Last year, there were four year-end movie posts: one for the ‘best’ movies of 2023, one for favourite movies of 2023, one for best pre-2023 movies I watched in 2023, and one for favourite pre-2023 movies I watched in 2023. We are going to do the same thing for 2024, and today we’ll move to my five ‘favourite’ movies I watched in 2024 that were released before this year. Go check out the post on my five ‘best’ movies I watched in 2024 that were released prior to this year.
When it comes to discerning between ‘best’ and ‘favourite’, there is sometimes an overlap. However, I think there are movies that are excellent (for technical reasons, for writing, for acting, or usually a combination of the three) that I likely wouldn’t spend a Friday night to sit down and re-watch, and those are the ‘best’. Then there are movies where I would absolutely throw on for a re-watch at midnight when I just want to enjoy myself, and those are ‘favourites’. Clear? Hope so.
Anyway, here are my five favourite movies I watched in 2024 that were released before 2024.
Mad Heidi (Action/Comedy, 2022)
Starring: Alice Lucy, Casper Van Dien
Director: Johannen Hartmann
Ever put on a movie based on its premise, it’s not what you thought it’d be, and it’s even better than you could have imagined? That is ‘Mad Heidi’.
I am a fan of revenge action movies, so when I saw the premise of this movie – a girlfriend goes on a revenge mission to kill the people who killed her boyfriend – I was in. But it’s much zanier than that: This movie takes place in a fictional dystopian Switzerland where the government is a narco-bureaucracy, but instead of drugs, it’s cheese. They are a cheese cartel and bring the hammer down on anyone caught illegally trading. They bring the hammer down on Heidi’s boyfriend, so she plots and executes her revenge.
It is even crazier than I’m making it out to be – at one point, Heidi says, “Yodel me this,” as she stabs some guy in the balls. She kills another man with an accordion. It is absolutely batshit in the most perfect way and was one of the most pleasantly surprising movies in recent memory.
If you have 90 minutes some night, and are looking for mindless fun, this is (was?) on Prime. It is completely absurd, but it knows it’s absurd, and that’s what makes it work so well.
Roman Holiday (Comedy/Romance, 1953)
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck
Director: William Wyler
In a typical setup from this era of Hollywood, Hepburn’s character (Ann) is a princess from a non-specified European country. Bored of her life, she escapes her confines one night, falls asleep in public, and is found by Peck’s character (Joe Bradley). He doesn’t recognize her at first, but when he does, he realizes he could have the scoop/interview of a lifetime. The rest of the movie is a metaphorical (and sometimes actual) dance between Ann and Joe as he shifts between a reporter trying to get an interview and a guy falling in love with his subject while Ann tries to enjoy a life outside of her royal duties.
Listen, I’m a sucker for movies set in old European cities, and I’m a sucker for romantic comedies from the post-WW2/pre-Vietnam War era. Put them together, and here we are. The way that Ann’s characteristics bleed into Joe’s, and vice versa, is a prime example of how two people can have a profound impact on each other in such a short period, and the performances from Hepburn and Peck are, erm, impeccable. It is a gold standard for romcoms, and holds up as well today as it did 70 years ago.
Audition (Horror, 1999)
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina
Director: Takashi Miike
There is an odd premise to ‘Audition’ but the idea behind that story is an interesting one. In short, Ishibashi’s character (Shigeharu Aoyama) is a middle-aged man whose wife dies at the beginning of the movie. Years later, at the urging of his son, he tries to start dating again. That is when he concocts a pretty bad idea: He and a film-producing friend set up an audition for a movie that will never get made with the real purpose of finding another (younger) wife for Shigeharu. One of the women auditioning is Shiina’s character (Asami Yamazaki), and Shigeharu falls hard for her immediately.
As the movie wears on, Asami’s story starts to come apart. Her former music producer is missing, Shigeharu finds her former place of employment the scene of a murder, she disappears after they take a vacation together, and so on. We eventually find out Asami’s backstory (hint: It’s very unpleasant) and this is where the movie takes a hard turn into the horror. We won’t spoil the second half of the film here, but it’s safe to say Asami is absolutely not who Shigeharu thought she was.
The idea of this movie comes down to this: At what point is a transgression worthy of not only some type of revenge, but death. The final act is brutal and tense. It is a near-perfect horror movie from start to finish.
Terrifier 2 (Horror, 2022)
Starring: Lauren LaVera, David Howard Thornton
Director: Damien Leone
Full disclosure: I had never heard of the ‘Terrifier’ series until this year. I have now seen all three instalments. Where to begin.
The original ‘Terrifier’ movie introduces (or re-introduces, as he was in an anthology film years ago) Art The Clown, a psychotic, other-worldly clown that not only hunts and murders his victims, but goes to extreme (and extremely gruesome) lengths to torture them. The second instalment picks up where the first left off as Art is revived and goes back on a killing spree. LaVera’s character (Sienna Shaw) and her brother Jonathan (played by Elliott Fulham) are the targets for Art, but there is a high body count in between him and them.
This movie is, and I cannot stress this enough, not for people who dislike gory horror movies; there is one murder sequence that is about the most graphic and horrific I have ever seen, and I have seen hundreds of horror movies. I do enjoy these types of films, which might make me part of the problem (the hyper-violent murder-clown is named ‘Art’ for a reason). Whatever.
Despite being on a low budget (reported at $200K), this looks like a movie with a $20M budget, if not more; all the effects are practical, and are very, very well done. The story might strain credulity, but we’re talking about a near-impervious supernatural clown that, at one point, rips someone’s hand in half, so how much that credulity can be strained is a fair question. The ‘Terrifier’ series is probably the best violence-driven horror series since the first few ‘Saw’ movies, and this is its best entry.
Poor Things (Comedy/Sci-Fi, 2023)
Starring: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
This came out in 2023 but wasn’t released at my local theatre, and wasn’t on streaming until well into 2024. Such is life.
‘Poor Things’ has an absolutely wild premise: Stone’s character (Bella Baxter) is a Frankenstein’s Monster-like person created by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe as Godwin Baxter) in Victorian London (unspecified, but sometime in the mid-to-late 1800s). She is brought to life in an adult body but has a child’s mind, so the hook here is what a person would act like if they had the body of a 30-year-old but the mind of a 5-year-old. And then, what would that person act like as their mind rapidly matures, catching up to their physical appearance.
Bella is brought on a vacation by Ruffalo’s character (Duncan Wedderburn) and the sheer number of laugh-out-loud sequences makes the entire movie worth it (the dinner scene on the boat in particular). It doesn’t always play for laughs, and it can get a bit weird, but there are enough twists to keep audiences guessing as to where it’s all going, and the movie is anchored by an all-time performance from Stone.
The weirdness and themes of the movie might put some people off, but the sets are vivid, the directing is aces, the performances (particularly Stone) are phenomenal, and the story resolves very well. Like ‘Mulholland Drive’ in my previous post, the nature of the filmmaking might not be for everyone, but this was exquisite from start to finish.
Cliffy's hell-hole 