The Best Movies of 2024

It’s that time of the year again! I was waiting to catch up on some films before posting this list, even though I haven’t watched Nickel Boys and A Complete Unknown yet. Like, it’s 2025 and they keep hiding films until the Oscars, and the only people who can watch them are critics and people from the industry! But anyway, let’s talk about what really matters…

2024 was a crazy and unexpected year for me and I can say the same goes for cinema, even though I must admit it was a pretty weak year for international productions. Also, despite having incredible new titles, I felt most of this year’s lists cover pretty much the same films overall, which probably means we had better years throughout this past decade. Either way, here are my favorite movies of 2024:

20. “Harvest” by Athina Rachel Tsangari

Watched at this year’s São Paulo International Film Festival, Harvest is a stunning-looking film about the importance of community and the threats of modernization. More than that, it’s a story that homages the simplicities of one’s habits and culture and how civilization has lost not only its contact with nature but also reason due to capitalism. The way Athina Rachel Tsangari constructs her movie is very contemplative and despite not having major story arcs, it’s reminiscent of Pieter Bruegel’s paintings, making this one of the most beautiful films of the year.

19. “Love Lies Bleeding” by Rose Glass

2024 was a great year for LGBTQ films, and Love Lies Bleeding it’s only the first title from such theme in this list. With a fantastic original screenplay and amazing performances by Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, and Ed Harris, the movie it’s an unexpected tale of family, love, and revenge that unfolds itself in the most surprising ways and a WTF ending that refreshes the genre with new ideas and interesting twists.

18. “Emilia Pérez” by Jacques Audiard

I actually watched this back in May and despite having the film getting a little cold in me, it’s surprising to see how many people are actually hating Emilia Pérez. This might be a topic for another conversation, but I still remember this as a different and modern take on a musical that deals with the Mexican cartel and transgender issues, resulting in a Sicario-like Almodovar film. Some people love it, some people hate it, but I actually think it’s pretty fascinating, along with the incredible female performances by Karlia Sofia Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez.

17. “Bird” by Andrea Arnold

Probably one of the least talked about movies of the year, Bird might not be a movie that you’ve never seen before in your life, but it’s so beautifully directed by Andrea Arnold and so reminiscent of Ken Loach’s Kes, that it’s impossible not to consider one of the year’s best. Shot in 16mm, this coming-of-age film gives a poetic realism look into the suburban lives of a dysfunctional family in modern Britain. Simple, honest, and tragically beautiful.

16. “National Anthem” by Luke Gilford

Another great LGBTQ film, National Anthem was actually released back in 2023 but received distribution only in 2024. By telling the coming-of-age story of a young man living in a dysfunctional family, Luke Gilford shines a light on a queer rodeo community living in New Mexico. More than being a touching romantic story about finding oneself in a community, the movie stands out for delivering a different vision of a group that is usually known for its homophobic traits and behavior, resulting in a beautiful tale about identity and self-acceptance.

15. “I’m Still Here” by Walter Salles

Being one of the biggest successful international movies of the year, I’m Still Here is a beautiful homage to Brazil’s collective imagination about faith, strength, and family by focusing on the real-life story of Eunice Paiva and what happened to her husband during the Brazilian Dictatorship. It’s also a beautiful tale about memory and resistance that deals with important political matters that still resound to this day not only in Brazil but also in many places around the world.

14. “Eat the Night” by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel

A movie that I had no idea I’d love so much is Eat the Night, a French drama about two brothers who are addicted to a video game and have to face their realities when they discover the game will cease to exist in a month. The story isn’t the real important factor in this production for it deals with many complex themes such as loneliness, conformity, and companionship through a script full of layers and open to interpretations about how to cope with our reality. The result is an extremely touching and interesting movie about technology and generational alienation. Did I also mention it’s also a queer drama?

13. “A Real Pain” by Jesse Eiseinberg

With a very simple screenplay, Jesse Eisenberg creates one of the most fascinating characters of the year that is brought to life by an incredible performance by Kieren Culkin. More than being a road trip movie through Poland, A Real Pain is a journey to the past in which two characters face their ancestors’ history to better understand their present and their own personal problems, resulting in a movie that raises questions about the world in which we create for ourselves and how to deal with our own pains and intergenerational trauma. 

12. “Maldoror” by Fabrice du Welz

Another film I wasn’t expecting to find so brilliant, Maldoror is probably the best crime-thriller of the year for following the story of a young police officer who is willing to sacrifice his family and career to find the men who kidnapped two young girls. More than being a good thriller, Fabrice Du Welz creates a screenplay so dark and heavy that the film ends up going places you wouldn’t normally expect, along with an incredible performance by Anthony Bajon, making this one of the best genre films of the year.

11. “The Bikeriders” by Jeff Nichols

Without a doubt, the coolest movie of 2024. The Bikeriders proves that sometimes style overcomes substance, and despite having a pretty good script based on a non-fictional book by Danny Leon, Jeff Nichols makes a movie that is impossible to take your eyes off the screen with its astonishing cinematography, great costume, and production designs, and hypnotizing performances by Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shanon, Jodie Comer, Mike Faist, and Boyd Holdbrook. If you haven’t watched it, do it for yesterday.

10. “A Different Man” by Aaron Schimberg

Featuring one of my favorite performances of the year, A Different Man has one of the best screenplays of 2024 for telling the story of a man who after going through an experiment to fix his neurofibromatosis, he finds himself losing his popularity to a man who looked just like him before doing his medical procedure. With that, Aaron Schimberg makes an incredibly smart movie about how our personalities are shaped by not only our own appearances but also the physicality of others around us, and how this affects our own self-esteem.

09. “The Seed of a Sacred Fig” by Mohammad Rasoulof

Being my favorite international movie of the year, The Seed of a Sacred Fig is a very simple movie but with a screenplay so rich and powerful that it will leave you at the edge of your seat throughout its almost 3 hours of duration. By following the story of the Mahsa Amini protest through the perspective of a conservative family, Mohammad Rasoulof builds a movie about the clash of generations and the patriarchal system in a way that ends up being a horror movie in the end. An important and modern film that deals with urgent themes.

08. “Nosferatu” by Robert Eggers

Interesting to see how many people are loving and hating the new adaptation of Nosferatu by Robert Eggers. To have the movie in this list, you can pretty much imagine I loved it, not only because it’s beautifully produced but also because this version reminds me more of The Beauty and the Beast by Jean Cocteau than the original F. W. Murnau movie itself. By giving more importance to certain secondary characters and adding more depth and atmosphere to certain key scenes, Eggers’ Nosgeratu is not only a beautifully evil movie but it’s also incredibly gothic and romantic, which brings a new version of a story that has been told a hundred times through different variations.

07. “The Substance” by Coralie Fargeat

I mean, what else to say about The Substance? It’s on everybody’s list of favorite movies of the year and the fact that it was so successful and it’s winning awards is proof we need more original and independent ideas, with radical premises and blood-bath endings. From the mise en scene to the screenplay, cinematography, production design, and performances, The Substance is an outstanding film that can be pretty much be considered one of the best of the 2020 decade.

06. “Challengers” by Luca Guadagnino

Another crowd-pleaser of the year, Challengers is without a doubt the sexist movie of 2024, and probably one of the most entertaining ones too. With incredible performances by Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Fesit, Guadagnino creates a sweaty and game-like piece about love, sex, and sports with one of the best original scores of the year and a thrilling editing that makes Challengers not only one of the best movies of the year but also one of best movies by Guadagnino himself.

05. “Kinds of Kindness” by Yorgos Lanthimos

Many people didn’t really like Kinds of Kindness, but to see Yorgos Lanthimos having absolute free reign to make a movie featuring three absurd stories that run almost 3 hours long with an A-list cast and Robbie Ryan as a cinematographer it’s practically a blessing. This will probably go down as a classic as Buñuel’s The Phantom of Liberty in the future for its similar premises and style, but while time makes people learn to appreciate this movie more, I celebrate Kinds of Kindsness by placing it as one of the best movies of the year because it’s simply amazing.

04. “Babygirl” by Halina Reijn

The Piano Teacher, Crash, Titane, Salo, Possession… give me some weird sex movies and I’m all in, so it’s no surprise that I absolutely loved Babygirl. Even though it doesn’t go to extremes as the mentioned films, Halina Reijn does an outstanding job in exploring the grey areas of a dominant and submissive relationship between a female CEO and a young male intern, while it raises interesting questions about female power in today’s society. Nicole Kidman delivers not only one of the best performances of the year but also one of the best of her career, resulting in an incredibly raw and powerful drama about understanding one’s desires.

03. “Queer” by Luca Guadagnino

Being the second movie released by Luca Guadagnino this year, Queer is one of these transcendent films that – pretty much like his remake of Suspiria – we still haven’t fathom how important and iconoclastic this movie is. Adapted from the novel by William S. Burroughs, Guadagnino makes a beautiful movie about bodies, obsession, and longing through the most decaying and fantastical possible way while also homaging and condemning Burroughs himself, who “accidentally” shot his wife in real life. Love can be an obsession just like drugs, and Queer is a manifestation of this addiction through a hallucinogenic trip that can haunt one’s soul for a lifetime.

02. “The Brutalist” by Brady Corbet

Without a doubt one of the most important movies of the decade, The Brutalist is a film in which its conceptions of time and space transcend the screen through its 3 hours and 30 minutes of length, along with a 15-minute intermission. Shot in VistaVision, Brady Corbet goes against everything people say cinema doesn’t do anymore and creates a giant feature, that just like its character, is constructing a giant building. In the movie, this big concrete represents not only the willingness an artist has to create, but also his prison. The prison to not be able to have artistic freedom and to be forced to live in a place that is not his own. With that, Brady Corbet creates a movie that not only talks about the hardships of immigration but also about artists themselves, and the fact that he made a movie like this one, makes The Brutalists one of the most important movies of the 21st Century.

01. “Anora” by Sean Baker

After everything I said about The Brutalist, it’s a little hard to imagine what I would consider to be the best movie of 2024. But as I say The Dreamers is my favorite movie and 2001: A Space Odyssey is the best movie ever made, I have to put Anora in number one for being my favorite movie of the year. Yes, The Brutalist might be more important, but Anora is so damn good that is impossible to beat the story of this young sex worker who ends up having her world turned upside down for the better and worse after getting married to a 20-something-old Russian millionaire. Just like The Substance and The Brutalist, Sean Baker’s independent roots prove that great filmmaking is still possible once we turn back to cinema’s past decades, for shooting in film and making a simple and hilarious script that reminds us of features from Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges. Is it also worth remembering it won the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year? Yes, Anora it’s an absolute new classic.

Honorable mentions: “Sons” by Gustav Möller, “Misericordia” by Alain Guiraudie, “Sebastian” by Mikko Mäkelä, “Juror #2″ by Clint Eastwood, “The Apprentice” by Ali Abbasi, and “Holy Cow” by Louise Courvoisier.

What about you? What are your best and favorite movies of 2024?