As we were finalising our 50 favourite films of 2024, reports noted that, with December looming, the 10 highest-grossing titles of the year were all sequels. By then, healthy US opening figures for Wicked suggested this unhappy situation would not, for the first time since records began, prevail at year’s end. But 90 per cent follow-ups is still a depressing figure.
Rejoice. Half of our least-favourite films may be sequels, but there are none in the 50-best list. (No, Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 is not a second entry to the Jurorverse.) The most creative film-makers are still finding new stories – or new ways of telling the old ones.
We must, again, apologise for unavoidable release-schedule oddities. You first encountered the number-one film here in our reports from Cannes film festival a year and a half ago. This list will, however, always remain focused on Irish release dates. These are, with one or two late-December exceptions, films readers have had the opportunity to see and assess by publication date.
Are there any trends to be discerned from the selection? Well, we are a long way from the glory days of the 1970s, when critics’ lists and the end-of-year box-office top 10 frequently overlapped. There is no going back to that. Nonetheless, audiences did turn out in numbers for “cultural cinema” such as The Zone of Interest, Anora and Poor Things. Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a satirical shocker featuring Demi Moore, won over festivalgoers, critics and hard-core horror fans. Maybe we are all in this together.
Speaking of festivals, the venerable European events once again proved their indestructibility. More than half the films on this list premiered at Cannes, Venice or Berlin. Almost all of those opened here in cinemas before hitting streaming.
One more thing. There have not been so many “the Irish are coming” articles in the press as we have sometimes endured. But this has, nonetheless, been a good year for domestic features. Small Things Like These and That They May Face the Rising Sun won raves and played strongly in domestic cinemas. The incorrigible Kneecap was a genuine hit and stands a decent chance of landing a nomination for best international feature at the Oscars. There is life beyond Planet Sequel.
The 50 best films of 2024
50. Juror #2
Directed by Clint Eastwood. A family man (Nicholas Hoult) serving as a juror in a highly publicised murder trial suspects he might be the killer. Read more here.
49. Mami Wata
Directed by CJ Obasi. Eye-catching monochrome drama from Nigeria set in a village that still pays respect to the titular water spirit. A visual sideswipe that breaks new ground in folk cinema.
48. Cuckoo
Directed by Tilman Singer. Hunter Schafer is Gretchen, the committed, physically enduring final girl cast adrift at a weird Bavarian resort in this flamboyantly unhinged tribute to Euro-horror. Read the full review.
47. Late Night with the Devil
Directed by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes. Another brilliant original horror in a busy era for the form. The Cairnes brothers’ flick fakes a late-night talkshow in 1977. Read the full review.
46. Janet Planet
Directed by Annie Baker. In rural Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enchanted by her imaginings and her poignantly close mother, Janet. Read the full review.
45. Disco Boy
Directed by Giacomo Abbruzzese. The Italian director’s striking debut concerns the relationship between a French Foreign Legionnaire and an African guerrilla fighter. Franz Rogowski restates his claim to be actor of the moment. Read the full review.
44. Hounds
Directed by Kamal Lazraq. Two hapless henchmen – Abdellatif Masstouri and Ayoub Elaid, brilliant – are dispatched by a Casablanca mobster to execute a kidnapping, with darkly comic results. Read the full review.
43. The Holdovers
Directed by Alexander Payne. The film-maker’s warmest movie to date casts Paul Giamatti as a grumpy teacher befriending an oddball teen over Christmas in the early 1970s. Read the full review.
42. Tiger Stripes
Directed by Amanda Nell. Eu Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is a 12-year-old girl with a big personality in a small Malaysian village. As the first among her peer group to hit puberty, she’s swiftly ostracised, with monstrous consequences. Read the full review.
41. Conclave
Directed by Edward Berger. Ralph Fiennes stars in this indecently exciting adaptation of Robert Harris’s novel about the election of a new pope. Beautifully made. Impeccably acted. Mad ending. Read the full review.
40. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État
Directed by Johan Grimonprez. In 1961, seven months into his term as the first prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patrice Émery Lumumba was tortured and assassinated. This vibrant, fleet-footed chronicle deconstructs the complexities of Lumamaba’s murder and finds an unlikely villain in its propulsive score: jazz. Read the full review.
39. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Directed by Rungano Nyoni. The film-maker moves on from the singular I Am Not a Witch to tell the tale of a young Zambian woman uncovering secrets after an uncle’s death.
38. Emilia Pérez
Directed by Jacques Audiard. Outrageously sexy, heated musical telenovela follows Zoe Saldaña’s faithful lawyer on a mission to help Manitas, a terrifying Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón), undergo gender-reassignment surgery. Read the full review.
37. Small Things Like These
Directed by Tim Mielants. Cillian Murphy runs up against the Magdalene laundries in 1980s New Ross. This painfully sad film triggered a debate about how awful Ireland then was. Read the full review.
36. The Promised Land
Directed by Nikolaj Arcel. Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) is a formidable retired army captain of low birth seeking title and legitimacy by colonising the punishing, barren heath of Jutland, a wilderness characterised by Gypsies, wolves and frozen ground. Read the full review.
35. One Night in Millstreet
Directed by Andrew Gallimore. The Irish When We Were Kings. No, really. Gallimore’s doc about Steve Collins’s 1995 fight against Chris Eubank is hilarious and moving. The past really is another country. Read the full review.
34. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Directed by Ariane Louis-Seize. Mopey undead teenager (played with zip by the emerging Quebecoise star Sara Montpetit) encounters a human boy in a similar state of despair. Puppy love ensues. Read the full review.
33. The Iron Claw
Directed by Sean Durkin. Impressively gloomy – literally and figuratively – drama about the tragically, almost unbelievably doomed Von Erich family of wrestlers. Like watching a flower slowly die. Read the full review.
32. The Settlers
Directed by Felipe Gálvez Haberle. Based on gruelling events from turn-of-the-century Chile, this genocidal odyssey sees a savage landowner instruct three mercenaries to venture into forbidding terrain to ensure safe passage for his sheep. Genocide ensues. Read the full review.
31. The Idea of You
Directed by Michael Showalter. Lovely romcom – with emphasis on the “rom” – featuring Anne Hathaway as a mum who falls for the pop star (Nicholas Galitzine) her teen daughter idolises. They almost never make these so well any more.
30. Io Capitano
Directed by Matteo Garrone. The most swashbuckling of the current wave of dramas depicting the global migrant crisis features two spirited teenage cousins who leave their Senegalese village to set out on a perilous voyage for Italy. Read the full review.
29. Kneecap
Directed by Rich Peppiatt. Summer Holiday. A Hard Day’s Night. Catch Them If You Can. Slade in Flame. The Belfast rap outfit’s fictionalised biopic is a welcome addition to the rock-flick canon. A possible Oscar nominee. Read the full review.
28. Green Border
Directed by Agnieszka Holland. This muscular, urgent dramatisation of the recent refugee crisis follows a Syrian couple and their three children as they wander between Poland and Belarus in the ill-defined zone of the title. Read the full review.
27. Occupied City
Directed by Steve McQueen. Never mind the film-maker’s disappointing Blitz. His study of Amsterdam during the second World War is an austere marvel. Worth girding loins for all four hours. Read the full review.
26. Orlando: My Political Biography
Directed by Paul B Preciado The film-maker, writer and philosopher invites a diverse group of more than 20 nonbinary and trans people to audition and play Orlando. Each performer grafts their experiences on to Virginia Woolf’s story of courtly romance and unrequited love, making for an astonishingly rich seam of ideas. Read our Paul B Preciado interview.
25. The Order
Directed by Justin Kurzel. Arriving on St Stephen’s Day, the Australian film-maker’s latest stars Jude Law as an FBI agent investigating a real-life white supremacist in 1980s Washington state. Tough thriller of the old school.
24. Sugarcane
Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie. This gripping documentary account of the abuse of First Nations children at Catholic residential schools in Canada is an early Oscar favourite. Read the full review.
23. The Wild Robot
Directed by Chris Sanders. Properly moving, endlessly funny animation about a robot raising a goose on a remote island after stamping its mum dead. Best mainstream studio cartoon in an age. Read the full review.
22. Starve Acre
Directed by Daniel Kokotajlo. A couple living in the Yorkshire Dales lose their young, troubled son. The grief curdles into something more sinister. With a hare. Read the full review.
21. Heretic
Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Give Hugh Grant all the prizes. His fecund late period continues with this turn as a sinister recluse entertaining two initially unsuspecting Mormon missionaries. Read the full review.
20. Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
Directed by Elene Naveriani. Etero (Eka Chavleishvili), a 48-year-old woman living alone in a small village in Georgia, experiences a late and eventful sexual awakening. Read the full review.
19. Red Island
Directed by Robin Campillo. There was much confusion when Campillo’s tale of growing up in 1970s Madagascar was not accepted to Cannes. His revenge was universal acclaim. Read the full review.
18. Crossing
Directed by Levan Akin. A Georgian woman’s search for her estranged trans niece forms a lively chronicle of life in Istanbul, a compelling odd-couple road trip and a series of intriguing intersections. Read the full review.
17. The Teachers’ Lounge
Directed by İlker Çatak. You could class this drama about a teacher investigating a theft as a thriller, but that doesn’t quite catch its subtle menace. Asks questions it refuses to answer. Read the full review.
16. All of Us Strangers
Directed by Andrew Haigh. Andrew Scott’s screenwriter enters a relationship with a mysterious neighbour (Paul Mescal) and is drawn back to his childhood home, where he finds his late parents, somehow still young. Read the full review.
15. Poor Things
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. The film-maker pushed the boat out with his take on Alasdair Gray’s Frankensteinian novel and – would you believe it? – ended up taking more than $100 million and four Oscars. Gives you hope. Read the full review.
14. Strange Darling
Directed by JT Mollner. A fever-pitch dream of serial killers and Americana in which mustachioed Kyle Gallner, exuding 1970s-porn vibes, hooks up with Willa Fitzgerald’s The Lady for a night of sadomasochistic role-play and a wild chase. Read the full review.
13. Robot Dreams
Directed by Pablo Berger. Hugely touching animation about a dog and a robot making friends in 1980s New York City. “An homage to music itself,” Berger said of the soundtrack. Read the full review.
12. Evil Does Not Exist
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. An eight-year-old girl goes missing from a remote Japanese village just as two city slickers arrive with a glamping pitch in this endlessly intriguing mystery. Read the full review.
11. Love Lies Bleeding
Directed by Rose Glass. A wild exercise in high chutzpah starring Kristen Stewart as a gym manager in love with a drugged-up bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian). Features first-rate grimy Americana. Ends on another planet. Read the full review.
10. Perfect Days
Directed by Wim Wenders. A former professor listens to pop music, reads books, takes photographs and works as a public-toilet cleaner in Tokyo in this feelgood Cannes prize-winner. Read the full review.
9. About Dry Grasses
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. There is no more consistent director than the Turkish master of slow cinema. His latest concerns a teacher’s introspections after being accused of abusing a student. Read the full review.
8. That They May Face the Rising Sun
Directed by Pat Collins. Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate (Anna Bederke) have returned to a lakeland spot during the 1970s. He’s a writer who grew up in the townland; she is an artist and gallery owner. The best Irish film of the year is defined by quietude and fascinating local characters. Read the full review.
7. The Goldman Case
Directed by Cédric Kahn. Rigorous, forceful re-creation of the trial of Pierre Goldman, French radical, for murder in 1970s France. The seriousness of the approach does nothing to lessen the tension and righteous anger. Read the full review.
6. I Saw the TV Glow
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun. In the mid-1990s two weirdo teens find solace in a girlie TV pastiche of Power Rangers with Buffy-friendly fonts. An extravagantly imaginative fable that marries trans identity and Mark Fisher’s writings on the weird with the eerie, hallowed aura of older, spookier TV. Read the full review.
5. The Substance
Directed by Coralie Fargeat. Brilliantly disgusting satire of the beauty industry that generated endless argument and counterargument about its attitude to ageing. Demi Moore is a blast as an older star who finds a flawed elixir of youth. Read the full review.
4. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Directed by Radu Jude. In this year’s most barbed satire, an overworked, exhausted production assistant is commissioned by a multinational company to film a workplace-safety video. Except it’s a compensation scam. She blows off steam by faking Andrew Tate videos. Read the full review.
3. All We Imagine as Light
Directed by Payal Kapadia. Welcome a new directing star to the heavens. Kapadia’s study of three health workers in Mumbai is one of the great city films. Elegant. Fine-grained. Ultimately magical. Read the full review.
2. Anora
Directed by Sean Baker. Anora (Mikey Madison) is a pretty Brooklynite working in a tacky lapdancing joint when Ivan, an adorably clueless young Russian heir, rocks up. Their whirlwind romance attracts henchmen and concerned parents to enact screwball beats worthy of Ernst Lubitsch. Read our review here.
1. The Zone of Interest
Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Glazer dismantles Martin Amis’s source novel and puts it back together as a terrifying exercise in the sociopathy of denial. While the family of the Auschwitz commandant go about their everyday business, soft thuds and dying wails remind us that the greatest of outrages is happening just over that wall. The English director is confirmed among the best of his generation. Read the full review.
