We list the 30 best movies of 2024, ranked from worst to best and picked by the Loud And Clear Reviews staff; here are the greatest films of the year according to us, from crowdpleasers to lesser known gems!
What were the best movies of 2024? If you’ve taken a look at our writers’ individual top 10 lists, you know that, out of the many films were released this year, each of our writers had different favorites. But there are also some releases that most of our staff loved, which made their way to our list of 30 best movies of the year. Even though 2024 was a bit of an underwhelming year for cinema, as the SAG-AFTRA strikes affected the release schedule, it still gave us several crowdpleasers and many indie gems that you should absolutely seek out.
Not everyone at Loud and Clear Reviews was able to see every film that came out this year, but 34 of our writers joined forces to come up with this ranked list, which also includes a tie! So without further ado, below is our definitive list of the 30 best movies of the year. It only includes movies that had their first U.S. or U.K. release or FYC screening in the year 2024, not counting film festival debuts, and we also added links to our reviews. Scroll till the end for the honorable mentions!
#16-30.
30. Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)
29. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)
28. The End (Joshua Oppenheimer)
27. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)
26. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
25. Civil War (Alex Garland)
24. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar)
23. Dahomey (Mati Diop)
22. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)
21. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
20. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante)
19. Hit Man (Richard Linklater)
18. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
17. No Other Land (Basel Adra)
16. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
#15. Tie: A Different Man and Love Lies Bleeding
Directors: Aaron Schimberg and Rose Glass
This year, two films released by A24 explored how love and hate (for others or one’s self) are intertwined in thought-provoking ways: Love Lies Bleeding and A Different Man. In Love Lies Bleeding, reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls for Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder headed to Vegas to pursue her dream. Their love for one another leads them to do insane acts of violence, pulling them into Lou’s family’s criminal life. Stewart and O’Brian’s chemistry is magnetic. Without the tenderness they bring to the relationship towards the start, you wouldn’t buy the darker twists their arcs take that test their love. Through clever use of body horror and surreal visuals, writer-director Rose Glass has an eye for intimate and twisted storytelling. Love Lies Bleeding is a successful crime thriller that seamlessly plays with tone and genre.
A Different Man sees aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergo a radical medical procedure to cure his facial condition. Just when he thinks his new life has begun – he’s making friends and talking to women, he has a stable job, and he has gotten rid of his insecurities – Edward relapses into a journey of self-loathing as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost: his face. The film highlights how, as humans, we often don’t value what’s in front of us and blame external forces for sabotaging our lives when we’re responsible for our actions. Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, and Adam Pearson are an electric trio in infuriating, captivating, and charming fashion. Umberto Smerilli’s score is hauntingly beautiful, externalizing Edward’s descent into madness as his hate for those around him grows and his love for his craft, and himself, fades away. (Edgar Ortega)
#14. Queer
eggeDirector: Luca Guadagnino
Read Also: Jonathan Anderson: Luca Guadagnino’s Go-To Costume Designer
Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is easily one of the most stunning films I’ve seen this year. Based on William S. Burroughs’ novel, it follows William Lee (Daniel Craig), an expatriate in 1950s Mexico City, as he becomes obsessed with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a younger, emotionally distant GI. What starts as infatuation evolves into a bittersweet journey of longing and loneliness that hit me harder than I expected.
Daniel Craig gives what might be the performance of his career. He disappears into the role of Lee, a man so trapped in his own insecurities that his every action feels raw and painfully real. His longing is palpable, and I couldn’t help but feel every ounce of his pain and desperation. Starkey’s Allerton is the perfect counterbalance, charming, distant, and just out of reach. Their chemistry is both magnetic and heartbreaking, with so much left unsaid that it practically screams.
The film itself is beautifully restrained. Justin Kuritzkes’ script and Guadagnino’s direction allow silences to say as much as words. Every glance, every moment of hesitation feels heavy with meaning. And visually? It’s breathtaking, capturing Mexico City with a gritty yet dreamlike lens that mirrors Lee’s emotional state.
More than a love story, Queer is about the deep ache of wanting to be seen and understood. It’s haunting, beautiful, and utterly unforgettable. (Roberto Tyler Ortiz)
#13. Nosferatu (2024)
Director: Robert Eggers
Robert Eggers simply does not miss. His latest offering is Nosferatu (2024), one of the most unnerving movies of the year. A modern master of horror thanks to films like 2015’s The Witch, Eggers took on what was a dream project and made something extraordinary. Nosferatu (2024) is a remake of the 1922 silent film of the same name and it centers on Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), who finds herself as the fixation of a mysterious Transylvanian vampire named Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Though it is a remake, Eggers finds multiple ways to make his vision stand out while also honoring what came before. From the haunting cinematography to beautiful costumes and a dreamy yet frightening musical score by Robin Carolan, Nosferatu (2024) has plenty of pieces worthy of admiration.
At the center of it all are Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgård as Ellen Hutter and Count Orlok delivering two sensational performances that will have you wrapped up in this beautiful gothic love story. Depp does things with her body which audiences will have a hard time unseeing and captures the innocence and fear in Ellen so well. Skarsgård’s Count Orlok is unlike anything you have seen from him before, equal parts terrifying and entrancing. I invite you to succumb to the darkness and witness something extraordinary. (Branyan Towe)
#12. Dune: Part Two
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Even though I enjoyed Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One, I thought some elements could have been improved. Namely, the characterisation of Timotheé Chalamet’s Paul Atreides —who felt a little too passive as a character— and the film’s overall pacing. Well, all of that and more was indeed improved for the sequel, Dune: Part Two, so much so that I consider it one of 2024’s finest films. With this adaptation, Villeneuve has crafted an impressively emotional, visually amazing, and impeccably acted science-fiction romp.
Paul’s journey to the Dark Side is subtle and tragic; his relationship with Zendaya’s Chani works beautifully, and Austin Butler’s psychopathic Feyd-Rautha is a stand-out. But if the movie manages to go above and beyond its predecessor, it’s because Villeneuve combines all of the story’s narrative, technical and performative elements to almost perfection, showing most other filmmakers what can actually be done with a big budget, a legendary source material, and access to Hollywood’s most interesting young stars. Adapting Dune: Messiah to the big screen will be an even bigger challenge, but considering what Villeneuve has done with this second film, I don’t doubt he will be up to the task. (Sebastian Zavala)
#11. Nickel Boys
Director: RaMell Ross
No other 2024 release challenged the medium of film itself quite like RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys. Adapting Colton Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winner would be an easy task for most filmmakers, but Ross’s creative choices make the familiar feel brand new. The film tracks the trials and tribulations of a group of young men at the infamous Nickel Academy in the Jim Crow south, a real place in Florida that only closed in 2011. We mainly follow two boys, Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp/Daveed Diggs) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), who take differing approaches to navigating the system’s inequalities.
By filming their story through first-person perspective, Ross allows us to experience the events of the film in a unique light. Suddenly, the mundane becomes extraordinary: the light shining through the tree, the magnets on a refrigerator, the steam coming off an iron. But it’s the extra touches that Ross adds which separate Nickel Boys from its source material. Ross interjects archival, historical footage, and home videos, showing us our history through both a micro and macro lens, as we see our true potential clashing against our worst, most shameful impulses.
Thankfully, the film never feels like a treacly, finger-wagging sermon, nor does the POV choice ever feel like a gimmick. Rather, Nickel Boys puts its characters first, thanks to performances from Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, and a true, truly heartbreaking supporting turn from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. 2024 saw a number of fresh discoveries in front of and behind the camera, but Nickel Boys is a bold, declarative statement on how we can see the world. (Ben Sears)
#10. Conclave
Director: Edward Berger
Read Also: Interview: Producer Michael Jackman on Conclave
I’m usually not one for religious dramas, but when they’re done this well, I’m all in. Conclave isn’t just one the best religious dramas ever made; it’s easily also one of the best films of 2024. From its poignant acting interwoven throughout a scandalously thrilling plot to its artistic use of light, color, setting, music, and cinematography, Conclave is an absolutely stunning watch tucked amongst explorations of religion, politics, power, and tolerance. Its message? Secrets never remain hidden in a world where progress is inevitable, even in the most sacred of places.
When the Pope dies, the titular Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with overseeing one of the world’s most secretive, ritualistic, and historic processes, the election of a new pope. As he quietly struggles with his own religious issues, Cardinal Lawrence finds himself surrounded by powerful religious leaders in the halls of the Vatican–most vying for the coveted throne. As rituals abound and political tensions rise, powerful secrets come to light that slice the political tension with a knife and force Cardinal Lawrence to question his own beliefs and morals as he uncovers the one secret in the world that could actually rip apart the very foundation of the Catholic church.
While you might think you know what that secret is or could be, I assure you, you don’t. Conclave’s plot twist is one I never saw coming, and you won’t either. It’s impossible not to love and emphatically appreciate every thrilling, tense ounce of this scandalously artistic film that deserves in every aspect to be named one of the best movies of 2024. (Keeley Brooks)
#9. The Substance
Director: Coralie Fargeat
The Substance is an absurdist spectacle, one to be seen to be believed. This psychosexual horror follows washed-up Hollywood starlet Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) searching for validation in the spotlight when she is offered a substance that promises to transform her into an enhanced version of herself. The film’s sharp commentary on aging, and aging in the public eye, holds a candle to Moore’s career trajectory but works well in conjunction with Coralie Fargeat’s fierce, knee-to-the-gut direction.
Bolstered by the sound design, Fargeat makes the mundane seem utterly repulsive, to the point where simply chewing or preparing turkey stuffed with foie gras becomes scarier than anything bloody. Moore’s physical and psychological commitment to the outlandish material complements Margaret Qualley’s pageanted performance as Sue, the younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of Elisabeth. The Substance is ambitious and discomfortingly funny; it left the two elderly women seated beside me alternating between gasping in repulsion and howling with laughter. (Isabella Liistro)
#8. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Director: Radu Jude
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World speaks to our current moment in original, innovative, and bitingly cynical ways. It’s a humorous and devastating triumph.
That may seem like high praise for a film that follows a young woman (Ilinca Manolache) driving around Bucharest finding people to star in a “safety at work” video. The premise could easily come across as boring or pretentious, but director Radu Jude combines experimental filmmaking techniques and timely themes to make a funny, moving, and ambitious creation. Jude attacks social media, capitalism, technology, and the fast-paced and stressful nature of modern life in a way that can resonate with anyone. The Romanian filmmaker rounds out his cast with the likes of Nina Hoss and a surprise Uwe Boll cameo, placing Manolache’s Angela in numerous scenarios that speak to the passiveness that can easily come with day-to-day life.
Jude effectively communicates his critiques by intercutting scenes from an older Romanian film, while also playing with pacing and cinematography. The final shot (lasting around 35 minutes) is simply stunning. “Stunning” is really the best word to describe the entire film, besides maybe “timely.” We need stunning, timely cinema to help make sense of our modern predicaments, and Do Not Expect fits that bill maybe more than any film this year. (Joshua Stevens)
#7. All We Imagine As Light
Director: Payal Kapadia
Payal Kapadia has stirred the minds of many cinemagoers and festival attendees across the years with A Night of Knowing Nothing and her many documentary shorts. But in her first feature film, All We Imagine as Light, the Indian filmmaker has done such to a more potent degree with a beautiful, tender assessment of the effects of impermanence through memories, dreams, and family ties. The film tells the story of friendship and sisterhood through the eyes of three women in Mumbai as they navigate cultural restrictions, romance, and the piercing wounds time leaves on us all.
Kapadia’s approach is methodical, meditative, and evocative, as the personal elements of the story blend with the universal feeling of loss and longing, and breaks away from the confines of conventional storytelling. Her visual language is hypnotic, presenting a world that is detailed and textured yet abstract and in a dream state. She invites the viewer to venture into this world that, for the great majority, is far different from their own. However, the way Kapadia frames it makes us feel that we are right then and there, creating a transient experience whose weight and emotions are more than palpable. All We Imagine as Light is a film that forces the viewer to observe, remember, and contemplate the nature of memories, time, and melancholy that define human existence. (Héctor A. González)
#6. A Real Pain
Director: Jesse Eisenberg
Read Also: A Real Pain Cements Jesse Eisenberg’s Creative Focus
In his sophomore film, Jesse Eisenberg creates a poignant character study of two cousins struggling to accept how time has changed one another. A Real Pain follows David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin), two cousins who were raised more like brothers and who reunite to take a trip to Poland. They are traveling to see the country their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who has recently passed away, grew up in. Their grandmother left money in her will for the two men to take this trip together after life has pulled them in different directions.
David, who has been riddled with anxiety his entire life, has a stable job along with a wife and a little boy who are the center of his world. Benji oozes charisma; people are naturally drawn to his empathetic and easy going nature. However, he still hasn’t found his footing yet. He takes up odd jobs, lives in his mom’s basement and doesn’t have any real passion driving him in life. His grandmother was his best friend and her passing has been exceptionally hard on him. This trip provides an opportunity for the cousins to explore not only the physical but also the emotional distance that has grown between these two men who were once the most important people in one another’s lives.
The film analyzes the unspeakable pain grief brings and the ugly way in which it begs to be witnessed. Kieran Culkin embodies Benji’s charm and evanescence effortlessly, but his ability to show the utter rawness of pain within the same performance proves he is in a league of his own. Eisenberg’s hilarious yet sincere writing, paired with Culkin’s one-of-one performance, has seared this film onto our 2024 top ten list. (Hayley Croke)
#5. I Saw the TV Glow
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Few films this year made waves like Jane Schoenbrun’s sophomore feature I Saw The TV Glow, a spell-binding queer horror that premiered at Sundance in January to rapturous acclaim. This film stayed the course to appear on numerous ‘best movies of the year’ lists, including this one. For good reason, as this miracle of a movie secures Schoenbrun’s place in 21st century film canon. I Saw The TV Glow works as a metaphor for the ‘egg crack’, an experience understood by trans individuals as when they begin to understand their inner feelings as being that of transgender. The film excavates the trauma of the trans experience, examining it through the life of teenager Owen (Ian Foreman [young], Justice Smith), a person who begins blurring lines of both their gender experience and reality.
Their obsession with late night teen supernatural drama The Pink Opaque, a Buffy The Vampire Slayer riff of gooey, oozy practical effects and shoddy cable tv CGI, begins bleeding into adult Owen’s life, causing them emotional damage and destabilising them, trapping them in a purgatory of gender and reality. With excellent support from Brigette Lundy-Paine as Maddy, who introduces Owen to the show, and filmmaking that is electrifying in its craft and meticulous in its attention to detail, Schoenbrun’s neon-infused soul shaker I Saw The TV Glow is one of the finest works of the decade so far. If 2024 should be remembered for a single film, it should be this one. (Connor Lightbody)
#4. Challengers
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Read Also: Why Challengers Has a Perfect Ending
Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers follows former tennis star Tashi (Zendaya), who prepares her husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) to face off against his former teammate and her ex-boyfriend Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). Leading up to the match, we’re taken through the 13 years of their complicated, volatile history.
Fittingly, the story of Challengers plays out like a psychological tennis match, bouncing back and forth through time to peel back the screwed-up story that’s pulled this trio together and yanked them brutally apart. Every time you think you know where it’s going, a new source of turmoil “rebounds” everyone in increasingly destructive ways. Very little is explicitly stated in terms of why these characters are making their decisions, but the magnetic, complex performances alone give you so much insight into the hurt, ambition, jealousy, love for their sport, and toxic competitiveness that they themselves are still struggling to figure out after all these years.
The cinematography (Sayombhu Mukdeeprom) and editing (Marco Costa) transform an already great love triangle story into the most electric kind of chaos, turning a POV shot of a flying tennis ball into the most cinematically intense moment of the year. But that wizardry is still outshined by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s possibly career-best score, which adds a relentlessly throbbing pulse every time it shows up. To use a phrase from the incorrect sport, Challengers knocks everything completely out of the park. (Joseph Tomastik)
#3. Sing Sing
Director: Greg Kwedar
Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing is a mighty 107 minutes. It will leave you full of tears but so hopeful for the future. Colman Domingo gives a career-best performance as John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield, a man wrongly accused of homicide who resides in a maximum security prison. Sing Sing is a real prison in the state of New York which helps the inmates grow through various educational programmes. We follow Divine G as he acts his heart and soul out in the theatre programme, reciting everything from Shakespeare to a new play he and the rest of the acting programme have made up, featuring characters from every period of history. Whilst Domingo shines whenever he’s in view, his magnificent acting skills mean he never outshines the supporting actors he shares the screen with.
The ensemble is predominantly made up of ex-inmates of Sing Sing, and as the credits roll, you’re met with ‘‘Clarence Maclin’ as Himself’ and ‘‘Sean Dino Johnson’ as Himself’. These real performances, with these two in particular, are some of the best of the year. Maclin and Johnson know exactly what it’s like to be in prison, and have come back to tell their story in the most beautiful way.
Sing Sing is a story about how acting, and art in general, is so essential even whilst in prison. The real life programme ‘Rehabilitation Through the Arts’ that is active at Sing Sing allows inmates to find themselves through various workshops. A study conducted at the facility showed that “the longer the inmate was in the programme, the fewer violations he committed”. Sing Sing is that bit more special knowing the work being documented in the film is a reflection of work done in real life. It’s easily one of the best features of 2024. (Bethany Lola)
#2. Anora
Director: Sean Baker
Read Also: Anora: Final Scene and Ending Explained
Sean Baker has become an unlikely chronicler of soured American dreams, exploring new depths and reaching new highs with every film since his debut feature Four Letter Words. Expectations were high before his latest dive into hustlers trying to hustle dropped at the Cannes Film Festival, and it’s safe to say those expectations were met. Critical acclaim and the Palme d’Or were just the first rewards for Anora on the ongoing march into awards season.
Anora has a lot in common with its protagonist. Ani (Mikey Madison) is charismatic, energetic, and determined to have her say. Working as an exotic dancer in Brooklyn, she’s offered the chance to work exclusively as an escort for Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the wealthy spoiled offspring of a Russian oligarch. Baker contrasts the greys of Ani’s cramped suburbia with Vanya’s gilded mansion. Drew Daniels’ cinematography and Stephen Phelps’ production design are immaculate, ensuring we get as caught up as Ani in a life she has only dreamed of.
Of course, as is the way of these things, Ani’s golden ticket of escape comes with strings, and rushed married bliss soon becomes a hectic and anxious reckoning with reality. Amongst the Uncut Gems-alike screaming and running, Baker keeps his camera tight on the exquisite faces he’s cast to sell the chaos. All of them excel, from Eydeshteyn’s bratty man-boy to Yura Borisov’s bodyguard with a heart, but Madison is the true star. She ensures you’re on board the wild emotional rollercoaster that is Ani’s journey, turning from shrill to gentle to heartbroken with just a flutter of the eye. She and Baker inject the chaos of Anora with staggering amounts of heart and surprising helpings of soul. Anora is a portrait of a young woman on fire, warming all who come near while she burns bright. (Philip Bagnall)
#1. The Brutalist
Director: Brady Corbet
Brady Corbet’s first two films as a director – 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader and 2019’s Vox Lux – introduced him as a new, unique voice in contemporary cinema; his third confirms him as one of the most most exciting and imaginative filmmakers working today. The Brutalist revolves around a fictional Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor named László Tóth (Adrien Brody), whom we follow as he leaves Hungary for the United States in 1947. László initially faces a life of poverty, but the wealthy Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) soon recognizes his talent and commissions him to design a grandiose, self-celebratory building.
Over the course of decades, we follow László, who’s eventually joined by his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), as he attempts to piece himself together, both as an artist searching for his legacy and as a fractured, barely functioning human being who’s adapting to the ever-changing circumstances around him while somehow managing to stay true to himself.
Clocking in at three hours and thirty-five minutes, The Brutalist starts out as the conventional tale of an architect’s American Dream only to turn into an entirely different beast in the second half, subverting our expectations while also, somehow, still ultimately delivering precisely that story. Anchored by Adrien Brody‘s best performance to date and further improved by flawless cinematograhy (Lol Crawley) and a potent score (Daniel Blumberg), Corbet’s film is bleak and brutal, but it’s also a beautiful, highly symbolical watch that tackles anything from art and legacy to ambition, artistic integrity, capitalism, immigration, possibility, and, ultimately, survival as a form of revenge and self-affirmation. The Brutalist is a masterpiece, and it earns the top spot on this list. (Serena Seghedoni)
The Best Movies of 2024: Honorable Mentions
Longlegs, I’m Still Here, Wicked, Maria, Green Border, Bird, His Three Daughters, Babygirl, Eephus, Ghostlight, The People’s Joker, Universal Language, Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, Memoir of a Snail, Monkey Man
