You Should Also Watch - 2024
My mid-year check-in post.
Last year, I began ranking new releases as I watched them, adding them to a dedicated list and figuring out my opinion relative to all the others. Having that master list at the end of the year made constructing my best of post relatively easy, and has made it possible to quickly answer questions about my feelings on certain films. Sure, they sometimes move around a bit, either from a rewatch or just seeing how well it sticks with me as the months pass. Nonetheless, I find the list provides a great, consistent starting point.
With that in mind, I knew I wanted to do a post based on that list now that we've reached the midway point of 2024. But what form should it take? I could of course use it to do the standard "best of the year so far" list, but that seems boring. Also, some of them, maybe even the majority, will be on my end of the year list in some capacity. So why waste time and energy writing about them now? I want to talk about movies I'm less likely to be thinking about in six months, but which I still think are good and worthy of your attention. So I've landed on discussing those I've ranked highly now, but which I think very well may not make my final best of list.
This is guesswork, of course. I don't know what I'll love over the coming weeks and months, or even what I'll have the chance to see. But I do know that my current top seven are all films I feel very strongly about. They may slip in the rankings a bit by year's end, but it would take a seismic event to knock them off entirely. Meanwhile, my number eight through fifteen are definitely deserving of praise and recognition, but this may be my last chance to talk about them on this blog.
So let's get to it!
15. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
I've started to think of this film as "What if Wes Anderson made A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night?" It's an often poignant coming of age story (about a girl of just sixty-eight), hilarious from its opening scene, a tale of loneliness and despair and how difficult it is to forge a real connection. Although the humor is frequently used to defuse tension, when push comes to shove, it's still willing stare down the darkness the premise requires, either by doubling down on a twisted joke or showing the gruesome reality of a vampire feeding in the middle of a modern city. It clearly has a message, but it gets a bit muddled, holding it back from being truly great. But it's still a delightful film, starting with its wonderfully unwieldy title.
In limited theatrical release.
14. La Chimera
I had no idea what to expect from this film going in, except that its star would also be starring in Challengers in a few weeks. It was unlike any movie I've seen this year, featuring characters and settings that were as far from stereotypical as you could get. Sure, it features a group of Italian criminals, but they're grave robbers in Italy who employ an Englishman to locate their targets with a dowsing rod. The camera work is incredible, the dialog is marvelous, and the whole thing really takes its time building and unraveling its story. Director Alice Rohrwacher has been putting out well regarded work for a while now, including an Oscar nomination for her 2022 short Le pupille. All of that to say I really need to catch up on her films.
Available on VOD
13. Off Ramp
What could easily have been a movie full of cheap shots at an unfamiliar and strange subculture was instead an incredibly earnest and heartfelt look at found family, and how the love and support that comes from that is life-changing, even lifesaving. It's wall-to-wall hilarious, yes. But the only humor at the expense of the Juggalos comes from holding up a mirror to people who take themselves too seriously, in turn inflicting their pain on others. It's full of the type of ribbing which can only come from respect and admiration. And the story it tells is both weird and powerful and utterly captivating and beautiful.
The Carnival provides.
12. I Saw the TV Glow
On the one hand, this was one of my most anticipated of the year, so that it ended up on this list is a bit disappointing. On the other, it's still really good. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Jane Schoenbrun is one of the most exciting filmmakers working right now. It delights me to no end that something this weird and stylized and punk has been getting so much buzz and praise. It's atmospheric and queer and vibrant, full of unique imagery and killer music. I wish the story landed a bit stronger for me, but we'll see if it moves up on a rewatch.
Available on VOD.
11. Dune: Part Two
What is there to say that hasn't already been said? Villeneuve knocked it out of the park. The visuals are stunning, the score and sound are great, and he even manages to work some emotion into the story, thus improving on one of my biggest complaints about Part One. It's still not the depth of feeling I'd have liked, not quite fully fleshing them out with layers and nuance, but it's a step forward. All the false messiah stuff was pulled off incredibly, and the new characters plus plot structuring were wonderful. As dazzled as I was, I tend to more highly prize connection, and it failed to fully pull me in. Plus, it didn't wrap up in the way I wanted, leaving me feeling a bit hollow: not as badly as Part One or Across the Spider-Verse, but enough that it's worth noting. That being said, it doesn't need my support, as it's all but certain to take home a bunch of the technical awards on Oscars night.
Available to stream on Max, and on VOD.
10. Stand By For Failure
It's tough to capture the breadth of the work put out by a forty-five year-old multimedia collective, but Ryan Worsley does an incredible job of just that. You're hurled into the deep end with enough guidance to avoid drowning. She teaches you from the beginning to expect a deluge of information, and the only way to absorb any of it is to sit back, relax, and let it all wash over you. You'll find your rhythm, and start picking out patterns and narratives, as what looks on the surface to be chaos resolves into a well thought out and carefully constructed sequence of vignettes and backstories. Over the course of its 90 minute runtime, all these clips and anecdotes and horsing around combine to paint a portrait of the members without ever sitting them down for a standard, boring "talking heads" interview. Few documentaries have the energy this does, and I count myself very lucky to have caught a proper screening with a ton of other fans.
Available for free on YouTube (uploaded by the director)
9. Hundreds of Beavers
This live-action, black & white, "silent" Looney Tune took a bit to grow on me. It's such a specific tone, going for something that is so out there, that at first I found it alienating. But as I settled in, and that huge grin kept returning to my face with each new stupid joke, or payoff from earlier, it grew and grew in my estimation. As I suspected, a rewatch increased my enjoyment even further, as I now knew what to expect from tone and vibe the beginning. You've gotta be willing to let it take you for a ride, but man, what a joyous ride it is.
Available to stream on Hoopla, and on VOD.
8. In a Violent Nature
There could barely be a more "me" movie on this list. It's a slow cinema horror film from the perspective of the killer, featuring some absolutely gorgeous scenery and lots of slow, deliberate movement. It's meditative, has some incredible practical effects, and demonstrates a fantastic amount of creativity. I do wish it committed a little bit harder to the premise, as the pieces aimed directly at the audience stand out like a sore thumb. But there's so much great work here that I can't be too bothered by it.
Available on VOD.
Best of the Year So Far
If you're interested in my full ranking, you can see that on Letterboxd. But the top seven, which I'm confident will end up on my year end list, are: