my favorite films // 2024
i’ve tried multiple times in the past 18 years (since i first started posting on this very website) to really commit myself to writing publicly as an extension of my creative process, and today is no exception. call it the aftermath of a yearlong nervous breakdown, call it pretentious, call it what you will. welcome to the dmz.
so why try again? well, for starters, it’s a new year and that means everyone is constitutionally allowed multiple resolutions they kind of full-ass for two weeks, half-ass for another two months, and then totally abandon by march. it’s what the founding fathers wanted, and i’ll be god-damned if i don’t do my part as a patriot by getting back into writing.
secondly, i actually really liked having a patreon during the production of my last major short film –– not because of the money, but because it gave me a very casual platform with which to update people who like my work without having to try and play algorithmic games just to be seen. i could certainly go back to that kind of system, or i could create a substack, or whatever, but i’d rather it all be kind of centralized and under a system i could control, one that doesn’t make me feel like i have to produce stuff good enough to be paid for. [i wholeheartedly reserve the right to eat crow here if i decide in two months that actually i do DESPERATELY need the money and will ask you to be kind to me then if i start up a patreon again]
i have no clue if i’ll keep it up, i have zero interest in monetizing it, and if i do, i PROMISE you all that most of it will be short/silly updates with a very sporadic dose of BIG LONG POSTS like this one, but at least for the next few weeks, i’ll be writing, i’ll be posting, i’ll be starting off the new year with the aforementioned full-ass-ness. if you want to be updated when i post (which includes the release of a brand new short film in a few weeks), the best way to follow along will be by signing up here:
i’ll have a big and probably sad post next week about turning 30, but i’d rather start this off with something that makes me kind of unabashedly happy, which is talking about my favorite movies/experiences of the year. so fuck it, let’s dig in.
SIDEBAR / FAV FIRST WATCHES
1. Morvern Callar (dir. Lynn Ramsay) Absolutely massive. Always love Ramsay and this was a major blindspot.
2. News From Home (dir. Chantal Akerman)
3. Don’t Look Now (dir. Nicolas Roeg)
4. Blood Simple (dir. Coen Bros.)
5. Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch) Also watched all of Twin Peaks over December this year, it’s hard to argue with Lynch as one of the late 20th century’s major American artists, perhaps its most major.
6. Party Girl (dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer) I need this movie pumped thru an IV into my veins each night.
7. Personal Shopper (dir. Oliver Assayas) Further confirmation that K. Stew is the actress of her generation.
8. Summer of Sam (dir. Spike Lee)
9. The Bling Ring (dir. Sofia Coppola) No one works music into her film’s framework as smoothly as Sofia, and this has like 3-5 god-tier needle drops.
10. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (dir. Mike Nichols)
11. Spacked Out (dir. Lawrence Ah Mon)
10. I SAW THE TV GLOW (dir. jane schoenbrun // MAX)
some absolutely stunning moments, and while i don't think the 3rd act quite works, i love schoenbrun so much. i think they are helping to chart a new post-post-modernism for the american cinema of the future, and it’s cool to see a movie this openly and proudly weird and allegorical get such a mainstream bump.
9.THE BRUTALIST (dir. brady corbet)
i am still grappling with this one having only seen it a few days ago, though i feel like people are really missing the forest for the trees with regards to its massive tonal shifts and its invocations of Zionism. i actually feel like it is refreshing to see a movie that leans into the well-worn cinematic tapestry of the Epic American Dream Film for 2 hours, and then spends another hour-and-a-half disassembling and subverting that genre, and while its second half doesn’t have the natural propulsion of the first, my attention never waned for a second in its 215+ minute span.
8.NICKEL BOYS (dir. ramell ross)
a technical masterpiece, but one that almost creates a new uncanny valley that i think often gets in its own way. shot almost entirely through the first-person perspective of its two main characters, its greatest moments immerse you in the deep waters of a beautiful, painful, unlocked memory. but the camera can’t act, and in its attempt to put you in a character’s head as he talks to someone else, you end up just feeling like you’re in an amusement park ride. is that due to the voice acting? is it due to the camera’s unblinking, continuous gaze?
it’s a major, major film, and i don’t think the story would hit as hard as it does (and it does still hit hard) if it were filmed in a traditional manner. but as i’ll get into later in this list, it’s been a hell of a year for filmmakers to grapple with what constitutes the modern kino-eye.
7.CHALLENGERS (dir. luca guadagnino // AM*Z*ON :/)
a blend of luca’s trademark mastery of the horny-yearning spectrum, with a playfulness he has rarely let off the leash. reznor/ross’s best score since GONE GIRL, fully confident in the ability of its three main actors to keep everything locked tf down, and a well-earned relentless pace that doesn’t let you breathe until the credits roll. luca’s back (he never left).
6.RAP WORLD (dir. connor o’malley // YOUTUBE)
yes, two of my top 10 feature connor o’malley as someone who works at a suburban movie theatre (good place to mention he is equally funny and insane in I SAW THE TV GLOW).
a lot of comedies have, in recent years, tried to bring something new to the rather staid mockumentary form, but very few have been able to do what o’malley & co. do here, by really just going all-in with unabashed commitment to these characters’ sicko little worlds. it reminds me of the best of kyle mooney’s pre-SNL work, borne of a genuine weird love for this kind of guy –– an archetype i consider “the friend’s neighbor’s brother.”
clocking in at a brisk 55 minutes, RAP WORLD is short but not slight, and contains some of the most incredible lines you’ll ever hear, like “the girls that go [to the neighboring high school] smell like halloween masks.”
5. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (dir. payal kapadia)
a huge win for structural integrity, as the familiar warmth of rom-com momentum allows kapadia to dig deeper into the souls of her characters and the environment that surrounds and suffocates them. sometimes the greatest thing a director can do (even with a really good script, and a keen visual sense) is give their actors space and trust, and it pays off wonderfully here as kani kusruti and divya prabha turn in performances that are every bit as heartwarming as they are heartbreaking.
AND A FEW HONORABLE MENTIONS FROM A REALLY GREAT YEAR IN CINEMA (in no particular order)
before we go thru my absolute favs, a few films i haven’t seen yet that could easily land on this list (in no particular order):
FLOW
MEGALOPOLIS
DRIVE AWAY DOLLS
ANORA
QUEER
CONCLAVE
TRAP
UNION
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA
A DIFFERENT MAN
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
THE ROOM NEXT DOOR
WALLACE+GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL
NO OTHER LAND
SEED OF THE SACRED FIG
STRESS POSITIONS
THE PEOPLE’S JOKER
4. HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (dir. mike cheslik // KANOPY, RENT FROM THEM)
when I first heard about this film and the overwhelming praise it was eliciting in what i like to consider the ridgewood-bushwick-williamsburg triangle of brooklyn, i felt excited by the concept of it but wary of how it could possibly live up to that praise. it felt like a movie that i would like a lot but would probably drag, would fail to overcome its inherently slapdash no-budget visual stylings...my god was i wrong.
i’ve seen BEAVERS described as a throwback but i don’t think you can realistically compare it to anything that’s ever been made. this small team made a breakneck feature-length silent looney tune that somehow sustains and heightens its own visual ingenuity with every shot. it’s not a film that would make chuck jones proud, it would make chuck jones jealous with rage. people having the misfortune of being around me the last month or two will back me up in that i simply won’t shut the hell up about this movie, and i don’t know if i ever will. watch it, and i fucking dare you not to fall back in love with this art form.
3. DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (dir. radu jude // MUBI)
i think most of my top films this year share a bit of common dna in that they are all playing with the possibilities of what cinema can offer in 2024, and i really want to emphasize “play”. few people are playing with filmmaking like radu jude, and perhaps it is the spirit of silliness that his work often contains that turns people away from considering it in the same breath as more austere work from western europe or asia, or perhaps it’s the way in which he doesn’t seem to care about the capital-C Cinematic aesthetics so much as capturing his satirical worlds with immediacy.
scorsese said something early in 2023 that has deeply stuck with me –– that the texture of digital HD and particularly the iPhone, have become our cinema-verite in the same way that high-contrast 16MM handheld bolex films were to audiences in the mid-20th-century. that the iPhone camera is the way to immediacy, to truth, to direct cinema.
jude’s film plays with the old and new in extremely fresh ways. on b/w 16MM film stock, we watch ilinca manolache (who would be my pick for best actress were it not for #2 on this list) as underpaid PA angela, driving around to help cast and prep for the shooting of a massive corporation’s safety-at-work video. but we also watch as she records and posts selfie videos as a over-the-top misogynistic andrew-tate-esque character. the old cinema, the new (?) cinema, all deeply intertwined with a creative gig economy that exists only to provide new distractions from the horrible meat-grinder of late-stage capitalism, along with an algorithmic online ecosystem that rewards vulgarity and muddies the line between ironic satire and straight-up endorsement.
the film, a lofty but well-earned 163 minutes, ends with the funniest scene (and shot) of the year –– a 20-minute, fixed-camera, full color sequence as we watch the actual shoot of the safety video as it devolves further and further into total madness. everything jude has set up for 2+ hours –– history, economics, socialization, and cinema itself –– converging into harmonious chaos.
2. THE BEAST (dir. bertrand bonello // KANOPY, CRITERION CHANNEL)
not to be outdone by jude’s madcap ambition, THE BEAST is also deeply interested in the ways in which our world has drained us of feeling, and uses cinematic form and cliches to create a sci-fi tapestry that is unlike anything else you’re ever likely to see in the near future (that is, at least, until budding filmmakers inspired by THE BEAST begin their own cinematic journeys).
over its three storylines, george mckay (excellent) and lea seydoux (giving the performance of a lifetime) cross oceans of time from early industrial France, to 2010s Hollywood, and to a future where cleansing yourself of emotions through past-life-regression is a ticket to a better job. bonello’s film gives us the forlorn tragedy of a period romance, and it gives us the hollow architectural terror of a modern thriller. but it’s in the 2010s storyline that gives mckay his real moment to shine (and draws another pretty fascinating parallel to jude’s film), as an elliot rodger-type incel recording selfie videos of his manifestos as he prepares for a violent antisocial catharsis that he hopes will give him the control he so yearns.
the movie holds you at an emotional distance even as it continues to draw you into the spiral of time, but it does it with a calculated and masterfully executed purpose –– culminating in a scream that will never leave you, a moment of shocking human emotion that activates your core like a manchurian candidate.
1. MY FIRST FILM (dir. zia anger // MUBI)
the reason i call this list my favorites and not like, “The Best of 2024,” is because the latter is such bullshit. i’m not a critic, and i will never see enough movies each year to actually make any categorical swing at that kind of judgement. i watch movies not because i feel urged to see everything, but because i love the art form. i watch them because the only thing that has ever given me true peace is making films, and getting to sit down and watch something i think i may find interesting or fun or healing or stimulating is basically a form of giving myself a treat: “hey, sit down, put your phone and sketchbook away, lock up your anxieties for two hours.” and the beauty of this form, of all art, is that sometimes a work hits you in a way it can only hit you. we can all sit in front of picasso’s guernica and feel a collective understanding of its power, but does it compare to how i feel looking at a personal handwritten note from an old friend i no longer know? and why should it need to?
i don’t know if zia anger’s MY FIRST FILM is the best film of 2024, but i know it was my favorite. a film that is so sincere, so genuine, and so bold in its approach, that its rawness and self-reflexiveness might strike some as pretentious, but it struck me like lightning deep in my core to an extent that i am still crying now just recounting it.
an immersive multimedia docufiction, zia (or moreso, ‘Vita’ –– played by odessa young) guides us through the ill-fated attempt at making a feature film with her college friends. it weaves in (effortlessly, and to great effect) videos of the real production and of anger’s own family, a somewhat straightforward narrative recreation of that attempt, and a metatextual narration acting as a commentary track that keeps you from losing yourself in any of its elements. the film is about creation, and death, and life, and growth, and abortion, and failure. it’s self-flagellating but not as a deflection, nor is the film interested in martyring the failed project. it isn’t about the film, it’s about the attempt, about how intrinsic creation is to being alive, to understanding others and attempting to understand ourselves. that control is both elusive and illusive, that the messy humanity at the core of our lives is a feature, not a bug.
the film pulls off a balancing act that feels like a miracle, and to an extent, i think i spent a good portion of its last half worried it would lose that balance and fall. something often happens in the deep 3rd act of a film where, after 2 acts of something i love, a scene happens that makes you think “holy shit, what a perfect ending” only to then follow it up with 2-3 additional endings that prove catastrophic. for a moment, i thought MFF was about to do this, after a remarkable single-shot sequence where the layers of metatextuality all open up into a bold and intimate gesture, only to converge back for one last scene. but i shouldn’t have been worried –– what anger gives you is the scene of the year, something bold, new, and totally unique, an unwavering validation that art is worth making, that life is worth living.
thanks for reading all that, here’s to 2025. talk soon.