
1. Grand Theft Hamlet
“You can’t stop the production just because somebody dies.” So says Pinny Grylls, co-director of the singular documentary Grand Theft Hamlet during rehearsals for one of the most peculiar Shakespearean adaptations ever attempted — specifically, a staging of the classic tragedy within a video game during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by her out of work actor friends Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen. Their quixotic plan is hampered by the fact that most of the other human players and automated non-player characters (NPCs) in the GTA space are literally and virtually gunning for them — but over time, they make contact with random strangers willing to join their merry band (including a big-bottomed extraterrestrial operated by a foul-mouthed Muslim who suddenly pops up to audition with a beautifully somber recital from the Qur’an). This moving, endlessly entertaining tribute to the irreplaceable humanity of NON-artificial intelligence is powered by similar memorable moments (including soliloquies performed atop blimps and limousines) in a breathtakingly unique film unlike any other released in 2024.

2. Anora
Arguably the most jaw-dropping, can’t-look-away half hour of the year (not involving a war rig) features nothing more than a young private dancer fighting off three men in an increasingly unhinged and violent battle when the latter attempt to invalidate the former’s quickie Vegas marriage to a bratty nepo baby at the behest of his overseas parents. But what really makes the sequence (and the rest of the movie) so fun and relatable is writer/director Sean Baker’s clear empathy for every (non-oligarch) working stiff character in a comedy of errors that leaves more than a few psychic and physical bruises.

3. The Road to Ruane
Directors Scott Evans and Michael Gillen pack 10+ years of Boston music history into 102 minutes of tributes and tall tales about a larger-than-life bon vivant named Billy who used his wealth and indomitable enthusiasm to support local artists simply because he loved their talent (to the point that he transformed a Middle Eastern restaurant into an iconic rock venue just so they’d have a place to play). Featuring interviews with everyone from Evan Dando, Kay Hanley, and J. Mascis to Mary Lou Lord (giving her side of an infamous story about the Courtney Love-enraging night she spent with Kurt Cobain), The Road to Ruane is a funny, sad, jaw-dropping, and ultimately inspiring tale about the amazing things that can happen when rich people actually fund art and then get the hell out of the way.

4. Kneecap
Speaking of strange but true pop culture fables, writer/director Rich Peppiatt cast the charismatic members of his film’s eponymous Irish hip-hop trio as themselves (including J.J. Ó Dochartaigh, who initially hid his face behind a balaclava onstage to avoid getting fired from his job as a public school teacher) in a semi-fictionalized version of their post-Troubles rags-to-riches journey to international (quasi) fame — and somehow the whole crazy contraption works better than any number of bloated Hollywood musician biopics (complete with a mostly Gaelic fight-the-power soundtrack to keep your toes tapping and fists pumping throughout).

5. Conclave
The type of tense, smart, well-written, character-driven movie by and for adults that Hollywood forgot how to make somewhere between the third Star Wars trilogy and Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Conclave (based on a Robert Harris novel) is a timely chamber piece about politics, religion, and the purpose of power. Featuring lots of cool details about the mysterious inner workings of the Vatican and a murderers’ row of world class actors, the pope election plot is packed with more twists and turns (and a more logical, satisfying outcome) than the 2024 U.S. presidential race.

6. Hundreds of Beavers
Though it debuted at Fantastic Fest in 2022, Mike Cheslik’s marvel of low-budget filmmaking landed on multiple Best of 2024 lists this year after finally earning a VOD and limited theatrical release — and the fact that a movie this wildly entertaining wasn’t snapped up sooner and promoted more widely by the overpaid gatekeepers in charge of entertainment says a lot about the current state of the arts in America. Like a live action Looney Tune crossed with a mashup of Spielberg and Super Mario action sequence (or, for deep geek cineastes, like the child of Dead Man and Forbidden Zone), this mostly silent tale of a frontier booze enthusiast learning to become a master trapper is a hoot and a half and a lovely reminder of the days when independent films weren’t just slightly cheaper Hollywood star vehicles.

7. The Greatest Night in Pop
“We Are the World” may not have been the best song to emerge from the golden age of all-star charity jams, yet Bao Nguyen’s behind-the-scenes documentary about the night the track came together clearly shows that (most of) the participants at least had their hearts in the right place. The race-against-time mission to corral dozens of pop stars (and, for some reason, Dan Ackroyd) into a marathon recording session provides a strong overarching narrative arc that yields countless charming moments (like Stevie Wonder coaxing Bob Dylan through a moment of performance anxiety when it was finally time for the latter’s solo) as well as a warm burst of nostalgia for anyone glued to MTV back in the day.

8. Woman of the Hour
In 1978, a serial killer named Rodney Alcala was selected as the winning bachelor on an episode of the romantic reality show The Dating Game. However, while that strange-but-true premise supplies Woman of the Hour with its hook and seventies color palette, director/star Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut memorable (and haunting) by shifting the focus from the killer to the stories of the victims he silenced and the ones who managed to survive their encounters with him.

9. A Real Pain
Sometimes a movie scores simply by doing exactly what’s expected of it extremely well. For instance, director/star Jesse Eisenberg casting himself as an uptight nebbish is hardly a stretch, nor is it shocking to see Kieran Culkin play a charismatic asshole. Nevertheless, their chemistry as cousins traveling to Poland in search of the home of their late grandmother is palpable in a brisk, funny road trip that fires on all cylinders throughout thanks to sharp dialogue and authentic observations about processing pain and interpersonal dynamics.

10. Yacht Rock: A Documentary
There were other well-crafted films in 2024 but few could match the feel-good bona fides of this deep dive into the subgenre identified and popularized by a cult classic web series devoted to the power of smooth. Garret Price’s “dockumentary” pays homage to the history of the studio musicians and Steely Dan alumni who created the sound as well as yacht rock’s impact on everything from emo to hip-hop as a space where men could own up to their insecurities and foolishness backed by killer hooks and beats (with bonus points for a hit parade of great anecdotes like Michael McDonald’s story about watching SCTV on acid).
Wildcards (potentially list-worthy movies as yet unseen by moi: Wicked, Super/Man, The Wild Robot, Furiosa, I Saw the TV Glow, Sasquatch Sunset
Honorable Mention: We Can Be Heroes, Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter, Problemista, Freaknik, Late Night With The Devil, Remembering Gene Wilder, Babes, Thelma, Between the Temples, The Substance, Heretic, My Old Ass, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, Nosferatu, and Robot Dreams (which I only just realized was officially released in 2024 though it was nominated for an Oscar last year)
Notable 2024 Moments: Isabella Rosselini putting the cardinals in their place with a curtsy in Conclave, the Woman of the Hour parking lot scene, the evergreen joy of Nicolas Cage’s eternal weirdness in Longlegs, the animated ’80s fashion and endless Easter eggs of Robot Dreams, the Notes scam in Hit Man, the perils of falling down and all things Squibb in Thelma, the O’Hara/Ryder mother/Goth bonding in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Demi Moore’s first transformation and pre-date self-loathing in The Substance, Marilyn Busch in Salem’s Lot, the Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point firetruck parade, Lily Rose-Depp’s evil spirit contortions and the Transylvanian village scenes in Nosferatu.
Most Disappointing: Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos’s previous masterpiece Poor Things was a brilliant surrealist fantasia grounded in recognizable human behavior and real world themes of female empowerment. But when everything’s weird in a movie, then nothing is weird…just kinda boring.