How many have you seen? And do you agree with our first-half of 2024 ranking?
We’re past the halfway mark of 2024 and fall festival season is soon upon us… Time for a lookback at the movies which have already made our year. These are the highlights you should cross off your watchlist if you haven’t already.
So far, we’ve been treated to a wide variety of big screen offerings: tear-jerkers, tennis-fueled love triangles, sombre dramas, introspective character studies, surreal neo-noirs and Timothée Chalamet wrestling with a messiah-complex.
The criterion for this list is less varied: the movies need to have been released in European cinemas – or online – from January 2024 onwards – regardless of whether some titles came out in the US at the tail end of 2023.
And before we start our countdown to the best movie of the year so far, don’t be surprised if you don’t see the likes of How To Have Sex, Perfect Days, The Taste of Things or Tótem – they were all in our Best Films of 2023 list, as they were released in mainland Europe last year.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
15) Sasquatch Sunset
This silly yet touching ode to silent(ish) cinema from directors Nathan and David Zellner (Damsel, and last year’s satirical black comedy TV series The Curse) feels like a trolling exercise in its first half hour. Stick with it though, and there’s more to it than initially meets the eye. Sasquatch Sunset follows four sasquatches (including an unrecognizable Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg) as the mythical creatures make their way through the mountains and forests over the course of four seasons. The hairy beasts eat, sleep, fuck, defecate, fight, sniff skunks, and gradually come into contact with things they don’t fully comprehend… What initially seems like a joke taken too far becomes one of those see-it-to-believe-it films – a strangely captivating observational nature doc, with plenty of absurdist goodness thrown in for good measure. Featuring some terrific grunty performances, this alternatively silly and touching drama is an earnest exploration of trying to find your place in a world that may not expect (or want) you. A weird anthropological comedy that tells a very human story. Read our full review.
14) Horror Double-Bill: Stopmotion & Late Night With The Devil
It’s been a decent year for horror so far – with more to come. Keep your eyes peeled for The Substance in September, which will blow your mind. Of the films already released, two films rise above the (strong) likes of Caitlin Cronenberg’s Humane, Sydney Sweeney’s coronation as a scream queen Immaculate, and Arkasha Stevenson’s better-than-expected The First Omen. First is Stopmotion, a film that deals with the fraying reality of an artist losing her grip. Robert Morgan’s look at artistic obsession centres on a stop-motion animator (Aisling Franciosi) who tries to find her own creative voice and ends up putting a bit too much of herself into her work. Franciosi, who wowed in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, adds very relatable humanity to the chills and bloodiness on show. And boy does Stopmotion put the ‘gory’ in ‘allegory’. It’s an unnerving film and the questions it raises through psychological and body horror about what people are willing to sacrifice for their passion will lodge themselves under your skin for the foreseeable.
The second spot in our horror double-bill is Late Night With The Devil, from Australian directing duo Colin and Cameron Cairnes. David Dastmalchian shines as a cheesy talk show host determined to ramp up his ratings with a Halloween special featuring a girl who may or may not be possessed by an evil entity. The film takes place in real time and embraces its 70s aesthetic, with period-appropriate decor and boxy aspect ratios that immerse the viewer in kitschy syndicated TV land. Also admirable is the fact that Late Night With The Devil hits many familiar possession movie beats but still manages to keep you on its Exorcist -meets- Network -meets- The King of Comedy hook. It’s hardly groundbreaking plot-wise, and the satire could have been a tad more metatextually potent by further commenting on the TV industry, and whether seeing is believing in mass-media. However, this diabollically entertaining Satanic Panic flick shows that when done right, found footage horror movies needn’t be a thing of the past.
Read our full reviews of Stopmotion & Late Night With The Devil.
13) Memory
In Mexican director Michel Franco’s Memory, Jessica Chastain plays Sylvia, a New York social worker and recovering alcoholic whose surprise encounter with a high school figure (Peter Sarsgaard) profoundly impacts her structured life, as well as reopens some wounds from the past. After the gutpunches of 2020’s New Order and 2021’s Sundown, Franco signs an equally impactful but somewhat uncharacteristically optimistic film about two damaged souls getting on each other wavelengths to better heal. Not that it’s all sunshine and kittens, mind you: Memory deals with early onset-dementia, sexual abuse, repressed childhood memories and the possibility of recovery. This is a Michel Franco film, after all. However, by initially withholding some information regarding the fallibility of recollection and allowing both Chastain and Sarsgaard to do the heavy lifting (with Sarsgaard winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actor in Venice for his efforts), the director creates a complex, emotionally impactful and resonant anti-romcom. Shout out to Jessica Harper who is chilling as Sylvia’s estranged and toxic mother, a character who shows to what extent repression is like a metastasizing cancer. Memory sadly flew under the radar during last year’s awards season, and it’s a shame as the two exceptionally intelligent and measured central performances should have been celebrated more. Don’t miss out on this one. And prepare the tissues.
12) Zendaya Double-Bill: Dune: Part Two & Challengers
Another double-bill for your viewing pleasure, this time focused around one of Hollywood’s brightest young A-listers: Zendaya. She took the centre stage in Denis Villeneuve’s second trip back to Arrakis, which once again begged the question: What can’t the Canadian director not ace? From apparently unadaptable cerebral sci-fi (Arrival) to against-all-odds superior sequels (Blade Runner 2049) via redefining how stressful traffic jams can be (Sicario), Villeneuve has proven time and time again he can deliver on the seemingly impossible. Dune: Part Two is a visually stunning epic that doesn’t forget to embrace all of Frank Herbert’s heady concepts. Few filmmakers out there could tackle storytelling of this scale while doing justice to both the thematic heft of the source material and the dazzling visual bombast a tale of this magnitude cries out for. While Timothée Chalamet delivers a terrific performance, the stars of the show were undeniably Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica and Zendaya as Chani. We see things more from the latter’s perspective, and the film is stronger and more emotionally impactful for it. Dune: Part Two may not be the greatest sci-fi sequel ever made, like many were trumpeting upon its release, and there are some glaring flaws along the way that make the first instalment superior. However, with a planned third chapter – Dune Messiah – on the way, Villeneuve’s planned trilogy could very well be one for the ages. Just keep Zendaya centre court. Speaking of which…
For Zendaya’s second foray onto the big screen this year, the actress excelled as Tashi in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. She is the catalyst for a libidinous spark that affects two best friends (Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist) in an on-court / off-court battle of one-upmanship, jealousy, spite, and drive. Through the character of Tashi, Guadagnino simply but effectively challenges the audience’s sympathies and creates a deceptively complex riddle which mirrors the scorekeeping in a tennis match. As per the director’s custom (see: Bones And All, Suspiria, Call Me By Your Name), Challengers is one sensual piece of work. It’s not as sexy as advertised, and nor is it particularly profound. It boils down to a love-triangle featuring two boys who love a girl but who actually love each other more, while the girl just really loves good tennis. However, thanks to Guadagnino, screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes and Zendaya, the show is elevated to a twisty and intense game of 3D relationship chess. Zendaya’s grand slam turn thrives in ambiguity as she reveals herself to be a sporty Lady Macbeth, and the actress is both ferocious and cold as a hailstorm. Both Dune: Part Two and Challengers prove that Zendaya is not just a bankable A-lister; she’s an absolute force of nature when she’s calling the shots.
Read our full reviews of Dune: Part Two & Challengers.
11) Bastarden (The Promised Land)
What can’t Mads Mikkelsen play? Suspected paedophile. Menacing cannibal. Alcohol microdosing teacher with some serious dance moves. His impressive CV speaks for itself, and with The Promised Land (for which he won Best Actor at the last European Film Awards) the actor shows he understands the value of a satisfyingly old-fashioned historical drama. In Nikolaj Arcel’s stunningly shot period piece, he plays an impoverished 18th century Danish war veteran on a mission to conquer the harsh heath where no crop can grow. Soon, he finds himself at odds with his aristocratic neighbour, a sadistically odious landowner played to perfection by Simon Bennebjerg. What follows is a sweeping yet personal historical epic, full of romance, torture, and greed, which aces everything it sets out to achieve. The film is both a lyrical story about survival and a primal character study, and proves once again that if you want a leading man to elevate the already strong source material (here, Ida Jessen’s « Kaptajnen og Ann Barbara ») to greatness, Mikkelsen’s your Dane.
10) Civil War
It was going to be this year’s most controversial film, and Civil War delivered the goods. Just maybe not in the way anyone expected. Released months before what already promises to be the most contentious presidential election in modern history, Alex Garland (Sunshine, Ex Machina, Annihilation) has dodged any spoon-feeding or heavy-handed hectoring on the current state of US politics. Instead, he delivered a visceral film which taps into modern American anxieties through the story of a divided US in the midst of a bloody civil war. Garland keeps things deliberately vague, and many will find the broadness of Civil War frustrating and even maddeningly apolitical. And that’s the point. The audience is plunged in medias res, and the reasons behind the conflict are immaterial compared to the conflict itself. The director is more concerned in offering an edge-of-your-seat anti-war film that unveils itself as a deceptively nuanced meditation on war journalism. It’s a “What if?” dystopian thriller which answers that very question with a level of lucidity and brutality that is both compelling and slyly challenging. In that sense, the seemingly ‘apolitical’ silence speaks volumes. Read our full review.
9) Love Lies Bleeding
For her sophomore film, Welsh director Rose Glass builds on the promise of her stunning 2019 debut Saint Maud with a bigger, bolder follow-up that confirms she is up there with talent like Julia Ducournau (Raw, Titane), Natalie Erika James (Relic) and Prano Bailey-Bond (Censor) as some of the most distinctive and exciting cinematic voices of this still young century. Glass signs a pulpy triumph fuelled by two electric performances from Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian. Both shine in what is a revenge odyssey with a dash of Thelma and Louise, an erotically-charged queer parable flirting with body horror, and a forward-looking yet retro-feeling noir. Like Saint Maud before it, the theme of devotion taken to the extreme is present here, with an added dose of how an overpowering emotion like love can come to consume a person. Or create a folie à deux… Add to that sly commentary on the toxic, all-American sense of extreme affirmation that fosters all-consuming emotions, and you’ve got one wild ride. Admittedly, the movie’s gonzo nature won’t work for everyone, especially when it comes to the final act; that being said, the delirious ending makes this a future midnight movie essential. And maybe the most bizarrely romantic movie of 2024. Read our full review.
8) Aku Wa Sonzai Shinai (Evil Does Not Exist)
Following on from the Oscar-winning success of 2021’s Drive My Car (and his superior second 2021 offering, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s latest feels like something of a departure. Evil Does Not Exist is a more elliptical and cryptic offering from the Japanese director, who explores how the small rural village of Mizubiki and its natural way of life is being threatened by the looming spectre of deforestation, embodied by the arrival of two representatives planning to open a luxury campsite. It all sounds pretty straightforward as a story about ecology vs modern capitalism and the fragile balance of harmony with nature. However, Hamaguchi takes his time, imbues his story with an otherworldly atmosphere, and never gives the audience any obvious or didactic touchstones. This feels like a film about mankind’s deep and inherent discrepancies, a haunting dirge which offers up two of this year’s best scenes: a frustrating public meeting between the townspeople and the glamping representatives; and a beautiful but confounding ending which, like the film as a whole, is spellbinding.
7) Yórgos Lánthimos & Emma Stone Double-Bill: Poor Things & Kinds of Kindness
Poor Things feels like a 2023 film at this point, having won last year’s Venice Golden Lion, but it was released at the very beginning of the year and therefore makes the cut. We’ve chewed your ears off about it already and regulars to the good L’Observatoire de l’Europe Culture parish know how much we enjoyed it. Chances are that you’ve already seen Lánthimos’ singular Victorian Frankenstein riff that earned 11 Oscar nominations and bagged Emma Stone her second Best Actress Oscar. If you’ve let it pass you by, get on it. The thing is that 2024 is very much a Lánthimos / Stone year. Because Yórgos never does things by halves, we’ve already been treated to the follow-up with the Cannes-premiering Kinds of Kindness – also starring the director’s lucky charm. Who says we can’t have nice things? Well, bleak things, because the second of the two sees the director reclaim his title of King of the Greek Weird Wave.
It’s a strange anthology triptych that is darker and far more surreal than his recent output – the perfect film for those who have been missing that queasy malaise felt during the indelibly bleak Dogtooth and troubling The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Kinds of Kindness tells three loosely connected stories using the same acting troupe in different roles. There’s group sex, cannibalism, cults, doppelgängers, and not as much kindness as the title would have you believe. It’s Lánthimos’ intoxicatingly sexy, hilarious and cruel spin on The Twilight Zone. Stone is less centre stage here compared to Poor Things – with Jesse Plemmons stealing the show and rightly nabbing the Best Actor Palme on the Croisette this year. However, the actress assures that what could feasibly have been a fun but disposable victory lap following the award-winning Poor Things is actually nothing of the sort. The three deadpan allegories, about the limits of love and free will, as well as the relinquishing of control in relationships, make up a theatre-of-the-absurd trip worth taking. 2024 has been weirder and better thanks to the Yórgostonesphere.
Read our full reviews of Poor Things & Kinds of Kindness.
6) La Bête (The Beast)
This genre-bending tale from French conceptualist Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, Zombi Child) is a lot to take in. But like many in this list, it’s an audacious film that rewards patience. Inspired by Henry James’s 1903 novella “The Beast in the Jungle”, The Beast a formally daring sci-fi melodrama that feels like a heady cross between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind directed by Stanley Kubrick and Cloud Atlas if David Lynch had made it less shit. It is set over three distinct time periods, with the base timeline being a near future where human emotions have become a threat. Artificial Intelligence rules and sees feelings of pain, including a broken heart, as limiting the potential of humans. It can erase them. However, getting rid of them means reexperiencing your memories… Featuring a career-best performance from Léa Seydoux, this initially unweildy film completely masters its concept and manages to defy tones, as well as create coherence out of confusion. Don’t miss out on this sophisticated melodrama with unique staying power. Read our full review.
5) Zielona Granica (Green Border)
Fair warning: from here on in, this list does tend to feature films that err towards the depressing. That said, these Top 5 films are unmissable, with veteran Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s powerful new feature leading the charge. The title Green Border refers to the forests that make up the no-man’s land between Belarus and Poland. There, refugees from the Middle East and Africa desperately try to reach the European Union and find themselves trapped in an absurd to-and-fro overseen by both the Belarusian and Polish governments. Over the course of four chapters (‘Family’, ‘The Guard’, ‘The Activists’, ‘Julia’) and an epilogue, stories intertwine to expose a gripping and emotionally devastating indictment of a continuing EU crisis – one which won the Special Jury Prize in Venice last year. Holland always avoids melodrama, choosing to focus instead on the shards of light desperately fighting to peek through corroded humanity. Rare are films that manage to deftly blend righteous anger and compassionate filmmaking like this piece of humanist filmmaking. A must-see. Read our full reviewand our interview with Agnieszka Holland.
4) Bên trong vỏ kén vàng (Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell)
For his first feature film, Vietnamese director Phạm Thiên Ân has crafted a meditative odyssey on reality, dreams, faith and death. It follows Thiện (Lê Phong Vũ), a young man whose sister-in-law has died in a motorcycle crash and whose brother abandoned the family. Thiện, having inherited the custody of his nephew, embarks on a journey to find his brother and oscillates between past and present in search for meaning. It’s a tough film to describe and do justice to. It’s hardly a light watch, granted, and it is inscrutably elliptical, double granted. However, Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell is one of those gorgeous films that amply rewards patience with stylish, haunting and deeply absorbing gifts.
3) Des Teufels Bad (The Devil’s Bath)
Based on extensive research into historical court records, The Devil’s Bath sees Austrian directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala shine an unsettling light on a previously unexplored chapter of European history. By giving a voice to history’s voiceless, we discover how hundreds of people – mostly women – “cured” themselves of their depression by driving themselves to suicide by proxy, in order to avoid eternal damnation. In crafting this profoundly immersive and disturbing psychological portrait, carried throughout by the wonderful Anja Plaschg (aka: Sopa&Skin, who provides one hell of an ominous score), the directors employ some of the cinematic language of horror. Unlike their previous films Goodnight Mommy or The Lodge, however, The Devil’s Bath defies easy categorisation. It’s a lot of things at once: a stunningly shot period piece; a spine-chilling critique of religious dogma; a heart-wrenching excavation of the past’s voiceless; a moody metaphysical exploration of the cages that have travelled through time to persist in current-day society. In short, it’s a lot. And very bleak. But fascinating and enveloping to the point of being unmissable. Read our full reviewand our interview with directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
2) All Of Us Strangers
Based on the 1987 novel “Strangers” by Taichi Yamada, this striking new film from British director Andrew Haigh explores the loss and longing that entangle us in loneliness. It follows screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) as he begins a romantic relationship with his neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal) while making visits back to his childhood home to confront his past. It’s a ghostly love story focusing on grief, a heartbreaking masterpiece that could very well be Haigh’s best work to date. Which is saying plenty considering we’re still not over 2015’s 45 Years. All Of Us Strangers is both fantastical yet grounded, simultaneously personal and universal; and while you’ll reach the end credits emotionally shattered, you’ll also find wisdom and great solace in its layers. A truly remarkable achievement. Now pass the tissues.
1) The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s loose adaptation of Martin Amis’ 2014 novel “The Zone of Interest” is a profoundly disquieting and audacious film that offers a new perspective on the Holocaust. Like all cinema depicting the oft-visited topic, the director faced an age-old question: How do you adequately illustrate an unfathomable atrocity? The British director answers by adhering to the perspective of the late Claude Lanzmann (Shoah), who posited that the representation of the Holocaust could not be achieved through a fictional version of the camps. As such, Glazer evokes a nightmare we can’t see, following Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), who both build a dream life for their family in a home situated on the other side of Auschwitz’s wall. Glazer represents the unrepresentable by embracing absence to better display what Hannah Arendt referred to as the “banality of evil”. His film brings this concept to the screen in the most chilling of ways, by exploring the troublingly identifiable humanity behind the lives of those who perpetrate unspeakable crimes. The end result is an experimental masterstroke which breaks conventional expectations when it comes to similar premises. It’s our pick for the strongest film of the year so far. Read our full reviewand our interview with Sandra Hüller.
There we have it.
What? No Inside Out 2, Hit Man, I Saw The TV Glow or Furiosa?
Yeah, they’re all fun but overrated.
However, some upcoming titles are not, and having had the pleasure of attending Berlin and Cannes this year, we recommend you look out for titles like Emilia Perez, The Substance, Anora, Bird, My Favourite Cake, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Dahomey and The Strangers’ Case in the second half of this year.
Check out our Film of the Week series for more reviews of recent releases, and stay tuned to L’Observatoire de l’Europe Culture to see how many halfway mark titles remain in our end of year Best Films of 2024.
Happy screenings!
