Theres still nothing like the simple pleasure of watching movie stars be movie stars.
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Here are the best movies Bilge Ebiri and Alison Willmore saw in 2024.
BilgeEbirisTop10Films
Popcorn buckets.
They gave usfancy popcorn buckets.
Nosferatu miniature-coffin popcorn buckets.
Apparently,pickleball and zip linesare next on the menu?
But maybe its working.
But then things changed, and a lot of people actually did go to cinemas this year.
Being in crowds with people means learning to accept our differences.
Anyway, go seeNickel Boys.Its great.
10.Hit Man
10.
So much of the conversation around Richard Linklaters breezy hired-un-assassin comedy was understandably focused onGlen Powells incipient stardom.
(Okay,Twisterswas a huge domestic hit can we finally call him a movie star?
They just held a Glen Powell look-alike contest in Austin.
Does that count?)
Read ourfull review ofHit Man.
9.Ghostlight
9.
Words that weve heard many times over the years words that have become almost commonplace suddenly gain renewed power.
(Note the title.)
Art thus becomes not just a form of consolation, but a conjuring, a communion with the infinite.
Read ourfull review ofGhostlight.
8.No Other Land
8.
Much of the discussion aroundNo Other Landhas understandably centered around its inability to find distribution.
This is an astute usage of the cinematic mediums ability to compress time and expose epochal cruelties.
Read ourfull review ofNo Other Land.
7.Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One
7.
In the age ofmovies being split into multiple parts,Horizonis the one that perhaps suffers the most.
Witness all the critics bewildered by the fact that its opening chapter feels like … an opening chapter.
Read ourfull review ofHorizon: An American Saga Chapter One.
6.Girls Will Be Girls
6.
What makes it so alive is the delicacy and honesty with which each character has been drawn and performed.
Instead, it has the aura of truth, which makes it riveting.
Read ourfull review ofGirls Will Be Girls.
5.Universal Language
5.
Read ourfull review ofUniversal Language.
4.The Fall Guy
4.
But what really made the movie so involving was the terrific chemistry of leads Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.
Movie stars being movie stars what a novel concept.
Read ourfull review ofThe Fall Guy,behind-the-scenes look with the stunt team,andconversation with director David Leitch.
3.Green Border
3.
She tackles one of the great crises of our time with compassion, clarity, and outrage.
The result is the most terrifying film of the year.
Read ourfull review ofGreen Border.
2.Nickel Boys
2.
The ambition here is staggering.
Ross seeks to do nothing less than to change how we see the world.
Shockingly, he succeeds.
Read ourfull review ofNickel Boys.
1.Close Your Eyes
1.
Looking for him is the director whose own career was cut short by the mans disappearance.
Its a proper masterpiece by one of thegreatest filmmakers who ever lived.
Read our full review ofClose Your Eyesandinterview with director Victor Erice.
There are big entertainments and small personal films, but to grapple with weighty ideas on a large canvas?
Read ourfull review ofRed Rooms.
Read ourfull review ofUnion.
Read ourfull review ofJuror #2.
Read ourclose read ofThe Substanceand our piece on thereaction to the divisive film at the Cannes Film Festival.
I love Faists gawky beauty and OConnors unwashed irresistibility and Zendayas surly confidence.
Hold on, Im going to watch it again.
Read ourreview ofChallengers,review ofZendayas movie performance; and explanation ofwho won in the ending scene.
Read ourfull review ofHard Truths.
Read ourfull review ofDo Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World.
Some of those selections appear above in our Top 10 picks.
Below are more of the films (but not all) that stood out to them this year.
Movies are listed by U.S. release date, starting with the most recent.
Amid the stately ceremony, Berger finds ways to insert gradually escalating tumult and cattiness.
The priests fragile isolation isnt just a psychological element.
But still hilarious: Just because were choking on our laughter doesnt mean were not still laughing.B.E.
Read our fullreview ofRumours.
We chart her characters progression through her physicality.
And the spectral light inRonanseyes speaks volumes; this young woman is terrified of the world around her.
Read our fullreview ofThe Outrun.
Bilge Ebiri
Read our fullreview ofThe Wild Robotandinterview with director Chris Sanders.
Read our fullreview ofWill & Harper.
Then he meets Adam Pearsons Oswald, who has the same condition.
Its a star-making turn for Pearson, an actor with fibromatosis, whose delightful personality directly inspired Schimbergs film.
The film essentially becomes a conversation about the portrayal of disability onscreen a hilarious, moving, atmospheric one.
Read ourreview ofA Different Manandinterview with star Adam Pearson.
and runs with it in surprisingly heartfelt ways.
As a bonus,My Old Assis set in the most idyllic lakeside Canadian community you could imagine.A.W.
Read our fullreview ofMy Old Ass.
Saulnier builds tension well, but he also elegantly choreographs the havoc when it does come.
Read our fullreview ofRebel Ridgeandinterview with filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier about the films ending.
But it would be crazy to expect the 77-year-old Woo to try and make the same movie again.
Luckily, he hasnt.
Its fun, ridiculous, and deliriously violent in its own right.B.E.
Read ourfull review ofThe Killer.
Ben and Carlas growing closeness eventually poses something of a problem for just about everyone around them.
Read ourfull review ofBetween the Temples.
Read ourfull review ofDaughters.
Trap
Its always nice when M. Night Shyamalan remembers to have fun.
Read ourreview ofTrap,essay about M. Night Shyamalans career,andclose read of Josh Hartnetts performance.
Alison Willmore
Read ourfull review ofDidi.
Read ourfull review ofLast Summer.
Read ourfull review ofJanet Planetandinterview with director Annie Baker.
That doesnt stop Margolin from riffing on spy movies and action flicks.
Read ourfull review ofThelmaandinterview with star June Squibb.
But then theyre suddenly separated, and their lives diverge.
Read ourfull review ofRobot Dreams.
But the film is also thrilling in its own right.
Action sequences charge forward and build and build, casually leaving all manner of bodies in their wake.
Its a multicharacter saga that is at once thoroughly entertaining and thoroughly terrifying.
Read ourfull review ofGasoline Rainbow.
Read ourfull review ofEvil Does Not Existanddispatch from the Venice Film Festival.
This is a marvelous, mesmerizing film that offers no easy answers.
Theres a surreal quality to the film, and yet it all feels so true.
Theyre mostly numb to the horrors theyre chronicling.
Read ourfull review ofCivil War,interview with director Alex Garland,andessay on the movies final shot.
The prying eyes of a patriarchal society see her as both victim and prey.
A brief, seemingly promising relationship ends in tragedy.
Shes pursued by haunting visions as she begins to lose the line between reality and illusion.
Read our fullreview ofThe Beast.
She becomes intrigued by the odd, introverted Carlita Skianna (Nicole Sorace), one of the orphans.
She sees something of herself in the girl and tries to forge a bond with her.
Read our fullreview ofThe First Omen.
Read our fullreview ofLa Chimera.
Sakamoto was a savvy and thoughtful performer, always aware of his audience and in playful conversation with them.
The shimmering black-and-white photography and elegant camera moves heighten the intimacy of the performance.
Read our fullreview ofRyuichi Sakamoto:Opus.
Read our fullreview ofDune: Part Two,behind-the-scenes look with cinematographer Greig Fraser,andanalysis of the ending.
But hes not interested in alarmism.
Thats maybe the most novel (and heartbreaking) aspect ofIo Capitano.
He was born to an unwed servant, and he is a tough, at times heartless taskmaster.
Read our fullreview ofThe Promised Land.
In doing so, he gracefully reflects on the faded glories of his favored medium.
Read our fullreview ofPictures of Ghosts.
Read ourfull review ofFrida.
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