2024 wasn’t my favorite year for movies and I actually struggled to write a Favorite Movie list this year. Shoutout to The Bikeriders, which didn’t quite make the cut, and also Drive-Away Dolls which I had been looking for to for months and months but ended up being delayed into 2024…and it was just okay, sadly. Also Lisa Frankenstein, which I wanted to love, but just didn't have what I needed in a film (even though the two leads were great)
#10: My Old Ass
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| Drugs are good They let you do things that you know you not should |
Coming of age movies are a dime a dozen, even well written and acted ones, so having a unique premise is the key to standing out in the crowd. Adding a drug induced time travel mechanic to a great performance by Maisy Stella and a stellar script from director Megan Park makes for a memorable flick. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, and it can even be a bit heart wrenching. Also, what the f**k is going on in Aubrey Plaza’s future?
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
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#9: A Real Pain
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| Hard to say Eisenberg is typecast when he wrote this role for himself |
A Real Pain is one of those films that is primarily centered around characters talking, but the strength of the characters and the dialogue make it work so well that you may not even notice. A story of two Jewish cousins honoring their recently deceased grandmother by visiting her home country of Poland doesn’t sound like a humorous odd-couple comedy but it ended up being one of the funniest and touching films of the year. Kieran Culkin was awesome here and I imagine he will be in contention for an Oscar nomination.
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#8: Your Monster
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| This wasn't a great year for healthy relationships.... |
This is a weird movie and it’s hard to describe it. But essentially, it’s a black comedy centered around a woman who was dumped in the most heinous of ways, then starts interacting with the monster under her bed who terrorized her as child. And hilarity ensues. To go into it further would likely give away too much, but Your Monster features tremendous performances from Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey (who have great chemistry with each other), sharp dialogue, and a plot that stuck with me for weeks after watching it.
Also, side note here: I’m glad Barrera’s career has been going strong since she was fired from the Scream movies. Nice to see the career sabotage has seemingly failed.
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#7: Kinds of Kindness
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| We don't serve your kinds of kindness 'round here! |
Well, I said Your Monster was a weird movie, but frankly, Kinds of Kindness is way weirder and even harder to describe. Basically, it’s an anthology film where the same actors play different characters in every segment. And…it gets pretty wild. I really dug this flick despite my traditional dislike of anthology movies. I think seeing a cast of really good actors begin able to play wildly different characters in wildly different stories hit the right note for me here. While I don’t think it’s the triumph that Yorgos Lanthimos’ last film Poor Things was, but I think it’s still a very good movie.
It's not for everyone though. The lone other person who was in the theater with me tuned to me when it ended and said “what the f**k was that?”
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#6: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
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| Yeah, he's got that "rip your balls off" energy |
I wasn’t sure if a new set of Planet of the Apes movies would be able to live up to the reboot trilogy that went so hard, and maybe the jury is still out if Kingdom is a match for them, but I can at least confirm that it’s a really solid movie. The film takes place so far after the events War for the Planet of the Apes that it's only tangentially connected to its predecessors which gives it a completely different type of feel (because, per Woody Harrelson, it has become a planet of apes) The world building is great, the characters are really easy to invest in, and, even though the trailers spoiled the movie’s biggest twist, there are still plenty of surprises here. I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would and would be down for a sequel sooner rather than later.
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#5: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
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| I'm unsure how Anya Taylor-joy grows up to be Charlize Theron |
Mad Max: Fury Road is a near-perfect action film that, once it starts, barely stops until the end. The quiet, contemplative moments are very quick and the world building is mostly implied. Furiosa, it’s prequal, tried nearly the opposite approach, utilizing a very personal story about a young girl making her way through the wasteland and through her we see more details of the Mad Max world than we did in the first one. It’s also much slower and less action packed (though when the action is there it‘s still George Miller level craziness).
What I’m saying is that this flick is extremely different from the original film, so I imagine not everyone will like it but I thought he pacing, the storytelling, the intensity of Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance, all made this movie work really well. I don’t think it’s as good a film as Fury Road, but it’s differences make it a worthy addition to the franchise and it still ranks high amongst my favorites of the year.
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#4: Deadpool & Wolverine
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| Look, I'll take this over "Deadpool & Spidey" any day |
Marvel Studios released one feature film this year (not to be confused with the garbage Sony put out using Marvel’s name) after their oversaturation of the last few years, but what they did churn out was pretty great. Deadpool & Wolverine is pure fan service, giving longtime fans what they’ve been hoping to get for years, but also giving them what they didn’t know they wanted. It’s actually a much weaker film than the original Deadpool movie, and there’s a lot of continuity questions this movie asks with no answers, and a lot of people are tired of “multiverse stories” so this won’t win them over. But this was a film starring two actors who have mastered their long-time roles in what can only be described as a love-letter to the Fox produced Marvel movies of old. It works really well, and it’s the only movie I saw more than once in theaters in 2024.
That said, it doesn’t’ have much too the say of substance. If you’re here for a fun time, not necessarily a smart time, then you’ll enjoy it. But if you waned a script on the level of Marvel’s best films, you won’t find it here. Still very fun, still worth watching.
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#3: Transformers One
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| People who didn't see this flick also voted for Biff Probably |
Transformers One is the best Transformers movie ever produced. It’s such a good movie that it completely transcends into just being a great movie. Darker and more sophisticated than anything Michael Bay churned out, the film focuses on themes of inequality, corruption, and the dangers of being consumed by anger and hatred and does it all in a thoughtful story with likeable characters and big stakes. One negative you can say is that it’s somewhat restricted by it technically being a family friendly film, but I would argue that the restriction forced the filmmakers to be more creative about how to present the theme they wanted and ended up with something closer to art than what would be expected of a movie designed to sell toys.
I have to admit that I was really uninterested in this movie at first, and I only went to see it after the reviews came out. I left the theater amazed but also angry because I knew by that point the film had already bombed. It sucks that so few people saw it, and that as a result its impact on animation and even its own franchise will be minimal, but even so it was a great time. If you haven’t seen it yet think of it as this year’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
4 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#2: Anora
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| I'm not saying she has the sexiest accent in the world ,,,but I don't know how to finish that sentence |
I would have let this movie slip by me if I hadn’t herd good things about I on the We Enjoy podcast. Anora is a near perfect comedy drama. The characters are well written, their interactions are hilarious, the flick is filled with depressing and heart wrenching moments that make you feel bad about laughing. This has been said by others, but this does feel like a star-making performance by Mikey Madison, who absolutely kills it in this film and if she isn’t getting Oscar buzz than what are we even doing? My one gripe is that the first act seems…a bit dull, but I think that may be on purpose to mess with your expectations of what kind of movie it is. If you’re like me, think of the first act as the price of admission for one of the best films of the year.
5 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
#1: Love Lies Bleeding
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| The best "Gay Girls Do Crime" film of 2024 |
I saw Love Lies Bleeding pretty early in the year and it was one of those movies where I spent months waiting for a movie to come out that I liked more. This year that didn’t happen and this flick has been my number one movie literally since it came out. It’s not a perfect movie, but the strength of the plot and the characters was undeniable. A film about a mutually destructive and toxic relationship disguised as a love story, this flick lives and dies by the tremendous performance of its two leads. I’ve been an big fan of (most) of Kristen Stewart’s work for a number of years, and she is charismatic cand compelling as she usually is, but special shout out to Katy O’Brian who delivered a star making performance here in a role that she was so perfect for that you’d think it was written for her (for Christ sakes; she was even a body builder before she was an actor).
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| Their chemistry is so good You'll ignore that they're slowly destroying each other |
I can’t say enough good things about this movie. It’s sweet, its provocative, it’s sexy, you desperately want things to work out for the leads but they are so goddamn dangerous for each that every second of this film is tense and foreboding. The only thing about this movie that I dislike is that it came out so early in the year, because it will almost certainly not get any Oscar buzz as the Academy member would have likely forgotten about it by now. If there was any justice, Stewart and O’Brian would be competing against each for Best Actress and Rose Glass would be up for best Director and Best Original Screenplay. I haven’t heard any mention this movie in months, so I have low hopes.
5 out of 5 Adorable Pandas
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