Like I mentioned in my GINO Award poll, 2024 was a terrible year for movies. It was terrible in fact that this list was actually easier to make than the Worst Of The Year one because the Best easily shined in a dark year. If there is anything that you liked that is not on this list, remember that I have not seen everything (I only saw 125 movies after all) and if I had seen it, maybe it wasnt good enough in my opinion. So let's get to the 5 honorable mentions by alphabetical order.
Now time for the actual list.
Animated movies had a great 2024 and trust me, you will be seeing plenty of them on this list. The first of which is an anime movie that comes from the funny Spy X Family anime. Like always, a guy is secretly hiding that he is a secret agent for one country while in a pretend marriage with a woman who is secretly an assassin for another country with an adopted daughter that is a telepath (only the daughter knows any of this and does her best to keep this secret to keep the family together). In this movie, they go out for a vacation when they happen upon a plot to create a war between the two countries that this fake couple are from. It is always great to be with these characters, despite the actual villians being meh.
24. Hundreds Of Beavers
I strongly doubt most of you have seen this movie and honestly, I probably would not have seen this movie either if it wasn't for my friend deciding based on the trailer, that this might be fun to see. It's a live action film that plays like one of those old cartoons from back in the black and white days (it even is a silent film). Basically, guy wants to marry girl, but his father will only consent if he gives her 100 beaver pelts. All of the animals are guys in costumes so no animal cruelty for those worried about that may happen. Of course craziness ensues as this guy has to deal with wolves, racoons, deer, and of course the beavers, who are evil and are trying to build the world's biggest dam. I found it very funny and a good time.
While Chapter 2 may have been an honorable mention, Chapter 1 makes the list as in my opinion, it is the best take on the Watchmen graphic novel. It deals with the first half of the graphic novel and I enjoyed all the character voices that allowed you to be engrossed into this story that you basically know all to well. But if you don't, superheroism is banned unless you are government approved in this alternate universe where Richard Nixon is still president in the 1980s and we are close to nuclear war. A former superhero gets killed and other superheroes are trying to figure out why he was killed. It goes into the lives of these former superheroes and all of them are interesting to say the least.
A movie about the setting up of the now infamous Prince Andrew 2019 interview on BBC was just as insane to watch as the actual Prince Andrew interview. Gillian Anderson, Keeley Hawes, and Billie Piper shine as the three women who were able to get this interview and Rufus Sewell has a rather creepy portrayal of Prince Andrew, who is a creep already before you add that he may have been a frequent guest of Jeffrey Epstein's.
Clint Eastwood had one last good film left in him as he does the story about a man who is part of a trial for a murder that he may have had something to do with. Nicholas Hoult had a great year and he is perfect as this conflicted juror who is stuck with putting an asshole, but innocent man in prison or telling what happened and putting himself in huge legal trouble just as he is getting his life together and his wife is about to give birth to his son. And it's not just Hoult who shines in this film as we have a great supporting cast as well.
Body building, steroids, lust, and violence shine in this thriller about a body building woman who falls in love with the gym owner, who just so happens to be the daughter of a criminal and of course, craziness ensues like domestic violence, murder, blackmail, and taking steroids that might cause issues if you are in the heat of lust for someone while doing it. This is definitely a sexy film that highlights all the struggles in the world of wanting a great body for body building while at the same time, wanting to bang someone.
Horror also had a pretty good 2024 and the first to enter this list is a slasher film with the interesting idea of us following the slasher instead of the random teens that fall victim to this killer. Stupid kids accidentally wake up a killer by stealing a pendant and the killer in an old firefighter suit will go kill anyone he sees so he can get that pendant back. The kills are violent as all hell and except for the last 5 minutes spent on a pointless monologue about a park ranger and a bear, it was a fun time and no, I had no time dealing with the countless walking because slashers do walk to kill.
This animated film from Australia that is kind of like an autobiography for the director just was so depressing to watch, although it had a happy ending. In this film, we follow a girl who got separated from her twin brother during adoption and her life is not that great despite having a really good friend in an older lady. Despite being animated, this is not a film for the family as this film has plenty of nudity (albeit from not necessarily attractive people) . And if you are wondering about what snails have to do with it, our main character loves snails. Also, I'm always a sucker for stop motion films.
Bill Skarsgard had an interesting 2024 as he had two great films and one piece of shit this year. In this futuristic action film, Bill Skarsgard plays a deaf mute character (yet he has a narrating voice that he memorized from a video game before he went deaf) who plans vengeance against the ruling family who he believes killed his mother and sister, but not everything is as it seems. A lot of violence and fun dialogue from a supporting cast make up for the fact that we have a deaf-mute lead character.
We got a Transformers animated film that was great in 2024 and sadly, the film underperformed so we won't be continuing with this world. This film is a prequel and gives us the origins of how the civil war between Optimus Prime's Autobots and Megatron's Decepticons began despite the two lead characters being the best of friends back in the day. The two (under their original names of Orion Pax and D-16) are low workers who find out about an evil scheme going on from the bosses and have to expose the scheme as well as stop the terrible status quo from continuing. Everyone does great in their given role, despite Keegan Michael Key's B-127 (who would later be Bumblebee) being a bit cringe at times.
After a disastrous 2023, Marvel Studios decided to take a step back and only release one movie this year, which was this film. And oh boy, did they hit a goldmine by putting the two biggest names from the former Fox Marvel properties into one movie and calling it a day. Both Deadpool and Wolverine (yes, they do get around the whole "Wolverine died in Logan" conundrum that some people would had well) work well together and make for an enjoyable time. Add other characters from the past that I will not name and you have an awesome time. Only issue is the villain was rather lame, but that small stuff.
The last film of 2024 I did before I made this list and they ended up making my favorite Sonic The Hedgehog film yet. Plenty of stuff from the Sonic Adventure 2 storyline were included and Keanu Reeves did a fine job as the tortured dark hedgehog. Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik is great as always and they decided to do double the Carrey with him also in prosthetics to play Robotnik's granddad Gerald Robotnik. And the best thing they did in this film is basically keep it to one A plot and have those silly human characters (besides the Robotniks) be on the sideline, only used for when they are needed and nothing more. And the ending and box office results both tell you there will be a Sonic 4, which I am more than okay with.
2024 in America actually had two spider infestation horror films with this film and Sting, yet this French horror film (that technically was released in France in 2023, but it was released here in 2024 so it counts) was the one that actually creeped me out. Basically our main character is an asshole at the beginning (he gets better as it goes on) who has a hobby of collecting rare creatures and happens to collect this poisonous spider from the Middle East. Unfortunately for him, he lives in a real crappy and basically run down apartment building with plenty of neighbors and sadly the spider gets out and causes mayhem since it can also reproduce asexually like crazy. The first person dies and because they are worried about another COVID epidemic (they dont know he got killed by spiders), the authorities lock down the whole building so you can't get out and have to deal with the ever multiplying killer spiders that also at times grow in size. And because this whole area has real bad electricity and vents, nowhere is safe.
You know my biases so of course this film was going to make my Favorites list. In this movie, Godzilla and Kong have to deal with a rising evil ape army from under Hollow Earth that escapes and they are lead by the Skar King and his lizard slave Shimo. There are so many moments that made me jump for joy and laugh at times to make my first fun experience at the theaters in 2024. Godzilla and Kong both get their shine and Mothra also makes an appearance. Where else will you see Kong beat other apes with a baby ape and Godzilla use the Roman Coliseum like a cat bed? Nowhere, that's my opinion. Yes, Godzilla: Minus One from last year is a better film and I enjoyed it a lot, but I also enjoy the campy Godzilla films as well, which this one more than achieves.
Man, when I saw trailers to this film, I was truly concerned. Turns out, I had nothing to be concerned about as the film takes the ideas you see in the trailer (a bunch of criminals kidnap a little girl for ransom in hopes of an easy payday, but it turns out that the girl is actually a literal monster) and has so much fun with it. Alisha Weir (who plays the titular little girl/monster) is a blast to watch as not only can she be terrifying, but she can also be enjoyable as she basically tells the criminals (who are only in this situation as they are desperate) how screwed they are. Add in several actors in this film are people who have been in films I've liked in the past like Kathryn Newton, Dan Stevens, and Giancarlo Esposito and this is a film that is extremely better than the trailers would make you believe this is.
Another film from Australia makes this list with this "found footage" film about a desperate late night talk show host who decides that an idea to help ratings is to have a live exorcism on his show, but of course things go insane (some of it the hosts' past coming back to bite him). David Dastmalchian is perfect as the talk show host and a lot of it feels like a late night talk show back in the day. Unfortunately, certain small bits used AI and you can easily tell, but that does not stop from a well made horror film that came out this year.
You are definitely going to see a lot of animated films in the Top 10 and we start with the fabulous film from Latvia that decides that you don't need any dialogue other than animal sounds to make a good movie. The animation of this film is beautiful and shows that even with a language barrier, you can all survive a massive flood if you work together to survive. The animals in this film are great to watch and they all act like real animals, which is extremely hard for most people in the film making industry to understand.
And here is where we welcome back to the world of cinema the great Takashi Miike, who decided to adapt a 2019 Mayusuke Kurai novel into a film with all of Miike's glorious gore. In this film, police and a sociopathic lawyer investigate a serial killer who has killed people that have a chip in their head from when they were kidnapped as children. The mystery of who the killer is takes plenty of twists and turns and if you are a fan of Takashi Miike, you should watch this film that is on Netflix. I'd say more, but that would be spoiling things.
For some reason in 2024, we had three films dealing with Imaginary Friends as we had a forgettable film starring Ryan Reynolds, a extremely terrible horror film (you'll find that in my worst of the year list), and this film, that was easily the best of them because it decided to take that premise of an Imaginary Friend and make a whole Imaginary World with it as well because that also exists with kids. While some of the plot is a bit far-fetched for some, I was willing to look past it and have a fun time and Studio Ponoc definitely does a make-good after the very disappointing Mary & The Witch's Flower.
From the trailers, I wasn't too sure about this film because it is mostly in one place as the pope has died so the cardinals have to convene and decide on which of them will be the next pope. But a great cast with Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow more than destroyed that worry rather quickly. It was a film I watched the day after Thanksgiving with my mom, two of my aunts, one of my aunt's fiancee, and a cousin and it was definitely worth the $20 bucks I paid to watch this at home since no theater near me played it. I don't know and I don't care how Catholics feel about this movie because a good movie does not need their criticism.
France again makes this list with an animated cyberpunk film noir that I had heard nothing about before I saw it and I was shocked by how good it was. In this film, an investigation into a murder by two private detectives (a human and an android) uncovers a conspiracy involving the whole idea of androids existing and whether they are merely slaves for people or they can be individuals themselves. I was stunned by how well this film does its story and the animation is beautiful.
Robert Eggers does it again with this remake of the 1922 silent film that was made as a Dracula ripoff (back when Dracula was not public domain). We get great performances from Bill Skarsgaard (although Nosferatu's face looked too much like Dr. Robotnik), Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Inneson, and Willem Dafoe. Count Orlok in this film is treated like the evil monster he is and his impact on the town causes a plague. I also like that they used real animals in this film and did not need to CGI any of them. Also, yes the film is darkened to make you feel engrossed in this universe.
Yes, this film was released in festivals and Spain and France in 2023, but it was released here in the masses in 2024 so it counts. You may have seen this film being nominated for Best Animated Film in the 2024 Oscars and this film about a friendship between a dog and a robot is fantastic. This film deals with the importance of friendship and having someone else in your life that you can hang with. It's proof that anyone needs to have someone else they can count on and being alone is a miserable existence.
For My Favorites List of 2018, I put a little known film called Revenge by a debuting director named Coralie Farageat into my honorable mentions and nearly 7 years later, she made it on my list proper with a vengeance by making an incredible body horror film that deals with the societal pressures of women's bodies by aging. In this film, an aging celebrity gets fired from her aerobics TV show because she is too old for the role. Desperate to live in the world of fame, she takes a black market drug called The Substance to create a younger duplicate of herself. Of course there are specific rules and of course things go awry. Also fantastic job by Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley to play the two sides of the same person.
This was a film with a fantastic trailer that I was worried about not being like the trailer and I was more than happy when the film I got to watch was this cinematic gem that exceeds the expectations of the trailer. In this world, a robot meant for service in the human world gets shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and turned on so she has to deal with how to communicate with the animals of this island and even raise an orphaned goose that was not supposed to survive. The film uses a watercolor aesthetic and they make the film feel like a classic 2D Disney film and a Miyazaki film, while still keeping the 3D animations. Sadly, this is Dreamworks last in house animated film as they will now be relying on outside vendors for future films, but what a way to go out. The film also finds a way to balance the funny and serious moments (thanks to the fantastic cast to voice act) to make a masterpiece that I would recommend to any person young or old to watch.
Well, that ends my 25 Favorites Of The Year for 2024. Now time to show the list that was harder to make in my 25 Worst of the Year for 2024 and oh boy, talking about some of these films is going to get my blood boiling.
