Five ‘Favourite’ Movies of 2024

Last year, there were four year-end movie posts here: 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 doing the same thing for 2024, and today’s edition is ‘favourite’ movies of 2024.   

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.

The five ‘best’ movies released before 2024 that I watched this year was already covered, as was my five ‘favourite’ movies released before 2024. Today, we’re going to cover my five ‘favourite’ movies from 2024 proper.

A quick note: there are a handful of movies I really haven’t had a chance to see. The local movie theatre generally only shows blockbuster-type movies, so there a lot of smaller films that haven’t been sent to streaming/on-demand yet that I haven’t been able to enjoy. For example, movies like Anora and The Brutalist weren’t/aren’t going to be released here, while there are a few that hopefully make their way in the next two weeks like Nosferatu, A Complete Unknown, and Babygirl. This list is incomplete, but when it also gives them a chance to be recognized in next year’s column of pre-2025 movies.

Are we all set? Great. Here are my five favourite movies from 2024 in no particular order.

Civil War

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaney

Director: Alex Garland

In fairness, this was one of the movies I was looking forward to most in 2024, and it delivered. The short of it is that this is set in near-future America that has devolved into a civil war separated by territories like the West, a Florida alliance, an area that covers much of the north/northeast, and so on. It follows a group of journalists who make their way to Washington, D.C. in anticipation of the tyrannical government and President being deposed by these forces, and all the brutality that they see on their trip. It features arguably one of the most tense scenes in any movie this year when they stumbled upon a small cadre of soldiers who are literally filling up a mass grave.  

Once in a while, there is a movie that comes along that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go for two hours – Civil War is exactly that. It not only envisions what a breakdown like this would resemble, but also the role the media has in not only covering these events, but also feeding into the worst side of humanity while doing it. The connection, or, rather, the disconnection between the media’s humanity and their desire to cover such an inhuman circumstance is at the centre of this movie, and it’s hard to think of a recent example that does it as well as this movie does.

It isn’t a joyful experience, but it is an incredibly well-made, well-acted, and taught thriller/drama that keeps your nails dug into your seat. It is one of the few movies from this year that I’ve already made a point to re-watch and could see myself doing so again soon.

Alien: Romulus

Starring: Cailee Spaney, David Jonsson

Director: Fede Álvarez

The first Alien movie in seven years brings the franchise back to its roots, which is effectively a group of people in space trapped on a ship that has our titular aliens roaming about. This isn’t like recent Prometheus/Covenant entries that focus more on origins and existentialism, but simply plays more like a haunted house movie where a group of young people steal a ship to try and escape their dreary lives on a mining planet, and then find this ship has alien life forms that want to kill them all.

There are two things that work well about this movie. First, the fact that so much of it uses practical effects rather than leaning into computer graphics makes it feel grounded. It is easy for science-fiction filmmakers to get caught up in trying to look science-fiction-y and forgetting they are making a movie. The real sets, the (mostly) practical aliens, and so on make it feel like a true horror movie set in space rather than a computer game.

The second thing is the acting. Spaney is great in this, as she was in Civil War, but Jonsson is one of the stand-out performers not only of this movie, but of the year. He plays a synthetic robot/human, and he has to span a lot of emotions, ticks, and deliveries as his character (d)evolves. He brings the movie from Very Good to Excellent.

Romulus was a critical success, a commercial success, and an exciting re-entry to the Alien world. Some of the easter eggs/callbacks bothered some people, but not me because they largely served a purpose in the movie besides ‘hey did you see that in the background?’ From the directing, to the story, to the acting, to the effects, all worked together in a delightful, if terrifying, symphony.

Terrifier 3

Starring: Lauren LaVera, David Howard Thornton

Director: Damien Leone

The second edition of this series was in my column on favourite pre-2024 movies, and now the third one is feature here. For the uninitiated, Terrifier is a horror movie franchise that started as part of an anthology over a decade ago, but has now evolved into three films that have been growing in grandeur with each entry: The first movie was reportedly made on a budget of around $50,000 that was crowdfunded, the second had a budget of $250,000, and this third one was up to $2 million. The series has now grossed over $100 million at the box office in total.

Art The Clown is the villain of this movie, which is set at Christmastime as LaVera’s character (Sienna) is released from a mental hospital following her showdown with Art at the end of the second movie. The hook is that Art is a supernatural clown that takes great pleasure in not just murdering his victims, but torturing them both physically and psychologically, often to great lengths, and sometimes simultaneously. Each movie is wildly violent and frequently, erm, terrifying, and each movie usually features one set piece that really stands out from the rest in terms of its outlandish grotesqueness. Terrifier 3 might feature two of them, depending on what bothers you the most to see on a movie screen.  

Leone, as the director, clearly is saying something about the audience given the over-the-top violence perpetrated by a clown named Art, but the audiences love it, and so do I. This is definitely not a horror movie for anyone bordering on squeamish, but it is superbly made using mostly practical effects, which seems impossible with their level of financing, but they always pull it off – it looks like a $40 million horror movie on a fraction of the budget. The story is good, the acting is great, and the kill sequences are amazing. Not much more we can ask for from a horror movie.

MadS

Starring: Lucille Guillaume, Milton Riche

Director: David Moreau

Sometimes, a movie you’ve never heard of, thus for which you had no expectations, absolutely bowls you over, and that’s what MadS did to me. Maybe because it is a French film that went straight to streaming (I think it can be rented on Amazon but it was released on Shudder), it didn’t seem to get much traction online, but this was arguably the best, and my favourite, horror movie from 2024.

MadS was shot in one long, continuous 90-minute take with no cuts (for real). The entire film occurs in that 90-minute span, so it grabs your attention about five minutes in and holds your attention throughout.

It all starts with Riche’s character (Romain, a wealthy teenager) buying drugs from a dealer, and then driving off. A couple minutes later, he sees a woman on the side of the road who seems hurt, so he stops for her, and she jumps in the car. She is unable to speak, has a tape recorder on her saying she has some sort of virus, and is clearly in a lot of distress, but Romain is freaking out and doesn’t understand what she’s trying to explain. One thing leads to another, and she bashes her own head in until she dies, but Romain can’t go to the police because of the drugs in his car, so he goes home. The sickness is passed on to Romain and it acts as sort of a zombie-type virus. It takes time for the effects to present themselves, so Romain goes to a birthday party where he starts to lose his mind, growing increasingly agitated and violent, and he spreads the virus to other partygoers, including his ex-girlfriend. Things continue from there as the virus starts spreading around their town and the army gets called in, devolving into utter chaos.

It is hard to overstate how much I loved this movie. A genuine one-take movie that is so well choreographed, so tense, and so well-acted seems impossible, but Moreau pulled it off. One of the best horror movies of the last five years.

Woman of the Hour

Starring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto

Director: Anna Kendrick

Rarely does a movie with a lot of hype live up to that hype, but Kendrick’s debut as a director does exactly that. Like MadS, it is a crisp 90-minute movie that doesn’t take many detours and that helps hold the audience’s attention from start to finish. There is no bloat here, or unnecessary flashbacks, or anything of the sort. Everything in the movie serves a purpose, so while it is short by contemporary standards, it is by no means unfulfilling.

Woman of the Hour is based on the true story of Zovatto’s character (Rodney) who was a serial killer in the 1970s and appeared on the television show ‘The Dating Game’. Yes, that really happened: A serial killer in the middle of his killing spree took some time to go on ‘The Dating Game’. It is a wild world in which we live.

Kendrick’s character (Sheryl) is an aspiring actress in Los Angeles who accepts a job to go on ‘The Dating Game’ as the woman interviewing the men. Long story short, but she makes a connection with serial-killing Rodney, and they go on a date after the show. The story revolves not only around Rodney’s killing/raping spree, but Sheryl’s experience trying to make it as an actress in the 1970s, and how all of this intersects. It is easy for a movie with these themes to feel heavy-handed, but Kendrick handles it deftly, which is why it works so well.

Using the true story as a base, while also expanding the themes, makes Woman of the Hour feel like a complete movie that is dramatic, tense, and has a point of view without coming off as preachy. If this is Kendrick’s debut as a director, it’s exciting to think of where she’ll be five movies from now.

Some Honourable Mentions

The movie year of 2024 was good, not great, but there were a lot of movies that stood out to me as both very good, and very re-watchable. Let’s touch on seven of those quickly.

The Piano Lesson

Starring: John David Washington, Danielle Deadwyler

Director: Malcolm Washington

An adaptation of a play from the 1980s that is set during the Great Depression, it is (mostly) a one-room drama about a Black family’s connection (or lack thereof) to a piano, and their family’s history. It isn’t a straight-forward drama that has been typical Oscar bait over the last decade (or more), which is why it stands out so well. The acting alone is worth the watch, and Deadwyler turns in one of the best performances of the year.  

Dune: Part 2

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya

Director: Denis Villeneuve

This one probably doesn’t need much introduction as it was one of the biggest movies of 2024, and the second in a trilogy that started in 2021. The turn of Chalamet’s character (Paul Atreides) through the film goes very well in tandem with the exceptional set pieces directed by Villeneuve – Paul riding the giant sand worm was legitimately one of my favourite cinema-going experiences of the year, if not my absolute favourite.

Red Rooms

Starring: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin

Director: Pascal Plante

A French-Canadian movie about two women who closely follow a grisly murder case in Québec, and are unhealthily obsessed with the murderer, Red Rooms was one of the most unpleasant movies of the year, but in a good (bad?) way. It is about the obsession with true crime, obsession in general, and how the modern world can disconnect us from our humanity. Gariépy is outstanding and this is another one of the great thriller-dramas of 2024.

City Hunter

Starring: Ryôhei Suzuki, Misato Morita

Ever want to watch an action movie that both feels modern in the way it is shot/choreographed, but also a throwback to the action movies from the 1980s-1990s heyday? Look no further. It might not pass for all audiences (it is based on a manga that hyper-sexualizes some of the women), but it is genuinely just a lot of fun with good action sequences. An enjoyable way to spend 100 minutes with your brain shut off.

In A Violent Nature

Starring: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic

Director: Chris Nash

Another Canadian entry, In A Violent Nature was one of my most anticipated horror movies of 2024, and it did not disappoint. Were it not for MadS, then this would be the most inventive horror movie of the year. In A Violent Nature is a standard ‘vengeful spirit returns from the dead to hunt teens in the woods’ setup, but the hook is that almost the entire movie is shot from the killer’s point of view, kind of like a video game. It also features arguably the most grisly kill scene in any movie from 2024, which is saying something considering Terrifier 3 exists. Canadian horror movies have been on a big upswing in recent years.

The Substance

Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley

Director: Coralie Fargeat

This will probably show up on my ‘Best of 2024’ list, because it was probably the best movie I saw this year. The Substance features Moore’s character (Elisabeth) as an aging television star who is being replaced, but she finds out about this substance that can make her young again. The hook is that the substance makes a double of her, and that double wants to effectively take over her life. It revolves around the theme of beauty standards for women, and how we borrow from tomorrow to pay for today, but holds up as one of the most effective body-horror films of the century.

My Old Ass

Starring: Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza

Director: Megan Park

My Old Ass has a simple premise: What if you could talk to an older, future version of yourself? What would you ask them, what would you want to know, and (importantly) what wouldn’t you want to know? This was way, way more heartfelt than I was expecting, and it just struck me in a way few other movies from 2024 did. It is billed as a coming-of-age comedy-drama, but works as well for 18-year-olds as it does 38-year-olds.