2024 edition.
This was a weird year. Not in terms of the movies I watched--well, not really--but everything else.
I'm not normally one to tune out politics--especially since 2016--but for the entire year, I couldn't get away if I tried. Under the current regime, everything has been politicized; nothing is neutral, innocent, innocuous.
Everything that promotes free thought--public media (the field in which I've worked since 2009), non-billionaire-owned newspapers--must be destroyed, everything that discourages free thought--chatbots, professor watchlists, book-banning campaigns--must be encouraged.
It's hard not to feel pessimistic, but I took hope from movies in which characters sought answers, forged connections, fought oppression, and found ways to make a difference. Not superheroes, just regular people.
Maybe they made mistakes, maybe they failed, but at least they tried, and maybe they even inspired others to do the same. Not all of these films fit that description, but I'm grateful for those that did.
Links lead to my reviews for Book and Film Globe (okay, just one), Letterboxd, Seattle Film Blog, and Video Librarian.
1. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)
2. Sinners (Ryan Coogler)
3. The Secret Agent / O Agente Secreto (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
4. Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland)
5. 40 Acres (R.T. Thorne)
6. Sirāt (Oliver Laxe)
7. Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)
8. Blue Moon (Richard Linklater)
9. It Was Just an Accident / Un Simple Accident (Jafar Panahi )
10. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
Note: I was planning to review The Secret Agent, and prepared by catching up with Neighboring Sounds--the only Mendonça narrative I hadn't seen yet--but the new film screened for the press while I was at the New York Film Festival, and since I was only in town for five days, I missed it at NYFF, too. (I still need to catch up with Pictures of Ghosts.)
Runners-up
11. 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)
12. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)
13. Sentimental Value / Affeksjonsverdi (Joachim Trier)
14. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
15. Weapons (Zach Cregger)
16. The Ice Tower / La Tour de Glace (Lucile Hadžihalilović)
17. Sister Midnight (Karan Kandhari)
18. Reflection in a Dead Diamond / Reflet dans un Diamant Mort (Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet)
19. Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee)
20. Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
Note: Seattle Film Critics Society awarded Sorry, Baby with the inaugural SIFF Seattle Critics Award. In one of my last official acts as SFCS president, I announced the winner and nominees at the awards ceremony. In April, my board term will come to an end.
21. Peter Hujar's Day (Ira Sachs)
22. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)
23. Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)
24. Rebuilding (Max Walker-Silverman)
25. Hedda (Nia DaCosta)
26. The Monkey (Osgood Perkins)
27. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Mary Bronstein)
28. Souleymane’s Story / L'Histoire de Souleymane (Boris Lojkine)
29. Caught Stealing (Darren Aronofsky)
30. Eephus (Carson Lund)
Note: 2025 was a comeback year of a kind for Richard Linklater, and I'm absolutely here for it. While walking back from the Hudson Theatre after catching a late-September performance of Waiting for Godot with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, I happened to walk past Sardi's, which is also on 44th Street, and where Blue Moon takes place. Only later did I find that Linklater filmed the entire film on a soundstage in Dublin. Sure fooled me!
31. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)
32. Dead Man's Wire (Gus Van Sant)
33. Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
34. Train Dreams (Clint Bentley)
35. Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (Scott Cooper)
36. Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)
37. No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
38. To Kill a Wolf (Kelsey Taylor)
39. The Plague (Charlie Polinger)
40. The Friend (David Siegel and Scott McGehee)
41. One of Them Days (Lawrence Lamont )
42. Superman (James Gunn)
43. The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold)
44. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni)
45. They Call Her Death (Austin Snell)
46. Lurker (Alex Russell)
47. Out (Dennis Alink)
48. Julie Keeps Quiet / Julie Zwigt (Leonardo van Dijl)
49. Drink and Be Merry (Adam Volerich)
50. Twinless (James Sweeney)
Top documentaries
1. Chain Reactions (Alexandre O. Philippe)
2. Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse (Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin)
3. The Alabama Solution (Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman)
4. Devo (Chris Smith)
5. Mr. Scorsese (Rebecca Miller)
6. Art for Everybody (Miranda Yousef)
7. SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) (Questlove)
8. WTO/99 (Ian Bell)
9. Cover-Up (Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus)
10. Suburban Fury (Robinson Devor)
Runners-up
11. Deaf President Now! (Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim)
12. My Mother Jayne (Mariska Hargitay)
13. Billy Joel: And So It Goes (Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin)
14. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)
15. Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story (Sinéad O'Shea)
16. Pee-Wee As Himself (Matt Wolf)
17. Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 (Göran Hugo Olsson)
18. Baby Doe (Jessica Earnshaw)
19. Jean Cocteau (Lisa Immordino Vreeland )
20. Predators (David Osit)
Top short: Shelly's Leg (Wes Hurley).
Top animated feature: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, and Jin Kuang).
2024 films (that I caught up with in 2025): A Different Man, Black Dog, The Flamingo (directed by former Northwest Film Forum head programmer Adam Sekuler), Kneecap, and The Outrun.
Missed or haven't seen yet: BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, Caught by the Tides, Come See Me in the Good Light, Eddington, Father Mother Sister Brother, Is This Thing On?, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Materialists, Megadoc, Mickey 17, My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, Presence, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, Resurrection, and The Voice of Hind Rajab.
The rest: Acolyte, The Actor, Alice-Heart, American Baby, Americana, April, Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, Before the Call, Bird in Hand, The Balconettes, Born for You / Nata per Te, Boys Go to Jupiter, Braindead, Bring Her Back, Bugonia, Cat Town USA, Companion, ¡Corazón!, Crusty Fouler, Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued, Die My Love, The Disappearance of Miss Scott, Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy, Duse, Eat the Night, Endless Summer Syndrome, Enigma, F1, The Fantastic 4: First Steps, Fidelity, Foreign Objects, Four Mothers, Freedom Renegade, Girl with Two Belly Buttons, Good Boy, Grafted, Great Absence, Hamnet, Holland, Honeyjoon, House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly, Jimmy in Saigon, Late Fame, The Life of Chuck, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, Marty Supreme, Matt and Mara, Moonwater, More Beautiful Perversions, Mother, Couch, Naked Ambition, On a String, One to One: John & Yoko, Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5, The Perfect Neighbor, Pescador, The Phoenician Scheme, Pooja, Sir, Predator: Badlands, A Private Life, Ready or Not, Revelations of Divine Love, Riefenstahl, Rope Tied, Roofman, Rose of Nevada, The Salamander King / The Long Shot, Samuel and the Light / Samuel e a Luz, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, Séance, The Secret of Me, Sisi & I / Sisi & Ich, Softshell, Song Sung Blue, Suspended Time, Sylvania, There, There, Times with God, Tripolar The Movie, The True Beauty of Being Eaten by a Tick, Twelfth Night, The Ugly Stepsister, Water Lilies, Ways to Traverse a Territory / Formas de Atravesar un Territorio, We Want the Funk, Wolf Land, Wolf Man, The Womenists, and The Zodiac Killer Project.
Left: Director Mark Jenkin with cowriter/actor/partner Mary Woodvine at Walter Reade Theater during NYFF.
Note: For the second year in a row, I served on the judging committee for Cucalorus, though I wasn't able to make it to this year's festival--it conflicted with the SFCS screenings--and that's how I saw 32 of the films above. A few have distribution, but most don't. I'm thrilled that American Baby and Beautiful Evening, Beautiul Day made the cut, and reserve the right to rank them at a later date if they get a proper release.
Pre-2024 films: 20,000 Species of Bees / 20.000 Especies de Abejas, All You Need Is Death, Amer, The Ax / Le Couperet, Black Moon, Blame It on Rio, Bone Tomahawk, The Burrowers, The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Cat and the Canary (1978), Chained for Life, Choose Me, Compensation, Curse of the Undead, A Date for Mad Mary, The Day of the Locust, Dead Air, Deathdream / Dead of Night, Deep Cover, Desperate Hours, Detroit, Doctor X, Down with Love, The Elephant Man, Faces, Family Plot, The Fiend Who Walked the West, Frenzy, Giants and Toys, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Glass Web, The Gold Diggers, The Hills Have Eyes, His Motorbike, Her Island, Hugo, In the Heat of the Night, In the Rearview / Skad Dokad, Infinity According to Florian, Juliet, Naked, Kitten with a Whip, Bernadette Lafont - And God Created the Free Woman, The Leopard Man, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Love Letters, Louis, Madam Satan, May, Mi Iubita, Mon Amour, Mirror Images, Murder by Decree, A Murder in Abidjan / Un Crime à Abidjan, Miracle Mile, Murder, My Sweet, The Narrow Margin, The Old Dark House, Once Again (for the very first time), The Outfit, The Paperboy, Play It Cool, Poetry / Shi, A Powerful Thang, Q&A, The Quiet Earth, The Return - Family Separation, Roadgames, Roubaix, Police Department, Ordinary Business, The Sales Girl / Khudaldagch Ohin, Seisaku's Wife, Serpent's Path, The Shooting on Mole Street, The Silent Partner, Skin Gang, The Slumber Party Massacre, St. Vincent, The Stepfather, Strange Days, Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss, Streets of Fire, Sudden Fear, Tarzana, Through and Through, Tish, Toby Dammit, Truck Turner, The Warriors, Welcome to L.A., Wicked, Will, Witness, Yeast, You Are Not Alone / Du Er Ikke Alene, and Zelly & Me.
Note: Thanks to Kanopy, the Internet Archive, and YouTube for making many available.
TV/streaming (unranked): All Creatures Great and Small S5, Anatomy of Lies, Apple Cider Vinegar, The Bear S4, Brokenwood Mysteries S1-2, Call Her Alex, Call the Midwife S14, Dept Q, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, Dope Thief, Dying for Sex, Finding Your Roots S11, The Gold S1, The Good Karma Hospital S1-2, Grantchester S10, Law & Order S24, Law & Order: SVU S27, The Lowdown, Mad Men S6, The Marlow Murder Club, Miss Scarlet S5, NYPD Blue S6 - 7, Patience S1, The Pitt, Professor T S4, Reacher S1, Severance S2, Slow Horses S5, Task, Unforgotten S6, The White Lotus S3, Wolf Hall - The Mirror and the Light, and The Yogurt Shop Murders. Also, select episodes of Atlanta, The Good Place, and Sex Education.
Top books (unranked): The Ax (Donald E. Westlake), Girl in a Band: A Memoir (Kim Gordon), King's Ransom (Ed McBain), and Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger (Dan Matovina). I also bought copies of memoirs from Neko Case, Tim Curry, Werner Herzog, and Lydia Yuknavitch, but haven't read any of them yet.
Top image from Screen Anarchy (OBAA poster).
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