In 2024 I watched over 110 films I had never seen before, according to my Letterboxd diary. This is about thirty less than the previous year but I'm still taking it as a win. Somehow, against some awful moments (this year saw me give one of my first 0.5/10 scores) I found excellence in cinema. In fact, looking back on last year's rankings I have five more films viewed in cinema and five more films positive than the previous year. The 114 films I watched over the year comprise my 65 in cinema and additional recommended watches from those who want to share their own movie loves. It is always a privilege to engage in the latter and this year, I connected with the horror genre more than ever.
The past year has felt busy, just as a year but also for me personally. When we go through great moments of responsibility it can be hard to know when you have shouldered too much or if you're not shouldering enough. I found the thing that helped me a lot is the power of listening, which might sound silly. But it is the voices of others who taught me what I needed to improve and it is others who lift you up via words of encouragement or wisdom. Going and sitting in front of a film is a lot like that; as is a play or a song or a poem. It weaves a story and if you listen hard enough, you might just learn something or improve a part of your character. I thought the whole year long about the sort of man I want to be after watching The Iron Claw.
After all the writer's strikes, actor's strikes, AI fears and giant pressures placed on special effect companies and animation studios, it's no surprise the smaller releases shone brightly this year. Those human moments or stories where we look up to the screen and see a part of ourselves. I'm a massive fan of superhero blockbusters but I've enjoyed some distance from them this year. It has challenged how varied I am as a viewer and led to some watches that I never would have expected from myself years ago (*cough* The Substance *cough*). This year felt like a chance for cinema to take risks again, and not cower behind 'surefire' box office successes. Superman is flying back in 2025 and the Jurassic World dinos are stomping back too, so this period might be brief. But for now? I have enjoyed wandering off the beaten trail.
Overall, this year has been pretty memorable and a chance to explore material I otherwise wouldn't have engaged with. I'm a firm believer in breaking from your comfort zone with stories, you never know what bright new discovery you might make. I feel the highs really strongly belong on this list, while the worst I won't be watching them again. Without further ado, let's dig into the films of 2024, starting with my Top 5...
The Best:
5. The Iron Claw - 8.5/10
The Von Erich family and their wrestling history is a story I didn't really know a lot about going into this. But I was floored by the time we cut to credits, barely holding back the waterworks. This was a film I watched all the way back at the start of 2024 and it has stayed with me ever since. This is nothing short of a tragedy, in which the unforgiving (and often unrealistic) expectations of a family patriarch lead to moments of addiction, depression, mutilation and death. It's a biopic, and a lot of this really happened which is unbelievable. This is a career-best performance for Zac Efron and clears him far beyond his time supporting light musicals and tongue-in-cheek comedies. It's gritty, it's gorgeous, and it is a film that will stay with me for a long time.
4. Challengers - 8.5/10
This film was wild and electric, like a shot of adrenaline that had me on the edge of my seat. If you ever wonder what I mean when I say actors do or don't have chemistry in a review, then watch this. The leading performances presented by Donaldson, Zendaya, and O'Connor are some of the best leading ensemble performances of the year. The aesthetic of this thrilling film is jaw-droppingly good; I was dazzled by the way a game was captured but also intimacy via extreme close-ups. The musical score for this got into my bloodstream or something because I rarely listen to film scores and I listened to it for a couple of weeks afterward. This film defines some unique character relationships, invests you in them, and then pulls it all together into a confrontation so riveting you won't be able to blink.
3. Deadpool and Wolverine - 9/10
Deadpool and Wolverine is the exception to my disappointment in superhero media this year, this is the sort of superhero blockbuster I hang out for. Ryan Reynolds pours his whole self into the Deadpool franchise but it is so clear he can achieve a lot more now that he's out from Fox. This film takes two tremendous personalities who haven't crossed over since X-Men Origins: Wolverine and gives the fans what they've been craving. Deadpool and Wolverine, together as they should have been. I felt like that kid in the comic store watching big heroes and villains seamlessly being brought together in some incredible moments. The humour was the best it has ever been in a Deadpool film, they really were allowed to just let loose. I saw it in the cinema five times and I never once tired of it. (Also I feel really bad for Joseph Quinn having to top that Human Torch performance).
2. Wicked - 9/10
Last year I called Wonka a film that beat the odds for being a top-five film and being a musical. I should have called it a precursor to the genre making an exceptional comeback. Wicked manages to honour the Broadway musical with great care while taking advantage of the cinematic medium to define itself. I loved looking at the production of this; the sets feel like stages in a very intentional manner. Practical effects are turned to wherever possible, just look at that train design. The music for this film is so memorable, that there are several instant favourites at hand. Mine was 'The Wizard and I' sung by the legendary Cynthia Erivo. I'm holding a lot of space in my heart for this one, it meant a great deal to me.
1. Better Man - 9/10
I cannot believe this. I actually cannot believe this. The CGI monkey Robbie Williams film is my number one. I feel half mad. But you know what? It was beyond my wildest expectations and I hope everyone gives it a go. The use of a CGI figure to ease the telling of a story tackling themes of addiction, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts is a little ingenious. It's a musical biopic and somehow managed to chase all the Wicked songs out of my brain, suddenly leaving me with 'Rock DJ' and 'Come Undone' instead. It's a pretty raw and honest film, there's a lot of sincerity to go in hand with the creativity. I sat there with tears streaming down my face on Christmas Day watching this, it was a really perfect moment. Watch for his performance of 'Angels', I saw it twice for that alone. I want to go again...
It was wonderful to have some really strong, emotional heavy-hitters in the top five this year. I'm also so surprised and delighted that the musical genre made a comeback. It's a tough one to nail; but when it does, you're in for a treat. Now let me hit you with some films that were decidedly not treats. My bottom five...
The Worst:
5. The Beekeeper - 3/10
This was the second film I watched in 2024 and I predicted back then it would be bottom five, here we are. The Beekeeper is yet another clunky, shallow action film about a man with a shadowy past - an organization with agents so tough and deadly they operate "outside the system". But not to worry, he's retired. He's off the grid. He's a beekeeper. What could possibly bring him out of retirement? An elderly woman being scammed over the phone. Cue an hour-and-a-half action montage that is riddled with easy sequences and bee puns. Seriously, the big line of the final act is "to bee or not to be". Jason Statham was on my bottom five last year with The Meg 2, here's to 2025 I guess.
4. Venom: The Last Dance - 2/10
Man, I have hated the Sony Marvel spinoff films. They made a perfectly alright blockbuster with the first Venom and ever since we have been off the rails. In 2024, there were three Sony Marvel films of note, none of which were very good: Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web and of course, Venom: The Last Dance. This was the big send-off to Tom Hardy's titular role, the end of the trilogy and it felt remarkably hollow. This is perhaps the worst long-running project Hardy has attached himself to and it is hard to feel anything as he stumbles towards the Statue of Liberty to the tune of Maroon 5 at the end. This is a threequel that banks everything it has on setting up an antagonist we barely see, and who likely won't be used by Sony in the next five years. A strong reminder that just because you can make a superhero blockbuster, doesn't mean it's going to be a hit.
3. Argylle - 2/10
Matthew Vaughn used to be one of my favourite directors, he made one of my favourite X-Men films and Kingsman is acclaimed for a reason. However, while his style is all over this, the film itself is a bit of a mess. This is a film that just tries to do too much and could have been done with a bit of simplicity. It has a nice concept in an author being pulled into her fantasy world, but then it balloons into much more than that. This film doesn't stop adding plot twist after plot twist, developing a thoroughly tedious and slow-paced narrative. There is a whole cast of 'book characters' acting out their scenes, which leads nowhere and the sleeper secret agent story is a hard sell at every point of the journey. I say again, I love Matthew Vaughn. But we didn't need Argylle in the state it's in, and we certainly didn't need it to be a set-up for yet another Kingsman property.
2. Trigger Warning - 2/10
Was this supposed to be a Jessica Alba comeback vehicle? Her John Wick? It feels like the low budget, poorly written Netflix exclusive action film that it is. Alba plays a remarkably bland character who goes through no change in this film and takes a beating before killing the antagonists. The whole film never really settles on what it wants to be. It starts out with a military focus but this is more to just establish Parker can 'fight'. It seriously sets itself up to be a murder mystery but doesn't lean on this too well either. Even the love triangle at play here is entirely unnecessary and not very well realised. As a whole this is a script that it feels like someone wrote over a week and got pretty proud of, yet it is riddled with factually incorrect material, exposition galore and the dullest action protagonist of 2024.
1. Borderlands - 0.5/10
When I wrote my review for this film I called it soulless, and I damn well meant it. I don't think I have ever given out a 0.5 on my blog before and this is the sort of worthless blockbuster that does everything it can to earn it. I don't know what Eli Roth has going for him as a style, but going off this you might consider the worst implementation of CGI in a major motion picture, the inability to film action and the most obvious display of sound staging I've seen in recent years. I couldn't tell you who this film is for, I can barely tell you anything about the film between the minutes-long narration and third-act flashback sequences. Newcomers are going to be a bit lost if you don't know anything about Borderlands as a series in the first place, while fans are going to recognise barely anything beyond a base aesthetic. The internet tore the casting to shreds before this film came out and I patiently waited, expecting some of the talent in that line-up to prove people wrong. But this was not the sort of movie that actors shone despite, this movie sucked performers in and spat them out. When I say this was the year in which blockbusters really took a back seat I can think of no better example than this waste of time.
So another year comes to an end! I'm really looking forward to 2025, and know that the January line-up is already packed with some exciting features. To see where all the films I watched placed this year, I have them ranked below:
- Better Man – 9/10
- Wicked – 9/10
- Deadpool and Wolverine – 9/10
- Challengers – 8.5/10
- The Iron Claw – 8.5/10
- A Quiet Place: Day One – 8.5/10
- The Wild Robot – 8.5/10
- Love Lies Bleeding – 8/10
- The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan – 8/10
- The Three Musketeers: Milady – 8/10
- Speak No Evil – 8/10
- Transformers One – 8/10
- Alien: Romulus – 8/10
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – 8/10
- The Bikeriders – 8/10
- Sonic The Hedgehog 3 – 8/10
- The Critic – 8/10
- Moana 2 – 8/10
- Blink Twice – 7.5/10
- Spaceman – 7.5/10
- Boy Kills World – 7.5/10
- The Fall Guy – 7.5/10
- Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – 7.5/10
- Am I Ok? – 7.5/10
- Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes – 7/10
- Civil War – 7/10
- Dune: Part Two – 6.5/10
- Freud’s Last Session -6.5/10
- Gladiator II – 6.5/10
- Mean Girls – 6.5/10
- The Substance – 6.5/10
- Ferrari – 6/10
- The Convert – 6/10
- Kinds Of Kindness – 6/10
- The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim – 6/10
- Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – 6/10
- Longlegs – 5.5/10
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – 5.5/10
- I Saw The TV Glow – 5.5/10
- A Mistake – 5.5/10
- Red One – 5.5/10
- Bad Boys: Ride Or Die – 4.5/10
- The Watchers – 4.5/10
- Damsel – 4.5/10
- The Crow – 4.5/10
- Woman Of The Hour – 4.5/10
- Force Of Nature: The Dry 2 – 4/10
- Trap – 4/10
- IF – 4/10
- Mea Culpa – 4/10
- Joker: Folie à Deux – 3.5/10
- Kraven The Hunter – 3.5/10
- The Problem With People – 3.5/10
- Madame Web – 3/10
- The Beekeeper – 3/10
- Venom: The Last Dance – 2/10
- Argylle 2/10
- Trigger Warning – 2/10
- Borderlands – 0.5/10
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