Yesterday we counted down fourteen of the great movies of last year. Now onto the Top Ten!
10. All We Imagine as Light -written and directed by Payal Kapadia
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Sometimes a movie that seems incidental just hits you in the right way. All We Imagine as Light did that for me, and I expect I'm not the only one given its long list of accolades. But there is a shrewd power and radical streak to Payal Kapadia's deceptively mild film about the lives and struggles faced by three working-class women in Mumbai, each dealing with obligations or obstacles socially imposed on them, and each ultimately defying them in admittedly small but meaningfully symbolic ways. Kapadia illustrates well the sense of cultural isolation they experience as Malayali women in the melting pot of Mumbai, in a way that translates to those of us non-Indians not versed in its nuances. And she shoots the film in a fluid, documentary-like fashion that nonetheless makes room for moments of stark visual poetry, radiating warm light on critical scenes at a park or a shore-line or honing in on the sensual intimacy of a pair of young lovers. Each actress is strikingly real, but Kani Kusruti especially delivers a performance of such subtle, aching vulnerability that it is nigh impossible not to adore her. A resplendent movie, brave in its convictions as it touches your soul.
All We Imagine as Light is not currently available in a digital format.
9. Challengers -written by Justin Kuritzkes, directed by Luca Guadagnino
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2024 was the year of Luca Guadagnino, and while his admirable Burroughs adaptation may have slipped under the radar, his more interesting movie thankfully did not. The Y Tu Mama Tambien of the 2020s, Challengers is a movie driven by erotic subtext and compelling sexual power plays as it applies the sport of tennis, its fierceness and repetition, to the hyper-competitive relationship between three people whose obsession with the game is only matched by their obsession with each other. Zendaya is at the centre of it, flexing her star power in concert with her character's manipulative streak, while Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor -each excellent- duel over her, the simmering tension between themselves an undercurrent of their every scene together. It is the most fun kind of messy dynamic to see play out, excitingly unpredictable in the drama that comes of their strangely symbiotic connection -always with Zendaya's Tashi in control, much as it may dismay her. Guadagnino shoots the movie with a precision befitting the sport, and a vivid sensuality set to an intense score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. An unexpected blockbuster that is fresh and thrilling, even in the tennis matches; sexy and entertaining in ways so few movies dare to be.
Challengers is available to stream on Amazon Prime, available to rent on VOD.
8. Sing Sing -written by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, directed by Greg Kwedar
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The transformative power of art can be a difficult thing to believe in sometimes. And then a movie like Sing Sing comes along and demonstrates in a profound and literal way its legitimacy. A magnetic docu-fiction featuring a cast largely comprised of veterans of the very program it highlights, this movie about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts initiative at Sing Sing penitentiary is like a potent rush of measured glee, emanating from its enthralled players the joy and expressive fulfillment of performance like nothing else I've seen. It is a quintessential "feel good" flick with all the formula that entails, but its secret ingredient is the tangibility of its virtues -most emphatically represented in Clarence Maclin, playing a variation of himself -the jail-yard heavy who is fundamentally changed by opening himself up to acting, not just as an entertaining activity but a healing, psychological exercise. Colman Domingo as the exuberant leader of the pack, masking his insecurity and the pang of incarceration through his steadfast commitment to the program is sensational as well. The evolution of these characters and their impact on one another makes for a beautiful thing to behold. And Greg Kwedar's immersive filmmaking, especially during scenes of retreat and rehearsal, is mesmerizing. An earnestly inspirational movie capable of a real impact.
Sing Sing is available to rent on VOD.
7. The Beast -written and directed by Bertrand Bonello
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The loss of love is a terrifying concept, and it is at the radical core of Bertrand Bonello's The Beast. Derived from the architecture of the famous Henry James novel, it conceives a dismal future of human 'purification' of emotions alongside the story of two souls across more than a century longing for each other. It is a heady movie, considering human emotions in a primal way and the dichotomy of desire and fear that their strength can arise to. A desperation for emotional connection is at the root of these characters' motivations, and yet its attainment is always out of reach. It is an existential tragedy that, for its often low-fi nature is bursting at the seams with raw passion, the repression between Léa Seydoux and George MacKay, each of whom are astounding in subtext, is deeply empathetic. Their evolving dynamic is grafted onto a few contexts, by counts curious and bold: a 1910s Parisian social manners drama that gives way to a present-day stalker thriller set in Beverly Hills, and yet the abiding themes remain intact. And Bonello articulates these with thrilling creative vision and applicable reverence. A provocative enigma of a tragic love story speaking to the truth and elemental value of our feelings as perhaps no other movie has.
The Beast is available to rent on VOD.
6. No Other Land -written and directed by Basal Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor
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As the future for the Palestinian people continues to look bleak, and as the importance of generating global support and empathy grows only more essential, No Other Land will become more vital a document of apartheid, stirring and infuriating as it is. United by a desire to end the decades-long regime of oppression Israel has imposed on a functionally incarcerated people, a collection of Israeli journalists and Palestinian activists courageously captured the vivid details of settler colonialism in the West Bank, both in its harrowing violence and its humane stories of grief and suffering by a community seeking only to be left alone. The accounts are heartbreaking, the imagery disturbing, the desperation palpable and the hope only cursory. But within the despair the movie also presents a warm story of friendship between the Palestinian Adra and the Israeli Abraham, a glimmer of the potentiality of peace even amidst seemingly insurmountable odds. It is a work of cultural preservation as much as anything and a rare example in our current age of transformative responsible journalism. But it is also a plea to the world to recognize the humanity of this dispossessed populace, to understand the depth of their strife and its perpetrators. Film can be a powerful tool. May we have the fortitude to use it.
No Other Land is not currently available in a digital format.
5. The Substance -written and directed by Coralie Fargeat
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The popularity of The Substance I feel is justice for the mellow reception (at least in this part of the world) to Titane a few years back, and I love that such unabashedly bizarre movies are gaining awards traction. What Coralie Fargeat's great body horror opus has going for it though is its excess of stylish direct satire. A surreal modern Dorian Gray doused in feminist theory, it presents the encompassing objectification of women as gross spectacle, one that is both patently arbitrary as an impartial concept and yet practically devastating in terms of the effects of its insidious culture. Like Boots Riley, Fargeat paints with a blunt brush, co-opting the cinematic male gaze and pushing it to such absurd lengths that it nullifies sexuality altogether. And yet for this wildness, the unabashed repugnance and freakiness of its highly laudable effects, much real sympathy is drawn for Demi Moore's ageing actress conditioned to see her body as mere commodity and going to dangerous lengths through abuse of the titular Substance to maintain that. And Margaret Qualley compliments her with stupendous vanity. From a purely creative standpoint, the film is astounding, and the extremity of its climax -though a touch delineating in its hyperbole- is the great explosion of all of Fargeat's cynicism and frustration with the image economy, no more disgusting than that culture itself.
The Substance is available to stream on MUBI, available to rent on VOD.
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Mikey Madison is pretty definitively the great breakout star of 2024, and it is largely because her titular performance in Anora is so captivatingly singular and immediately engaging. Playing the Brooklyn stripper enticed into a whirlwind romance with the idiot son of a Russian oligarch, she exquisitely brings life to the latest in Sean Baker’s catalogue of sympathetic humanistic portraits of sex workers. In spite of the context and in spite of her affect, she never comes across as fundamentally naive in her assumptions the relationship that her partner’s family is dead-set at ending to ludicrously elaborate degrees, is real and palpable. Rather it’s as though she’s fighting for the fairy tale of it to work out in spite of all of the signs it will not. And it’s remarkably easy to identify with her desperation here. It’s also easy to identify with her charming personality, quite distinct from the tone of her job, and so much more fun. Retaining his small-scale guerrilla instincts but applied larger, Baker’s filmmaking here is sharp and invigorating in concert with the plotting, which especially in the deranged middle-section is a sheer delight. But the film obviously has its lush and sexy moments as well, and a curiously moving ending that is way more emotionally intense than expected. Madison deserves that star status, and Baker perhaps does too.
Anora is available to rent on VOD.
3. Dune: Part Two -written by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, directed by Denis Villeneuve
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Not since The Lord of the Rings has there been a blockbuster epic that has matched its storytelling grandeur with impeccably considered and remarkable filmmaking than Dune Part Two, a film that responds to its source while understanding how to translate its world, characters, and themes to the cinema of the current moment. An old-fashioned spectacle stylistically and narratively informed by Lawrence of Arabia and shot crisply on location, the feudal saga of the Atreides, the Harkonnens, and the Fremen continues, diving headlong into pronounced subjects of war, religious exploitation, and the allure of demagoguery as it chronicles the campaign of vengeance and conquest exacted by its hero Paul Atreides. A work that actually wrestles with the corruptibility of power and poses a critique of the white saviour myth, Denis Villeneuve uses the expansive canvas of this captivating world and the veneer of fantasy to extol a highly tangible vision of our structures of culture, religion, and politics. Timothée Chalamet is absorbing as the conflicted Paul, with Zendaya's love interest a fierce voice of reason. The visual effects are not only stunning, but artfully deployed, particularly on the sandworms and the Harkonnen home-world, coldly shot in infrared monochrome. It is a sweeping, complex story and yet Villeneuve never struggles to articulate its concepts and dynamics. Indeed, here he solidifies Dune as sci-fi cinematic touchstone on par with any of the greats.
Dune: Part Two is available to rent on VOD.
2. I Saw the TV Glow -written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun
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I Saw the TV Glow feels like a watershed movie, whether or not it is apparent as one in the moment. Certainly it speaks to the moment, and the general air of anxiety present in spaces of queer youth -both a reflection and a beacon, that perhaps understands them like no other movie has. Jane Schoenbrun deeply knows their audience, and while their film aims pretty squarely at a particular demographic of gender nonconforming nerds who grew up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 90s, its reach is far more vast. Really it connects to anybody who found a vital part of themselves through art. But you would be fooling yourself to deny the clear transgender metaphor underpinning the movie. It is a story of a youth beginning to discover their real identity, both attracted to and afraid of recognizing who they really are. But the longer they wait the greater a toll it takes. Schoenbrun may channel a Lynchian atmosphere of eerie and beautiful surreal horror, yet at the heart is a gut-wrenching tenderness, nowhere better evoked than in the performance of Jack Haven as the friend desperately trying to coax out the truth. Justice Smith is impeccable too in that shell of fear and denial. But for its tragic nature, the film is exhilaratingly vibrant, assuring, and cathartic. It is intended to light a spark. The movie itself is a firework.
I Saw the TV Glow is available to stream on Crave, available to rent on VOD.
1. The Brutalist -written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, directed by Brady Corbet
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Honestly, this was a pretty close year. Either of the last two entries could feasibly opt for this spot. The Brutalist attains it almost by math -it had the highest concentration of points in its favour and relatively few against it (no, not even its enigmatic ending). For a movie that takes place largely on estate land in Pennsylvania, The Brutalist feels tremendously big, an impressive feat given its relatively restrained budget. But director Brady Corbet really proves the less is more adage merely by adopting the creative approach and some of the spirit of his protagonist -and shooting the movie on gorgeous classic film stock. But the story itself is also commanding, a thorough rebuke of the American Dream and even capitalist America's illusive philosophy of being a welcoming place for immigrants. Likewise, a film venerating the perseverance of artists and the immortality of their work, often in spite of these barriers, it is a curious mix of deep cynicism and earnest faith. Adrien Brody embodies both of these in spades in a performance of extraordinary pathos, while Guy Pearce plays with frightful charisma the insidious mask of American hate. The film's preoccupation with the scope of history is towering, its illustration of the expression of trauma illuminating. And all while the movie fires on all cylinders; strikingly composed imagery, rich and thoughtful dialogue, spellbinding minimalist music both haunting and sweet. It is a powerful movie, an important one for this moment in time, and a monumental note to end 2024 on.
The Brutalist is now playing in theatres.
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