Best Movies of 2024

[Chris Knipp]

AUSTIN BUTLER IN THE BIKERIDERS

C H R I S__K N I P P'S__2 0 2 4__M O V I E__B E S T__L I S T S

FEATURE FILMS
About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) 88
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia) 93
Anora (Sean Baker) 91
Babygirl (Halina Reijn) 79
Beast, The (Bertrand Bonello) 80
Bikeriders, The (Jeff Nichols)70
Complete Unknown, A (James Mangold). 70
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino) 82
Close Your Eyes/Cerrar los ojos (Victor Erice). 85
Conclave (Edward Berger). 79
Real Pain, A (Jesse Eisenberg) 85
Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar). 83

RUNNERS UP
Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)
Blitz (Steve McQueen)
The Damned (Roberto Minvervini)
Goldman Case, The/Le Procès Goldman (Cédric Kahn)
Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)
Last Summer/L'Été dernier (Catherine Breillat)
Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)
Seed of the Sacred Fig, The/دانه انجیر معابد (Mohammad Rasoulof)

BEST DOCUMENTARIES
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton)
Merchant Ivory (Stephen Soucy)
New Kind of Wilderness, A (Silje Evensmo Jacobsen)
No Other Land (Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham)
Suburban Fury (Robinson Devor)
Sugarcane (Emily Kassie, Julian Brave NoiseCat)

UNRELEASED FAVORITES
Afternoons of Solitude/Tardes de soledad (Albert Serra)
Caught by the Tides/ 风流一代 (Jia Zhang-ke) US releaase May 9, 2025
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes) US release Mar. 28, 2025
Việt and Nam (Trương Minh Quýf) US release Mar. 28, 2025 (IFC Center)

LESS ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT THESE THAN SOME
Brutalist, The (Brady Corbet)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
Janet Planet (Annie Baker)
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
Queer (Luca Guadagnino 2024)
Room Next Door, The (Almodóvar)
Substance, The (Coralie Fargeat)
Wicked (Jon M. Chu)
____________________________

COMMENTS (Apr. 3, 2025)

I've added the Metascores for the top features list. BIKERIDERS and A COMPLETE UNKNOWN are emotional and personal choices on my part, taking me outside the critical"elite." I'm more on m own for BIKERIDERS. Not many seem to be talking about it. While Timothée Chalamet has justifiably gotten great media play as a result of his dedicated performance as Bob Dylan, Austin Butler's turn as a Sixties California bike gang member, unlike his impersonation of Elvis, seems not to have drawn great attention. The musical biopic about Bob Dylan is easier for the public to get than the work of an immersive, artistic journalist-photographer (Danny Lyon) who isn't as known as he ought to be. But the critics were, compared to the other titles, relatively "meh" about both.

It's recommended that you watch any and all of these, including my "less enthusiastic" list, because they're among the most talked about. And go out to the movies. I have published reviews of all except WICKED, THE SBUSTANCE, A DIFFERENT MAN.

Try to get out to see all you can in a movie theater! I do that: all the "best" Feature Films list above with the sole exception of THE GOLDMAN CASE I watched in a movie theater.

Sometimes it is hard for me to know the release histories. I realized late that Ceylan's ABOUT DRY GRASSES (NYFF 2023) came out in the US in February 2024. It fell through the cracks because it came out early and because I saw it the pervious year (in the NYFF), but it's a great film by a great director.

I'm looking forward to AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE coming to theaters and even being available to watch at all.