The best movies of 2024 often centered around a theme appropriate for a presidential election year: power — who has it, who’s reaching for it, and who’s fighting against it.
That power could be a totalitarian government, either in a Middle Eastern country or a desert planet — or in a fractured America at war with itself.
It’s the power within a TV control room during a breaking news story, deciding what goes on the air. Or the power of a drug lord to use an ill-gotten fortune to change their life.
In one movie on this list, someone trips on psychedelic mushrooms and acquires the power to see into their future. In two others, mothers try to stand against the most powerful force of all — death itself — when it comes for their children.
The 10 best movies of 2024, ranked:
1. “Tuesday”
In her bold first feature, writer-director Dania O. Pusic’s absurdist depiction of death is a mangy parrot that can change size — able to fill a room or insert itself into someone’s ear as needed to fulfill its task of escorting people to their next destination.
When Death comes for the teen title character (Lola Petticrew), her mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) fights it with everything she’s got. Louis-Dreyfus gives a heartbreaking portrayal of ferocious maternal desperation, in a movie that conveys how death is both deeply personal and cosmically universal. (Streaming on Max.)
2. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
(Sideshow / Janus Films) Sisters Sana (Setareh Maleki, left) and Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) watch viral videos of student protests in Tehran in writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof's "The Seed of the Sacred Fig."
A Tehran attorney, Iman (Missagh Zareh), is given a prestigious and dangerous job as an investigator for Iran’s judiciary. His wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), warns their teen daughters that they will have to be careful what they post online, to protect their father’s reputation and guard against angry litigants seeking revenge.
When a young woman dies after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, Iman’s workload increases as he processes student protesters — some of whom are his daughter’s friends. Writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof filmed in secret and snuck footage out of Iran to be edited in Germany, using cellphone footage of real protests.
The result is a searing drama about authoritarianism and the corrosive effect that living through it has on one’s soul and family. (Expected to open at the Broadway Centre Cinemas in January or February.)
3. “Civil War”
(A24) Kirsten Dunst, left, and Cailie Spaeny play combat photographers traveling across a war-torn America in writer-director Alex Garland's "Civil War."
The most striking part of writer-director Alex Garland’s “can it happen here?” story of a near-future civil war within America’s borders is its strident neutrality.
Kirsten Dunst’s jaded war photographer doesn’t care which side is to blame for the country tearing itself apart. Her concern is capturing images of how war at home is as devastating as war in foreign locations, as she teaches a rookie photographer (Cailee Spaeny) about the importance of bearing witness.
Anyone looking for support for their political views will be disappointed, but Garland’s focus on the people in the middle of war — the displaced civilians and the journalists trying to capture each moment — is a bracing reminder of what’s lost in a divided nation. (Streaming on Max.)
4. “Dune: Part Two”
(Niko Tavernise | Warner Bros. Pictures) Timothee Chalamet plays Paul Atreides in "Dune: Part Two."
Director Denis Villeneuve continues his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s desert space epic in grand fashion, combining spectacle and intimate storytelling in its depiction of the prince Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he evolves into a cagey strategist and a reluctant messiah figure.
Sly additions to the ensemble — Christopher Walken, Florence Pugh and especially Austin Butler as the malevolent rival prince Feyd Rautha — and more brilliance from Zendaya (as the wary Fremen fighter Chani) illuminate this action-filled parable on manipulating religious fervor to seize an empire. (Streaming on Max.)
5. “September 5″
(Paramount Pictures) Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro, center) directs the ABC Sports control room at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, in the thriller "September 5."
Like “Civil War,” director Tim Fehlbaum’s drama excels by showing journalists doing their jobs under tough circumstances.
The setting is the ABC Sports control room during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. A rookie director (John Magaro) scrambles to get cameras in place to capture the breaking news of terrorists taking the Israeli team hostage in the Olympic Village.
Meanwhile, his boss, the legendary Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), works the phones to secure satellite time and keep ABC’s news division from taking over the story.
Precise period detail gives this ticking-clock thriller its immediacy, while a strong ensemble cast provides its humanity. (Scheduled to open in Utah theaters on January 17.)
6. “My Old Ass”
(Shane Mahood | Amazon MGM Studios) College-bound Elliott (Maisy Stella, left) encounters her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza) in director Megan Park's "My Old Ass."
Elliott (Maisy Stella) celebrates her impending departure for college by camping with her friends and tripping on psychedelic mushrooms — which leads to her conversing with her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza).
Older Elliott warns younger Elliott to stay away from a guy named Chad, so of course she soon meets a guy named Chad (Percy Hynes White) and isn’t sure what to do about it. Writer-director Megan Park’s comedy-drama distills the joyous confusion of young love and the realization that adulthood won’t provide all the answers. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)
7. “Suncoast”
(Eric Zachanowich | Searchlight Pictures) An image from the drama "Suncoast," directed and written by Laura Chinn, an official selection in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Doris (Nico Parker) is trying to have a normal teen life when her terminally ill brother is put in hospice care, where her hard-charging mom (Laura Linney) berates the staff tending to him.
Doris befriends Paul (Woody Harrelson), one of the Christian protesters outside the hospice while courts decide whether another patient there can be taken off of a feeding tube.
Writer-director Laura Chinn mines her own life (her brother was in the same Florida hospice as Terri Schiavo, a woman in a vegetative state whose case became a national political issue) for this comedy-drama about navigating love, guilt and grief. (Streaming on Hulu.)
8. “A Real Pain”
(Searchlight Pictures) Kieran Culkin, left, and Jesse Eisenberg play cousins on a group tour of Polish historical sites in "A Real Pain," written and directed by Eisenberg.
Jesse Eisenberg writes, directs and co-stars in this comedy as David, a neurotic New Yorker on a group tour of Poland tracing the life of his grandmother, who left her homeland ahead of the Holocaust.
The wild card here is Kieran Culkin as David’s manic-depressive cousin, Benji, whose live-wire personality both grates on David and injects a needed dose of perspective. (Still playing at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; scheduled to stream as a video-on-demand on Dec. 31, and on various services sometime in early 2025.)
9. “Flow”
(Variance Films) A cat finds a boat, and traveling companions, to survive a flooded world where humans are no longer on the scene, in the animated film “Flow.”
In a world where flood waters are rising and humans are mysteriously absent, a black cat seeks higher ground to avoid drowning. Eventually, the cat climbs onto a drifting boat, which becomes inhabited by other animals, and all the creatures must band together to steer the boat to a safe place.
The animals in Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’ luminous animated movie don’t make wisecracks or walk on their hind legs. They do communicate, to each other and the audience, a vast array of emotions in some of the purest storytelling seen all year. (Still playing at the Broadway Centre Cinemas and other theaters.)
10. “Emilia Pérez”
(Netflix) Rita (Zoe Saldaña, left) encounters Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofia Gascón), a former client, who's much different than when they last met, in French director Jacques Audiard's Mexican musical melodrama "Emilia Pérez."
Zoe Saldaña plays Rita, a brilliant but unappreciated defense attorney in Mexico City. She gets a call from an unusual client, a ruthless drug cartel leader, with an unusual request: To arrange for the drug lord to disappear and start a new life by transitioning as a woman.
The hard part comes years later, when the former drug lord (Karla Sofia Gascón) reenters Rita’s life, seeking to reconnect with her ex-wife (Selena Gomez) and their kids. French director Jacques Audiard deploys the superheated emotions of Mexican telenovelas to create an audacious and surprisingly moving musical. (Streaming on Netflix.)
Honorable mentions
(A24) Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant, center) presents two missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — Sister Paxton (Chloe East, left) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) with a life-or-death challenge to their faith in the psychological thriller "Heretic."
The next 10 great movies of 2024, in alphabetical order:
• Payal Kapadia’s drama of Mumbai women, “All We Imagine as Light.”
• Sean Baker’s sex-worker comedy “Anora.”
• Brady Corbet’s architecture epic “The Brutalist.”
• Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ religion-centered suspense thriller “Heretic.”
• Jane Schoenbrun’s disturbing teen thriller “I Saw the TV Glow.”
• Michael Showalter’s younger woman/older man romance “The Idea of You.”
• Alessandra Lacorezza’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama “In the Summers.”
• Kelsey Mann’s animated trip through a teen mind “Inside Out 2.″
• Robert Eggers’ grandly doom-ridden horror remake “Nosferatu.”
• Coralie Fargeat’s feminist body-horror tale “The Substance.”
Sean P. Means, The Tribune’s deputy enterprise editor, was The Tribune’s full-time movie critic from 1993 to 2018. He continues to review movies at The Movie Cricket (moviecricket.net) and for X96′s “Radio From Hell” show on Fridays.
