My Top 25 Films of 2024 (and the 5 worst)

An Oscars tradition unlike any other

The Academy Awards are tonight! I know, most of you could not care less, but I will be watching. Because I love movies, and I watch far too many movies, and I have far too many opinions about said movies. So, at this time every year, I rank my top movies of the previous year. It’s a tradition unlike any other.

As of this date, I have watched 72 films that were released in 2024. Some, I loved. A few, I hated. Most of them were, you know, pretty alright! For the first time in a while, I didn’t give 5 stars to any movie I watched last year, but I still think it was a decent year for movies. Anyway, without further ado, here are my top 25 films of 2024, ranked:

1. The Brutalist

2. Civil War

3. Dìdi (弟弟)

4. A Complete Unknown

5. Nosferatu

6. Anora

7. The Girl With the Needle

8. Sing Sing

9. The Beekeeper

10. September 5

11. A Real Pain

12. Challengers

13. Memoir of a Snail

14. The Wild Robot

15. Wicked Little Letters

16. Saturday Night

17. Juror #2

18. Hit Man

19. Nickel Boys

20. Kneecap

21. My Old Ass

22. Snack Shack

23. Rebel Ridge

24. Between the Temples

25. Flow

Just missing the list were a group of movies that I really liked! The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Deadpool & Wolverine, Wicked, Inside Out 2, and Here. And because I know some of you are already getting upset about an omission on this list: Dune: Part Two is #47 on my list. Just behind The Fall Guy, Trap, and Monkey Man. Mid.

And now, at the other end of the rankings, the five worst. The worst movie I saw in 2024 was Emilia Perez. I do appreciate that they were going for something — that’s something we need to encourage! — but it was just a mess.* Rounding out the rest of the worst five are Borderlands, Joker: Folie à Deux, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Kinds of Kindness. That last one, in particular, bummed me out because Yorgos Lanthimos is one of my favorite directors.

*Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis was a similar big swing and miss this year, and you could say the same about the new Joker movie. In general, I think filmmakers should be encouraged to take these big swings. It worked out for Brady Corbet and “The Brutalist,” to be sure.

Okay, thanks for indulging me. Let me know how wrong I am! Now I can begin compiling my list for this year. In the meantime, I’m hanging out at Letterboxd, you know, if that’s your kind of thing.

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I’m guessing most of you are interested in my ranking of the 86 best baseball movies of all time. If you care about my other film opinions, last year’s top ten are below, and here’s the entire list from 2023.

1. Killers of the Flower Moon

2. The Holdovers

3. Oppenheimer

4. Asteroid City

5. Past Lives

6. Anatomy of a Fall

7. Perfect Days

8. The Killer

9. Saltburn

10. Poor Things

And here are my Top 25’s from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017. I’ve been doing this for too long!