The 20 Best Movies of 2024

I have thought about dropping my year-end favorites list on Oscar Nom Day several times in the past, but timing-wise it just hasn't worked out before -- this year looks to be an exception, however! My reasons for thinking it's a good idea are 1) as stated in my earlier requisite post acknowledging that those nominations happened I just don't care about them and I don't want to spend all day reading people's brain-numbing statistics and theories all of which rob me of a will to live. So this gives me something else to focus on. Also today is the first day of Sundance and while I might not be there in person this year (sigh) I will be reviewing movies virtually, and I'm going to be very busy starting to do that almost immediately. So if I don't do this today it'll be a couple more weeks. 

Also -- I've had the list of movies on a spreadsheet for weeks now, and every other day I go onto the doc and I move them around a little bit depending on my mood, and... I could just keep doing that forever, or I could just say enough! And organize them into their final form, waffling be damned. That said 2024 turned out to be an especially amorphous year with no single frontrunner slam-dunk -- any of my top five on any given day could've been my number one. Which isn't to say I think 2024 was a bad year for movies -- quite the opposite! There's a lot of love spreading around here. But let's just stop our yammering and get to the goods. Here at last are...

My 20 Favorite Movies of 2024

20. Strange Darling (review)

19. Femme (review)

18. I Saw the T.V. Glow (review)

17. I'm Still Here

16. Love Lies Bleeding (review) 

15. Janet Planet

14. A Different Man (review)

13. Flow

12. The End (review)

11. National Anthem (review)

10. Kinds of Kindness (review)

9. Rumours (review)

8. Red Rooms (review)

7. Bird (review)

6. The Substance (review)

5. Challengers (review)

4. Nosferatu (review)

3. Hard Truths (review)

2. Queer (review)

1. Evil Does Not Exist 

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And here are ten runners-up: The Vourdalak, Babygirl, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Hundreds of Beavers, Blitz, Trap, The Brutalist, Memoir of a Snail, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, and Oddity.

Okay -- that's that! Onward and onward!

 Let's get 2025 rolling...

And Speaking of Barry Keoghan...

... his movie with the legendary Andrea Arnold directing, the one called Bird, can now be viewed from the comfort of your couch, or your bathtub, or Jacob Elordi's bathtub even, thanks to the fine folks at Mubi. I love love loved this movie (which also stars our other boyfriend Franz Rogowski) when I saw it last fall -- here is my Pajiba review -- and you should expect to see it on my list of favorite 2024 movies whenever I get around to taking five minutes to write that thing down for y'all. It is magic. (pic via)

A Very Barry Weekend

It's Friday so there are new movies in theaters, and this is the part where I direct you to the ones that I have seen and reviewed. First and fore-best there is Andrea Arnold's Bird, which stars the-pictured-here Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski as the influential dudes in teenage Nykiya Adams' life -- Keoghan's her sweet-but-fucked-up dad while Franz is some weirdo she bumps into who starts following her around. Here is my review of that -- gist being I loved it, it's proper Andrea Arnold magic. The other movie out this weekend that I have both seen and reviewed is Heretic, A24's horror film starring Hugh Grant that you're no doubt familiar with given how hard they've been pushing it -- here is my review of that. The gist on that one being the very good performances therein cannot wallpaper over a bunch of intellectually-compromised and deeply conservative bullshit. Especially after Tuesday it feels important to call this shit out -- to me anyway. Lots of critics seem to love it. I saw someone today say it presents both sides -- as in believing and not believing in religion -- equally, and it doesn't force us to choose, and uhhhhhh that's a pretty wild bunch of nonsense to say with a straight face. I'm pretty sure the movie makes us choose when the atheist turns out to be a violent maniac while the Mormon girls he torments all all pure and true-hearted. But what do I know, right? (I know you should go watch Bird, that's what. It will make you feel better, I promise. It's Arnold's by far most optimistic film to date.) 

Barry Keoghan Eight Times

Yesterday we got the Franz Rogowski photoshoot and today we get his Bird co-star Barry Keoghan for Port magazine -- well "co-star" is a little bit of a liberal description since the two unfortunately share no scenes in the movie. But they're still technically "co-stars" I suppose. And once you see the movie it makes sense they don't share scenes -- there's a real swapping out of energies between the two, and what their influences mean to the lead character. Anyway! Bird is a very good movie and you should see it when it hits theaters on November 8th. Here is my review of it.  But back to our Barry boy -- it's a good chat with him in Port, read that too. But I've got all of the photos after the jump...

Good Morning, Franz Rogowski

Oh happy day -- as Andrea Arnold's wonderful new film Bird is about to hit theaters (my review here) Another Man magazine has gifted us with a gratuitous photoshoot of our beloved Franz Rogowski for the ages! Not that Franz has ever been a shy one -- outside of all the many many times he's disrobed in his movies he's posted photos of great gratuity on his Instagram and he's given us several other photoshoots of note. He's a generous giver and I feel given to. You should definitely read the interview that goes with these pictures...

... because on that front I learned Franz was raised by parents in a menage a la Passages, that he refuses to identify sexually, and that he got kicked out of clown school. And every single one of those things make sense when it comes to him, right? The writer of the piece is show-offy with how intimate the interview is, mentioning Franz flirting with him during yoga and "applying some pressure to my glute" and then how they went and showered afterwards... not that I wouldn't mention these things too! I am just jealous. So very jealous. But we've at least got these pictures to show for it, even if Franz didn't touch our glutes. (Yet.) Hit the jump for them all... 

Barry Keoghan Flies High

I should have known not to doubt in Andrea Arnold! I went into the Fish Tank director's latest film Bird with a bit of muted anticipation because the reviews I'd seen had been themselves muted, but I ended up love love loving the film when I saw it at NewFest last week -- and now I have written my review and you can read it at Pajiba. Starring both Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski -- talk about catnip to me -- along with newcomer Nykiya Adams, the film isadmittedly a stretch for Arnold, in that it's actually in the end a pretty optimistic movie (imagine that!) and it also wades further out into the realm of magical realism than she ever has before. I mention Alice Rohrwacher's movie Happy As Lazzaro in my review and that movie is very much a sibling to this one; if you've seen that movie then you'll know what I mean. Anyway go read my review and go see this movie when it's out in November! On top of everything else it's got what will inevitably be my favorite scene of the year! Here's the trailer:

Barry Keoghan Six Times

Happy birthday, Barry! Barry is 32 today. And not that I had a heap of time since Saltburn to fall out of my Barry Keoghan infatuation but I find it heftily reignited after seeing him in Andrea Arnold's latest film Bird at NewFest earlier this week -- more on that movie soon but he's really wonderful in it (as is the movie as a whole)...

I cannot believe all I’ve seen have been mixed reactions to this movie— I fucking LOVED it. BIRD is top tier Andrea Arnold, funny and observant and surprisingly sweet with what might be my absolute favorite scene of the year pic.twitter.com/8DfcdOTw5U

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 16, 2024

... and I know per usual posting Barry snaps I'll get a lot of "he's so funny lookin'" comments but please know I am judging you harshly for those every time because you apparently have no room for "extraordinary talent" in your sexy calculations -- when somebody's as good as what they do as Barry is at acting they level up like 300% sexy-wise, in my eyes. Also... I like funny-lookin. It's called "character" y'all. Anyway yeah Bird is super, stay tuned for my thoughts on Bird, and hit the jump for this new shoot...

It's (Almost) NewFest 2024 Time!

I know I just announced it officially Spooky Season in my previous post, but I don't think I need to differentiate that from Gay Season -- Spooky + Gay is my sweet spot! And it's getting gay now because NYC's premiere queer film festival NewFest has just today announced their full line-up for this year's go-round which runs from October 10th through 22nd. Check it all out right here and pre-order your tickets immediately. A few highlights I will quickly highlight -- the Centerpiece Film is Andrea Arnold's new movie Bird starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski! I've obviously posted about this movie several times already and I was extremely sad to see it wasn't screening at NYFF, so this inclusion made me giddy -- NewFest starts right as NYFF is finishing so I'll switch right on over and get me some Bird there then! They're also screening Emilia Perez,  Jacques Audiard's new film which won a bunch of prizes at Cannes (this one is also screening at NYFF); oh and they are showing a triple-feature of John Waters movies including Female Trouble for its 50th anniversary! But seriously that barely scratches the surface, click on over here to check it all out. Love NewFest every year!

Pics of the Day

I don't read reviews out of Cannes because I know it will be a very long time before I see the movie and the movie might well change a lot before I do see it and I just don't need all of that noise clouding my head for months. That said I'm having a harder time than usual with Bird, Andrea Arnold's latest which premiered today and which stars my boys Franz Rogowski and Barry Keoghan, who you can see looking swank as fuck at said event above and below. Sigh and swoon, I adore them. Andrea Arnold is SO damned good at casting her movies! Check my previous posts about this highly anticipated movie right here.

Pic of the Day

I'm not paying much attention to today's Cannes 2024 fest title drop because what do I care, I am not going and the thought of people going and seeing movies there when I am not annoys me -- I was an only child and I can be indescribably petty, it's all true! It's the same reason I'm ignoring CinemaCon news -- ooh people got to watch footage from Robert Eggers' Nosferatu did they? Well lucky fuckin' them. Nyah nyah nyahhh. All of that said obviously this, the first official photo of Barry Keoghan in Andrea Arnold's next movie Bird -- which co-stars no less than Franz Rogowski! -- caught my eye when Indiewire posted it on their Insta just now. Obviously. (See my previous post here.) Talk about a duo of actors birthed to be in an Andrea Arnold movie! Of course this movie will rule and nobody will know what to do with it because Andrea Arnold will keep being too singular and outré for the establishment (by which I mean awards bodies I suppose), but I can't wait. I mean I will have to wait, unlike those assholes who go to Cannes. God, we hate them.

Quote of the Day

"Ben has a very nice back!
It’s nice to see him in action!
He’s a good fucker."

LOL that is Passages star and MNPP beloved Franz Rogowski talking about his Passages co-star Ben Whishaw and their NC-17-getting sex scene in that movie -- read the full chat with Vulture right here. The whole interview's worth a read as he's such a damn charmer; I knew he'd be a hit the first second I saw him on-screen in Victoria way back when. He also excitingly talks a little bit about director Andrea Arnold, who he's working with right now on a movie called Bird.

I'll Only Fly Away

I've had about two days now to formulate thoughts on the news that MNPP faves Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski are probably going to star in director Andrea Arnold's next movie -- two of my absolute tip-top-favorite supremely-talented sexy weirdos working with one of my favorite living directors -- and I still kind of just wanna smack my head into the keyboard in a fit of ongoing ecstasy. I... when I saw this news on Saturday (thx Mac) the yelp that erupted forth from my body might have weakened the foundation of my apartment building. 

https://t.co/YwIrmEQMNB pic.twitter.com/idB19N0baK

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 20, 2023

Anyway this is indeed now my most anticipated anything, and we don't know anything about it except what I already told you and that it is called Bird. Oh and it's also the reason that Barry had to drop out of making the Gladiator sequel with Ridley Scott, and if that doesn't make you love Barry more than literally everything amazing that Barry has gifted us with to this point I don't know what will. "Oh sorry Sir Ridley, I'm gonna go star in this no doubt budget-less and weird little thing for the woman who directed Fish Tank instead. See ya!" Barry, you're a goddamned king. Anyway it's a fool's errand to try to imagine what Arnold has in store for these two phenomenally gifted and sexy actors -- I just expect my entire body to spasm with pleasure from it. Gimme gimme gimme!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Red Road (2006)

Clyde: Do you know what I wonder about you?

Jackie: What?

Clyde: How your cunt taste like.
Shocked?

Jackie: Not really.

Gotta love them Andrea Arnold movies! No but seriously Red Road is one greatest films of the past twenty years, and you never hear anybody talk about it. Well that's what I'm here for. It's the actress and goddess Kate Dickie's 52nd birthday today and I considered doing a list of my favorite performances but I realized she's done a lot of work I've never seen, and besides that a lot of her roles are small supporting character roles -- like, she'll pop up in something like The Green Knight for five minutes and you won't be able to look at anything else while she's there. Of course if I did do a list it'd also include Robert Eggers' The Witch...

... basically if you're a filmmaker who has properly utilized Kate Dickie, who understands what a force she is, then you're one of my favorite directors. We speak each other's language. To get back to The Witch for a second though -- one of my favorite reveals in that film is when we realize that Dickie's prim mother character has blonde hair. We never see her hair until things start going wrong, she's got it all pinned up under her bonnet. But then the world begins to collapse and little strands of blonde hair start appearing, and then of course all the blood matted in the blonde at the end.

Dickie makes that hair feel wicked -- like it's her foul secret that she's cursed her wicked daughter with. And it's without saying anything -- it's all in the margins. Anyway it takes an actress capable of fully possessing such sternness as Dickie is called on for in the film's first three-quarters to make the revelation of a hair color feel apocalyptic, but she does it. God I love her. Absolutely one of the greats working today and people need to be giving her big roles!

Quote of the Day

"I love Andrea Arnold. I think she’s an incredible director and somewhat underrated. I watched “Fish Tank” right around the time I was filming “Nymphomaniac,” which was the first film that I ever did. I found “Fish Tank” to be as influential for me as the experience of filming with Lars, and both of those components in that period of time when I was 18 years old really formed my blueprint of what it is that I’m trying to achieve as an actor and the sorts of directors that I strive to work with, and the kind of stories that I want to tell and the kind of filmmaking that most resonates with me. That’s what excites me most is very little plot, extremely character-driven stories where there’s really not much going on outside of whatever it is that a couple of people in the film are going through. For me, that’s always the best cinema."

That was Mia Goth's answer when asked who she'd like to work with by Variety -- my lord, this woman has stolen my heart. Andrea Arnold and Mia Goth together -- can you imagine? Oh make it happen, sweet cinema gods, make this collaboration happen! Anyway the entire chat is worth a read -- she talks about how she chooses projects because of the director and she tells a little bit about what the third film in the X and Pearl trilogy, the one called MaXXXine, will be like. Mia forever, baby. Here's an old picture to make us smile:

Quote of the Day

"I want to work with Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, and Celine Sciamma, who did Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Those three ladies are at the top of my list. Their films have such strong stories; Celine’s Girlhood has stuck with me since 2014. The performances are so raw that I thought it was real. It let me in so much, and I always find that fascinating, how a director can get actors and actresses to trust them like that."

This quote from Eternals and Green Knight actor Barry Keoghan is actually a year and a half old, from an interview he gave to NME last March when his movie Calm With Horses (a good movie which also starred MNPP fave Cosmo Jarvis and which you should seek out -- here's that trailer) was coming out, but it's making the rounds on Twitter this week thanks to Eternals' release and everybody being like, "Oh right Barry Keoghan kicks ass." But such sentiments must be shared now once they're seen, because... right, Barry kicks ass. If you look at the directors Barry's already worked with at all his twenty-nine years of age -- Yorgos Lanthimos, Christopher Nolan, David Lowery, Chloé Zhao, with Matt Reeves (in The Batman) and Cary Fukunaga (for Masters of the Air, which I posted about here) and Martin McDonagh (for The Banshees of Inisherin) on tap -- it's clear the boy's got taste. But his wanting to work with Arnold especially tickles all of my fancies -- all of 'em! -- because how damn easy is that to picture? They seem like peas in a pod, a perfect match, and I really hope that one happens.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jane Eyre (2011)

Jane: Am I a machine with out feelings? Do you think that because I am poor, plain, obscure, and little that I am souless and heartless? I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had possessed me with beauty and wealth, I could make it as hard for you to leave me as I to leave you... I'm not speaking to you through mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit, as it passes through the grave and stood at God's feet equal. As we are.

Cary Fukunaga's (already classic if you ask me) 2011 adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's (definitely classic no matter who you ask) 1847 novel premiered here in new York on this very day 10 years ago. Have you watched it lately? Last July I had myself a little miniature one-day swoon-fest with this movie, Thomas Vinterberg's Far From the Madding Crowd with Matthias Schoenaerts and Carey Mulligan (and you might consider this blasphemy but as much as I love John Schlesinger's film with Julie Christie and -- speaking of swoon -- Alan Bates I definitely prefer the newer version), plus Andrea Arnold's gorgeous and wildly underrated take on Wuthering Heights. And that my friends was a goddamned good day -- I highly recommend all of you replicate it sometime.

Now thinking of doing a triple feature today of Eyre, the Far From the Madding Crowd re-do, and Andrea Arnold’s seriously under-appreciated Wuthering Heights pic.twitter.com/rbnWifN7K7

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 3, 2020