2024 movie list in full, etc

Saw 233 movies last year, up from 232 last year, and making 2024 the year of my most seen to date.

Watched more bad movies on purpose this year than others as well, so my average rating, out of 100, was down to 61.59 from last year’s 62.92

Saw more movies rated a 95 and above than I did in 2023 (10 in 2023, 22 in 2024)

Most disappointing were: Anora, Strange Darling, and Juror #2. Anora was the only really good movie of those three. But...assault slapstick? Crying rape? Idk man. Couldn't get my head around some of its jokey excuses. Mikey Madison was one note, but it was a good note, at least. I mostly hated Strange Darling and Juror #2. Strange Darling was smug and fake progressive and asks us bafflingly to not believe women, and Juror #2 had hokey dialogue, low stakes, and seemed like your grandad’s fishbowl belief of what America looks like. The ‘arguments’ in the jury room had me rolling.

Most surprising to me were: Nightbitch, The Watchers, and the remake of Speak No Evil.

Best ensemble performances were His Three Daughters (Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne) and Fresh Kills (Jennifer Esposito, Emily Bader, and Odessa A’zion). Jennifer Esposito should be given all things golden for their direction and acting.

Best single performances of the year were Lily Collias (Good One), Amy Adams (Nightbitch), Justice Smith (I Saw The TV Glow), Megan Stalter (Cora Bora), Nell Tiger Free (The First Omen), Jurnee Smollett (The Order), Maya Hawke (Wildcat), Kirsten Dunst (Civil War), Elliot Page (Close To You), Simon Baker (Limbo), Daisy Ridley (Sometimes I Think About Dying), Zach Efron (The Iron Claw), Dev Patel (Monkey Man), Maika Monroe (Longlegs), Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun), and Julianne Nicholson (Janet Planet). Jurnee Smollett probably had the smallest role of these, but holy fuck, it was something that lasted longer than it was there.

Shoutout to Scoot McNairy for continuing their holy work in Nightbitch, Speak No Evil, and Blood For Dust and also to Kyle Gallner for doing the same in Smile 2, Strange Darling, and Dinner In America.

Full list is below, followed by any words said toward.

100

I Saw The TV Glow
Zone of Interest, The
Night Won't End, The


99.33

Longlegs
Substance, The
Sugarcane


98.67

Starred Up
Iron Claw, The
King Tide, The
Janet Planet
His Three Daughters
Good One


98

Passing
All Of Us Strangers
Oddity


96.67

Daughters


96

Past Lives
You'll Never Find Me
Rebel Ridge


95.33

Order, The
Small Things Like These
Outrun, The


94.67

Settlers, The
Dinner In America


94

Close To You
Woman of the Hour


93.33

Fresh Kills


92.67

Furiosa
Nightbitch


92

Eileen
Anatomy Of A Fall
A Perfect Day For Caribou
Civil War


91.33

Sometimes I Think About Dying
Where The Devil Roams
Monkey Man


90

All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt
Nosferatu (1922)
Israelism


88.67

Limbo (2023)


86.67

Wildcat (2024)
Will and Harper


86

Birth
Starve Acre
Mountain Queen


85.33

Night of the 12th, The


84.67

Maestro


83.33

Club Zero


82.67

Bikeriders, The
Red Rooms
Alien:Romulus


82

Love Lies Bleeding
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person


81.33

Handling The Undead
Cora Bora
Caddo Lake
This Is Sparklehorse


80.67

Vourdalak, The


80

Holdovers, The
In A Violent Nature
Exhuma


79.33

Blame
Last Stop In Yuma County, The


78.67

Remarkable Life of Ibelin, The
Magpie
Devil's Bath, The


78

Strange Ones, The


77.33

John Wick 4
Monolith
We Live In Time
Hottest State, The
Heretic
Speak No Evil (2024)


76.67

Good Grief
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
Babes
Smile 2


76

Sleep
Maggie's Plan


74.67

Somewhere Quiet
Commandant's Shadow, The
Dead Don't Hurt, The


74

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Wasp, The


73.33

Funeral, The (2024)
Anora


72.67

Riddle of Fire
Infested
Hellbender
Fall Guy, The


72

Piaffe
Blood For Dust
I Used To Be Funny
Creator, The
Fanatical
Terrifier 3
Lake George


71.33

Rose's War (Baltimore)
No Time To Die
First Omen, The
Maxxxine
Mothers' Instinct
A Quiet Place: Day One
Out Come The Wolves
Raymond & Ray


70.67

Cat Person
Laroy, Texas
Asphalt City
Lisa Frankenstein
Stopmotion


70

Lovely, Dark, and Deep
Out of Darkness
Wicked Little Letters
Watchers, The
Cuckoo
Monster Inside
Sting


69.33

Mister Organ


68.67

They Called Him Mostly Harmless
Disappear Completely


68

Deeper You Dig, The
Butterfly In The Sky
Force of Nature: The Dry 2


67.33

Abandoned, The (2023)
Spaceman
Hit Man
Siege (Asedio)


66.67

Asleep In My Palm
Brothers (2024)
Azrael
Daybreakers
It's What's Inside


66

Turtles All The Way Down
Blink Twice
Juliet, Naked


65.33

Saltburn
New Life


63.33

Brandy Hellville and the Cult of Fast Fashion
Am I OK?


62.67

Greatest Hits, The
Antisocial Network, The
Brats
Inherit the Viper
Skincare
Things Will Be Different
Y2k


62

First Time Female Director
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
Apartment 7A


61.33

Hack Your Health
Late Night With The Devil
Demon Disorder, The
Deadpool and Wolverine


60.67

V/H/S/Beyond
Crow, The (2024)


60

Hell Hole
Abigail


58.67

Trap
Old Growth Murder


57.33

Silver Dollar Road
MoviePass, MovieCrash
Under Paris


56.67

Self Reliance
Tinder Swindler, The


56

End We Start From, The
Drive Away Dolls


55.33

Immaculate
Salem's Lot (2024)


54.67

Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator
Sppedway Murders, The


54

It Ends With Us


53.33

Jane Got A Gun
Lover Stalker Killer
Daddio


52.67

Don't Move
Adopt A Highway


52

Taking Lives


51.33

Gozilla-Kong: The New Empire
Last Straw
Jailbreak: Love On The Run


49.33

Link


48

Dude


47.33

Idea of You, The
A Family Affair
Instigators, The
Staten Island


44

Humane


42.67

Krazy House


42

Arcadian
Incoming
Amber Alert


38.67

Close (2019)
Madhouse
Alien Versus Predator


38

St Elmo's Fire


37.33

See For Me
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)


36.67

Candy Land


34.67

Sweet Bobby


33.33

We're The Millers


32.67

Ride
Deliver Us From Evil (2014)


28.67

What Jennifer Did


28

Alien Versus Predator : Requiem


27.33

Role Play
Silent Hill


26.67

Carry-On


26

Miller's Girl


25.33

Strange Darling
Juror #2


24.67

Floundering


24

Twisters


22.67

Cold Copy


22

Mirrors


21.33

Lonely Planet (2024)


20.67

Blue City


20

Hot Frosty
Our Little Secret


17.33

Cellar Door


16.67

Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot, The


11.33

Girl In The Pool, The


10

A Walk In The Woods


2.67

Night Swim
Beyond After


2

Sidelined: The QB and Me


1.33

Christmas On Cherry Lane


0

Anyone But You
Mother of the Bride
How To Train Your Husband
Time Cut
Christmas In Notting Hill
Merry Gentlemen, The
Average Joe

~~~~~

SOME WORDS:

Time stays the same. I want to be quiet about Raven Jackson's All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt because it deserves it. I can't stop thinking about these images, the hands, the holdings, the sounds that hear themselves first. The mud swirling in the water and how it seems to turn the whole world to the soundtrack of thunder and rain hymn. This film devours. This film, fasts.

Rachel Lambert's Sometimes I Think About Dying has a spellbroken elegance to it that sounds like the world around it overheard itself and retreated with the design but not with the details. I was afraid, in the viewing, that I'd intrude. Daisy Ridley does precious much with darkness, and makes it not a delicacy but thing asking to be opened correctly. Lovely, slow, awake, and harsh.

Sound touches light and hell goes nowhere. Sight creates a signature eye for the soul to roll around in. Indianna Bell’s and Josiah Allen’s You'll Never Find Me places a dual duel in the middle of a very small nowhere and lets terror speak its mouth. We’ll know when they know and we’ll all watch separation punish the detached with isolation and illusion. Brendan Rock and Jordan Cowan vibrate, glow, and go swimmingly dark. This whole endeavor hums, quiets, and leaves one left.

Jeff Rutherford's A Perfect Day for Caribou is a blink-and-you'll-see-it film of fast vision and punk fragility and knows that a short story is a long story slowed down. With a ramshackle restraint, it ghosts itself into finding what goes missing when not unleashed. No punches pulled, these are tired people, their cigarettes like little casts for little broken arms. Charlie Plummer, Jeb Berrier, and Dana Millican leave their roles often to walk them just out of view and then walk them back to sit awhile as if movement is the only angel that can touch the earth. Lovely, loved, film.

Where the Devil Roams, written and directed by Toby Poser, John Adams, and Zelda Adams, suffers beautifully from self-diagnosis and subsequently from phantom dream syndrome to irreversibly give us the nightmare we'll never have. It's a fucking gift. Jaggedly creative, its kitchen sink is real whether or not the blood washed there is.

The body finds itself in a body. How unfair. How brief. Oh my god, this movie. As in, Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw The TV Glow. As in, melancholy plays the long game. Schoenbrun is a giving artist, but knows no charity goes unpunished, nor stays self-harmed, nor arrives outer-healed. Brigette Lundy-Paine gives a searching, locatable performance, and Justice Smith carries everything- the physical, the spiritual, the voice, and the voice changed. Both are prayers of unanswerable theater. I lost something to this, and it lost it back.

I've not seen a more oddly thoughtful movie about abuse and idealization than Jonathan Glazer's Birth. I think there are a couple cards here that could've been shown, that I can't justify them being withheld. But then I start thinking about what withholding means to the film outside of the film, and I feel very close to something dark and clear. Too close, maybe. Some burned shadow. Some former inkling. The scariest thing this movie does is make the present the only afterlife.

Pain waits. Pain goes to the site of pretend pain and gives its weak past a fuller future. Jeremy Saulnier's Rebel Ridge is as patient as pain, and, through the legit vessel of Aaron Pierre's invitingly remote performance, tries to let the wounded off the hook. Or at least give them the chance to switch baits. But no. Histories of perceived offense and abused authority make a nowness of entitlement, and their poison pond asks for the sea. Saulnier brings the flood, Pierre makes waves. 'Rebel Ridge' lives and dies deep in the deception of its broken skin grievance where bones know to know the score.

Dominic Savage's Close To You is a mood piece of sharp melancholy that is awesomely stuck in the now of having a past and in the then of needing that past to be older. Elliot Page gives a performance that treats strength as the delicacy it is, a lived-in performance of enlivened outage that dims toward something more ancient. Hillary Baack is also stellar here, with a performance of frostbite and fire that knows discovery isn't always the first thing there. What a film. It arrives and arrives.