2024 in Review: Prelude to a List

 

Later this week, I'll be posting my "Not the Best Films of 2024" list (so named because the list reflects my personal tastes and preferences, and I make no claims that it truly represent the greatest films of the year past.)

When I post this list each January, the reactions I receive are split into two distinct camps. In the smaller of those camps are responses from fellow film bloggers who are often even more obsessive about film than I am.  We'll go back and forth, comparing our lists and our relative rankings of the films on them. There will inevitably be debates over the inclusion or absence of a particular film from one or the other of our lists.

In the other camp are personal friends and acquaintances who tend to be more casual filmgoers. They love movies (most people do, I believe) and a few will take recommendations from my lists. Their reactions are generally polite, if not downright complimentary. But every year, at least one person in this group will tell me, with palpable indignation, "I've never heard of most of these movies!!"

I never quite know what to do with that response. My first instinct is to feel a little wounded. One of my great joys in life is uncover a lesser known, but wonderful, movie and recommend it to people who I think might enjoy as much as I do. When doing so seems to offend someone rather than gratify them, it confuses me and makes me a little sad.

So, in case you are one the people who wonders how I find out about such films, here's how it happens:

I've been obsessed with movies since childhood, and I seek out information about films from all over the world on a regular basis. I follow the press coverage of international film festivals (in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, New York and Toronto primarily) and have attended screenings at the Chicago International Film Festival for most of the last ten years. Since the COVID pandemic, the Sundance Festival has offered remote streaming of their films; I take advantage of that every year.

I read film reviews in the New York Times and the Guardian, and follow sites like Vulture, Indiewire and the  AV Club on a regular basis. I'm on the mailing lists for Chicago arthouse theaters like the Music Box and the Gene Siskel Film Center. I subscribe to streaming channels that focus on international and/or experimental and avant garde cinema (Criterion, MUBI). 

And, of course, I read other film blogs, usually written by people I've corresponded with for years. (Among them: Wonders in the Dark ( to which I have contributed to on occasion), DeFacto Film Reviews, This Island Rod).

As a result of all this activity, I keep a rather extensive list of films I want to watch - and then I watch as many of them as I can. 

In short, I put a lot of time and effort into following films from over the world because it is my passion! And I make my 'year's best' list every year in order to share that passion with others.

Lest I sound like too much of a snob, however, I have listed below all 99 of the 2024-released films I have seen to date (along with my personal rating of each, using a 4-star rating system). Please note that there are some very lowbrow Netflix romcoms and a few other entirely silly entries among the highfalutin' festival favorites...

A Different Man	***1/2
A Family Affair	**
A Real Pain	***1/2
All of Us Strangers	***
American Fiction	***
Anora	***
Babes	***
Back to Black	***
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice	**
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry	***1/2
Blink Twice	**1/2
Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes	***
Brats	***
Cabrini	***
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut	***
Challengers	**
Chicken for Linda!	***1/2
Civil War	**
Conclave	***1/2
Coup de Chance	*1/2
Daddio	***
Dahomey	***1/2
Didi	***
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World	****
Driveaway Dolls	***
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes	***
Emilia Perez	***
Evil Does Not Exist	****
Faye: The Many Lives of Faye Dunaway	***
Firebrand	**1/2
Freud's Last Session	*1/2
Frida	***1/2
Ghostlight	***
Gladiator 2	***
God and Country	***
Good Grief	**
Green Border	****
Heretic	***
His Three Daughters	***
Hit Man	***1/2
If	***
Inside Out 2	***
It's Not Me	***1/2
Janet Planet	***
Jeanne DuBarry	**1/2
Joker: Folie a Deux	**1/2
Last Summer	***1/2
Late Night with the Devil	***
Lee	**1/2
Lonely Planet	**1/2
Love Lies Bleeding	***
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger	***1/2
Maria	***
Martha	***
MaXXXine	***
Megalopolis	***1/2
Memory	***
Merchant Ivory	***
My Old Ass	***
Nightbitch	**1/2
Oh Canada	***
Origin	***1/2
Our Little Secret	**
Perfect Days	***
Problemista	***
Rather	***
Red One	**
Remembering Gene Wilder	**1/2
Rumours	*
Sometimes I Think About Dying	**1/2
Saturday Night	**1/2
Scoop	***
Sorry Not Sorry	**1/2
Stormy	**1/2
Strange Darling	***1/2
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story	***
The Apprentice	***
The Beast	****
The Critic	**
The First Omen	***
The Great Lillian Hall	***
The Hypnosis	***
The Old Oak	****
The Substance	***1/2
The Taste of Things	****
The Truth vs. Alex Jones	***
The Zone of Interest	****
Thelma	***
Tuesday	***1/2
Unfrosted	**1/2
Wicked	***
Wicked Little Letters	**1/2
Wildcat	***
Will and Harper	***
Woman of the Hour	***

  Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara ***

  Juror # 2                                              **

  Nosferatu                                             **