Top 13 Movies of 2024

Time for the timely time of the year when we reflect on our favorite films of the past year. The past few years, I've done a lucky number top 13 favorite films. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy my favorite hobby, let's face it and say that 2024 was not a very good year for movies. The reasons are as myriad and banal as whatever the next trade gossip or podcaster can speculate: whether from COVID, the strikes or studios losing money to the internet, it seems like every great or even good film that comes out now comes with the caveat of "yeah, it'd be a real masterpiece if it wasn't for that one really big flaw." Literally, almost every movie I wanted to really like this year was held back by one major issue. So, this year, we're going to divide these into tiers. These are my top 13 movies of the year, divided into the 4 categories of how badly I think their respective problems hold them back. Each description will include what I think is great about the film but also what its problems are; hopefully from there, you can ascertain whether or not those flaws could potentially ruin the movies for you. If not, hey, hope you find some cool new flicks you'll want to check out.

REALLY GOOD MOVIES; BIG FLAWS

Anora

Exolution~Electropoint

Directed by Sean Baker (Red Rocket, The Florida Project, Tangerine)

Written by Sean Baker (Red Rocket, The Florida Project, Tangerine)

Genre: Drama, comedy

Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hours 19 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+

Sean Baker is a director who has carved out a nice little niche for himself by making movies about the lives of sex workers, fighting against the societal assumption of them being dregs and giving them human stories. In this case, Anora revolves around its titular character, nicknamed Ani (Mikey Madison), a stripper based out of a club in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Her life is turned upside down when she meets the party animal son of a Russian oligarch, Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who invites Ani back home, takes her on dates and ultimately asks her to marry him. Vanya's parents (Aleksei Serebryakov and Darya Ekamasova) aren't too happy about their son marrying a stripper so they dispatch Vanya's godfather/handler, Toros (Karren Karagulian), to force the couple to annul their marriage.

What then ensues is a really hilarious and unique dark comedy/adventure film as Vanya flees Toros, Ani and Toros' two henchmen, Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan), and the unlikely quartet join forces to embark on a quest across South Brooklyn to search for Vanya. Most of the movie's fun comes from how little these four get along. Ani is a short-tempered Brooklynite to begin with and is understandably pretty pissed about getting manhandled by the thugs, Toros is a constantly stressed Russian with poor understanding of modern technology and American social customs, Garnik spends most of the movie whining in pain as he tries to walk off a concussion and Igor is the type of guy who is just along for the ride. The actors' chemistry is on fire and it's a nice adventure of them navigating the underbelly of South Brooklyn's nightlife, a unique area of New York City that you very seldom see in movies or pop culture.

This is by far Baker's most fun movie he's ever made though it also runs into the same issue I have with most of Baker's movies in that it can be painfully slow at times. Anora is definitely a slow burn (it's a good fifteen minutes spent at Ani's strip club before Vanya even shows up), which is fine, but the problem is at the other end as Anora takes its sweet, sweet time to wrap up. I swear, it felt like almost a half-hour from the climax to the actual credits rolling and it easily could have been truncated to half that time. I know what it's supposed to mean on an emotional level but the point had been made many, many times by the time they get to it and you're basically just waiting for them to get to it.

Still an amazing middle act though.

Blink Twice

The Pool~Chanda Dancy - Blink Twice

Directed by Zoë Kravitz (directorial debut)

Written by Zoë Kravitz (screenwriting debut) and E.T. Feigenbaum (High Fidelity)

Genre: Horror

Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Fubo TV, Apple TV+

Blink Twice is a movie that the less you know, the better it'll be but the answer is staring you in the face for most of its running time. The movie is a satire on the hero worship we give to billionaires as a pair of young woman, Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat), meet a billionaire (Channing Tatum) who invites them to come party with him and his friends on his own private island. Most of the movie is then pretty cyclical: the guests wake up, enjoy each other's company, do all sorts of fun things, discover some clue that not everything is quite as it seems, wake up the next day, repeat.

Most of the movie is spent slowly discovering the sinister truth of the island and what's going on with it. A common critique of Blink Twice is that it's structured in a way to leave you confused so as to hide the fact that the actual conspiracy doesn't make much sense. And, yes, this is very true. The more you try to think about it, the less it works and there's a half dozen threads that I think made sense in the writers' heads but aren't articulated to the audience too well. If you're the type of viewer that's a stickler for details, this movie will have no shortage of problems to bother you.

On the flip side, while Blink Twice might not make the most sense logically, it's very effective emotionally. When you get to the revelation of what's happening on the island, it's not just scary, it's bone-chilling. This is a horror movie in the truest sense of the word. For a first-time director, some sloppiness might be expected but it is admirable that however little the plot might add up, Kravitz understood that it's the emotions that truly matter.

Smile 2

New Brain~Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) - Smile 2

Directed by Parker Finn (Smile)

Written by Parker Finn (Smile)

Genre: Horror

Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hours 7 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+

Of all of the hits during this decade's new horror boom, I honestly thought that Smile was one of the most overrated. While I won't call it awful, I did border on hating it as I thought the set-up (where a smiling demon drives its victim to suicide with visions before latching onto the next person who watched said suicide) was gimmicky, the scares were cheap and predictable, the main character was dull and it was a very ugly-looking film. With this in mind, Smile 2 not only sheds the horror sequel curse by being better than the first film, but it's so, so much better that I was honestly shocked to learn that it was made by the same director. In fact, in terms of quality gap between the first and second movie, this is quite possibly the greatest horror sequel ever made.

Literally every problem I mentioned is fixed in this film. Smile 2 is a genuinely scary movie (those freezer eyes) and the color damn near pops off the screen with how cool-looking it is. Making the main character a pop star is a new angle we haven't seen in a horror film before and Naomi Scott's portrayal of Skye Riley is one of the best and most charismatic movie characters of 2024. She's sympathetic in that she is a massive trainwreck who is unable to become better due to constant media and social scrutiny. You really want to see her survive the Smile Demon which just makes her spiraling tragedy harder to watch. The film also paces out its scare a lot better in this movie than the first one with some of the tricks the Smile Demon plays on Skye being genuinely twisted.

As good as Smile 2 is, it's unfortunately one of those movies that drops the ball at the 11th hour as the ending really sucks. A common debate in film circles is if a bad ending can ruin an otherwise good movie and this film offers an interesting litmus test. While I personally don't think so, I will say that out of all the movies on this blog that have a crappy ending, this one comes closest to actually ruining the rest of the flick. It's seriously one of the most audience-insulting twists I've ever seen in cinematic history, to the point that I honestly thought it was another one of the Smile Demon's visions at first.

The Wild Robot

Rescue Mission~Kris Bowers - The Wild Robot

Directed by Chris Sanders (The Croods, How To Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch)

Written by Chris Sanders (The Croods, How To Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch)

Genre: Science-fiction, action-adventure

Rating: PG

Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+

Dreamworks Animation has always contrasted with its chief rival, Walt Disney Animations, by being willing to try more weird and funny concepts. The Wild Robot, on the other hand, stands out as probably the studio's most mature and serious film, which is a refreshing surprise compared to the lackluster Disney films that have been coming out lately. In the distant future, a robot designated as ROZZUM Unit 7134, or Roz for short, (Lupita Nyongo'o) washes up on the shore of a deserted forest island to try to identify life forms. The movie then takes place over the course of roughly a year as Roz interacts with all the animals on the island, lives through the seasons and ultimately raises a gosling (Boone Storme as a kid, Kit Connor as an adult) to adulthood.

The Wild Robot has some very interesting and metaphysical commentary on parenthood, what it means to feel, the cycle of nature and the damage that humans do the planet. That's all fine and good but the real selling point is some of the most gorgeous animation in cinematic history. I saw this in the theaters on a whim after seeing every other film out that week and I'm so glad I did. Watch this on the biggest screen you can find because this is a beautiful-looking picture. Special mentions go to the opening, where it's about a half-hour of Roz meeting the animals without dialogue, and the winter sequence. If you're animation buff, or like stylized movies, I can't recommend The Wild Robot enough. It's seriously one of the most gorgeous-looking movies ever made. Plus, yes, the robot is lovable, as are the majority of the animals she meets on the island.

As good as The Wild Robot is, and I've heard that some people have cried watching it, there are times when the emotions are so overwrought that it comes off as manipulative. The climate change commentary is thankfully subtle and not preachy at all but the coming-of-age stuff is another matter. I loathed the geese in this movie as they talk exclusively in inspirational movie platitudes and there are times when the overwrought score should have been sacrificed in favor of quieter moments. The climax of this movie is especially fun to watch on this level as it constantly whiplashes between moments that are genuinely sweet and moments that are hilariously stupid with how badly they're trying to make you emote.

BETTER MOVIES; STILL FLAWED

Civil War

Rocket USA~Suicide

Directed by Alex Garland (Annihilation, Ex Machina, Dredd)

Written by Alex Garland (Annihilation, Ex Machina, Dredd)

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? MAX

Most of Civil War's problems can admittedly be placed on the marketing, as it is a very different film than what was advertised. The trailer would make you think that this is an action-packed political mirror of our increasingly Balkanized country. Instead, what Civil War actually is is a quietly chilling study of the psychology of war journalists, how they're cursed to see the carnage of a war without partaking and how it affects them. It's mostly a road trip movie as a band of journalists make their way from New York City to Washington D.C. during the midst of a guerilla-based American Civil War and encounter all sorts of dark situations along the way. The question at this point then becomes, if it's just about war journalists, why not set it in a real war and not a fictitious American Civil War? But I actually think this is where it becomes a very effective allegory.

Civil War is quite minimalist in how it doesn't talk at all about modern politics and, instead, just shows the havoc that a new American Civil War would wreak. This is a unique angle that you don't see in most war movies and it makes the horror of middle America being laid to waste much more chilling when seen with the journalist's objective eye. Plus, the contrast of the world-weariness of the older journalists (Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson) with the hope of their new recruit (Cailee Spaeny) hits just the right note; this is worth mentioning because it would have been so, so easy for this to go awry and become too sappy.

While it's one of Civil War's great strengths that it avoids talking about real-life politics, I also think it's one of the movie's big flaws as well. The first act is establishing the world and they use made-up politics to avoid taking a side; in other words, the filmmakers want to keep the focus on the war and violence, not modern-day American politics. However, the way they do it is straight-up dumb, half-assed and you can clearly see the writing crutch going on (in what world is there a Second American Civil War and Texas and California are on the same side?). I think someone at the money level insisted on it or Alex Garland relied too much on the three-act structure because the movie didn't need it. You could just go full minimalist, cut out the entire first act, start the movie when they're already on the road and the script would've been stronger for it. We just need to know that there's a civil war and these people are caught in the middle, that's it.

Once you get past the first 20 minutes, however, this is an amazing thriller with some sequences that are so intense that I could barely even breathe. Don't let the tiered categories fool you; despite the flaws of this film, Civil War was probably my second-favorite film of last year and I think the best political film of 2024 (a trend you're probably going to notice with some other films on this list).

Juror # 2

Deliberation I~Mark Mancina - Juror No. 2

Directed by Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Letters from Iwo Jima, Unforgiven)

Written by Jonathan Abrams (screenwriting debut)

Genre: Legal thriller

Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hour 54 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? MAX

In what could very likely be the last film made by film legend, Clint Eastwood, Juror # 2 is a legal thriller that offers a very pensive take on our legal system and a wonderfully morally grey situation for our protagonist. Recovering alcoholic, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), has been selected for jury duty where, in what appears an open-and-shut case, a young woman named Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood), was found dead shortly after having a very public and violent fight with her boyfriend, James Sythe (Gabriel Basso). Everyone assumes that Sythe did it, except for Kemp who, halfway through the opening arguments, realizes that he was actually the one who accidentally killed Kendall in a hit-and-run. While at first he thinks of confessing, he realizes this would ruin the life of himself and his family since he drove home after leaving a bar after having already previously gotten in trouble with the law for DUIs.

Kemp is tortured by this knowledge and tries to carefully guide his fellow jurors to acquittal in a scenario more than a little reminiscent of 12 Angry Men. Juror # 2 is very good at methodically and deliberately stacking the deck against Sythe to the point that Justin is the only one who can save him. I have heard that some viewers thought the film was a bit corny in this regard as the prosecution's case has holes you could drive a semi-truck through but this is also the point of the movie. Sythe's attorney (Chris Messina) is incompetent, the prosecutor (Toni Collette) is shamelessly ruthless because she wants to use the case to advance her political career and most of the fellow jurors just want to find him guilty so they can go home and get almost violent with Kemp when he insists on deliberation.

Unlike most other legal thrillers which are nominally about the triumph of the law, Juror # 2 is a depressing film that showcases a miscarriage of justice as an innocent man is slowly ruined by the numerous human errors in the legal system. It also creates a great conflict for our protagonist as you can see how much of an impossible situation he's in. That being said, this is another film where I don't like the ending. Or, to be more accurate, the ending itself is fine but the straw the breaks the camel's back in regards to Kemp's decision leading to that ending comes off as corny, forced and cheap.

Also, I have a large tolerance for logic gaps in movies but there's one climactic moment where Clint Eastwood clearly demonstrates that he has a 94-year-old's understanding of how the Internet works. I haven't laughed this hard at a dramatic moment in a movie all year.

Late Night with the Devil

Keep It Warm (Ending Version)~Flo & Eddie (Instrumental) - Late Night with the Devil

Directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes (Scare Campaign, 100 Bloody Acres)

Written by Colin and Cameron Cairnes (Scare Campaign, 100 Bloody Acres)

Genre: Horror

Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Shudder

While 2024 may not have been the best year for major studio releases, there were quite a few nice surprises from independent cinema and by far the most famous (and notorious) was Late Night with the Devil. This is such a creative yet simple set-up for a horror movie that it's kinda surprising that no one has ever thought of it before. The film is set in the 1970s during the golden age of late-night television as the scumbag host of Night Owls with Jack Delroy, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), is frustrated with his show's declining ratings. Seeking to compete with Johnny Carson and other late-night hosts, Delroy has a special guest planned for their Halloween show: a young woman (Ingrid Torelli) who claims to be possessed by the Devil.

The style of the film is what really sells it as the directors seriously did their homework to grab the look and feel of a vintage 1970s late-night show. Not just in the costumes, hairstyles and slang but also in the cinematography. The framing device of Late Night with the Devil is that it's shot and paced like a vintage episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, with the sweeping shots of the crowd, the wide-angle guest shots, the host heckling his on-stage companions, they even add a grain effect to give it some extra vintage. It's a nice evolution of found footage horror and the cognitive dissonance makes the inevitable violence and scares all the more effective because we do not associate this shooting style with this kind of genre.

As fun of a horror romp as Late Night with the Devil is, it's probably the most controversial film on this list as the directors got reamed online for making some of the Night Owls graphics with AI. I definitely am not a fan of this though, to their credit, the directors did publicly apologize. My bigger gripe is that this is another film where I think it has a weak ending as it kinda devolves into some metaphysical imagery that does not at all match the shooting style of the rest of the film and leaves you feeling more confused than scared.

Saturday Night

Saturday Night Live~Jon Batiste - Saturday Night

Directed by Jason Reitman (The Front Runner, Juno, Thank You For Smoking)

Written by Gil Kenan (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, A Boy Called Christmas, Ghostbusters: Afterlife)

Genre: Thriller, comedy

Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Netflix, Apple TV+

Speaking of 70s television period pieces, Saturday Night is a movie that combines two familiar genres to create something fresh. The first is that this is a very nailbiting thriller. The movie doesn't have much in the way of exposition or scene-dressing and instead just throws you right into Saturday evening, October 11th, 1975. Novice television producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) has gotten NBC to agree to air the pilot of his new sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live. The show is due to go on air in little more than hour and everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. The script's bloated, the network's not happy, the cast and crew are self-destructing, audience engagement seems minimal at best and Michaels is the only thing barely holding it together. Speaking as someone who has worked in television and live events, they really get the adrenaline rush down as this man's goal spirals more and more out of control while the audience is always aware of the ticking clock.

The other is that this movie is a vintage period piece of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. It's been a major talking point in modern popular discourse that comedy has had a major re-examination/downgrade over the past decade and there hasn't been a great, or even very good, comedy in near the same amount of time. By contrast, the 70s/80s mavericks (many of whom got their start on Saturday Night Live) were probably the best and most revolutionary batch of comedians in the history of pop culture. And Saturday Night gets their sense of humor down to a T. This is a very funny and very raunchy film, mostly because of how spot-on the portrayals of the personalities are: Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) and George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) are assholes, Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien) is a weirdo, Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) has a mouth like a sailor and a heart like a nun etc. If you're a fan of these folks or this era of comedy, Saturday Night is a must-see tribute.

When I was watching this for the first time, I honestly thought that Saturday Night was going to be my favorite film of the year though it is unfortunately another movie that suffers from a crappy ending. I honestly don't know why this is such a pattern in films nowadays; have people honestly forgotten how to end movies? For most of its running time, Saturday Night just excels at being a period piece about a famous piece of television history and avoiding being self-congratulatory about what a landmark SNL is. Key word there being most of its running time; the last act is so shamelessly ego-stroking. Besides getting too preachy about the importance of SNL (the show), Saturday Night (the movie) also undermines its own set-up. The first two acts almost feels like it's shot in real time and shows the real-life stresses of putting on a live television show; the last act and resolution are very movie-fied and so clearly melodramatic that they feel like the type of thing that would've been lampooned on classic SNL. And it really sucks too because it was soooooo good beforehand.

GREAT MOVIES; MILDLY FLAWED

Conclave

Postlude of Conclave~Volker Bertelmann - Conclave

Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front, All My Loving, Jack)

Written by Peter Straughan (The Goldfinch, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Men Who Stare At Goats)

Genre: Thriller

Rating: PG

Running Time: 2 hours

Where Can I Stream It? Peacock

Conclave is another movie with such a good setup that it's surprising no one has thought of it before. The Pope has just died and the College of Cardinals is sequestered in the Vatican, unable to interact with the outside world until they choose a new pontiff. The system is administered by the dean of the college, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), and, according to papal tradition, the winner must receive a minimum of two-thirds of votes from all the cardinals. Conclave is set against the backdrop of its titular event as Lawrence slowly unearths the various secrets of all the leading contenders for the papacy.

Conclave has the whiff of Oscar bait about it but, thanks to Berger's elegant directing style and incredible cinematography, it ends up being a very smart political thriller that clearly has a lot of respect for the Catholic Church. While there are some minor errors (there's a cardinal who was appointed in pectore (secretly) by the previous pope which would actually mean that he'd be ineligible to participate in the College of Cardinals), they are only errors that serious theologians would pick up on. All of the Cardinals and nuns have excellent performances as they're all acting as politicians here but they still have that ethos of men and women who took the cloth because of their devotion to their religion. Plus, Conclave also gets bonus points for not taking easy potshots at the Church (the film thankfully avoids the very easy trap of making one of the bad Cardinals a pedophile). In terms of Christian theology, Conclave is a very clearly Franciscan film; both in the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi and I think it mimics the theology that Pope Francis has been espousing for most of his pontificate.

What makes this a great movie is its political nature which it thankfully does not beat you over the head with. I've heard this movie referred to as an allegory for Italian politics though the fact that it came out shortly before the American presidential election clearly hit home for other viewers. Really, though, I think it mirrors the problems in every major Western country. Each of the candidates for pope (one's a liberal, one's a moderate, one's a conservative, one's an institutionalist, one's an arch-conservative with violent rhetoric) clearly have their own flaws. While I was able to figure out who the winner would be early on, the journey is a lot of fun and there are some twists that still surprised me.

Hit Man

Animal Abandon~Graham Reynolds - Hit Man

Directed by Richard Linklater (School of Rock, the Before trilogy, Dazed and Confused)

Written by Richard Linklater (School of Rock, the Before trilogy, Dazed and Confused) and Glen Powell (screenwriting debut)

Genre: Romantic-comedy

Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour 55 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Netflix

Richard Linklater is a director who's known for playing around with film concepts and doesn't necessarily always marry himself to the three-act structure. Hit Man is probably his most "normal" movie, though that doesn't mean it's generic. On the surface, Hit Man seems like a typical romantic-comedy or crime comedy with a fun premise but the joy of the movie is how it keeps changing gears to keep you second-guessing the plot. The movie is about a college professor named Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) who helps the police with sting operations as a side hustle. One day, an officer who disguises himself as a contract killer to ensnare criminals trying to commit murder-for-hire crimes fails to show up for work. Thus, Gary is thrown into the scenario. So, you see where this is going, the whole movie is going to be about this guy getting to the bottom of this one case?

Actually, no, he ends up acing the sting in just a few minutes. He's so good and has so much fun, he makes "fake hit man" his favorite hobby, trying out numerous disguises while stinging numerous criminals. Okay, now I get it, it's only a matter of time until someone sees through him, right? Well, yes, but not in the way you're expecting. He ends up talking one of his cons, Madison (Adria Arjona), out of committing a crime, starts to date her in his hit man persona and tries to balance his lovelife without letting her know that he doesn't actually kill people for a living. So, does this set-up mean we're going to get the typical liar revealed rom-com ending? Yes and no; the situations that lead to this story spiraling out of control and how Gary manages them are never the ones you expect and genuinely keep you guessing as to how the whole story will end.

Honestly, I don't have a whole lot to say about this one in terms of themes and what-not; while there are some musings on morality that I actually think are much more disturbing than the film's cheerful tone calls for, the real appeal here is just that Hit Man is a very fun and very smartly-written movie. It's funny, it's sexy, the characters are lovable, the two leads have excellent chemistry and you can tell that Linklater and Powell were constantly asking how can they write the script to keep the audience guessing without feeling cheap.

Strange Darling

Better the Devil~Z Berg - Strange Darling

Directed by JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels)

Written by JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels)

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Video, Apple TV+

It's been a trend of modern and fun horror movies where the set-up is that they just take the set-up of asking, "What if X movie was a slasher film?" e.g. "What if a Classic Hollywood musical was a slasher film?" (Pearl) "What if Back to the Future was a slasher film?" (Totally Killer) "What if It's A Wonderful Life was a slasher film?" (It's A Wonderful Knife) Strange Darling seems to answer the question of "What if a Quentin Tarantino movie was a slasher film?" The story is told in 7 chapters but instead of being chronological, the story is told out of order, starting in the middle and jumping forward and backwards in time. The movie opens with a young woman (Willa Fitzgerald) being chased by a scary man with a shotgun (Kyle Gallner) and then proceeds to show how we got to the chase and the ensuing aftermath.

The other Tarantinoisms here are the pointed, occasionally witty dialogue, playing around with movie tropes but, above all, the style and cinematography. This is one of the most gorgeous-looking movies I've ever seen in my life with the colors doing most of the storytelling. The blues, the reds, the yellows, the greens, it all pops. I have heard some complaints from other movie buffs about how sometime the style overtakes the story and becomes obnoxious but I personally disagree. It might be a bit much at times, and Lord knows the last shot of the movie really takes its sweet time to end, but I generally found it defined the experience throughout.

Strange Darling isn't exclusively style over substance though as it is one Hell of a fun thriller. We don't get enough of these non-linear time movies anymore and this shows how much fun it can still be for the audience if done well. The big appeal of the film is about turning movie clichés on their heads and playing with our expectations, particularly the final girl trope. Willa Fitzgerald is especially excellent as the protagonist as her emotions runs the gamut throughout the film and yet her character never ends up developing all that much. Forgive me if this is one of the shorter descriptions but the less you know going into Strange Darling, the better it'll be.

The Substance

The Substance~Raffertie - The Substance

Directed by Coralie Fargeat (Revenge)

Written by Coralie Fargeat (Revenge)

Genre: Body horror

Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hours 21 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Mubi

There's three types of horror movies: fun romps with monster settings, more serious movies that make you jump from the scares and then the ones that make you truly uncomfortable. I don't think I've ever felt more uncomfortable in my skin for such a long period of time as when I was watching The Substance. Elizabeth (Demi Moore) is an aging actress who is forced to retire due to her getting older. Feeling depressed over what she perceives as her fading looks, she starts taking an experimental black market drug that creates a much younger, much hotter clone named Sue (Margaret Qualley) whom she can live through. This is another movie with very clearly established rules: Elizabeth and Sue share a consciousness and must swap it every week. If they do not follow the rules, the consequences could be disastrous which, of course, is what ends up happening.

The Substance is part of a particular subgenre of horror called body horror where the horror of the film comes from grotesque imagery of the human body being deformed (the most famous example would be David Cronenberg's The Fly). As you could probably tell, The Substance is a satire of the obsession over the female body and how important feeling sexy is for women. While the movie does make pretty much all of the men sex-crazed morons, it doesn't fall into the trap of placing this societal expectation squarely on just the one gender. The real tragedy of the movie is just how self-loathing Elizabeth is despite the fact that she's still a clearly attractive woman. But because she's old that means she can't be beautiful anymore in her eyes or society's. Besides the gross practical effects, the horror of the movie comes from her quest to become more beautiful that only ends up making her more hideous.

The Substance has been lauded as one of the best movies of the year by virtually every critic and movie site of note and rightfully so. Even ignoring the satire, excellent story and tragic protagonist, Coralie Fargeat demonstrates a true mastery of film direction here. The Substance does not feel its long length and I was astounded by the visual storytelling. Most of the plot is informed to you visually; you could probably cut all of the dialogue out of the film and still follow the story just fine. Admittedly, some of the grossout scenes could have been trimmed and there are a couple scenes that really make no logical sense though, unlike Blink Twice, these moments aren't frequent and The Substance has more of an excuse in that it's clearly meant to be an allegory. Those scenes are important to the satire and, thus, were important to have even if they don't necessarily add up.

ONE OF MY NEW FAVORITE MOVIES

Hundreds of Beavers

Jean Kayak & His ACME Applejack~Wayne Frank Tews and The Seafield Monster Sextet - Hundreds of Beavers

Directed by Mike Cheslik (directorial debut)

Written by Mike Cheslik (screenwriting debut) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (screenwriting debut)

Genre: Slapstick comedy

Rating: Not rated though it would probably warrant a PG rating

Running Time: 1 hour 48 minutes

Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+

Remember how I said earlier that comedy is a genre that has kinda died over the past decade and how 2024 actually had a pretty solid lineup for independent cinema? Well, ladies and germs, I present to you Hundreds of Beavers, probably the single most fun comedy of the 2020s. The film revolves around frontiersman, Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews), whose applejack distillery collapses just as winter is about to hit the forest. Left destitute, cold and hungry, Kayak starts to hunt for food and slowly grows into a competent hunter. This is a frankly terrible way to pitch Hundreds of Beavers so allow me to reframe to a more meta synopsis. A couple of classic film lovers somehow managed to scrounge up $150,000 and spent it on a tribute to the great silent comedies of 100 years ago. Think Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, that era.

I couldn't do these jokes justice even if I tried because the film is entirely silent and the jokes are all visual. The majority are straight-up slapstick that are reminiscent of the Looney Tunes though they spice things up with some more meta bits that introduces a bit of modern-day raunchiness or sometimes from just how hilariously bad the effects and costumes are. Long-story short, this is a very funny movie. There's something so endearing and timeless about slapstick that's hard to articulate but it's just so delightful. I think it just appeals to our basest instincts: no pop culture references, no cultural boundaries, just letting characters suffer in the most basic of ways which is ultimately what comedy comes down to. While I can't say that there was ever a moment in Hundreds of Beavers that had me gasping for air from laughing, almost every single joke produced a smile or a snicker of some kind.

What makes Hundreds of Beavers really special though, is it also improves upon the common problems of its classic genre. If you've ever watched an old Keaton or Chaplin movie, they're usually fun for a half-hour but, afterwards, they start to become a bit one note and the modern viewer will likely become bored. Not that there's much wrong with that, movie-watching habits were different back then, but Hundreds of Beavers doesn't have this flaw because the plot always escalates. Every time it feels like they've exhausted every joke they can with a scenario, they advance Jean Kayak into a new chapter of his story that allows for more insanity. These bits just keep building and building on top of each other until you eventually reach the Donkey Kong Country-esque finale and feel like the journey up to this point was completely organic (somehow).

If there's any flaw I can possibly think of for Hundreds of Beavers, it's that I can't understand the lyrics in the opening song but that's the mother of all nitpicks. Hundreds of Beavers deserves to be mentioned alongside Shadows, Clerks and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as one of the great triumphs of independent filmmaking. It's got everything you could ever want in a movie: action, romance, adventure, comedy, a character arc, it's fun, it's funny, you could watch it alone, you could watch it on a date, you could watch it with your parents, you could watch it with your kids, you could watch it with your full undivided atention, you could watch it in the background at a house party, I don't know what else to say about it, it's just so frickin' good. You can tell that that the director probably never had much expectation about making much money off of this; this is a pure labor of love driven by an admiration of classic slapstick (and probably copious amounts of applejack). So do both yourself and him a favor and rent this masterpiece.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The End~Michael Hope - The Apprentice

Abigail: Fun, schlocky vampire romp with a creative set-up and memorable characters. Gets a little stupid in the last act by trying to redeem its main villain.

Booger: A body horror indie film that manages to be an effective portrayal of grief and psychological torture. It's definitely on the clunky side but, given that this is a low-budget indie film, that's also part of the charm.

Carry-On: Really fun Christmas action movie in the vein of vintage era Die Hard knock-offs with just the right level of brain (or lack thereof). Jason Bateman is also surprisingly great as the villain.

Drive-Away Dolls: My favorite of the lesbian crime romance movies this year (of which there were surprisingly several). The two lead actresses have great chemistry though its quirky style might leave some viewers annoyed.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: Surprised this bombed as bad as it did because it's about as good as any of the other Mad Max movies. Bonus points for having two great villains and I always like movies where there's three sides.

Harry Potter and the Stone: A bunch of college kids decided to make a scene-for-scene remake of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with whatever limited resources they had available. The result is the stuff of song and legends.

Heretic: A fun horror romp that talks about very fascinating theological arguments through the lens of a pulpy horror film. Sadly another movie dragged down by its lackluster ending. Probably my favorite of these honorable mentions and the one that I'd most recommend (or the first half of it anyway).

Late Bloomers: This is a movie whose handling of its issues can easily come off as sappy or eyeroll-worthy for some. I fully admit that the only reason why I liked it a lot is because many of the protagonist's personal problems mirror some of my own and it did touch a nerve. If you don't have these same problems, I don't know if you'll like it as much.

Model House: 2024's addition to history's great catalogue of "so bad they're good" movies. Between the awful script, dumb dialogue, clumsy satire, unintentional racism/homophobia, villain plan that makes no sense and actresses who were clearly hired more for their looks than talent, I was laughing my ass off from beginning to end.

Nosferatu: Very Gothic and cool monster movie with Alexander Skarsgård joining the pantheon of great Dracula performances. Story doesn't always meld together too well though, in fairness, this is also a common problem with most Dracula movies.

Oddity: A fairly generic haunted house movie with a predictable plot but, again, the style and especially the Gothic setting are amazing. Bonus points for having one scene that's very, very scary.

The Apprentice: A solid biopic about the early years of our chief executive. I don't think the main friendship comes off as strong as the movie wants it to but it's worth watching just for Sebastian Stan's spot-on performance of a man who, love him or hate him, has mannerisms that must be very difficult for any actor to emulate.

The People's Joker: A film by a trans filmmaker who uses the lens of Batman villains to analyze her identity and transition. I hate the humor in this movie but the heart of self-discovery ultimately shines through. Even ignoring that, though, the sheer creativity and DIY-ness on display here is admirable.