My 10 Favorite Movies* of 2024
* and Seasons of Television
10) TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN
I read the book when it came out in 2017, so needless to say, it’s been a hot minute since I was exposed to this story. There’s no doubt that fact worked in this adaptation’s favor. I was never comparing the book to the movie. I was just familiar enough with its contents to enhance the experience. I’ve always loved John Green’s stories, so it had a leg up by default.
That said, I thought this was endearing in all the ways you’d hope it would be. It was also excruciating in all the ways a story like this should be — it’s so hard to watch Aza suffer. When the movie is giving you butterflies or when it’s making you squirm, it’s Isabela Merced steering the ship — she was nothing short of extraordinary in this.
9) CIVIL WAR
I can see people getting upset at the fact that this film wasn’t actually about a Civil War taking place in the United States, given the title of the movie and A24’s marketing efforts. I do, however, quite like the perspective the filmmakers chose to take: It put us on the ground, amid all the chaos and bloodshed, but it didn’t make us follow the soldiers on the field — which would have been the boring choice here. We feel the tension standing in the middle of a war zone alongside our unarmed protagonists. The explosions and gunfire are deafening, and what’s left in their wake is sickening. We feel it all, experiencing it through the eyes of civilians that aren’t trained in combat, through the eyes of people who want to be there, who want to see what they’re seeing, are eager to see what they’re seeing, no matter the costs. They don’t hide. They don’t run away. They want it to happen, so they can capture it. They want to experience it, even if it fucks them up.
8) THE FALL GUY
I was so prepared to write a quirky on-brand review saying that this film started off so hot and then fell off a cliff after the Taylor Swift song. I loved everything leading up to All Too Well so much that I thought, surely, the film will fall off a cliff once the inciting incident arrived and our stuntman protagonist set off on his journey.
I’ve left the cinema pleasantly surprised for two reasons: Firstly, my quirky on-brand review proved to be false but I was still able to use it because I thought of a quirky way to frame the original review so it still works. The second reason is that my premature review proved to be false; this movie is a lot of fun — Gosling and Blunt were delightful.
On second watch, I loved the quiet moments more and the loud moments less, which tracks with my general taste in stories. I do think, however, they did a good job balancing a lot of elements here. The romance feels great. The comedy is genuinely funny — Gosling continues to prove he’s money in that aspect. The action is required to showcase the stunt-performers, but doesn’t take up so much of the runtime that I would pitch this as an action movie to a friend. The climax felt like a bit much for me, but I could argue that’s the point, given what I just said regarding the stunts. Overall, this is an excellent big-budget popcorn flick, made to be experienced at the cinema.
7) ALIEN ROMULUS
I swear, the Costume and HMU departments were flagrantly taunting us over the fact that Cailee Spaeny didn’t get cast as Ellie for HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us. I think Fede might have been in on the trolling too, because he directed a moment between Cailee and Isabela Merced (who plays Dina in the series) where they’re on the ground holding each other, their faces touching.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie. I love the atmosphere and the setting we faded in on. I like how the motivations were set up for our protagonist(s). Once they’re in the ship, the tension and the horror kicks in and remains effective throughout. It was really well paced with evolving threats.
Weirdly, I feel like the fact that this was another installment in the Alien franchise held it back from being really great. Don’t ask me to explain what I mean by this — it’s just a vibe that I caught, and I’m running with it.
6) CHALLENGERS
I’m a sucker for a good setup/payoff, and this movie has a great one. It was excellently executed. They dragged out the payoff long enough for the entire audience to pick up on what was about to happen. The tension in the delayed catharsis made my heart pound in my chest.
The direction was sexy. The editing was sexy. The music was sexy. The actors were sexy. The performances were sexy. This movie was carried by the sexiness of all of the above. In the end, I just found myself wishing there was a bit more depth (either emotionally or thematically) in the story being told.
On first watch, I recognized that the characters were uniquely flawed, and that made them quite engaging. On rewatch, I realized that their flaws make them all uniquely pathetic, and that makes watching them torture each other even more pleasurable. In a movie so closely following a sport, all parties are losers, in some form or fashion.
5) LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
This is one of those concepts that make you mad, as a writer, for never having thought of this, in some way or another. Lucky for me, as an audience member at the cinema, the filmmakers absolutely lived up to that really cool concept.
The characters have strong motivations and play exceptionally well off each other to mine for conflict. They're complicated, conflicted, easy to empathize with. The horror is deeply rooted in the setting and the people that are in the room. This story really feels like one that could only unfold in this studio, where the cameras are rolling on these specific people, during sweeps week in October of 1977.
4) I SAW THE TV GLOW
I fear I watched this at the exact right (wrong) time in my life. A movie has never done what this movie just did to me; I damn near had a panic attack in that theater.
The first 70% of this had me questioning why people loved it so much. It had me ready to say this just wasn’t for me. Then it all clicked in the final 30% and absolutely ruined me. I was filled with so much existential dread that I dare say this was probably the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
3) WICKED
Usually, when you see an adaptation of an established work, people would say something like, “wait until you read the book” or “wait until you see the show on Broadway.” Whether you enjoy the adaptation or not, the implication is that the established work (in whatever form it takes) is the superior version of the work. As the credits rolled on this remarkably faithful adaptation, I had a thought: Dare I say the experience of watching this (admittedly first half of the story) was just as good as the experience of seeing this show on Broadway? In fact, could this experience be *pauses in preparation for the tomatoes surely already in flight en route to my face* better?
At over two and a half hours, you never feel the time going by. The songs are perfectly paced and flawlessly executed, never leaving you anxious for the next song to come or unsatisfied with how they were performed. The scenes without songs are snappy and dramatically effective. Ariana Grande was born to play Glinda — she fully embodied that character, her quirks and her complexities. Cynthia Erivo is one of the best singers of our generation, bringing her iconic character to life with so much soul, so much emotion — often remaining stoic in her physical performance and letting her eyes do all the work. Jon Chu directed the hell out of this massive film, with countless moving pieces, and musical numbers huge and intimate. I’d be remiss to not specifically point out how spectacular that final act ended up being. A lot of where I landed with those initial thoughts toward my feelings on this adaptation as the credits were rolling came about from how well Defying Gravity was executed. Using the word “well” feels like I’m underselling it — the execution of that song was utterly magical.
So, yes, more than 21 years after the show premiered at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco, the masses now have access to an equally exquisite telling of this beloved tale (or the first half of it, for now — the far superior half, everyone knows it). Just like you would in a Broadway theater, apply a little suspension of disbelief, and allow yourself to be swept away by this story about the origins of Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.
2) DUNE: PART TWO
I would like to just dedicate this review to my feelings toward Dune’s place in the cinematic landscape of the 2020s. This is a blockbuster sequel by one of our greatest living directors. It’s absolutely enormous in scope, but not filled to the brim with battles and fight sequences. It doesn’t reek of studio interference. It takes its time – they didn’t sacrifice the exquisite pacing of the first film to the box office gods; they let the nature of the story decide how snappily the film moved. It dabbles in complex themes and character development. This isn’t a novel thought, I admit, but it bears mentioning here: This franchise feels like the offspring of television titan, Game of Thrones, and cinematic titan, Star Wars. It’s smart, big-budget Sci-Fi/Fantasy that’s being devoured by the masses at record numbers. The first movie gave me hope. The sequel has me praying they stick the landing on this trilogy. I will get on my knees and chant to the heavens like a zealot if I have to – don’t tempt me.
There’s so much to talk about regarding the themes explored in this film, but one that I’d like to briefly touch on here is the idea that if a belief system is ingrained within a people, everything they see and hear and feel will be seen, heard, and felt as proof in favor of that belief system – even if the things they’re seeing, hearing, feeling would be experienced as proof to the contrary by the unindoctrinated. In theory (and in practice, I suppose), this sort of cognitive dissonance keeps the believers hopeful, even when the world around them is falling apart. It will keep them motivated. It will keep them united. It will keep them strong. But as Paul himself bellows in the film, this is not real hope; this is dangerous, blind faith. That said, by the end, Paul needs his people motivated, and he needs them united, and he needs them strong, so this belief system that he was pushing up against for so long will now be the key to the engine of his ambitions. This is just beautiful, tragic storytelling.
1) ARCANE: Season 2
We see the problems the writers faced and how they decided to tackle them. We see how they prioritized, what they chose to lift up and what they chose to let slip. They constructed for themselves an impossible task — I do not envy them. I do, however, tip my cap and acknowledge that they did the best with what they had to work with.
As the conflicts grew in scale, the stakes rose, and the parties involved multiplied, the storytelling lost focus. The whole felt muddled, which left a sour taste in my mouth as Jinx bid us adieu and the credits started to roll. But the parts of that whole are as good as they’ve ever been. The emotions that those parts triggered in me, those character moments sprinkled throughout the chaos, fed my heart and soul just what I needed.
As I take some space and look back at this season, it won’t be the action set-pieces that I think of; it won’t be to wrap my head around what happened with Hextech, or the arcane, or any of the celestial elements; it won’t be to analyze the politics of how things got to where they ended up; it won’t be to figure out how events played out in alternate universes, or the repercussions of time travel. When I look back at this season, what will pop into my mind are the moments between Jinx and Isha, the moments between Vander and his daughters, the electric moments between lovers, the quiet moments between sisters. This season delivered the moments I needed. In those moments, I felt heartbreak, I felt bliss, I felt terror, I felt joy, I felt frustration, I felt peace.
This season delivered to me everything I could have asked for, even if the delivery system itself didn’t satisfy my impossible wishes for how the season would unfold and how those emotions would consequently be delivered. It is only with a bit of space and a concentrated eye that I can now focus my attention on the relationships and the people and see that all of the creative decisions made for these characters were made out of love for these characters. No matter how big and loud everything else got, the characters were at the heart of it all.
See all of my final thoughts on my favorite series here: Goodbye, Arcane