2024 has rolled over into 2025, Awards Season is underway, and it is time for Reel Speak’s annual Best & Worst blog.
2024 was a down year for the box office, coming in under 2023’s numbers. Disney was the big winner for the year with four films in the Top 10 worldwide: INSIDE OUT 2 (1st place), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (2ndplace), MOANA 2 (3rd place), and MUFASA: THE LION KING (9th place). The box office reflected audience’s desires; nine of the top 10 were sequels or a part of a franchise. If there is a demand for original films like social media likes to yell about, it’s not reflected in the numbers.
On the screen, there was a lot of great film, but also a fair number of stinkers. The worst movies viewed by this Blogger in 2024 included the Sony Pictures abomination MADAME WEB, the video game nonsense of BORDERLANDS, and the continuing shit-show that is the MonsterVerse with GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE.
The absolute worst of 2024 was saying farewell and adieu to beloved actors, actresses and filmmakers: Glynis Johns, Norman Jewison, Carl Weathers, Eleanor Coppola, Bernard Hill, Susan Backlinie, Dabney Coleman, Morgan Spurlock, Donald Sutherland, Martin Mull, Shannen Doherty, Bob Newhart, John Amos, James Earl Jones, Maggie Smith, Kris Kristofferson, and Quincy Jones.
Back on the screen, the biggest story of the year was the resurgence of the horror genre. Several films surprised and overperformed, and finally stepped away from the lazy found-footage and CONJURING spinoffs. Horror had a great year, and that is represented in this year’s Top 10 Best:
10. ALIEN: ROMULUS
The ALIEN franchise started with two classics: ALIEN (1979), and ALIENS (1986). Since then, it’s been miles of crap…but that finally changed this year with Fede Alvarez’s thrilling side-quel, ROMULUS. Set firmly in-between the events of ALIEN and ALIENS, ROMULUS provided excellent thrills and tension, expanded the ALIEN mythos, and gave us a new scream-queen in the form of Cailee Spaeny.
9. MONKEY MAN
Dev Patel stars and directs this wickedly cool and brutal revenge flick. Patel puts in the physical work big-time and helms a great-looking film that is full of surprises. After the punches fly and land, MONKEY MAN also takes a hard look at India and the large gap between the rich and poor. Impactful as a gut-punch.
8. LONGLEGS
Nicolas Cage dances with the man downstairs as a serial killer in this cerebral and creepy thriller. Maika Monroe plays the FBI agent with a special gift who hunts down the mysterious and chilling Longlegs killer in a plot that turns in directions unseen and unexpected. Cage in the meantime gives us the creep of the millennium.
7. THE BIKERIDERS
Acclaimed director Jeff Nichols took a 1960’s photo-book showcasing outlaw bikers and built a film out of it, resulting in a gorgeous and hard-nosed look at the men who rode and the women who followed them. Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer put in excellent performances, and the ending is one of the biggest shocks of the year.
6. DUNE: PART 2
Denis Villeneuve and his impressive, ensemble cast delivers the second part of Frank Herbert’s famed sci-fi saga. Leaning heavily on its LAWRENCE OF ARABIA inspirations, DUNE PART 2 unspools as a magnificent epic while keeping close to its many characters. The film is packed with an intricate web of storylines that Villeneuve weaves together in excellent fashion.
5. CONCLAVE
This adaptation of the Robert Harris novel of the same name follows a Cardinal (Ralph Fiennes), who finds himself investigating one fellow Cardinal after another in a vital Conclave to elect a new Pope. Fiennes is excellent and the plot never seems to go in the direction we think it’s going in a film that stuns one scene after another like the best of the whodunits.
4. THE SUBSTANCE
The genre of body-horror usually doesn’t rank high on anyone’s year-end lists, but this time it finally finds a champion. Demi Moore stars as an aging TV star who uses a black-market drug to create a younger version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley. Shocking and repulsive, THE SUBSTANCE pulls no punches in looking at how Hollywood treats women.
3. WICKED
The long-running Broadway show comes to the big screen in a major splash; earning accolades, big box office, and becoming an instant cultural hit. Jon M. Chu directs his excellent twin-leads of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo to dazzling performances, and the Land of Oz comes to life again beautifully. Emotionally packed and fun, and they’re just getting warmed up with the thrillifying part 2 later this year.
2. THE BRUTALIST
Brady Corbet’s magnificent epic that will probably earn Adrien Brody his second Oscar in 20 years. Brody plays a brilliant Hungarian-Jewish architect in a post-WWII America that doesn’t know what to do with people like him. Beautifully shot and acted, THE BRUTALIST spans 30 years of history, and is an honest and revealing look at the American dream…and the blood needed to achieve it.
1. NOSFERATU
There is no other film this year that put audiences into a total trance like Robert Eggers’ remake of the 1922 famed vampire film of the same name. Filmed with remarkable visuals, NOSFERATU is primal, fearful, and hits the animalistic chords in all of us. Bill Skarsgard as Count Orlok turns our stomachs with his voice alone, and Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny), is outstanding. There is a not a wasted frame or word in NOSFERATU, and it will have all of us looking in all of the dark corners of our rooms (and souls), for years to come. That’s what good horror…and great film does.
REEL SPEAK'S TOP 10 BEST FILMS OF 2024
- NOSFERATU
- THE BRUTALIST
- WICKED
- THE SUBSTANCE
- CONCLAVE
- DUNE: PART 2
- THE BIKERIDERS
- LONGLEGS
- MONKEY MAN
- ALIEN: ROMULUS
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