the filmmaker’s determination. But the backstory quickly becomes secondary when you see this wildly imaginative collection of competing textures and styles come together to skewer comedy culture and tell a trans-coming-of-age story that twists and reimagines familiar DC comics characters and storylines in a stunningly original and powerful way. Vera Drew is punk as hell for telling this story despite all the red tape and setbacks, but her ability to take DC Comics’ toys and make something fresh, irreverent, and beautiful is what earns The People’s Joker a spot on this list (and many others like it). — Jason Tabrys
The Substance
The Substance is, objectively speaking, gross. No one has ever chewed and ripped apart food louder than Dennis Quaid; a chicken leg gets pulled out of a belly button; and if you have an aversion to needles, you might want to skip this one. For everyone else, see it twice to make up for the cowards who can’t handle the gonzo body horror. Director Coralie Fargeat’s enthusiasm for go-for-broke, satirical nastiness is commendable (she saves the best monster for last), and Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are fantastic foes. The Substance is grotesque, but beautifully so. — Josh Kurp
Wicked
Wicked absolutely lived up to the epic spectacle we thought and hoped it would be. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were nothing short of a magical combination that blew us away, both as actors and as singers. Whether it be Erivo and Grande’s show-stealing performance of “Defying Gravity” above the clouds or Jonathan Bailey’s dazzling and highly intricate performance of “Dancing Through Life” in between spinning wheels and tight spaces, Wicked left us with a multitude of memorable scenes. What Erivo, Grande, Bailey, and company accomplished with Wicked will be remembered as one of the best film moments in 2024 in addition to giving us ample reason to anticipate what’s to come with Wicked Part Two. — Wongo Okon