So far, in our awards, we have looked at Action, Cinematography, Costumes, Emotion, Fun, Music, Tension, Worldbuilding, Best Animation, Best of Australia & New Zealand & Best TV of 2024
However, in this last entry into our Best of 2024 awards, we crown our Best Film of 2024.
All films are subjective, so our list might look completely different from yours. Of the 116 films we reviewed last year, 110 had their Australian Theatrical/Streaming Release in 2024. This is the list from which we draw our entries, and you can see the complete list of movies HERE.
Much like last year’s list, we have had many staggered releases towards the end of the year in Australia. So we may have films here that were released in 2023 for you but 2024 for us, and there may be some omissions here because we won’t get those films until later in 2025.
Highly Commended – The Beekeeper, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Deadpool & Wolverine, The Fall Guy, How to Make Gravy, Inside Out 2, The King of the Indies, The Kitchen, Rebel Ridge, The Rooster, Transformers One, Turtles All the Way Down, Twisters & Wicked
Special Awards:
- Best Impromptu Desert in Cinema – The Holdovers
- Best Evil Lair Infiltration – June Squibb in Thelma
- Best Extreme Length from First Film Sequel – Twisters
- Best Floaty Dudes Trying to Climb a Mountain – Dune: Part Two
- Best Moustache in Cinema – Abhishek Chauhan in Kill
- Best Opening Kung-Fu Introduction to Announce to a Mountain that We are About to Meet – The Mountain
- Best Overly Convoluted Backstory that Actually Kinda Worked – The Beekeeper
- Best Single Utterance of an Expletive – Mike Faist in Challenges
- Best Use of Unicorn in Cinema – The Fall Guy
- Most Beavers in a Single Frame of Cinema – Hundreds of Beavers
- The Film that I Held Space For in 2024 – The Wild Robot
- The Ouroboros Award for Most Inside Baseball Easter Egg – Deadpool & Wolverine
- The Tatiana Maslany Chameleon Award – Glen Powell in Hit Man
- The Third Times The Charm Award – Sonic the Hedgehog 3
- The Tom Cruise Legacy Award for Best Running in Cinema – Taron Egerton in Carry-On
- The Wait is that “Blank” Again Award – Fred Hechinger in Thelma, Kraven the Hunter & Gladiator II
Okay, with that out of the way, let’s dive into the first entry in our list of Best Films of 2024.
20 – Sonic the Hedgehog 3
I didn’t have much hope for this film walking in because while Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had substantial character work, they were consistently let down with generally average-at-best narratives. However, call me shocked when I watched Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and discovered that they discovered how to write a Sonic story that was both equal parts slapstick low-base comedy and tense emotional exploration of what it means to be a hero and how we process grief. There is a reason that Jim Carrey came out of retirement to film this.
19 – Carry-On
It was not a great year for Netflix films, but one of the outstanding moments was this tense exploration of what you would do if every part of your morals were tested by a threat to the ones you love. Carry-On asks the question of whether you would break every code you have to save your family? Taron Egerton provides one of the more interesting characters that he has worked on, and while I’m sure anyone who has worked at an airport would have found most of this frustrating, I had a blast.
18 – Monkey Man
Dev Patel’s debut film came out with a bang and did not let up for its entire runtime. Monkey Man is gritty, chaotic, and in your face. It shifts styles on a dime, and it works because everyone in front and behind the camera is committed to making it work. There were some moments where the entire audience came together to vocalise a crunch that happened on screen. One of the film’s strengths is that it draws its supporting cast from across Indian Cinema, and every single one of them knows the assignment and hits every note perfectly. It is revenge cinema at its best.
17 – Kill
If there was one throughline through 2024 cinema, it was how strong the action outings were. Kill might be the best example of this. Attackers could be hiding at every turn because all the sleeper compartments make for places where people can hide, creating ambushes that can come from anywhere. It is a film that is rooted in Indian narrative themes around love, duty, and family. But they take these narrative roots and then combine them with South Korean technical excellence, which creates this shrinkingly unique visual style.
16 – Hit Man
If there were a film that could get the oddball label for 2024, it would be Hit Man. Glen Powell gets to show off some of his dramatic chops as he delves into multiple characters as he goes undercover to befriend criminals. Some of those characters are very unflattering, yet Powell sells everyone. This is important not just for the character but for helping to keep the audience always just that little off balance because they need you to never be quite comfortable in the moment. It jumps from comedy to drama to tension with ease, making for a compelling watch, and it might be on here for the bonkers ending alone.
15 – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Furiosa was surprising in that the structure was more of a series of vignettes that hit key points of Furiosa’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) life as she grew up and became the Imperator that we know from Fury Road. This structural choice helps us shift through decades of time with some genuinely wild narrative decisions. When there is a chance to be epic, the film takes it. The action scenes are explosive; Chris Hemsworth is chewing all the scenery, and they bring new life to what was already a fascinating world.
14 – The Moogai
There is a lot to unpack when it comes to The Moogai, and that is because this is a film that is filled to the brim with ideas and explorations. At the heart of this story is the exploration of motherhood, the difficult birth that she has just suffered, and then the layers of mistrust that everyone around her. The other foundation is that of trauma, which is part of every facet of the narrative. There are escalating factors like the betrayals and everyone ‘just trying to help’ that compound the trauma at every turn. People are gaslighting because they just assume it is post-natal depression or something like that. But then there are the deeper layers. The legacy of the Stolen Generations ripples through this film even before the horror elements come into play. Shari Sebbens is electric and brings her all to bear here.
13 – Alien: Romulus
I know that whether you love or hate Alien: Romulus is going to come down to how you respond to the use of Ian Holm’s likeness in this film, and I respect that this is a conversation that we need to have. What is clear is that this is a film that fundamentally respects the landscape it is working in in a way that I am not sure many of the sequels have nailed. They have gone through a lot of work to make this film feel period-appropriate while also making it work for a modern audience. I would say that the drive for nostalgia probably helped with the choice to bring back those 1980s-style computer consoles, but they committed utterly. At no point did a character make a decision that made me eye-roll, which is a big step in the right direction. While not all the choices are the right ones, you understand the motivations in each moment. You also kind of care about all of them because you understand why they are on that station, and while you know what is about to go down, part of you wishes that none of them die, even if you think that outcome will be doubtful.
12 – A Quiet Place: Day One
I loved the first A Quiet Place, but I wondered what could be mined by jumping into an odd prequel film with only three entries into this franchise. Well, the answer to that was Lupita Nyong’o [Spoiler Alert: this is not the last time I will say that in this list], and also an addition of a cat. But more than that, in A Quiet Place: Day One, they change the aliens from a looming presence to a menacing one. While only one or two of them may have landed in the small town in the first film, New York was inundated. This gives the aliens weight and presence in every frame of the film, and goodness, do you feel that change at every second. The framing, the tension, those moments of emotional release, they all work here. You are captivated by every step that the humans [and cat] make, and even if we might know how it ends, it was still a wild ride to get there.
11 – Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
I have loved all the rebooted Planet of the Apes films, but there was a bit of concern as to whether it could still capture that some energy now that we have moved on to different characters as time progresses. But Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes understands your fear and immediately builds a world that feels alive in the ruins of the fallen. This series is still the high watermark for digital characters where you can feel the emotion out of every pore. Add to this a story filled with fascinating characters, hints back to the original Planet of the Apes, and a narrative with captivating twists and turns. Every moment of the film is a visual masterpiece, and they get bonus points for adding a version without CG to the Blu-ray release.
10 – Robot Dreams
What happens when two people enter each other’s lives, become inseparable, and then are pulled apart? There is a beautiful flow to everything where you can get all these different types of animals to come together and feel like part of a whole. For example, in the opening minutes, we get a drumming octopus to create an opus out of plastic buckets and a slightly reluctant tortoise. In a film with no dialogue, music is more important than ever, and Robot Dreams absolutely understands that. It perfectly captures a time in New York when things were a struggle but also full of optimism. All of these touches with the music and the worldbuilding help ground the narrative that could have gotten out of hand with the animal setting and constant slips into alternate realities. It was delightful yet emotional work that shows that you can build a compelling narrative and engaging characters without speaking a word.
9 – Challengers
There are a lot of words that you could use to describe Challengers: stylish, sleek, bombastic, or electric. But for me, the one feeling I got watching this was Punk. This is a film that is in your face from the start, knowing which buttons it is pushing and then revelling in the aftermath. The music is an electro-funk riot of sound; it is brash and exciting, and it perfectly captures the film. There is a section where you become the tennis ball and become intimately involved in the match as you bounce from side to side on the court. It blends the digital impossibilities with the real character moments. From a structural perspective, I liked how they managed the interlacing timelines. Careful crafting means you never lose track of where you are and how it all fits together. We run the whole gamut from pride, anger, despair, grief, lust, mélange, resignation, and even love, or maybe that last one is power. This all combines into one defining moment that caps the whole film off perfectly.
8 – Civil War
I watched a lot of horror in 2024, but nothing quite captured the horrific nature of a conflict like Civil War. This was a profoundly uncomfortable film to watch, as we are exploring a conflict where the law of war has been long forgotten, and we see the outcomes of that in precise, horrific detail. However, it is the choice to frame the narrative through the lens of a war photographer that made the narrative so interesting. While this style has been played for gags in shows like Community. Here, it is shown in full array as the horror of humanity is photographed and framed. Civil War touches on a lot of different themes: what we chose and did not choose to document, how war changes you through desensitisation, the false confidence you can get through hubris, and the destabilising nature of dictatorships. It was a film full of these juxtapositions that keep unsettling you throughout the narrative. I am not sure any other movie this year left quite the same mark as Civil War.
7 – Hundreds of Beavers
Every now and again, a review request will slip into your emails, which makes you double-take. This year, the best example of this was the absurdly wild yet always compelling Hundreds of Beavers. This is a film that is actually very hard to explain to people who have never seen it. What if Buster Keaton and the Looney Tunes came together and had a baby in the cold wintery mid-west of America and asked Jackie Chan to babysit, but he is a cool babysitter who lets you play video games? It has been a long time since I have seen a film take such creative risks and have nearly all of them pay off perfectly. It was a completely wild ride from start to finish. I am not sure I have ever seen a film like this before, and I doubt I will ever again. If you can, I 100% recommend giving this wild film a watch.
6 – Thelma
What if you had a standard revenge film that hit every plot point that you would want from a movie in that genre, but your lead cast is all in their 90s. That is Thelma, a film that is both hilarious and uplifting in equal measure. At the core of why this film works as well as it does is June Squibb, who has the complex role of playing a sympathetic bad arse, and she nails it. She has a determination that this film needs, but also a care for those around her. What I really loved is how they incorporated the realities of their lives into the story. Sure, there was the car chase that involved just mobility scooters, which was funny, don’t get me wrong. But then there was how they used life alert monitors and incorporated hearing aids to send coded messages. Those titanium hip references were not just for worldbuilding. At the core of this film is a story all about agency. Thelma is constantly being told what she can’t do and clearly resents the implication, even when it comes out of love for her grandson. But every member of the cast finds that agency throughout. It is an absolute blast that also hits you so hard in the feels that you can’t help but surf a wave of emotions.
5 – Dune: Part Two
Few films are so impeccably cast as this was, with no weak links and everyone doing something interesting. Javier Bardem is having a blast, and it shows, given he has some of the best lines in the entire film. Timothée Chalamet is just as commanding as he needs to be. Zendaya shines as Chani and gives the character some more depth. Rarely has someone completely captured a character in an instant, as Austin Butler did with Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. It’s entirely menacing but with some added complexity. The entire production design of the film is outstanding. You can tell the amount of work that all the artisans have put together because everything works in a weirdly wonderful way.
There is the scale of the visuals. Things in the Dune Universe are not small, and you feel that presence here. You get action scenes happening in and around the large harvesters where cover is constantly on the move. It helps create that tension that you need in every encounter. But more than that, it becomes a visual reminder of the sheer scale of the task that the Fremen are trying to accomplish with their guerrilla tactics up against a monolith of power. Even with the weight of expectation that I had for it, Dune: Part Two still stuck the landing with a gusto I was not expecting, and I have watched it many times since.
4 – The Wild Robot
When I was invited to see The Wild Robot, I thought I was just going to see a fun little robot film, but I was not ready for the emotional rollercoaster I was walking into. To say that this film is beautiful does not even come close to describing just what a joy it was to watch. There were moments in this film that were so stunningly beautiful that it affected me on an emotional level. Which actually probably prepared me for when the narrative set in and the emotions indeed flowed. The visual style of this film was very much rooted in a kind of painted realism with just a hint of stylisation to everything. This helped get around the issue that some other animated films have, where the realism is so profound that it actually feels unsettling when the animals start to talk.
The environmental work is simply stunning. They bring this roughly Pacific Northwest world to life in such extraordinary detail, understanding just when you need a burst of colour to shift things up. They then brought to bear the best musical score of 2024 just to put that cherry on top. At the heart of the film is Roz, and oh, the wonderful Lupita Nyong’o absolutely nails that role. We go on such a long journey with her from where she starts the film to where we end it, and you are with Roz every step of the way. This is a stunningly beautiful film that hit me with a wave of emotions as if I were standing by the seaside, watching them roll in.
3 – The Mountain
Rachael House’s directing debut is a lot of things: An emotional roller coaster that can have you laughing, crying, and uplifting all in the space of 30 seconds. Never has an opening sequence hit as hard as The Mountain. It’s this fun little Kung-fu montage as the credits role that goes from 0 to me crying in the space of 5 seconds. Rachael brings the absolute best of the three leads, who all bring a different energy that combines together into a world that is often blinkin’ disrespectful. What I really liked about this film was the intentionality in every moment. Sometimes, it is the small things, like how Sam holds her stick, and, oh, is it the best name for a stick I have ever heard, as well as the way that they use subtitles in the film.
Then it is the big picture things, like how they are always trying to find interesting ways to frame their scenes. Have a field full of bailed hay. Sure, you could just walk through it, but is that an interesting option? The film always goes for the interesting option. Every character in the movie is on an emotional journey, and it is hard to articulate how wonderfully they capture every moment. It is a celebration of life, the journey, the friends we make along the way, and the parents we lose in the fog because they are not quick enough.
2 – Touch (Snerting)
Touch is a stunningly beautiful portrait of a man’s life that feels both deeply personal and universal in what drives him. It is profoundly moving and full of narrative grace that could have been all melancholy but is instead full of heart and joy. There are no weak links in this cast. Egill Ólafsson and Palmi Kormakur have an unenviable job of trying to play the same persona at different times. If they didn’t feel like the same person at various points in their life, then the whole film would have fallen apart. Palmi Kormakur has that youthful energy where dumping it all and being a dishwasher in a Japanese restaurant where he can’t speak the language feels like a valid choice. Then there is Egill Ólafsson, who has hit the curmudgeon stage of his life. He has a drive that will not be stopped by anything. But while he is forceful, he is never an arse.
There are a lot of films that have engaged with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I have yet to see a movie that perfectly nails what it was like in those first few weeks when people were struggling to work out what to do. Indeed, you can nail down the actual timeline for the film to a two-week period as different parts of the world were shutting down. It was this visceral reminder of that time. However, importantly, it never felt cheap. I mean, it is used for laughs at times. But it creates an intentionality for Kristófer that the film needs. It also reinforces the very title of the film Touch through both its presence and absence. It has the difficult path of being both melancholy and beautiful, and it nails that narrow path. The cast was delightful, the story hit me in the heart, and that beauty was a joy to watch.
1 – The Holdovers
The first film I watched back in January of 2024 was The Holdovers, and I knew from the moment I watched it that it would be my film of the year. While there were a number that got very close, that prediction was held all year. When you are watching a film, there are times when you have an experience where you become completely absorbed into the narrative. Taken back 50 years to a place you have never been before, to a place that you have no connection with, but you are taken there wholly. These cases are where the narrative, the direction, and the acting all come together for a perfect work. In some respects, this film is made directly for me because we have three very different people forced to work together and find joy in each other’s disparate lives. Or at least the respect. Found families are something I fundamentally enjoy because it is hard to do comradery convincingly on the screen. Our three leads are great in the ways they are different and how they work as a group, making each moment they are on screen a delight. All of this is helped by a setting that looks like it was ripped right out of the 1970s down to the most minor details. I have never been to a boarding college before, but I felt that place was real because I think they filmed it in a real boarding college.
For a film like this to work, you need to believe the cast at every moment, and everyone, especially our leads, is giving masterful performances. I know Paul Giamatti has been in a lot of films, but this was the character he was born to play. I think he reminds me of some of the academics that I have met in my life, full of passion but struggling to communicate it at times. If you had told me going in that this was Dominic Sessa’s feature debut, I would not have believed it. His character is 100% a brat, but you soon see the walls that he has, but it’s up to everyone. Passion and compassion are hiding there, and getting to pull down those walls in a convincing way is what makes the film work. Then, we have the emotional centre of the film with Da’Vine Joy Randolph. She broke my heart with her performance, to the point that even after this amount of time, it is hard to write about it without tearing up. This film would not work without her character and her performance. They perfectly captured a moment in time that has a message that spans the generations. It was a wonderful, moving, sad, delightful, and wild ride, unlike anything I have seen before, and it has been sitting in the back of my mind since I watched it.
With that, our awards for 2024 end, it was an excellent year for cinema, and we look forward to continuing our coverage into 2025.
By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.
What are your favourite cinematic moments from 2024?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.
Credits – All images used were created by the respective studios and artists of each film
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