LOS ANGELES, Dec. 19 (UPI) — The biggest movies of 2024 have been sequels, mashups like Deadpool & Wolverine or the Broadway adaptation Wicked. Many of them have been fun or even great. The best movies of 2024 though were more unique artistic visions, and the fact that they even made it to the screen is admirable in this media landscape.
They’re not all independent film festival movies. Some are studio or streaming productions, and one that happens to be self-financed by a wealthy Hollywood legend. Links direct readers to UPI’s reviews whenever available, while the list also highlights numerous films discovered post-release.
10. ‘Trap’
By not screening Trap for critics, Warner Bros. cost Josh Hartnett potentially the best reviews of his career and solid ones for M. Night Shyamalan, if not Sixth Sense level. Saleka Shyamalan plays a pop star who uses her concert as a trap to catch a serial killer (Hartnett), who is bringing his daughter to the show. Imagine if Taylor Swift pulled that. Night apparently did and exhausts every creative scenario as the killer and performer each keep regaining the upper hand.
9. ‘Anora’
Jesse Eisenberg (L) and Kieran Culkin star in “A Real Pain,” 2024’s best film. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
This indie drama upends many Hollywood conventions. The wealthy kid marrying a stripper/escort and the woman falling for her benefactor both come crashing down. But what’s most fun is the Russian thugs who come to break them up. They aren’t smooth operators and become completely overwhelmed by both Anora (Mikey Madison) and her flaky husband (Mark Eydelshteyn).
8. ‘Sing Sing’
Elisabeth (Demi Moore) creates another version of herself in “The Substance,” one of 2024’s most provocative films. Photo courtesy of Mubi
Based on the real-life acting program at Sing Sing penitentiary, and including many former inmates in the cast, Sing Sing is a profound, inspiring drama about finding hope and redemption through art. It really conveys the process of helping a hardened criminal (Clarence Maclin) learn healthier behavior, not in a cheesy Hollywood way, yet acknowledges the very real hardships of life inside and the system that unjustly keeps many like Divine G (Colman Domingo) incarcerated.
7. ‘Ghostlight’
Robbie Williams performs in “Better Man,” one of 2024’s wildest artistic risks. Photo courtesy of Paramount
Movies about grief are universal because there’s no avoiding it in anyone’s life, and inherently dramatic because there’s no definitive ending. In the best resolution, the mourners are still grieving. In Ghostlight, a family who lost a son tries to cope with the parents and surviving daughter’s (real life family Keith Kupferer, Tara Mallen and Katherine Mallen Kupferer) reactions in the aftermath and the ongoing wrongful death lawsuit. The art of theater acting provides tools for healing in this movie too, and the cast portrays confronting the tragedy beautifully.
Colman Domingo (L) and Clarence Maclin star in “Sing Sing,” one of 2024’s most inspiring films. Photo courtesy of A24
6. ‘Better Man’
They’re still making biopics about singers that go through the motions of summarizing the major events of their lives. The Robbie Williams movie makes that fresh by using a computer-generated monkey to represent Williams. This circumvents the “celebrity playing a celebrity” factor and adds undeniable melodrama to Williams’ darkest periods, while still delivering a musical that rocks. UPI’s full review is coming next week.
5. ‘Shirley’
From earlier this year on Netflix, this Shirley Chisolm biopic is inspiring for depicting the unique ways Chisolm made a difference in the system. The first Black Congresswoman and 1972 presidential candidate (played by Regina King) had a vision for what she could accomplish. She stood in the face of resistance with kindness but remained firm.
Her ultimate message is no matter how frustrating the system, the only way to change it is to be part of the process, even just by voting. Obviously Chisolm did not win that election but her campaign itself offered a hopeful, constructive view of politics.
4. ‘Megalopolis’
It cost Francis Ford Coppola half of his vineyards to finally get to make Megalopolis, an idea he’s had since the ’70s. For only the cost of a movie ticket or rental, viewers share the magnitude of this production and creative effort. Coppola has unconventional ideas about the rise and fall of empires and how to even depict that story, and that’s what cinema should be. Realism can be great but it’s limiting. Movies that ignore those limits successfully like Megalopolis should be celebrated.
3. ‘The Substance’
The Substance begins with an idea provocative enough that if that were the end of the story it would be memorable. For writer/director Coralie Fargeat, that idea is only the beginning. She posits that the substance can birth a younger version of oneself, but then creates further conflicts between both versions of an actor (Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley) and the society that drives them to crave youth.
2. ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’
In the fifth movie of this 45-year-old franchise, George Miller’s post-apocalyptic world keeps getting more captivating. There is a childlike quality to the violent mobs who rose from the ashes. Without the education that came before the apocalypse, they try to interpret the new world and yet use the vehicles and weaponry they find to exact epic violence. Furiosa lives in those worlds longer than some of its more chase-oriented predecessors.
1. ‘A Real Pain’
Ever since A Real Pain premiered at Sundance, no other film has bumped it from the top spot. Writer/director Jesse Eisenberg has achieved a dramedy that explores the pains of generational trauma, in this case descendants of a family that survived the Holocaust, and miraculously finds empathy for its most abrasive character (Kieran Culkin).
