Finding Hope in a Hopeless World: Favorite 2024 Films
The best new films I watched last year
There are a couple of themes to be found in my list of favorite new films released in 2024. The first is that we should seek out and support filmmakers doing double duty as scriptwriters and directors. The auteur is not dead. There are plenty of great modern-day film auteurs making wonderful films with a unique vision and voice. You just need to make the effort to find them. Every single film on my list was written by their directors. As a result, all of these films have a distinct look and feel.
The second theme running through all these films is hope. The Devil’s Bath is an account of the horrible things people are capable of when they lose all hope. But most of these films, particularly Bird, A Quiet Place: Day One, Exhuma, Monkey Man, and Walled Off tell stories about desperate people hanging on to hope despite their seemingly hopeless situations. And discovering interesting films still getting made at a time when the industry is hurting and struggling to stay afloat gives me hope.
All of the films mentioned below are currently available to stream.
BIRD (2024) 📺 trailer
One of my favorite British filmmakers at the moment is Andrea Arnold. She writes and directs beautiful, hard-hitting, and transcendent coming-of-age films featuring young working-class female protagonists. Her latest film is Bird (2024), which adds an element of magical realism to a story about a pubescent girl (Nykiya Adams) living with her young drug-dealing father (Barry Keoghan) and brother in a rundown British housing estate. The acting and cinematography are superb, and Arnold does a magnificent job of capturing that awkward, enchanted, and often painful period between adolescence and adulthood. Bird also reminds us how important it is to touch grass and make time to commune with nature when we feel as if our world is falling apart.
CAROL DODA TOPLESS AT THE CONDOR (2024) 📺 trailer
Please see my previous write-up.
CIVIL WAR (2024) 📺 trailer
Alex Garland is a thoughtful man who writes and directs thoughtful films but many of his critics don’t see things my way and his latest film was roundly criticized for “saying nothing” and “not taking sides.” I assume these critics expected Civil War to be an action-filled thriller about a modern-day American Civil War with clearly defined good and bad guys dependent on whatever political party one affiliates themselves with. I’m grateful Garland avoided that route and instead chose to focus on a group of news journalists and their important part in documenting events while weaving narratives that either expose or obscure our constantly unfolding history. The American corporate news media is largely a propaganda arm of the U.S. government because our government is largely controlled by corporate interests. Many journalists working within the system covering war crimes in the briefing room or on the battlefield have made choices to avoid or engage with certain events and those choices have profound consequences. Civil War is an interesting examination and somber reminder of the means and methods used to tell our stories and how important it is to get at the truth, no matter how inconvenient, dangerous, or ugly that truth is.
DADA (2024) 📺 trailer
Dada is a tense and moody low-budget Canadian film about a close-knit father and daughter duo on a road trip through Southwestern, Ontario. Their relationship starts to slowly unravel after they come across a nuclear power plant during their journey. The uninviting doom-laden structure feels completely out of sync with the beautiful beckoning natural landscape creating a strange juxtaposition that hints at our current global crisis often hidden from view or willfully ignored. As a result, the film evokes existential dread in the characters and us—the audience. That dread begins to slowly engulf the film leading to an eerie climax that can be read many different ways. This is a film that respects the viewer's intelligence and leaves room for our imagination to take flight. The two lead performances are both very good but I was especially impressed with the look and sound of Dada. It's beautifully shot and constructed by burgeoning director Aaron Poole and the sound design is extraordinary.
THE DEVIL’S BATH (2024) 📺 trailer
Films depicting the early 18th century rarely convey the utter desperation that undoubtedly gripped many people who did not comfortably fit into the social fabric of their times. Nor do they evoke the cruel laws, crude conditions, religious dogma, and human savagery that was still a part of everyday existence for many before the “Age of Enlightenment” ushered in more humane social and sanitary reforms. Human beings are nostalgic creatures who tend to romanticize the past and the stories we tell about our ancestors that end up on our screens are typically safe and sanitized. The Devil’s Bath is a rare exception. The film is written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, a talented Austrian filmmaking duo responsible for Goodnight Mommy (2014) and The Lodge (2019) who based their script on historical records recounting horrific stories of women who committed suicide by proxy. In their desire to evade eternal damnation many suicidal women in the past perpetrated horrible crimes, typically involving the murder of young children, so they could be executed by the state. The Devil’s Bath explores this macabre practice by telling the tragic tale of Agnes (Anja Plaschg), a hopeful young peasant woman who marries a cold unaffectionate man and becomes increasingly distraught over her environment as well as the social restraints and mistreatment she is forced to endure. This is an extremely dark and deeply melancholy film but it also contains some stunning cinematography and one of the best performances of the year from Plaschg as Agnes, a character who cries out for our sympathy and understanding despite our instinctive revulsion.
EXHUMA (2024) 📺 trailer
Please see my previous write-up.
MADS (2024) 📺 trailer
MadS is a wild and woolly French zombie film written and directed by David Moreau that can be appreciated as a reimaging of Night of the Living Dead with a welcome dose of Return of the Living Dead. The film was shot in a blistering single take with no cuts or edits making it a technical marvel as well as one of the best films released last year. The simple plot unfolds during one day while we follow a young man (Milton Riche) eager to celebrate his 18th birthday with friends. His plans are quickly derailed when he encounters a stranger while driving and his insular world is suddenly turned upside down. There’s a lot to enjoy in this low-budget film including its frenetic pacing and some great performances from the young cast. MadS is proof that a good horror movie does not need endless exposition or more than 90 minutes to build and sustain suspense. Every time I think the zombie genre is dead and played out it somehow manages to resurrect itself. MadS is a minor miracle swimming in a sea of mediocrity.
MONKEY MAN (2024) 📺 trailer
Speaking of minor miracles, Monkey Man is the impressive directorial debut by actor turned-filmmaker Dev Patel that combines the best elements of a fast-paced action thriller with the mythic heart of a Bollywood film. Monkey Man has frequently been compared to the John Wick franchise, which is understandable, but Patel’s creation is better than any of the John Wick films and that’s largely due to Patel’s creative and expansive script, which tells the story of a troubled young man who rises from poverty to take revenge on his oppressors. As a result, the film has more in common with Hong Kong action films like Tsui Hark’s amazing Once Upon a Time in China series. The feverishly paced, great-looking, and surprisingly grim Monkey Man manages to make its political allegories entertaining and accessible so it’s no wonder that Patel’s creation almost didn’t see the light of day. Netflix, who owned the rights, refused to release the film due to its political nature but thankfully Patel was able to persuade fellow filmmaker Jordan Peele to come on board as a producer. Together the dynamic duo convinced Universal to purchase the film from Netflix and release it. Despite lingering in production limbo for nearly four years, Monkey Man is a fresh, fun, heartfelt, and highly stylized antifascist film that speaks directly to the moment we all find ourselves in. I already appreciate Patel’s acting skills, but I can’t wait to see what he does next as a director.
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (2024) 📺 trailer
This is easily my favorite of all the Quiet Place films. It leaves the stale nuclear family scenario behind to focus on a terminally ill single woman (Lupita Nyong'o) and her beloved cat during an alien monster invasion. We follow her through a collapsing world while she interacts with various fellow travelers including her hospice nurse, orphaned children, and finally a young lawyer who she befriends. Through it all, her stoic cat stays by her side and the caring relationship depicted between her and her pet, as well as her interactions with other human beings in crisis, shape the film in unexpected and moving ways. It’s not surprising that this was directed and written by Michael Sarnoski who was responsible for Pig (2021), a heartfelt film involving a truffle hunter played by Nicolas Cage who is trying to track down his stolen pet pig. In both films, Sarnoski does something remarkable. He treats the fragile and complex relationship between humans and their animal companions with reverence and genuine sensitivity. It’s a rare gift and I look forward to seeing how he develops his creative voice in future films. Hopefully, he’ll continue to not only make great movies but also remain a compassionate animal advocate. Hollywood needs more like Sarnoski.
WALLED OFF (2024) 📺 trailer
Please see my previous write-up.
I just pinged Aaron Poole to tell him about your endorsement. I need to catch up with that (and several other on your list)