Diaz: Ranking Every Film, Documentary, and Comedy Special I Saw In 2024

It’s that time of the year again. It’s when I get to show you that when it comes to watching movies, I can reach a sickening point. Last year, I watched 125 new releases. I saw that number going into 2024 and figured that it couldn’t be beaten. Well, I outdid myself. This year I watched 132 2024 releases and have ranked them from 132 to 1.

Some of you gearing up to read this are probably wondering why I don’t just do a top 10 or a top 25 or even a top 50 list. That’s a cop out. I watched a lot of shitty movies this year and I want to be a guide for you when it comes to watching movies. So this serves as both a ranking and recommendation system for the entire year.

132. Miller’s Girl (Jade Halley Bartlett)

Abhorrent. Miller’s Girl is truly a bad film that felt like gross and horny fan fiction which is written with the tone of a person who wished they were molested so they had a story to tell to come across more interesting. Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman are okay, but I was disgusted by the premise and execution the whole time.

131. Mean Girls (Arturo Perez Jr., Samantha Jayne) IN THEATERS

Mean Girls isn’t a good movie. I also don’t think I should have it ranked this low, but I do remember seeing it in theaters and loathing it. The musical numbers were unoriginal, the performances were bad and not one joke made me laugh. I do have think my first and only viewing was altered by the fact that I was having a mental breakdown about classes and ended up crying in the mostly empty theater, but I can’t change where I rank it because I don’t feel like rewatching Mean Girls.

130. Time Cut (Hannah Macpherson)

Hannah Macpherson’s Time Cut is a film with no identity. Is it a slasher film? No. Is it a time travel film that fully commits to the bit? Not really. That’s what makes this a nearly unwatchable movie. That and the fact that Macpherson has an elementary understanding of what 2003 looked like. There wasn’t a single juggalo AT ALL.

129. Uglies (McG)

Based on the book from Scott Westerfield, Uglies is a saltine cracker version of the Divergent and Maze Runner films. While I don’t love those films, they never clicked for me when I was growing up, Uglies make them look like Star Wars and Blade Runner. I also don’t think Joey King is a good actress. I don’t personally enjoy looking at her. It’s not that she’s ugly, but she has a bizarre mouth that’s unsettling.

128. Argylle (Matthew Vaughn) IN THEATERS

What happened to Matthew Vaughn? X-Men: First Class rips, Kingsman: The Secret Service rocks and Kick-Ass kicks ass. Argylle is incoherent every step of the way. It’s not a confusing movie, but when Vaughn inserts too many twists like Elly being a spy and not being a spy or her being a good guy vs a villain, you just get tired. You mentally checkout and become disinterested in what occurs next.

127. Unfrosted (Jerry Seinfeld)

When a comedy film has a cast of Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, ~~Amy Schumer~~, Hugh Grant, Christian Slater, Kyle Mooney, Nelson Franklin and Sebastian Maniscalco, you naturally think the movie will be funny. Right? With Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted, you will not laugh once. Seinfeld attempts satire in a manner that makes you question if any satirical film has ever been good. Obviously there are good ones in the genre (American Fiction, The Campaign, Triangle of Sadness), but Unfrosted is that bad that you will question your own taste.

126. Madame Web (S.J. Clarkson)

Shockingly, Madame Web isn’t clocking in dead last. While watching, I thought that Isabela Merced, Sydney Sweeney and Dakota Johnson weren’t bad. Not good, but not as bad as they were being bashed initially. I also think that S.J. Clarkson was more of a skeleton director for this movie as Sony just needed a body to put this movie out in order to rush to the finish line of the Sony Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the end of the day, this isn’t a complete movie.

125. Back to Black (Sam Taylor-Johnson) IN THEATERS

Honestly, fuck Sam Taylor-Johnson. She makes Amy Winehouse, one of the greatest musicians of all time, look like a drunk, ditsy whore who was dead on arrival when she gained fame. It’s known she had a drinking problem and that she didn’t surround herself with the best people, including family, but Sam Taylor-Johnson brushes past the musical accolades of Winehouse in Back to Black to make her appear like a slut who couldn’t put down the bottle. Nothing more than that in Taylor-Johnson’s eyes.

124. The Union (Julian Farino)

Mark Whalberg and Halle Berry teaming up in an espionage film with J.K. Simmons works… if the year is 2002. In 2024, the concept of The Union, along with the Oscar winning cast does not work in the slightest. It’s packed with trad cliches and silly tropes that wouldn’t have worked if De Niro, Pacino and Pesci were acting in this because of Julian Farino’s direction.

123. Players (Trish Sie)

Here piggies! More Netflix rom-com slop with a slight deviation from the last plate of trash you just ate. A common theme of movies outside of my top twenty five of 2024 is that they don’t do really anything different. If it’s a rom-com like Players, it follows the basic road map of a romantic comedy where there’s two hopeless romantics who are friends and would be a great couple, but because they’re so close, they don’t cross that boundary. Then, after soul searching, they break the boundary. Nothing new and not worth a watch.

122. Meet Me Next Christmas (Rusty Cundieff)

Every year, Netflix churns out multiple below average Christmas rom-coms that never make an impact culturally. Meet Me Next Christmas is one of those movies. You can say this about every Netflix Christmas rom-com: it’s not terrible, but it’s bad and the performances and premise aren’t memorable. I’ll probably just copy and paste this for whatever Netflix releases next December because I’m sure I feel the same way.

121. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Gil Kenan)

When will this nations long awaited nightmare end of more and more Ghostbusters movies getting released? I think after the original and sequel, we as a society, should’ve stopped there. But no, Hollywood is a money hungry monster that wants to squeeze the life out of any successful franchise and that gives us Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which is again, filled with silly Ghostbusters call backs and unoriginal monsters. Bleh!

120. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)

Emilia Pérez is a garbage Oscar bait picture that bastardizes Mexican culture, and while I didn’t have high hopes going into it, I was left thoroughly disgusted by Jacques Audiard’s direction, which is surprising because he made a very good movie a few years prior with The Sisters Brothers. This’ll be nominated for multiple Oscars, maybe even win some, but there’s no denying that it uses a transgender narrative and tacky musical sequences to get there. It’s not cutting corners for awards, it’s worse.

119. Nutcrackers (David Gordon Green)

I can’t figure David Gordon Green out. From a television perspective, he’s brilliant. He’s a major contributor to The Sex Lives of College Girls, The Righteous Gemstones, Vice Principals and Eastbound & Down, but on a film front, he’s churned out duds in the horror genre and mediocre comedies. Nutcrackers is a dud comedy from the brilliant television mind. It’s a cutesy holiday concept that could work, but Stiller seems to have lost his fastball and no one in the support cast (besides Tim Heidecker) is any good.

118. Brothers (Max Barbakow)

Much like Unfrosted, Brothers is head scratching because the cast is loaded. Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Peter Dinklage, Brendan Fraser, M. Emmet Walsh and Marisa Tomei come together for a D- heist comedy that comes close to making you laugh, at times, but never sufficiently finishes a punch line. Again, it comes close to being average, but Dinklage lacks the comedic chops, but so does everyone else.

117. Afraid (Chris Weitz)

Last year, we got a solid technology centric horror film with M3GAN. With the amount of updates and progression made with AI, you’d think that the substance would be there for a well balanced and scary horror film. On the surface level, that’s what you might think Afraid is, but it’s far from that. It’s predictable and lacks any elements to make this a chilling horror movie.

116. BRATS (Andrew McCarthy)

This was a semi-devastating watch for me. I like a lot of the stars who came from the Brat Pack era like James Spader, Tom Cruise and Bret Easton Ellis, but the main core of this pack like Andrew McCarthy, Jon Cryer and Ally Sheedy seem like people who I’d hate to be stuck in a conversation with. I think McCarthy’s goal with this documentary was to break down the pretentious stigma that the Brat Pack gained in the 80s, but this only further made me think they’re pretentious, self important lunatics.

115. The Idea of You (Michael Showalter)

Michael Showalter, a director who I think is very talented when it comes to making romantic comedies, missed in an epic manner with The Idea of You. Anne Hathaway, despite looking great, and Nicholas Galitzine having a stunning lack of chemistry in this and that further made me hate the film because I was already skeptical due to the problematic concept. Yes, everyone’s of legal age, but if we use hypotheticals and flip the genders, this movie would be rightfully lambasted.

114. The Beekeeper (David Ayer) IN THEATERS

I noticed that when I’d go see movies when I was at school, my criticism was far harsher. I’d be extremely bitter towards a lot of movies (Mean Girls, Argylle). It’s just that I was extremely miserable and one of my few outlets to decompress was going to the movies. So, when I’d goto the theater and see a bad movie, I felt like I wasted my time and it would frustrate me further. There’s no doubt I was too harsh on The Beekeeper, which is a mind-numbingly fun action flick, but I was in a bitter mood. There’s no way I go back and rewatch it, so my sentiment stays that I thought the movie stunk. See it for yourself and if you agree, I wasn’t being a trite dickhead, but if you disagree, I’ll own it.

113. Nightbitch (Marielle Heller)

There was a point in time where there was a discussion about Amy Adams being nominated for this role. I don’t know if that discourse is still occurring, but after watching Nightbitch, it should stop. Don’t get me wrong, she’s fine in this and I think she should already have an Academy Award, but this isn’t the role nor film that will get her an Oscar. It’s a movie that wants to be weird and freaky, but doesn’t want to take the risk to get weird and freaky. I’m not a fan of Marielle Hunter, I think What the Constitution Means to Me stinks, so I’m not shocked by what Nightbitch was.

112. Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats (Anthony Giordano)

Unlike Anthony Jeselnik, I don’t think that people who listen to Rogans podcast are stupid. I do however think that if you like Rogans standup, you are stupid. It’s a consistent high minded, yet dumbed down attempt to joke about aliens or politics. His latest special, Burn the Boats, isn’t much different from his early ones where he told similar jokes. This time around, the only difference is that I laughed far less and there were less stoner jokes.

111. Spaceman (Johan Renck)

The idea of Adam Sandler taking another serious role excited me. When he starred in Uncut Gems, he flaunted one of the best performances of the 2010s. While he’s good in Johan Renck’s Spaceman, nothing could save this dastardly boring film. The first time I watched it, I fell asleep, so I rewinded to where I was before my nap and was disappointed by the slog I endured. I expected more from the guy who directed Chernobyl.

110. Out of Darkness (Andrew Cumming)

Stylistically, Out of Darkness works. If you just see the visuals that cinematographer Ben Fordesman creates, you’d be betting this is one of the better films of the year. Once you go past its cold, rigid look, you’re met with a boring journey that doesn’t have much of a payoff as the terror you expect doesn’t deliver. Again, this movie looks cool as hell, but it’d be easier to run a marathon than it is to finish Out of Darkness.

109. The Dynasty: New England Patriots (Matthew Hamachek)

I read a Letterboxd review that highlights 53 inaccuracies in The Dynasty: New England Patriots and that’s just scratching the surface. To the average sports fan, this is a fine documentary that you think will teach you a few facts about the New England Patriots. However, when you’re an avid ball knower like myself, you realize that this is a sham, hatchet job against Bill Belichick and is a ~~blow job~~ hand job for Robert Kraft. Pure propaganda that Nazi Germany couldn’t replicate.

108. Mike Recine: I’m Normal (Jason Katz)

I like Mike Recine a lot when he’s on The Adam Friedland Show and even when he’d come on Cum Town. He has great chemistry with Adam and Nick, but when you get Recine on stage, I find him to be tremendously unfunny. While I didn’t find this special particularly funny, it didn’t help that the crowd was dead. They let a lot of the jokes hang in the air and gave no reaction and that led me to grow more uncomfortable when a joke also didn’t hit for me.

107. A Family Affair (Richard LaGravenese)

First off, Nicole Kidman looks great in this. Tom Cruise will never beat the closeted allegations with how he essentially picked scientology over an absolute babe. Alright, enough of my horny brain. A Family Affair isn’t a good movie. To reiterate my previous thought, Kidman looks good and does give an okay performance, but I couldn’t get past Joey Kings unsettling appearance and Zac Efron’s bizarre botox face. For a good portion of this movie I spaced out because I was transfixed on Efron’s botched plastic surgery.

106. The Boy & the Octopus (Taika Waititi)

As cute as this tried to be, it felt stiff. Almost as if Taika Waititi typed “Can you write a cute, coming-of-age short film about an octopus and a boy around Christmas time?” into ChatGPT and this is what got spit out. Waititi is an odd director because I want to call him a hack and every fiber of my being believes he is a hack, but then you remember he made Hunt for the Wilderpeople and I become fond of him once again.

105. Daddio (Christy Hall)

Christy Hall’s Daddio hit an unintended peak when Dakota Johnson received back-to-back text messages that read “I need your pink” and “Help me cum“. I laughed. I probably shouldn’t have because the point was that Johnson’s character was in a toxic relationship and playing the role of a home wrecker, but when those words come across the screen, you laugh. Also, I don’t like Sean Penn. He shouldn’t have an Oscar, let alone two.

104. Don’t Move (Adam Schindler, Brian Netto)

The week before I watched Don’t Move, I wrote a blog about actors who could play Patrick Bateman in the American Psycho remake and one name I brought up was Finn Wittrock. His look fits the bill, but I noted how I didn’t think he was a good actor. Despite Don’t Move having a solid concept and decent execution, Wittrock was an anchor alongside Kelsey Asbille, who gave a lively performance.

103. The Greatest Hits (Ned Benson)

Going into The Greatest Hits, I expected to like it. I’m a sucker for romantic movies, especially ones that utilize music and the science fiction aspect intrigued me. But when the romance isn’t believable and the music is from crappy festival DJs, I was lost. I’m sure this movie works well for those who like to rave at festivals, but if you’re a normal person who doesn’t do MDMA, I’m sure you’ll share the same thoughts as me.

102. Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips)

I discussed Joker: Folie à Deux with my good friend Liam and we had different stances. Liam enjoyed the meta elements and musical numbers that Phillips incorporated. Myself on the other hand, I hated that. One musical number worked for me, which was Gaga’s first one, but outside of that, I felt like the musical elements didn’t fit and it’s because I think Phillips was too afraid to go for it and make a full on musical. This felt like the work of someone too scared to commit to making something they wanted to and passed it off as a cool guy fuck you to the audience.

101. It Ends With Us (Justin Baldoni) IN THEATERS

Before seeing It Ends With Us, my girlfriend told me to read the book. I didn’t do that for two reasons. One, I didn’t want to. Two, I’m a slow reader. Because of my stubbornness, I went in blind and thought that it was a silly film. Colleen Hoover and Justin Baldoni boil domestic violence down to the simple phrase of it ends with us, and that feels cruel to those who actually go through domestic violence. Aside from that, it should be pointed out that costume designer Eric Daman did a terrible job in every scene. Blake Lively would get abused while wearing the most tasteless outfit imaginable and it just made me dislike It Ends With Us more.

100. Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen)

I’m not here to compare the talent of the Coen Brothers, but if you look at Joel Coen’s most recent movie, The Tragedy of Macbeth, and compare it to Ethans most recent movie, Drive-Away Dolls, it’s hard not to compare. The casting of Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan was what you needed for a lesbian road trip comedy, but when it’s executed with an unfunny script, the stars can’t do too much. Unfortunately, this is the first of a trilogy of Ethan Coen’s lesbian comedies and I don’t have high hopes for what’s next.

99. Incoming (Dave Chernin, John Chernin)

Project X has been more of a negative than a positive to the movie industry because everyone who makes a high school party film wants it to be their take on Project X. Essentially, that’s what Incoming wants to be. To no ones surprise, it is terrible besides one whole plot point where Loren Gray’s character gets diarrhea all over herself in a drunken haze. To be honest, that did make me laugh a lot. It’s the only reason this isn’t in the bottom ten of the year.

98. Sasquatch Sunset (David Zellner, Nathan Zellner)

Can a film be stupid yet beautiful at the same time? If any movie can be, it’s going to be Sasquatch Sunset. The over the top usage of piss and shit gets tired and that’s the only main section of humor that’s offered in Sasquatch Sunset, but the relationships being built between The Female, The Alpha and Young Male is charming. I don’t think I’ll ever revisit David and Nathan Zellner’s funky Sasquatch film, but I commend them for taking a hack at making something different.

97. Road House (Doug Liman)

The past few years have been tough if you’re in the Jake Gyllenhaal fan club. Sure, The Covenant and Ambulance ripped, but past that, when was the last good movie he was in? Nightcrawler in 2014? I’m not a massive fan of the original Road House film, but Doug Liman’s rendition of the 1989 action flick makes the original look like Casablanca. Just brutally unfunny and uncharismatic with an over the top villain performance from Conor McGregor, who is a gigantic piece of shit.

96. Babes (Pamela Adlon)

The first fifteen minutes of Babes feels like you’re gearing up for a female led comedy on the level of Bridesmaids. From the wet seat bit to Ilana Glazer eating sushi on the subway, I was howling. Then, for a reason unbeknownst to me, Pamela Adlon makes a complete 180 into a more real life drama and abandons the idea of humor in the process. Is Adlon committed to making this a raunchy comedy about motherhood, this would’ve been one of the better comedies of 2024.

95. MaXXXine (Ti West) IN THEATERS

Undoubtedly the weakest of Ti West’s X Trilogy is MaXXXine. Sure, it has a super sleek 1980s aesthetic that’s only enhanced by Kevin Bacon doing his best Jake Gittes impression, but it all-in-all feels like a movie lacking its identity. X and Pearl fully commit to the slasher genre set in the heat of the midwest and Texas, but what does MaXXXine want to be? An 80s slasher film, a detective thriller or a cult horror? That question never really gets answered.

94. The Long Game (Julio Quintana)

I’ve always struggled when it comes to critiquing a true story because I find myself getting stuck. On one hand, I want an entertaining movie. But on the other hand, I want a true story to be historically accurate. Unfortunately for Julio Quintana and company, the story behind The Long Game isn’t extremely interesting, especially since we got a better version of a similar story with McFarland, USA in 2015.

93. Wolfs (Jon Watts)

Brad Pitt and George Clooney reuniting in a crime comedy seems like a recipe that’d work. It worked in the past with Steven Soderbergh’s Oceans trilogy, so why can’t it work with Wolfs? The answer is because Soderbergh isn’t behind the camera, it’s Jon Watts. Watts, whose only big budget directing experience is in the Spider-Man universe isn’t able to bring out the humor and, shockingly the charisma, of two mega movie stars.

92. Fly Me To The Moon (Greg Berlanti)

When you see a cast comprised of Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano and Jim Rash, you expect to watch a movie that’s playful with good performances. While Fly Me To The Moon tries to be playful, it’s not able to be engaging. The concept about faking the moon landing through marketing has good juice. However, when you dwell too hard on ad campaigns and don’t execute it like Mad Men does, you lose the audience.

91. Knox Goes Away (Michael Keaton)

Only until late 2024 did I realize that a hitman movie starring Michael Keaton and Al Pacino was released. While it’s fairly unremarkable, the action scenes, though there are few and far between, are nicely choreographed. Also, you can’t hate Keaton and Pacino. Even if they’re somewhat half-assing it, I’m happy to see them both acting in action movies.

90. A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski)

2024 was a year where indie directors were given big budgets in established IPs. For one director, Lee Isaac Chung with Twisters, it worked, but for Michael Sarnoski directing A Quiet Place: Day One, I felt like he flopped. Sarnoski is responsible for one of my favorite movie of the 2020s, Pig, and what he did so well in that was build subtle relationships. Sarnoski actually does that really well in A Quiet Place: Day One, but the action and horror was overall bland and didn’t add to an IP that I already didn’t care about.

89. Ian Fidance: Wild, Happy & Free (James Webb)

How much energy is too much energy? That’s the question you’re posed with when watching Ian Fidance’s special Wild, Happy & Free. When Ian is on podcasts like Cum Town or The Adam Friedland Show, much like Mike Recine, he’s very good. When he’s on his own, alone on stage doing his act, his energy becomes too overwhelming and muddles his punchlines.

88. Untold: The Murder of Air McNair (Taylor Alexander Ward, Rodney Lucas)

I’m a sucker for sports documentaries, especially ones about under reported stories for people my age, but Untold: The Murder of Air McNair is nothing more than an hour long Wikipedia page reading. If you’re interested in stories like this, like I am, then you’re better suited reading the Wikipedia page and saving an extra fifty minutes because you’re told nothing new. It feels like either a disgrace to McNair’s legacy or just something we didn’t need. I’m trying to figure out which one it is.

87. Janet Planet (Annie Baker)

Annie Baker does a remarkable job directing the essence of western Massachusetts in the summer with Janet Planet, but doesn’t do much else from there. Baker wants to tell a story about a woman finding love in her middle age while raising her daughter, but she didn’t convey that point effectively to me. She just made me hate hippies more than I already do.

86. Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire (Adam Wingard)

To the audiences detriment, Adam Wingard’s Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire doesn’t fully get moving until the third act. When it does and we see Godzilla and King Kong come together in an epic battle, it rules. It’s fun, mind-numbing cinema. I know a lot of people say it’s hack to call a movie fun, but I’m not arguing that Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire is a great, let alone good movie. It is simply a fun movie.

85. The Instigators (Doug Liman)

What if The Town tried to be a comedy with a bigger cast and it sucked? That’s what The Instigators is. Doug Liman, who went 0-2 this year, assembled a cast of Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Ving Rhames, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina and Ron Perlman and somehow made all of those great actors uninteresting. Their motives weren’t super clear in this milk toast heist film, which is why I couldn’t connect with a single character.

84. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (Mark Molloy)

Despite being unremarkable, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a decent send off for Eddie Murphy. Mark Molloy plays the hits of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise where Axel is rebellious and cavalier in his police work and it results in him getting in deep shit. It’s not original, but I enjoyed seeing Murphy, the late John Ashton and Paul Reiser all back working together one more time.

83. Blitz (Steve McQueen)

Over his career, Steve McQueen has made powerful films like 12 Years A Slave, Shame and Hunger. Those films have built up a lot of goodwill with his audiences, and while Blitz doesn’t totally eviscerate that goodwill, it does chip away at it. There’s not a ton of sauce or flare with Blitz which is disappointing because there are areas where flare could be inserted. You get it a bit when Saoirse Ronan is in the clubs dancing, but it’s missing in the bombing scenes and in a lot of George’s journey.

82. Ricky Stanicky (Peter Farrelly)

We need to start a dialogue about John Cena being a solid comedic actor. Of the modern wrestlers turned actors, I’ve felt that Cena is moons better than The Rock, but can’t touch Dave Bautista, but he may have found his niche as a comedic actor with his role in Ricky Stanicky. His line delivery is perfect and he has great chemistry with Zac Efron, Andrew Santino and Jermaine Fowler. Come this time next year, no one will think about Ricky Stanicky, but it’ll always be a good John Cena performance.

81. Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams) IN THEATERS

There’s a strong contingent of people who really adore Lisa Frankenstein. I’m not in that group. I thought it was fine, but in my eyes, it’s nothing more than a cheesy romantic comedy with a twist on Frankensteins monster. There are funny moments like Lisa trying to hide The Creature, but it’s brought down by the movies overall abruptness. For example, Lisa dies, and I know that this was the dynamic created between herself, her dad and her step sister, but they spend no time at her grave. That to me was less sad and was more lazy than anything.

80. Blink Twice (Zoë Kravitz)

I want to give props to Zoë Kravitz for swinging for the fences with her directorial debut, Blink Twice. Me personally, I wasn’t a fan, but I can tip my cap to her ambitious film making. In a similar vein to Saltburn from 2023, Blink Twice was an acid trip about the inner circle of celebrities, and Kravitz portrays it in a fairly terrifying light as she tackles the angle of sexual assault. It’s trippy stuff and Channing Tatum really kicks ass.

79. Rez Ball (Sydney Freeland)

All throughout film, there are maybe four or five sports movies that standout. Those top tier films either do something different from the others or set the stage for sports movies to come. Rez Ball isn’t one of those movies. We see a good team met with tragedy and then have to come together to win. While it is essentially paint by numbers on how to make a sports movie, I enjoyed following Sydney Freeland’s direction for less than two hours as there is a snippet of originality having the characters be Native Americans on a reservation.

78. Snack Shack (Adam Rehmeier)

Adam Rehmeier turns what could’ve been a tight 90 minute comedy into a drawn out coming-of-age movie that tests your patients throughout. He continuously hammers home the idea that these two friends have a close, yet testy relationship and the viewer understands that. But I don’t think Rehmeier thinks the audience believes that, that’s why he keeps revisiting it. Aside from that, the soundtrack rules and Gabriel LaBelle continues to prove that he’s one of the best up and coming actors in Hollywood.

77. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola) IN THEATERS

Months after seeing Megalopolis on the big screen, I’m still puzzled by it. The performances are strange, and I’m not sure are very good, besides Shia LaBeouf, and I thought the concept and dialogue were silly, but Coppola made what he wanted to make. For creative movie making, this was a win because he did what he wanted to do. From an audience standpoint though, this was a loss. People will make the argument that it’s a good movie and that they understood it, but I don’t buy it.

76. Strange Darling (JT Mollner)

Shot in a non-linear format, Strange Darling builds your anxiety up. JT Mollner almost chokes you with suspense and doesn’t let go until the end. That’s due to both the way the story is presented and the performances from Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. Despite all of that, the twist, which many people raved about, didn’t knock me over. After the “third” chapter is told, you can kind of see who the real serial killer is. That does make me deduct some points, but I still enjoyed the originality of the thriller.

75. Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds (Glen Milner)

Prior to watching Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds, I didn’t know much about Hideo Kojima. I’d see him on Twitter hanging with George Miller and Guillermo del Toro and would constantly say ‘Who is this guy?‘, but this documentary opened my eyes to the service Kojima does for video games and adapting great series and films into games. His impact on post 2000s pop culture is undeniable and if you’re into video games, I definitely recommend watching this.

74. South Park: The End of Obesity (Trey Parker)

There’s no doubt that Matt and Trey have somewhat lost their fastball. The characters in the show all sound different and the joke writing is a bit too on the nose. Nevertheless, I liked South Park: The End of Obesity. Their commentary on popular issues and topics is usually funny, this special wasn’t different from that. It always ends up becoming a bit absurd, this time it led to Tony the Tiger and Captain Crunch getting into a shootout with the gang and suburban moms. That’s funny.

73. Dave Attell: Hot Cross Buns (Scott Gawlik)

At one point in Dave Attell: Hot Cross Buns, Attell calls Sea World the aquatic Auschwitz and I howled. Of all the jokes he told, that was the most memorable one. I’ve never been a huge Attell fan, but he was promoting his special on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast and that led me to watching him tell jokes that made me laugh for 40 minutes. This years had some bad specials, but also some solid ones. Attell falls right in the middle.

72. Watchmen: Chapter I (Brandon Vietti)

I adore Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film. It’s the one movie he’s made that makes me question if he is a good film maker. The jury still hasn’t reached a verdict on that question. Watchmen: Chapter I is an animated copy of the first half of that movie, but done in a way that’s far less charismatic. My bias towards the Watchmen comics made me give it some leeway, but I didn’t love this. The live action version of Watchmen rules and the series is very good. Watchmen: Chapter I is an outlier.

71. My Old Ass (Megan Park)

Am I in or out on Aubrey Plaza. Ideally, I’d like to be in Aubrey Plaza, but that’s not the case. I find her schtick of being annoyed and catty in interviews to be stale, but her comedic chops are elite in Megan Park’s My Old Ass. Using psychedelics to drive home your point in a coming-of-age movie doesn’t always work, but Park makes it subtle and not the full focal point of the movie, which I liked. This was more a movie about a young woman learning from her older self about how to love and I thought that aspect was beautiful.

70. Parachute (Brittany Snow)

Brittany Snow tackles the concept of difficult relationships when you’re younger in Parachute in a frustrating way. As a viewer, I was made at times watching this. We see two people, Courtney Eaton and Thomas Mann, who should be together, continuously hurt each other because they can’t be loved. One possesses a heroes mindset. The other carries a victims mentality, and as the final credits rolled, you realize they can’t be with each other and really can’t help each other. Despite it being frustrating, it’s about as real as it gets.

69. It’s What’s Inside (Greg Jardin)

2024 has been a solid year of horror. Most importantly, it’s felt like a year of inspired originality for the genre. Even though the performances in It’s What’s Inside are lackluster, the concept had me hooked. Switching bodies with your friends when there is simmering tension sounds like nightmare fuel and that’s what director Greg Jardin creates. There’s mystery elements, science fiction portions and all in all, some decent spooky scenes.

68. Orion and the Dark (Sean Charmatz)

If I asked you to guess who wrote the animated fantasy comedy, Orion and the Dark, I don’t think you’d figure it out. Shockingly, it came from the mind of Charlie Kaufman. The same guy who wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich and Synecdoche, New York penned the script for this family friendly feature from Sean Charmatz. I actually think that it was an issue that Kaufman wrote this. I say that because when you see his name as the screenwriter of a movie, you expect strokes of genius throughout with trippy flare. Orion and the Dark is cute, but it lacks that genius and flare Kaufman has been known to deliver.

67. Out Of My Mind (Amber Sealey)

When my girlfriend presented the idea of watching Out Of My Mind, I grimaced a bit. The concept seemed cute and heartfelt, but also silly from the standpoint that the main character, Melody, who has cerebral palsy, gets her voice through Jennifer Aniston. However, after watching Out Of My Mind, I was pleased with it. Sure, it doesn’t do anything different that we haven’t seen in a movie about a person with a disability, but Phoebe-Rae Taylor gives a good performance and it tugged on my heart strings more than anticipated.

66. Tim Dillon: This Is Your Country (Michael Shea)

Tim Dillon, one of the best comedians and political commentators working, decided to take a stab at his rendition of the Jerry Springer show and I enjoyed it. He’s great when he’s off the cuff insulting people, especially those who don’t know they’re the butt of the joke, which is what we get with Tim Dillon: This Is Your Country. I’m not sure that Netflix will bank roll more episodes of this, but they should. Or at least they should do it around the next election when citizens are at their most volatile.

65. Sweethearts (Jordan Weiss)

The only reason I watched Sweethearts was because of Caleb Hearon. Even though Hearon is the main attraction and steals every scene he’s in, Jordan Weiss wrote and directed a hilarious romantic comedy that tackles the tried and true will they or won’t they narrative. From Hearon making fun of Ohio to Nico Hiraga using a dead kids ID as a fake, I found myself laughing far more than I expected.

64. The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)

Is it safe for me to review The Apprentice? Any time this movie came up in critics discourse, mainly that of dip shit Tik Tokers who love Interstellar, they had a big preface of separating Donald Trump the person from the movie. Silly, yes, but that’s the world we live in. Ali Abbasi uses Sebastian Stan as his vessel to show off the ruthlessness of Donald Trump the real estate mogul pretty effectively, but the focus of this movie was shaky. I almost believe this’d be a better Roy Cohn movie with Trump as an ancillary character. Cohn was an evil dude and Jeremy Strong killed the performance as the closeted lawyer.

63. Problemista (Julio Torres)

There’s a chaotic nature that Julio Torres presents in Problemista that works so well. Some movies become too chaotic for their own good and lose the point. In Problemista, we see Alejandro chase his dream of being a toy designer while working for Elizabeth, played by Tilda Swinton doing a quirky Miranda Priestly impression. There are points where the movie becomes aggressive in the relationship between the two and I could see that driving people away. That only roped me in further.

62. The Boys in the Boat (George Clooney)

I’ve never liked George Clooney the director. I won’t say he’s a hack, but he always plays it too safe. Often times his movies feel derivative of better movies that have come before it. They’re never bad, but his films never leaving a lasting impact. The Boys in the Boat is no different than The Monuments Men or The Midnight Sky or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I will never think of it again. That’s not to bash the performances from Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton which I was fond of, but this is an ordinary underdog sports story.

61. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Mike Mitchell) IN THEATERS

We’re all set after this, right? Growing up, I loved the Kung Fu Panda franchise, so when a new one hit theaters, I knew I needed to see it. Throughout, there are redeeming qualities and we see the same dark horse narrative surrounding Po play out, which is fine, but we’re at a point now where we don’t need to see it any more. I’m not going to throw out a “Is this necessary?“, because I liked parts of it, but if a fifth comes out, that’s the first questions I’ll pose.

60. Dìdi (Sean Wang) IN THEATERS

Growing up I never had a Myspace account. Nor did I ever skateboard in empty parking lots. There’s no doubt that Dìdi is a good movie and had I been a teenager in the mid 2000s, I’m sure I would’ve connected more with Sean Wangs film, but because I just missed the window, it didn’t click for me. Stylistically it’s interesting a represents the time properly, so if you’re of the era, definitely check it out.

59. Ordinary Angels (Jon Gunn) IN THEATERS

Quick story. When I was in high school, my nana needed a kidney transplant. Years and years on dialysis and waiting eventually led to her getting a kidney around Christmas time. A few years later she passed away, but because of that, Ordinary Angels, aka the Christian version of Erin Brokovich hit closer to home for me. Seeing the turmoil a family was going through was heartbreaking, but you do get a true sense of victory when Michelle finally gets the transplant that she needs as the movie closes.

58. I.S.S. (Gabriela Cowperthwaite) IN THEATERS

After I saw I.S.S., I left the theater with positive thoughts about it. I even wrote in my review about it that ‘the script from a dialogue stand point is crisp‘ and I stand by that. I like this movie and feel like I’m heavily in the minority after reading other reviews. Ariana DeBose and Chris Messina made the tension that’s created believable, and despite the cinematography being poor, I thought the idea of this was realistic which is scary.

57. The Roast of Tom Brady (Beth McCarthy-Miller)

As a youth, I’d stay up late to catch the occasional reruns of Comedy Central Roasts. Whether it was Bob Saget, Donald Trump or Charlie Sheen getting lambasted by their peers, it was peak comedy for middle and high school brained me. When newer ones came out like Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin, that humor sort of left. Netflix, shockingly, made me find roasts humorous again with their production of The Roast of Tom Brady and who was picked to be the roasters. Nikki Glaser, Sam Jay and Drew Bledsoe killed and it made up for the uncomfortable and unfunny roasters like Bert Kreischer and Rob Gronkowski.

56. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos) IN THEATERS

Kinds of Kindness is arguably Yorgos Lanthimos’ least accessible film. It’s cold. Very esoteric at points in both the performances and stories being told about greed, lust and the desire to be loved, which is not usual when it comes to narratives like that. More often than not, the stories made me fain interest, but the performances from Hong Chau, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe brought me back in.

55. Alien: Romulus (Fede Álvarez)

I have a lot of issues with Fede Álvarez’s entry into the Alien franchise. Whether it’s using an AI Ian Holm or not giving us enough of the massive xenomorph we briefly see, there issues. There’s also a lot to like in Alien: Romulus. The face huggers are terrifying. Not on the level of the aliens you see in Aliens or Alien: Covenant, but they are scary. And the performances from Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson add levity to the science fiction horror film. It was never going to be on par with the first two films of the franchise, but it’s probably better than Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.

54. Saturday Night (Jason Reitman) IN THEATERS

My criticism earlier about The Long Game was that some true stories in film don’t work because they’re either not interesting or aren’t historically accurate. The concept of Saturday Night is interesting. One of the biggest and most important shows of all time is set to goto air with a disaster 90 minutes prior and it’s utter chaos. Boom, right there I’m hooked. But when I see Lorne Michaels in a bar hiring a writer 15 minutes before air or John Belushi ice skating at an empty Rockefeller Center, I sigh with angst. I don’t believe that happened and that’s just two examples. I did enjoy the score and performances from Dylan O’Brien and Cory Michael Smith, but there’s too much hand holding and too many member-berries to make this a great movie.

53. Monkey Man (Dev Patel) IN THEATERS

A lot of people boiled Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man down to being the Indian John Wick. While it’s very similar in its overarching narrative of a badass revenge action flick, Patel tackles social and economic issues of India in an engaging way that’s enhanced by extremely entertaining and well choreographed fight sequences. Reading stories about production sounds like Patel went through hell to make this and I respect it because this is a killer, C+ action flick.

52. Late Night with the Devil (Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes)

At the start of the year there was a lot of discourse surrounding Late Night with the Devil. It started with people recommending it and calling it a hidden gem, which it is. Then, the discourse turned negative when it was revealed that the Cairnes duo used AI to make some of the graphics for the movie. I get that it’s anti-art to use AI, but I didn’t really care because it didn’t hinder my movie watching experience. David Dastmalchian brings the heat, showing that he should be the lead in more films and all-in-all, the Carines duo killed this tricky concept. They struggled to stick the landing, but with how wild the first 85 minutes is, I’m not sure there is a proper way to make the ending fully make sense.

51. Self Reliance (Jake Johnson)

2024 was huge for actors stepping behind the camera and making their directorial debuts. Dev Patel and Anna Kendrick made tense flicks while Jake Johnson directed a very funny, mystery comedy with Self Reliance. His charisma and comedic delivery alone make this an enjoyable watch, but when you factor in the fun plot of a man being hunted, but only when he’s alone, you create the atmosphere of a solid comedy. I’m excited to see what Jake Johnson directs next.

50. Is Now a Good Time? (Jim Cummings)

Authentic quirkiness in Hollywood is tough to come by. One of the greatest examples of this attribute is Willem Dafoe. He’s not traditionally handsome, but he’s charismatic and unique. Jim Cummings has that same juice. The way he displays rage in The Wolf of Snow Hollow is his spin on it. And the way he delivers awkward jokes in his 2024 short film Is Now a Good Time? only adds to his disposition. It’s a very funny concept that’s also bleak because it just shows how flippant mega corporations are when it comes to normal people. A pretty brilliant short that’s worth giving 12 minutes of your time to.

49. Cuckoo (Tilman Singer)

Another solid entry into the horror genre this year was Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo. Starring Hunter Schaffer, who is giving her career best performance, Singer builds tension in two ways. He makes you feel a sense of longing with subtle dread when Schaffer leaves voicemails for her mother and then builds further tension in the sense of mystery surrounding this small German community. There’s a shadowy figure on the prowl, high pitched shrieks and puking for unknown reasons. On top of all of that, you’re given a good payoff of why this German alps community is as seedy as it appears.

48. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)

Love Lies Bleeding from director Rose Glass will probably be a movie that pops up in a lot of peoples top ten lists this year. While I liked it, it’s heavily flawed. For starters, the unapologetically horny nature should’ve maybe apologized at some points. I’m no prude and I’m all for uncomfortable situations, but in some instances, the horny relationship between Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian just becomes too overwhelming for a movie that has a great style and radiates Cronenberg vibes. People like it for a reason, I’m just not in the camp of those gushing over it.

47. Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary (Garret Price)

I wish my family had a boat. Not because I enjoy the idea of anchoring near a quaint beach and basking in the sun. Honestly, I hate the beach. Sand sucks and I always think I’m tougher than the sun and wind up losing that battle. I wish my family had a boat so I could enjoy the glorious genre of yacht rock where it’s meant to be enjoyed. In Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary, I thoroughly enjoyed the interviews with Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald and Christopher Cross. There was great insight on the genre came to be, I was just puzzled on why Mac DeMarco, Fred Armisen and Thundercat were interviewed. They didn’t add any insight or depth.

46. Turtles All the Way Down (Hannah Marks)

Turtles All the Way Down was a movie that many people didn’t have a beat on this year. It flew under the radar and the only reason I watched it was due to my girlfriends recommendation. Hannah Marks hones in on the well represented coming-of-age, mental health genre by tacking anxiety and OCD in a way that isn’t trad. We don’t see Isabela Merced need to just fix her bed or line up her silverware. We see the nitty gritty of the disorder and how not washing her hands sends her spiraling. What makes this a good, not great movie is that it never “goes there“. By that I mean that doesn’t have a massive crescendo like Perks of Being A Wallflower or Little Miss Sunshine has.

45. Dan Soder: On the Road (Mike Lavin)

Recently, my dad started watching the show Billions. Walking through the living room one day, I saw Dan Soder on screen in a serious role. I couldn’t help but laugh because he’s a very funny comic, but he does kill it in the show. All of the leads to me saying that I watched his latest special, Dan Soder: On the Road and I enjoyed it. His jokes aren’t on topics out of the ordinary (Tik Tok, sex, etc.) and he’s not looking for a cheap laugh. Soder constructs good jokes with hilarious payoffs. Not much more you can ask for.

44. Society of the Snow (J. A. Bayona)

J. A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow isn’t for the faint of heart. In his telling of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, Bayona doesn’t beat around the bush and shows the grim reality the passengers who survived the crash endured. From cannibalism to nearly freezing to death to a complete loss of hope, you will feel gutted watching this from your couch in your heated living room while eating Doritos. Past being grim, it’s a great film about leadership. In the spring, I took a leadership course and my group and I did our final project about this movie. Seeing how some of these young athletes stood up to instill hope in a dwindling group is inspiring.

43. Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

You won’t find a movie in 2024 with bigger plot holes in it than M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. You also would be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable movie than Trap, and it’s mainly due to the clinic that Josh Hartnett, who’s looking handsome as ever, is putting on. His over the top facial expressions and punchy delivery of every line makes you forget about the flagrant missteps that Shyamalan wrote and directed. Shyamalan’s most egregious move was casting his daughter Saleka as Lady Raven. A cardboard box is a better actress than she is.

42. Between the Temples (Nathan Silver) IN THEATERS

We live in a time where many actors can’t chameleon themselves in a role. Many are one trick ponies with minimal talent. That’s not the case with Jason Schwartzman. He once again is having a great year with Megalopolis and Queer, but he lets his awkward comedy style shine in Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples. Centering on an unsuccessful widower who teaches at his local temple and ends up befriending a 70 year old woman looking to have her bat mitzvah, we get a touching film about two souls connecting in the funniest way possible.

41. Gladiator II (Ridley Scott) IN THEATERS

Filled with fan service, the sequel to Best Picture winning Gladiator is fine. I won’t sit here and act like seeing sharks in the colosseum or gladiators fighting monkeys didn’t fire me up, but there is a hollow element that Scott’s recent historical epics have contained. A lot of the time Gladiator II felt rushed and I thought Paul Mescal didn’t have the juice that Russell Crowe had. But then again, Denzel Washington killed it and the battle scenes kicked ass. I’m no fraud. I enjoyed Gladiator II, but I can acknowledge that it has many flaws.

40. Thelma (Josh Margolin)

A tired trope in film is young, fit men starring in revenge flicks. Josh Margolin and June Squibb found the next winning formula for a revenge film with light action where you put an old woman who’s scorned on a war path as she tries to make the point that she won’t be walked on. June Squibb is a darling actress with sweet individuality and the supporting cast of Fred Hechinger and Richard Roundtree only make Thelma more charming.

39. We Live in Time (John Crowley) IN THEATERS

I’m going to be pressing charges against John Crowley for assault. He assaulted me for the whole 108 minute runtime of We Live in Time with a dagger to heart time and time again. Told in a somewhat non-linear format, Crowley builds up a beautiful, young love between Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Like many relationships, theres is bumpy. The question of having kids is pondered and the crossroads of prioritizing your career of your family is faced. Ultimately, Crowley kicks you down one final time when Pugh’s character is diagnosed with cancer. While the film does make you cry, it also makes you laugh with one of the funniest scenes of 2024 when Pugh gives birth in a gas station bathroom.

38. Longlegs (Osgood Perkins)

In recent years studios have struggled to market their films. A few that standout as masterclasses on creating a marketing campaign are Barbie or Dune: Part Two. Another entry is Longlegs. It almost did too good of a job because the marketing campaign positioned it as a modern day Silence of the Lambs with a gorier villain. You didn’t really get that. What you got was a B-, entertaining thriller that underutilized Nic Cage, who was operating at a level four tiers above anyone else in this movie. On top of that, I thought Maika Monroe was a bit of a dud as the lead detective. If you want to compare it to Silence of the Lambs, she lacks the depth that Foster had in that film and her ability to work as a great detective felt like an easy workaround rather than a well thought out plot point.

37. Land of Bad (William Eubank)

Did William Eubank make Land of Bad for every dad across America? The tightly choreographed action coupled with actors who every dad probably knows and is able to point out, like Russell Crowe and Liam Hemsworth, makes for one of the years best action thrillers. Sort of like the 2021 film The Guilty, we get an interesting dynamic of Hemsworth’s character never coming face-to-face with Russell Crowe as they communicated with one another from across the globe. Them not being able to physically help each other just makes the mission even tenser and the movie more enjoyable.

36. Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)

The art form of slapstick comedy is dead. Or at least I thought it was dead until I saw Mike Cheslik’s Hundreds of Beavers. His usage of the classic slapstick humor translates nicely in this black and white, silent picture about a drunken applejack salesman who has to defeat hundreds of beavers to become the greatest fur trapper in North America. We live in a day and age where an original idea is difficult to come by and Hundreds of Beavers is a beacon of hope.

35. Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung) IN THEATERS

Earlier in the blog, I mentioned that 2024 was a year where indie directors were given big budgets in established IPs. For Michael Sarnoski with the A Quiet Place franchise, he fell flat. I thought the opposite about Lee Isaac Chung directing Twisters, a legacy sequel to Twister. Fan service wise, it gives you everything you want. Grand tornados leading to epic disaster? Check. A charismatic and handsome male lead? Check. A pretty and smart love interest? You bet. It had the makings of a summer blockbuster and despite some stagnant lulls and iffy dialogue, that’s what it was.

34. Adam Sandler: Love You (Josh Safdie)

When you watch Good Time or Uncut Gems, both from the Safdie brothers, you feel boxed in. It’s sort of like you’re having a heart attack due to intense claustrophobia. Somehow Josh Safdie made the first fifteen minutes of this latest special from Adam Sandler have that same feeling due to how much is happening all at once. From dealing with assistants, memorabilia whores, and everyone in between, you feel like you’re being bounced around an aggressive pinball machine. It’s brilliant. On top of that, Sandler kills. He’s not my favorite standup comedian, but this special rocked.

33. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (Kevin Costner)

There are a lot of words you could use to describe Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. Messy. Gritty. Bleak. Eccentric. Wild. Whatever word you use is probably the correct response. The only wrong response is calling this a bad movie. It definitely goes on for too long, but every storyline being set up to intertwine with each other made me wish I was on the frontier in the late 1800s. Thankfully I’m not actually on the frontier getting scalped, robbed and killed. I instead get to live vicariously through Kevin Costner and Red Dead Redemption 2.

32. Civil War (Alex Garland) IN THEATERS

The whole time that I was watching Civil War, I was struggling with my thoughts about it. I hate journalists. More importantly, I hate self important journalists and wouldn’t care if they were taken out ~~Pavel Sheremet~~ Ace Rothstein style. With Garland’s recent film making journalists the hero of the movie, I didn’t want to enjoy this, but the idea of a civil war breaking out and journalists going into the heart of the danger fired me up. Kirsten Dunst is very good. Wagner Moura is very bad. And Jesse Plemons is terrifying.

31. Anthony Jeselnik: Bones and All (Bill Benz)

When I wrote about The Roast of Tom Brady earlier, I mentioned how roasts were my first real introduction to comedy. In the process of watching roasts, I latched onto comedian Anthony Jeslnik and became a huge fan. I watched every episode of his short lived talk show The Jeselnik Offensive and listened to all of his specials. In Anthony Jeselnik: Bones and All, he plays the hits. We get jokes about killing babies, abusing women, suicide and stupid people in Jeselnik’s life. While some comedians who don’t deviate from their bit, like Bert Kreischer, can get stale, Jeselnik proves he still has his fastball.

30. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Guy Ritchie) IN THEATERS

Traditionally Guy Ritchie movies are fun. Movies about a rogue gang of soldiers in the war are usually fun. When you slap the two together, you get a high flying, nonstop action filled flick titled The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Whether it’s ~~Thad Castle~~ Alan Ritchson wielding a bow and arrow or Henry Cavill leading this cavalier group in an attempt to knockout a Nazi U-boat, you’ll be entertained. God knows I was kicking my feet with glee when I saw this in theaters.

29. Milk & Serial (Curry Barker)

College classmates turned collaborators, Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson directed the second best horror short film of 2024 and it’s very good. It’s very, very good. For 62 minutes, the duo boxes you into a prank war between roommates that goes too far in a chance to chase fame and see who the real comedic genius is amongst the two. I’d love to go more in depth, but because it’s only an hour long, I think you need to experience the twists and turns they serve up. I believe you can find it on YouTube.

28. Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick)

The third big name actor to step behind the camera for the first time this year is Anna Kendrick, who out of herself, Jake Johnson and Dev Patel, made the most compelling film. Based on the true story of Rodney Alcala, Kendrick teleports the audience to 1970s Los Angeles and shows us how close a killer can get to you when they have some charm. The whole time I was on the edge of my seat as she does an awesome job as and actress and director building suspense. Woman of the Hour only makes me more excited to see what Anna Kendrick will do next.

27. The Piano Lesson (Malcolm Washington)

In college I took an American theater course and we spent some time in August Wilson’s world, mainly looking at Fences and Jitney. His writing centers heavily on African American family dynamics and the tension between one another. The Piano Lesson focuses on the same point along with a spiritual flare that I enjoyed. Despite Malcolm Washington’s direction not being anything spectacular, the performances go over the top to drive home the crux of family heirlooms. John David Washington and Samuel L. Jackson are the two that standout as ones that I thought about most after my viewing of the film.

26. Conclave (Edward Berger) IN THEATERS

One of the Best Picture front runners this awards cycle is Edward Berger’s Conclave. Blending mystery, drama and black comedy together, along with good, not great, performances from Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow and Sergio Castellitto. It has the feeling of a great political thriller, remnant of All The Presidents Men or The Day of the Jackal, but lacks the sauce and juice that those films have. For that reason, it’s good, not great. Nevertheless, it’s one of the better films of the year and definitely worth a viewing.

25. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball) IN THEATERS

Wes Ball’s entry into the modern day Planet of the Apes saga wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was entertaining. The modern trilogy, directed by Rupert Wyatt and Matt Reeves, is one of, if not my favorite trilogy of the 21st century. When I learned that another film, a prequel would be created, I was skeptical. While Ball doesn’t do anything inherently new, he follows the format of having an underdog crew of apes and a ruthless villain pitted against one another. Boom, you’ve got an enjoyable Planet of the Apes film.

24. Anora (Sean Baker) IN THEATERS

Anora is easily Sean Baker’s most accessible film from his filmography. With that being said, he still puts the audience in uncomfortable and heart wrenching situations. Seeing Anora have a glimmer of hope to escape her sad lifestyle was sweet. But when it’s quickly pulled away from her with ease and you see her start to understand that she’ll have to go back to her old, you become absorbed my melancholy. I realize I have this ranked a lot lower than most people who have seen it this year, and by doing that I’m not disparaging the performance from Mikey Madison, who will probably win Best Actress, or tearing down Sean Baker’s storytelling. There are simply movies from this year I liked better.

23. The Greatest Night in Pop (Bao Nguyen)

If you know a lot about this topic, this documentary probably won’t do much for you. For me personally, I only knew the legend of the recording of We Are the World. Packing over thirty of the biggest stars in music in one room, from Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan to Huey Lewis, and making the most well known benefit songs ever is an insane feat. I enjoyed seeing these huge personalities and egos play off one another, but one question remains. Why was Dan Aykroyd in We Are the World?

22. Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah) IN THEATERS

I’ve never loved the Bad Boys franchise of films. Growing up they were never my cup of tea. This year for my birthday, not much was playing in theaters so myself, my parents and girlfriend went to see Bad Boys: Ride or Die. It was a true delight. The action sequences paired with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s comedic chemistry was great. Obviously it gets a tad over the top in parts, but if you like action movies, especially ones with Michael Bay’s influence, you want that over the top element.

21. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

A reason why people often love a movie is because they romanticize it. Me personally, I’ve romanticized playing college baseball in the 1980s because of Everybody Wants Some!! or being a rock journalist because of Almost Famous. Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera made me romanticize the idea of becoming an Italian treasure hunter who dresses fly as shit, smokes cigs and runs from the authorities with my treasure hunting pals. Part of that is because of how great Josh O’Connor plays the role of Arthur. Another part of it is due to the high it seems like this crew got from chasing something. It’d be easy to call La Chimera the modern day Indiana Jones, but saying that strips away the identity Rohrwacher built for this film.

20. Carry-On (Jaume Collet-Serra)

A pleasant, sneaky surprise this year was Jaume Collet-Serra’s Carry-On. Collet-Serra pits Jason Bateman and Taron Egerton against each other in a sleek cat and mouse game taking place at LAX on Christmas Eve. With needle drops like Santa Claus is Coming to Town or even Last Christmas, which hits in the midst of a huge action sequence, you get the feeling that you’re watching a movie that’ll be in your Christmas movie watching rotation for years to come.

19. Memoir Of A Snail (Adam Elliot)

Adam Elliot, a master of stop motion techniques, strikes again with his recent feature, Memoir Of A Snail. While his stop motion characters are a spectacle alone, the dialogue he writes hurts. He drops lines that resonate with you and will stick with you for the rest of your life. The one that punched me the hardest in Memoir Of A Snail was “Childhood is the best season; it’s not long, but everyone deserves one.” Crushing. Different from Max and Mary, Memoir Of A Snail touches on taboo subjects of homosexuality in moron culture and adipophilia. Two things that I never thought I’d see in an Elliot film, but he presents them in a way that makes you deal with it head on. He doesn’t want these topics to be digestible. He wants it to marinate in your mind.

18. Nosferatu (Robert Eggers) IN THEATERS

Certain directors own have a masterful grip on genres and themes. Scorsese is in that category for mob flicks and Denis Villenueve is the same when it comes to sci-fi. If you want to watch a scary, gothic drama then look no further than Robert Eggers. Eggers’ whole career has led to the point of him making Nosferatu and it was worth the time and hard work. His all star cast of Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård (who is sporting a twisted voice as Count Orlok), Nicholas Hoult, Willem Dafoe and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are all working double time in their paranoid performances. That along with the way Eggers shot Nosferatu fully transports you into the 1800s German alps. Horror fans were big winners this year, this being the biggest win of them all.

17. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)

If I ever see David Zaslav, it’s over for him (JOKING, OBVIOUSLY). Not giving Juror #2, the potential last film from Clint Eastwood, a wide release is a crime. Despite not being an avant-garde take on the court room drama, he assembled a cast of actors with great chemistry and let them goto work. Whether it’s J.K. Simmons prodding at Nicholas Hoult or Toni Collette and Chris Messina passive aggressively talking with one another, it’s great. Some people pointed out that it’s a little too on the nose in part, and I do agree, but c’mon, Eastwood’s 94 years old and still making B/B+ level movies. If he wants to do some minor hand holding, I’ll allow it.

16. Hit Man (Richard Linklater)

I’d do battle with anyone and say that Richard Linklater is the best director of the last thirty years. While Hit Man isn’t a legacy defining picture, it’s a nice addition to the argument. In typical Linklater fashion, he uses a charismatic male that he’s worked with before as his lead and sticks him with a tight and witty script and a beautiful female co-star. And similar to other Linklater films, the two leads, Glen Powell and Adria Arjona have great chemistry. I adored the playful tone of Hit Man along with the performances, especially from Austin Amelio who gets a real shot to shine. In my overall Linklater ranking, it’s closer to 10 than 1, but it’s undoubtedly worth a watch.

15. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg) IN THEATERS

Aaron Schimberg wants you to feel a lot of emotions when watching A Different Man. At times he wants you laugh hysterically and in other parts he’s trying to draw out sympathy. Over the 112 minutes of him blending black comedy, body horror and romance, he conveys the over arching message of the grass isn’t always greener. Leading up to seeing A Different Man in theaters, I heard a lot about Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve. Of course, like they always are, those two were great. However the real star was Adam Pearson. He’s charisma personified in a role that requires him to be outgoing and unique. Also, there’s a Michael Shannon heat check in this and that fired me up even more.

14. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)

Over 2024, I dove into the filmography of multiple directors from James Cameron to Paul Schrader. One of those directors was Jeremy Saulnier and it started with his rendition of First Blood. Rebel Ridge starring Aaron Pierre, who is a true rising star, is a story of why you don’t push the mysterious. We see Don Johnson and the other officers of this small town mess with a man just trying to free his cousin and the consequences are dire for them. A lot like some of Saulnier’s earlier films (Green Room, Blue Ruin) he takes a remote area of America and makes it seedy. That seediness builds tension along with using a mysterious and bad ass character as the vessel for that pressure. A classic in the building of a great filmography for Jeremy Saulnier.

13. Rap World (Danny Scharar, Conner O’Malley)

2024 has been a great year for Conner O’Malley fans. The eccentric comedian was apart of four of my top fifteen favorite projects of 2024. The first being his mock-umentary Rap World. Remnant of the 1999 documentary American Movie, when you’re watching Rap World, you initially want to laugh. Then you realize the bleak tone of being blinded by unattainable dreams. O’Malley, while being a master of making you laugh, does find a way to tap into your emotions and make you feel for who is at the center of what he’s making.

12. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino) IN THEATERS

Luca Guadagnino had a year that Mike Breen would celebrate. Challengers, BANG! Queer, BANG! His first release of 2024 was the high energy love triangle in the world of professional tennis, Challengers, starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor. Where this movie works is that it focuses on an intimate sport. This would not have worked if it was a sport with a similar tone about basketball or soccer. Tennis being a sport so erotic and personal between to two competing only intensifies when the two individuals duking it out on the court are also battling for the heart of a manipulative woman.

11. Coreys (Dan Streit)

In a normal year, Curry Barker’s Milk & Serial would be the undisputed best horror short to come out. 2024 isn’t a normal year because Conner O’Malley partnered with Dan Streit to make a hilariously sinister short with fantastic body horror elements. For 12 minutes, Conner O’Malley, who is playing multiple men named Corey drives himself insane trying to party and get to the bottom of the Corey mystery. Available on YouTube (I think), I recommend giving it a watch.

10. Stand Up Solutions (Harris Mayersohn)

Back-to-back Conner O’Malley. Not to reference Mike Breen again, but… BANG, BANG! O’Malley delivers one of the most formative physical comedy performances from any standup comedian I’ve ever seen and it makes you think that maybe being a comedian is beneath O’Malley. He could be making way more money as a megachurch pastor in Texas or Oklahoma than he is in comedy. The only reason that this isn’t higher is because there wasn’t a warning label at the start. I’ve currently emptied my savings account donating to Standup Solutions and Richard Eagleton is fucking my wife.

9. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller) IN THEATERS

“Do you have it in you to make it epic?” That’s the question posed by Dementus and George Miller took it upon himself to answer and make an epic, balls to the wall, high octane action film set in the Mad Max desert. Anya Taylor-Joy is obviously awesome, but what continued to engage me was Chris Hemsworth giving his career best performance as an absolute sicko. All throughout Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, there are scenes that you just say hell yeah. Whether it’s the water trucks being attacked or Furiosa bating Dementus, you want to keep coming back for more.

8. The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols) IN THEATERS

Jeff Nichols, a director that I’m very fond of, makes his rendition of Goodfellas with The Bikeriders. Instead of making Sunday gravy and congregating at the Copa, the members of the Vandals motorcycle club brawl in the mud and kick back at their bar. At its core, much like Goodfellas, this is a movie about the deterioration of men who never fully intended on living fast and dying young. What started as a something fun, turns quickly into a congregation of drugs, murder and prostitution. While it doesn’t have the soul of a movie like Goodfellas, it has a midwestern flare and mystique that you can easily bask in.

7. Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar) IN THEATERS

A24 failed Sing Sing. They failed audiences who clamored for Sing Sing and they failed Greg Kwedar, Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin, who should be contenders for major awards with the way they rolled this film out. Sing Sing is a heartfelt look at the inmates in prison who channel their emotions towards the greater good of acting. It’s somber tone translates to a beautiful message about the human condition. The scene that stabbed me like an ice pick to the heart was when the inmates spoke about picturing the perfect place and Sean Dino Johnson told the story of laying in his lawn after cutting the grass and having his dog lick his face. That made me weep.

6. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve) IN THEATERS

What more can be said about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two? When I first saw it in theaters, it felt like I was witnessing a historical moment in film. In a rewatch, I scaled back on that take as it’s not Oppenheimer or The Godfather, but it is a Blade Runner or Return of the Jedi level movie, so maybe it is historic. Cinematographer Greig Fraser makes this look unlike any film you’ve seen prior and the choreographed action centering around Timothee Chalamet, Austin Butler, Zendaya and Javier Bardem fails to disappoint. There are certain movies I think about like Apocalypse Now or The Revenant that should always be playing in theaters. Dune: Part Two is one of those movies.

5. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders) IN THEATERS

Wim Wenders, the director of Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, creates a guide to simplistic living in Perfect Days. Each day we see Hirayama wake up, work, eat and enjoy life’s simple pleasures, like listening to a great soundtrack consisting of The Kinks, Otis Redding, The Velvet Underground and Nina Simone. What Perfect Days makes you do is reflect on yourself. It’s a moving exploration about taking pride in what you do and appreciating what you have. Koji Yakusho is fantastic, but what makes it is the soundtrack, which I’ve already gushed about prior, but it really elevates Perfect Days.

4. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun) IN THEATERS

The film that surprised me the most from 2024 was Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow. Schoenbrun does a great job touching on topics of depression, anxiety, gender identity and obsession in their quirky horror film that’s complimented by its neon coloring. While Schoenbrun tackles these topics, they do an awesome job not making them blatantly obvious. You understand that Owen and Maddy are struggling in their own way, but they don’t really discuss it. They use The Pink Opaque as an outlet to channel these struggles, but it takes them on different paths. My final thought is the songs created for his film, Claw Machine by Sloppy Jane and Phoebe Bridgers in particular, made this one of the most enjoyable films of 2024.

3. Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt) IN THEATERS

Up until the final two months of 2024, Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap held my top spot. The biopic about the rebellious Irish hip-hop group from West Belfast does something unique that not many other biopics have ever done. Peppiatt used the real members from Kneecap to play themselves and it works. Who better to depict the story of a hip-hop group pushing back against the government then the three guys who actually did it? Along with the casting, the upbeat tempo and graphics inserted felt like one big trip on the acid that Móglaí Bap had to hide from the police at the start of the film. Also, one final thought, a lot like where Michael Shannon pops up in A Different Man, I got pumped when I saw Michael Fassbender. He makes anything he’s in a little bit better.

2. A Complete Unknown (James Mangold) IN THEATERS

Despite making good films over his career like Logan and Ford v Ferrari, I do think that part of James Mangold was stilled haunted by the reception of Walk The Line and the release and love for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. A Complete Unknown was Mangold’s shot at redemption and he made one of the best music biopics of all time. He’s able to capture the stoic awkwardness and rebellious nature of Bob Dylan in the 1960s along with the cultural impact that he had on not just music, but on social issues. It can’t be said enough, but Timothee Chalamet should win Best Actor for his performance and it should be acknowledged that Boyd Holbrook kills it as Johnny Cash. When I saw this in theaters, I think I started levitating during his 1965 Newport Folk Festival set.

1. Queer (Luca Guadagnino) IN THEATERS

It’s been a long wait, but without further ado, my number one movie of 2024 is Luca Guadgnino’s Queer. It’s a film that’s so bleak, yet also beautiful. We see two souls that are passing each other, one desperately longing for love and another grappling with his identity. For a time, they find what they’re looking for in one another, but they seemingly know it can’t last. It’s heartbreaking. Daniel Craig gives the best performance of his career and should win Best Actor. Drew Starkey is stellar and Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor craft an elegantly fitting score for the film. I’d be remised if I didn’t also compliment Guadagnino who took a tremendous William S. Burroughs novel and adapted it in the way it was meant to adapted: a psychedelic voyage about the hardships of life and love.

Here’s the full list on Letterboxd of every 2024 release I watched this year: CLICK HERE! I wasn’t going to give you the list at the top because what would be the point of you reading the blog? I’ll see you in 2025!