As I’ve been doing now since 2020, I’d like to celebrate those movies that gave me the most enjoyment last year—so here are my favorites that I saw for the first time in 2024, regardless of when they were first released.
Things started off with a bang on January 4th with The Heart of the World from the year 2000, directed by cinema’s mad scientist, Guy Maddin. It’s as rapid-fire as anything you’ll ever see, combining sex, danger, love, apocalypse, capitalist critique, murder, and a celebration of movies themselves all within six jaw-dropping minutes. Truly a joy.
A much longer movie followed then in March, with legendary 95-year-old documentarian Frederick Wiseman and his four-hour look at a trio of French restaurants, Menus-Plaisirs- les Troisgros. Wiseman’s style is to be sort of a fly on the wall, but lest you think this movie is slow, rest assured that the filmmaker is working at the highest of levels—he knows how to set rhythm perfectly with his editing as we see every aspect of the inner workings of the restaurants involved, from their farm suppliers to the people being astonished by their meals. I adored every second of this.
June brought me Nancy Savoca’s 1991 romantic comedy Dogfight, which finds River Phoenix fooling Lili Taylor into a cruel contest to determine which of Phoenix’s friends can find the ugliest date before all of the young men ship off to Vietnam. But a painful setup unfolds into a gorgeous exploration of youth, humanity, and understanding, with two young actors performing far beyond their years.
And then just for good old-fashioned entertainment, right at the very end of the year I caught the new French-language adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. A great story, brought to life with swords, betrayal, revenge, romance, intrigue, adventure… why else were movies made?
