This year, the 177 critics and journalists who voted in IndieWire’s 2024 year-end survey to determine the best movies and performances of the year decided to spread the wealth a bit — while still coalescing around an obvious shared favorite. Unlike last year, when the same title, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” topped our lists for Best Film and Best Director, we have a split decision there this time. Sean Baker’s “Anora” placed first on our Best Film list, while Best Director went to Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist.” The voters still wanted more “Anora,” though, and also gave it top honors for Best Screenplay and third place for Best Director. (No film in recent memory has come quite close to 2022’s “TÁR” sweep of Best Film, Best Director, Best Performance for Cate Blanchett, and Best Screenplay.)
“Anora” emphatically won Best Film, however, appearing on 89 of the 177 critics’ ballots received this year (50% of all entries), including 18 first-place votes. By comparison, “The Brutalist,” which placed second, appeared on 73 ballots, while also managing 18 first-place votes. In the Best Director category, where voters cast a wider net, Brady Corbet was able to place first by appearing on 51 of the 177 ballots.
As always, IndieWire employs a ranked-choice ballot of 10 films from each voter to determine the overall list: First-place votes receive 10 points, second-place votes receive nine, third-place votes eight, and so on. Best Director was determined by a ranked-choice ballot of three directors from each voter, using the same points scale system but awarding three points to first-place votes, and so on.
Participants included writers for IndieWire, The New Yorker, Variety, the LA Times, BBC Culture, Sight & Sound, Cineaste, Der Spiegel, the Irish Times, the Associated Press, the Film Stage, Reverse Shot, and many more, as well as freelance and staff journalists for newspapers, magazines, and websites from across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia — in addition to all over the U.S. and Canada. About 76% of all the voters hailed from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico (with a full two-thirds from the U.S. itself), but among the other countries represented are Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Japan, Poland, Serbia, South Korea, and Turkey. All participants were required to vote only for films that received theatrical, streaming, or VOD releases in the U.S. over the past calendar year. You can see a full list of the critics who voted on the second page of this article.
For what it’s worth, “Anora” placed at number five and “The Brutalist” at number 25 on IndieWire’s own in-house list of the 25 best movies of 2024. (And read IndieWire’s individual staffers’ ballots here.)
IndieWire’s own in-house pick for the best film of the year, “Nickel Boys,” placed at several spots on the critics survey: At number three for Best Film, second for Best Director RaMell Ross, ninth for Best Screenplay, and first for Best Cinematography, thanks to the innovative work of DP Jomo Fray.
As on IndieWire’s own list of the best movies of 2024, “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” Romanian director Radu Jude’s latest comedy, was well represented on the poll, cracking the Top 10 list of films and placing second on the Best International Feature list. The top prize there went to Payal Kapadia’s delicate, unforgettable “All We Imagine as Light,” which also placed fourth on the overall Best Film list, fourth for Best Director, fourth for Best Cinematography, and seventh for Best Screenplay.
The film that placed second on IndieWire’s own list of the best films of the year, “No Other Land,” topped the Best Documentary category on our survey. Marianne Jean-Baptiste won top honors in the Best Performance category for “Hard Truths,” a category which Emma Stone won for “Poor Things” last year. Jean-Baptiste’s role as Pansy, a woman who goes through life with a scowl and perpetual irritation, lashing out at everyone and everything around her, gets to one of the deeper questions of life: How do we go about being happy? In these aggravated times, is such a thing even possible?
Finding fulfillment, and how elusive that goal can be, is a theme that carries into so many of the films represented here. You could argue it’s the thread that binds the other films that made the Top 10 on the best film list itself: What are “Challengers,” “I Saw the TV Glow,” and “The Substance” if not films about people trying to fill voids that can’t be filled?
As a cinephile, it’d be hard to be unfulfilled by what 2024 had to offer at the movies. May this poll serve as a guide for you to catch up on the best of the year. Cinematic journeys await.
Best Film
1. “Anora”
2. “The Brutalist”
3. “Nickel Boys”
4. “All We Imagine as Light”
5. “Challengers”
6. “I Saw the TV Glow”
7. “The Substance”
8. “Dune: Part Two”
9. “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World”
10. “Hard Truths”
Best Director
1. Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
2. RaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”
3. Sean Baker, “Anora”
4. Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine as Light”
5. Luca Guadagnino, “Challengers”
6. Jane Schoenbrun, “I Saw the TV Glow”
7. Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
8. Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Perez”
9. Bertrand Bonello, “The Beast”
10. Edward Berger, “Conclave”
Best Performance
1. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, “Hard Truths”
2. Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
3. Mikey Madison, “Anora”
4. Demi Moore, “The Substance”
5. Ilinca Manolache, “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World”
6. Nicole Kidman, “Babygirl”
7. Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
8. Daniel Craig, “Queer”
9. Lea Seydoux, “The Beast”
10. TIE: Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”/Josh Hartnett, “Trap”
Best Documentary
1. “No Other Land”
2. “Dahomey”
3. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
4. “Pictures of Ghosts”
5. “Will & Harper”
6. “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin”
7. “Black Box Diaries”
8. “Sugarcane”
9. “Look Into My Eyes”
10. “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”
Best Cinematography
1. “Nickel Boys”
2. “The Brutalist”
3. “Nosferatu”
4. “All We Imagine as Light”
5. “Challengers”
6. “Dune: Part Two”
7. “I Saw the TV Glow”
8. “The Girl with the Needle”
9. “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell”
10. “Conclave”
Best Screenplay
1. “Anora”
2. “A Real Pain”
3. “The Brutalist”
4. “Challengers”
5. “Conclave”
6. “The Substance”
7. “All We Imagine as Light”
8. “Janet Planet”
9. “Nickel Boys”
10. “I Saw the TV Glow”
Best International Film
1. “All We Imagine as Light”
2. “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World”
3. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
4. “Evil Does Not Exist”
5. “The Beast”
6. “Close Your Eyes”
7. “Flow”
8. “No Other Land”
9. “Emilia Perez”
10. TIE: “Kneecap”/”Red Rooms”
Best First Feature
1. “Janet Planet”
2. “Good One”
3. “The People’s Joker”
4. TIE: “Didi”/”Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell”
5. “Blink Twice”
Best Films Opening in 2025
1. “Caught by the Tides”
2. “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”
3. TIE: “Presence”/“April”/“Misericordia”
4. “The Shrouds”
5. “Eephus”
Click to the next page to see a list of critics who voted.
Continue Reading: 2024 Critics Poll: The Best Movies and Performances of the Year, According to 177 Critics
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