The year that has passed has now been entered into the history books, and with 2024 behind us it’s time to look back at how the year went as a whole. For Hollywood, it was a recovery year, after the strikes of 2023 brought the industry to a dramatic halt. Some of the effects of those strikes were immediately apparent, but the long term effects may take years to fully manifest, but 2024 overall represented a year of adaptation for both the production side as well as the exhibition side. Hollywood continued to move around their films on the calendar, with some of the most anticipated movies of the previous year finally getting their release in the last year. Movie theaters also had to get more creative in the last year in order to bring audiences in more frequently due to the backlog of new movies that the strikes created. This was the year where novelty popcorn buckets suddenly became a viral craze, with the ridiculous designs for Dune: Part Two’s and Deadpool & Wolverine’s buckets getting social media attention for which one looked more like a adult oriented product. Regardless of the oddities of the designs, these must buy items were a welcome money generator for movie theaters in need of extra income, and more importantly it prompted more people to come to the movies again. We saw the revivals of struggling brands like Disney, Pixar and Marvel, all getting huge box office wins this year. The indie film market also saw a major boost, with indie labels like Neon and A24 seeing their biggest box office successes ever in 2024. And then there was the record breaking Thanksgiving weekend this year, which saw Wicked, Gladiator II, and Moana 2 almost pulling off another Barbenheimer effect with their shared success. So, while there are still a number of problems that are plaguing the movie business overall, there are also a number of positive signs about the resiliency of the cinematic experience. And the hope is that many of those positive signs continue into the next year and beyond.
Of course, like every year, I’s sharing my personal picks for the Top 10 Movies of the year, as well as my choices for the bottom 5. This year I broke my own personal record of seeing over 120 movies in a theater setting, so I had a very wide pool to choose from. A couple of the movies that made my list were very easy, but there were a few hard cuts as well. So, below are the honorable mention movies that I think are worth spotlighting, listed in alphabetical order: A Real Pain, The Apprentice, Bird, Blitz, Boy Kills World, Challengers, Conclave, Deadpool & Wolverine, Flow, Hit Man, Juror #2, Kinds of Kindness, Maria, Monkey Man, Nickel Boys, Nosferatu, Queer, Saturday Night, Sing Sing, Strange Darling, Thelma, Wicked, and The Wild Robot. All of these movies are definitely worth seeing if you can, but the 10 selected below were the ones that stuck with me the most over the course of the year. So, let’s take a look at my picks for the Top Ten Movies of 2024.
10.
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
Directed by Rose Glass
Starting off with the first of multiple A24 movies you’ll see on this list (it was a very good year for them), this sophomore directorial effort from Rose Glass was also the year’s most interesting love story as well. Set in a grimy New Mexico town in the 1980’s, the movie presents a romance between a lady bodybuilder and the daughter of the local crime kingpin. During the course of the movie, both girls have to confront the bad pasts that they’ve been trying hard to break away from, which leads them down some dark roads. And yet all the while, there is an almost fairy tale aspect to their love affair that helps to pull them through. The movie feels very much like a gritty and yet quirky crime thriller that would have come from the likes of the Coen Brothers in their early days, but director Rose Glass is also not afraid to take things in a surreal direction, blurring the lines with what’s real and what’s not in some very inspired hallucinatory moments. But what helps this movie stand out is the cast. Kristen Stewart continues to impress in her post-Twilight career as a risk-taking actress, and this film finally gives her a chance to play a queer romantic lead in a film, opposite Katy O’Biren who delivers a star making role as the bodybuilder that she falls in love with. Ed Harris also delivers an amazing and terrifying performance as the crime family patriarch and father to Stewart’s character, standing out as one of the best cinematic villains of the year. But it’s the twists and turns that Rose Glass takes with this story that make the whole experience truly unique and memorable. It’s also strangely magical in the end and works in that oddball way that only an A24 movie could pull off. The chemistry between the two leads really pulls it all together and it becomes oddly sweet by the end, even though the journey there can get strange at times. It shows that not all the best love stories need to be rose tinted and elegant. They can also involve a lot of bullets and blood as well.
9.
CIVIL WAR
Directed by Alex Garland
2024 was a contentious year to say the least when it came to politics in America. Every election year is as well, but tensions this year have been especially high. Into this tempest came a new movie from Alex Garland, a filmmaker known for making some provocative movies in the past through the lens of science fiction, and the subject for his new film was as big of a lightning rod you could build in year such as this one. Many people tried to pick apart the movie to decide what kind of message it was going to deliver about the state of the world as it is right now, and the answer to that was, nothing. Civil War was a very misunderstood movie that was not about the politics today, or of any era for that matter. It uses a hypothetical scenario about a modern day Civil War breaking out in the United States as a backdrop for the narrative that Alex Garland was really interested in telling, which was about wartime journalism. Garland depicts the daily grind of what war photographers and on the scene investigators go through in order to chronicle a war as it happens. They are there in the thick of it, standing behind the firing lines all in the pursuit of capturing the reality of what war is like. Sometimes they are doing it for the sake of preserving the truth, while some are doing it purely for the adrenaline rush. But with the characters portrayed by Wagner Moura, Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinely Henderson, we witness the often unsung bravery that these individuals display in order to witness war and make sure that history is captured. I especially like the way that Garland breaks up the mayhem of the battle scenes with the silent abruptness of a camera’s snap shot. In these moments, we are given a window into what is behind those snapshots of war that we see printed in a newspaper or tagged onto a webpage, and it makes us consider the toll of war and the dangerous life that war journalists have. The politics of this movie really are irrelevant, though there are slight hints about where the director stands on current events. What matters in this movie is the affects that war has on the people in the middle of it, and the reason the movie sets it’s conflict in a modern day American setting is because we so far have not seen this kind of carnage on our own door step in a modern era, and the hope that this movie delivers is that we can hopefully avoid it again.
8.
PERFECT DAYS
Directed by Wim Wenders
Technically, this was a 2023 film that only finally got a wide release in 2024, but even still, my first viewing was in this last calendar year and it managed to stick with me all the way to the end. This was last year’s nominee for the Oscar for International Feature from Japan, but it was directed by a legendary German director Wim Wenders in a strange confluence of cinematic forces. The filmmaker behind classics like Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1988) applies the same grounded but poetic style to this tale about a Japanese man who cleans public toilets for a living. There isn’t a whole lot of drama at play in this film; it merely observes the daily life of this man who takes his civil service seriously and enjoys the simple comforts of his life. The only drama comes out of the unexpected arrival of his estranged niece, who forces her uncle out of his simple routine, though not in a way that fundamentally shifts his overall life. It’s a profound film that speaks a lot about the simple things that make an impact in our lives, including something as simple as a game of Tic-Tac-Toe with a complete stranger you never meet. Wenders apparently was inspired to make this movie after his visit to Tokyo where he was astonished by the variety and creative designs of the public restrooms found throughout the city, and it led him to craft this story about the kind of person who would be tasked with upkeeping these public facilities. Honestly, you’ve never seen a movie film public toilets in such loving way and that’s part of the charm of this movie. In addition, actor Koji Yakusho (who won the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2023 for this film) delivers a beautifully soulful performance as the caretaker Hirayama. Wenders also fills the movie with a great soundtrack of classic rock standards, including the Lou Reed song that gives the movie it’s title. Definitely the coziest watch of 2024 and a great life affirming piece of cinema that people will hopefully get to discover more in the years ahead.
7.
DUNE: PART TWO
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve and Warner Brothers took a major risk when they began production on the movie Dune (2021). Villeneuve split the famous Frank Herbert sci-fi novel into two parts, and only got Warner Brothers to greenlight the first part. That meant that the completion of the story was contingent on the success of the first movie; which was a major departure from other franchise productions like The Lord of the Rings, which had all the films produced together. Had Dune not succeeded, we may have been left with an awkward, unresolved half of a complete story. To make matters worse, the first Dune had to deal with the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw it’s release delayed a year and was truncated by the dual streaming and theatrical release plan that Warner Brothers enacted under the failed Project Popcorn in 2021. Thankfully, the movie gained enough critical and box office success to convince Warner to greenlight Part Two, so that we could finally see the complete vision of Herbert’s legendary narrative. But, the strike made a further delay in the completion of this cinematic epic, and it was finally released in the Spring of 2024. Thankfully, it was all worth the wait as Denis Villeneuve managed to land the plane successfully and complete the story that he had long dreamed of bringing to life on the screen. Dune: Part Two more than lives up to the promise of it’s predecessor, and surpasses it in many ways. It’s bolder visually, has an even grander epic heft to it, and even has moments of great emotion between it’s characters. All the returning cast is at the top of their game, with Timothee Chalamet continuing his win streak as a movie star on the rise. Zendaya has the most significant upgrade in her screen time in this film, and she brings a lot to the character Chani that helps to elevate her presence in the series. But perhaps the most surprising standout is Austin Butler playing the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, one of the best cinematic villains to emerge in a big Hollywood film in a long time. Denis also ups the ante in the scale of the film, with the iconic worm riding sequence being an especially epic experience to witness on a big screen, preferably in IMAX. Far and away the strongest cinematic achievement from mainstream Hollywood in a year that surprising delivered very well in terms of popcorn entertainment.
6.
HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS
Directed by Mike Cheslik
There’s always that one movie that takes you by surprise every year that demands attention because it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. This high concept comedy is one of those films, as it is a strange beast of a film. It’s also one of the most inventive movies I have seen in quite some time. And to make things even better, it’s gut-bustingly funny as well. The movie has the aesthetic of a silent film, but mixed with the cartoonish antics of a Looney Tunes cartoon. The main protagonist, an apple famer named Jean Kayak (played by a hilarious Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) seeks revenge against a pack of beavers that destroyed his apple jack brewing business, and over the course of several chaotic scenes of hijinks, he learns that the critters are more cunning than he thought. The whole movie is a beautifully created homage to the cartoons of classic Looney Tunes, as well as to the silent classics of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but it’s also an impressive feat of cinematic storytelling as well. Through some clever cinematic tricks, the movie comes pretty close to feeling like a cartoon brought to life. The funniest part is that all the animals are depicted with mascot costumes, adding to the surreal absurdity of the whole piece. The antics are hilariously chaotic and at times also surprisingly mean-spirited as well, in a good way. It’s also refreshing to see a comedy that uses visual gags as the primary means of making us laugh, rather than inane banter that we see most comedies today using. We’ve kind of lost the art of visual comedy over the years, where the filmmakers use the cinematic tricks to get a laugh; something that the silent masters pioneered, but were also carried along into the latter half of the 20th century by great comedians such as Jacques Tati and Mel Brooks. Hopefully Hundreds of Beavers is that kind of transformative comedy that inspires more filmmakers to try more inventive visual gags in the future. Easily the year’s best comedy, and I’m already happy to see that the film is already generating a cult following.
5.
GHOSTLIGHT
Directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson
This little seen film that emerged from this year’s Sundance Film Festival managed to be one of the most surprising dramas of the year, and a profound statement about the healing power of art. The film centers around a family that is broken apart by a recent tragedy and they find surprising solace in the form of theater, after the father ends up joining a small acting troop that’s putting on a staging of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The film stars Chicago based theater actor Keith Kupferer in a breakthrough role as the grieving father, and the deconstruction of his rough exterior through the embrace of performance is superbly conveyed in his work here, giving his character a very grounded and vulnerable presence. His performance is matched by the actors playing his family, who just so happen to be Keith’s real life wife and daughter, Tara Mallen and Kathrine Mallen Kupferer respectively. This real life family of actors are all astounding, and they are complimented very well by a scene-stealing Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness) as the head of the theater troop. Their journey towards staging the play, as well as the confrontation they face with regard to their past tragedy is all delivered in this movie with a beautifully poignant sense of authenticity. And the finale of the film is going to knock a lot of people over with it’s emotional wallop; a tearjerker in the best sense of the word. Keith Kupferer has been playing bit parts in Chicago shot films for many years, including The Dark Knight (2008) and Road to Perdition (2002) as well as a variety of TV appearances in addition to his acclaimed stage work. Ghostlight is his first ever lead role in a movie, and he makes the most of that opportunity. Hopefully Hollywood takes notice and gives him more substantive roles in the future, along with this talented family. It’s a performance that I wish more people had seen as the film sadly had a very limited release. It left an impact on this critic, and I hope more people discover it in the years ahead.
4.
LONGLEGS
Directed by Osgood Perkins
2024 was the year where I discovered my preferred type of horror movie. I watched more new horror movies this year than in any year prior, and the film that stood out the most showed me that I have an inclination for slow-burn, atmospheric horror. That movie was the new film from Osgood Perkins called Longlegs. This film is definitely not your standard, shlocky horror flick. There is a surprising lack of gore in most of the film, and for the most part it’s also free of other horror clichés like jump scares. What it has instead is a very methodical pace to it that starts things off quiet and foreboding, before escalating more and more through the film until it hits a crescendo at the climax. And that’s the kind of horror that I vibe with; one that envelopes you in that sense of building dread. It’s been described as Satanic Silence of the Lambs, and that’s a worthy comparison to make. It has that same kind of unsettling undertone of the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs, but also combines it with much more of a paranormal element. Demonic possession is a genuine thing in this movie as we come to learn, and the slow-build of that realization also helps to make it’s emergence all the more creepy. And speaking of creepy, Nicholas Cage gives a truly terrifying performance as the titular Satan worshipping serial killer, showing us that his over the top style of acting can indeed work wonders in a role that’s tailor made for it. Osgood Perkins comes from a strong pedigree of horror filmmaking, as his father Anthony was famous for playing Norman Bates in Psycho (1960). This is his most successful film to date and it shows that he indeed is one of the most interesting voices in horror filmmaking right now. Too many horror films intend to shock us rather than scare us, and Perkins has created the first film that I’ve seen in a while that’s truly scared me. Much like great horror classics such as The Exorcist (1973), Longlegs feels like you are actually witnessing true evil on the screen, and it’s not done with any flash, but rather with a carefully constructed sense of foreboding atmosphere. I know it’ll be horror movies like this one that I’ll be pursuing more in the future, because it’s the one that hit that sweet spot of terror in my imagination. Hopefully, Osgood Perkins will continue to be one of those filmmakers that continues to deliver in that terrifying mode of horror cinema in the years ahead.
3.
INSIDE OUT 2
Directed by Kelsey Mann
This past year also marked a triumphant return of one of the vanguard names in animation. Pixar Animation has had one of the roughest rides of the decade so far, suffering a sudden halt to the release of their film Onward (2020) in the early days of the pandemic, and then having their parent studio Disney use them as a guinea pig in the early years of the streaming wars, with movies like Soul (2020), Luca (2021) and Turning Red (2022) all being denied theatrical runs and being dumped onto Disney+ instead, all the while the other animated films from the studio got to play in theaters. This was a sad mistreatment of an animation brand that had once been the envy of all of Hollywood. Now Pixar had to claw back their way to the top, and it didn’t help that movies like Lightyear (2022) and Elemental (2023) underperformed. It should be understood, Pixar was still making great movies, but they were being denied the chance to prove themselves again in a post-pandemic market. Thankfully, a savior came in the form of a sequel to one of their most beloved films. Inside Out 2 not only reversed the fortunes of Pixar Animation, it broke every possible record there is for an animated film. Grossing over $1.6 billion worldwide, the movie was the undisputed champ of the 2024 box office, and proof once again that Pixar is a force to be reckoned with. And it deserves it too, as Inside Out 2 not only matches it’s beloved predecessor, but even surpasses it in many ways. One of the best improvements with this film is that it makes the character of Riley, the girl whose mind is the home of the emotions that are the stars of the movie, a much more rounded character. You really feel her agency a lot more in this film, and she becomes more relatable as she goes through her awkward puberty phase. The returning emotion characters are all great and given even more weight in this story, but the newer emotions are just as interesting too. The character of Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) may be the best new addition to this movie, as she becomes a truly chaotic new force that raises the stakes in this story. It’s easy to see why this movie was such a box office juggernaut, because it helped remind everyone what we love about Pixar movies in the first place; their commitment to emotional story-telling and visual innovation. It’s profound in all the right moments, while also being immensely funny along the way. And Disney definitely owes Pixar an apology for underestimating their value as a key part of their company.
2.
ANORA
Directed by Sean Baker
Sean Baker has been a filmmaker to watch over the last decade, and he’s been a re-occurring presence on my top ten lists ever since 2017’s The Florida Project. This year, he released what may be his most assertive film yet with Anora. It’s definitely the one that has gotten the industry’s notice the most of all his movies, as he became the first American filmmaker to win the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in over a decade; the last being Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life (2011). Since then, the movie has been building up a lot of awards season buzz, and it’s very much deserved. Sean Baker definitely is a filmmaker with a distinct style and interest, focusing on people who live just on the fringe of the American dream (such as the outskirts of Hollywood in 2015’s Tangerine and outside of Disney World in The Florida Project) in a neo-realistic mode of storytelling. Anora certainly has those elements too, but Baker also delivers here with a more polished, assured production. Filming with 35 mm stock rather than his usual digital cam or 16 mm graininess, he manages to create a vibrant looking film that still retains the neo-realist character of his earlier films. At it’s center is a breakout performance from Mikey Madison in a star-making role as a New York stripper who falls madly in love with the wrong boy, and quickly get entangled in his dangerous world of oligarchs and criminals, though they have their hands full trying to control her too. Its a performance that will almost certainly earn her a well deserved Oscar nomination. Her performance as the title character is a force of nature, and she continues the same tradition of compelling, flawed characters that are always at the center of Baker’s movies. It’s also impressive how well Baker manages shifting tones in this movie, as the film evolves from a quirky romantic dramedy in it’s early moments to full on farce in the second act to a somewhat melancholy and tragic denouement in it’s final scene. Sean Baker is a director who maintains a signature style, but is also showing a lot of growth as a storyteller and filmmaker as he takes on more complex stories. Anora is his most profound cinematic statement yet, and it’s easy to see why so many people (including myself) see it as one of the best cinematic achievements of the year. It will be interesting to see if the Academy agrees as well.
And my choice for the best movie of 2024 is…
1.
THE BRUTALIST
Directed by Brady Corbet
This year was a year of bold statements on the big screen. Some were big swings and misses (like Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis) but in some cases, there were a few attempts at bold filmmaking that actually connected this year. And no other movie in 2024 managed to wow me personally as a filmgoer than this new epic from director Brady Corbet. Watching this movie was like witnessing the birth of a new American cinema classic. This is the kind of movie that I feel is going to be discussed in film studies for many years to come. And even more remarkable, Brady Corbet was able to make this three and a half hour epic, complete with an overture and intermission, on a $10 million budget. Hollywood should honestly take note of this movie and what it accomplishes, as Corbet was able to make a $10 million movie look like it cost around $100 million. The movie reminded me a lot about another film that also topped my list the year it came out, which was Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007). Like that movie, Corbet is able to create a profound, intimate portrait about the human experience, in this case an immigrant architect schooled in the titular style of architecture, and have it become this profound statement about the American experience and all of it’s unseen flaws. Adrian Brody gives a remarkable performance as Laszlo Toth, the architect at the heart of the film, delivering his best work in years. He’s also matched by a scene stealing Guy Pearce as the heartless industrialist who funds Laszlo’s vision while also taking increasing possessive control over his life. And like all the best 3 hour plus epic movies, it’s run time breezes by because Corbet has such a strong command of the narrative that you never feel it lag once. By the time the intermission started, I was shocked by how quickly 100 minutes had already gone by. It’s enormously impressive how Brady Corbet can craft a movie that features very economical film tricks (shooting in places in present day Hungary that look like 1950’s Philadelphia so they don’t have to build new sets, for example) and make it feel grandiose in a way that films like The Godfather has been seen over the years. It’s the kind of movie that Hollywood used to make before getting cold feet after the failure of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. The movie even stays true to the architectural style it celebrates, with the music and even the style of the opening and closing credits feeling in character. It’s the most impressive film that I saw all year and hopefully it becomes a blueprint for a more economical way of making epic movies in the future.
So, with my Top Ten Movies out of the way, it’s time to briefly go over the Bottom Five movies that I saw this year. Keep in mind, I technically like to avoid bad movies when I can; I chose to not watch Part Two of Zack Snyder’s awful Rebel Moon for example, after having to sit through Part One in 2023. Given the breadth of so many movies that I saw this year, it was still unavoidable watching a few of them. So, here are my picks for the Five Worst Movies of 2024:
5. JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX – Consider this the year’s most disappointing film. It was kind of stunning to see the drop off this movie faced after the enormous success of it’s predecessor. The first Joker movie made over $1 billion worldwide and got it’s star Joaquin Phoenix and Oscar win for Best Actor. All the same people returned to make this sequel, including Phoenix and director Todd Phillips, and they were also adding Lady Gaga to the mix. But, nothing worked. Making it a musical was not a bad, outside-the-box idea, but the execution was severely lacking. It doesn’t have anything profound to say about comic book movies, the glorification of violence in society, or much of anything else. It’s just a string of prison and courtroom movie clichés mixed in with musical numbers. By the end, the movie even provides you with the final insult that (spoiler) the Joker in this movie isn’t even the Joker that will eventually face off against the Batman. It’s one of the biggest squandering of cinematic potential that we’ve seen from Hollywood in a while, and is only saved from the bottom of this list by having just a little bit of quality craftmanship in it’s production design, but not much else to save it.
4. DRIVE AWAY DOLLS – This road comedy about two lesbians in trouble with the mob may be more easily dismissed if it wasn’t for the fact that this was made by one of the Coen brothers. This movie marks the solo directorial debut of Ethan Coen, who co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, editor Tricia Cooke, and it’s very clear that he is not well adept at making movies on his own without his brother Joel, whose own solo effort The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) was a much better film. The screenplay is a painful exercise in plot and dialogue, clearly showing a middle aged man trying to approximate the lingo of a younger generation, and failing. It’s also a horrible waste of good talented actors, with Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, and Matt Damon all delivering some of the worst performances of their careers. Hopefully it doesn’t take long for Joel and Ethan Coen to reunite and start making films as a team again, because they are clearly not cutting it solo; or at least Ethan isn’t.
3. ARGYLLE – There was a time when Matthew Vaughn could do no wrong as an action filmmaker. From Layer Cake (2004), to Kick-Ass (2010) to Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), he was setting himself up as one of the most inventive and entertaining action filmmakers in the business. And then something happened that changed all that. The Kingsman sequels that followed were nowhere near as entertaining as the first film, and things have only gotten worse with this year’s Argylle. This should have been a strong return to form for Vaughn, taking his favorite cinematic formula of using actors not known for action roles and turning them into iconic action characters in his movies, which he was trying to do with Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell. But neither actor had quite the same transformative performance like the one we saw from Colin Firth in Kingsman. Instead, their performances are drowned out by a terribly overblown CGI extravaganza that never manages to connect with it’s audience. All of the action scenes feel hollow and the comedy is stale and lifeless. Matthew Vaughn is at that point where he should really re-consider his choice in film, because this kind of Kingsman style of quirky, violent action just isn’t cutting it anymore.
2. BORDERLANDS – Undeniably one of the laziest attempts at launching a movie franchise that I’ve seen in while. Based on the popular video game series, this film fundamentally fails on nearly every level. Directed by a mismatched Eli Roth, the movie feels like a poor man’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and features none of the same wit or creativity. It’s characters are irredeemable jerks that never have that spark that allows for their edginess to be endearing. Really talented actors, including Oscar-winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis, just look lost amid all the mayhem. The film is also aesthetically ugly to look at, washed out in browns and neons that try to emulate the look of the video games, but come across as pale imitation. At a time when video games are starting to gain some respectability in Hollywood as potential franchises worth investing in, such as with Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog, Borderlands reminds us that it is often better to leave some video games off of the big screen.
And the Worst Movie of 2024 is…
1. MADAME WEB – Thank god the Sony Spider-verse is being put out of it’s misery, because this was an especially bad year for them. It’s bad when you can say the only highlight for them this year was the Tom Hardy starring threequel Venom: The Last Dance, and even that was a lackluster movie. Kraven The Hunter even closed the year out with a whimper by being one of the biggest box office bombs of the year, nearly wiped out of the cineplexes in just three weeks. But no movie demonstrated the folly of Sony’s failed attempt to build a cinematic universe around obscure characters loosely tied to Spider-Man than the movie Madame Web. This film starring Dakota Johnson as the titular character was the hardest movie sit through that I’ve had since Dear Evan Hansen (2021). It was astoundingly bad on every level, and it nearly made me want to walk out of the theater. It gets everything wrong; the comic book lore, the dialogue, the performances, everything. There was no question that this movie would be my choice for worst film of the year, and it held that distinction from as early as February all the way to the end of the year. Thankfully, it looks like Sony is putting this Spider-verse thing to rest, at least with live action as their animated films still are performing strong, and are getting ready to relinquish the full Spider-Man stable back into the creative control of Marvel themselves. Madame Web was an astounding failure that may end up being one of the worst movies of the decade, and I hope it doesn’t get any worse than this in the years ahead.
So there you have my picks for the Best and Worst Movies of 2024. It was an interesting year to say the least. The big winners I would say were the indie film studios, particularly Neon and A24. They accounted for half of the movies on my Top Ten alone (Love Lies Bleeding, Civil War, and The Brutalist for A24 and Longlegs and Anora for Neon). It wouldn’t surprise me if these two independent labels will also be the top competitors during this upcoming awards season as well. It wasn’t just Indie producers that had a great year either. Disney had a spectacular year that helped to lessen the blow of the box office woes they faced in 2023, and it was led by the financial and critical triumph that was Pixar’s Inside Out 2. Warner Brothers had a mixed year with box office bombs like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Joker: Folie a Deux being mixed in with the successes of Dune: Part Two and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Universal may have also found their new big franchise with the immensely successful Wicked, which may also help revive the box office potential of Broadway show adaptations in Hollywood. The hope is that 2025 will continue to deliver on the good progress that was made in the last year. I’m interested to see what kind of effect a movie like The Brutalist will have on Hollywood. It’s been an industry that has been plagued with a problem of bloat, with movies costly far more to produce now than they have in any era before, and that’s leading to a reduction in what kinds of movies get produced, which in turn leads to an overall reduced number of films at the box office. I hope The Brutalist and Anora become the dominant Awards season favorites, and that they help convince Hollywood that movies can feel grand and important again without breaking the bank to make them. There’s a lot of lessons to learn still, and hopefully we see this kind of trend bear fruit in Hollywood in the years ahead. So, let’s hope 2025 is another stellar year for the movies and the movie going experience.