Late last year, Talkhouse Film contributors and a select few friends of the site voted on their favorite theatrical releases of 2024; the aggregated results were published on Talkhouse yesterday. Below are ballots from a selection of the filmmakers who took part in the voting process.
Aitch Alberto
1. Anora
2. The Wild Robot
3. The Substance
4. The Last Showgirl
5. Love Lies Bleeding
6. A Different Man
7. Dìdi
8. Alien: Romulus
9. The Idea of You
10. Power Alley
Fernando Andrés
1. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
2. The Feeling That the Time For Doing Something Has Passed
3. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
4. The Sweet East
5. Last Summer
6. Janet Planet
7. Stress Positions
8. Hundreds of Beavers
9. Between the Temples
10. The Beast
Notes
While I did exclude the pop brilliance of Challengers, Furiosa and The Substance from this list, the exhilarating truth is that the vast majority of my cinematic amazement in 2024 came from thrilling and bold and transgressive indie cinema both at home and abroad. The films on this list left me amazed and inspired beyond words; the future of film is well and alive in the images and performances and distinct voices of these films, Hollywood collapse be damned.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Ryan Brown’s beautiful A Movie is a Yearbook — it’s true!
Rodney Ascher
1. Civil War (Alex Garland)
2. The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel (Jen Nicholson)
3. Fantasmas Season 1 (Julio Torres)
4. Sasquatch Sunset (Zellner Bros)
5. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)
6. Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips)
7. Tie: Piece by Piece (Morgan Neville) / Eno (Gary Hustwit)
8. Queer (Luca Guadagnino)
9. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos)
10. MaXXXine (Ti West)
Notes
Movies I assume might’ve made the list if I had seen them: Look into My Eyes, The Substance, Nosferatu, Confessions of a Good Samaritan, Babygirl, Longlegs, The Brutalist, Don’t Expect Too Much From the End of the World and Nickel Boys.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
God Moving Across the Screen
Patrick Brice
1. The Brutalist (Corbet)
2. Nickel Boys (Ross)
3. Anora (Baker)
4. Smile 2 (Finn)
5. Aggro Dr1ft (Korine)
6. Longlegs (Perkins)
7. Red Rooms (Plante)
9. And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine (Danielson, Aertryck)
9. Janet Planet (Baker)
10. Rap World (Scharar, O’Malley)
Notes
My favorite filmgoing experience of this year, by far, would have to be the Mezzanine screening in Los Angeles of Toshiharu Ikeda’s Mermaid Legend. An unsung masterpiece of eco-horror finally being re-released.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Joel Potrykus’ piece on Fatherhood and Filmmaking resonated with me deeply.
Scott Cummings
1. The Human Surge 3 by Eduardo Williams
2. She is Conann by Bertrand Mandico
3. Union by Brett Story and Stephen Maing
4. Grand Tour by Miguel Gomes
5. Nickel Boys by RaMell Ross
6. I Saw the TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun
7. Dahomey by Mati Diop
8. In a Violent Nature by Chris Nash
9. Eureka by Lisandro Alonso
10. Wicked by Jon Chu
Notes
Best in general: Rerelease of No Fear No Die by Claire Denis.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
“Tryouts for the Human Race”: Zach Clark Talks with Sparks’ Russell Mael
Katherine Dieckmann
1. The Brutalist
2. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
3. Janet Planet
4. I’m Still Here
5. The Substance
6. Between the Temples
7. His Three Daughters
8. My First Film
9. Hard Truths
10. Sugarcane
Notes
Janet Planet got into my pores and has remained there ever since I saw it last summer. I have thought about it so often, and while a couple other films eclipsed it as a “favorite,” in a very personal way it is probably my favorite (but my personal way is not necessarily the main way I rank things when it comes to this list). I wish I could see it projected in the theater again, because for sure that’s where a film that deliberately slow, sonically aware and profoundly observational best casts its spell.
Jeanie Finlay
1. Eno
2. I Am: Celine Dion
3. Witches
4. Nocturnes
5. Nickel Boys
6. Hard Truths
7. No Other Land
8. Kneecap
9. I’m Not Everything I Want to Be
10. Conclave
Notes
The creative abundance of Eno in a time of such industry uncertainty and scarcity is thrilling. I can’t wait to see it again.
Dean Fleischer Camp
1. Dìdi
2. Sleep (잠)
3. The Wild Robot
4. Rebel Ridge
5. Challengers
6. Godzilla Minus One
7. MaXXXine
8. Thelma
9. Anora
10. Alien: Romulus
Bette Gordon
1. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
2. Anora
3. A Complete Unknown
4. Last Summer
5. Green Border
6. His Three Daughters
7. No Other Land
8. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
9. Sing Sing
10. A Traveler’s Needs
Bradley Rust Gray
1. Anora
2. Vermiglio
3. His Three Daughters
4. A Complete Unknown
5. Challengers
6. Alien: Romulus
7. Inside Out 2
8. Deadpool & Wolverine
9. Dune: Part Two
10. Longlegs
Notes
The Sergei Parajanov retrospective held by UCLA was my favorite film event of the year. A singular, beautiful voice.
Megan Griffiths
1. A Real Pain (d. Jesse Eisenberg)
2. The Substance (d. Coralie Fargeat)
3. How to Have Sex (d. Molly Manning Walker)
4. Fancy Dance (d. Erica Tremblay)
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (d. Mohammad Rasoulof)
6. My Old Ass (d. Megan Park)
7. I Saw the TV Glow (d. Jane Schoenbrun)
8. Sweetheart Deal (d. Elisa Levine, Gabriel Miller)
9. I Used to be Funny (d. Ally Pankiw)
10. Memoir of a Snail (d. Adam Elliott)
Notes
Plus a little love for my favorite two TV series of the year, Baby Reindeer and Somebody Somewhere, and the show that I binged every English-language episode of to get me through this election season, The Traitors.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Neurodiversity is the Fucking Coolest Thing in the World
Ian Harnarine
1. Nickel Boys
2. Mountains
3. Emilia Pérez
4. Nowhere Special
5. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
6. My Old Ass
7. Universal Language
8. The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo
9. A Complete Unknown
10. Strange Darling
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
The Strange Case of Tell Them You Love Me
Chad Hartigan
1. Challengers
2. Anora
3. The Wild Robot
4. Sing Sing
5. Last Summer
6. I Saw the TV Glow
7. Megalopolis
8. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
9. Flow
10. Hold Your Breath
Notes
A year where my admirations were evenly split between bold, messy adult films and solid as a rock family entertainment I enjoyed with my son.
Jeremy Hersh
1. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
2. Janet Planet
3. Hard Truths
4. Pepe
5. The Brutalist
6. Green Border
7. The Girl With the Needle
8. Red Island
9. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
10. Evil Does Not Exist
Notes
Special shoutout to the costume design: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. And shoutout to the vibrant, hyper saturated reds and blues of Conclave and The Room Next Door. The era of low contrast ubiquity is over (2009-2023, rest in hell!)!
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
The Process, Zia Anger
Jim Hosking
1. Hard Truths – Mike Leigh
2. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – Nick Park
3. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World – Radu Jude
4. All We Imagine as Light – Payal Kapadia
5. The Substance – Coralie Fargeat
6. Here – Bas Devos
7. Last Summer – Catherine Breillat
8. Close Your Eyes – Victor Erice
9. In Our Day – Hong Sang-soo
10. Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry – Elene Naveriani
Notes
Hard Truths by Mike Leigh has a very powerful moment halfway through where the dark comedy turns to deep sadness and from then on I sat in the cinema trying not to wail loudly and disturbingly.
Andrew Boodhoo Kightlinger
1. The Brutalist
2. The Wild Robot
3. The First Omen
4. The Substance
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
6. All We Imagine as Light
7. The Outrun
8. How to Have Sex
9. Anora
10. Last Summer
Notes
The Brutalist is the type of film that reminds that movies are for dark rooms with rapt crowds. A stunning achievment.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
A Story To Live by Shannon Plumb
Bruce LaBruce
1. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
2. Femme
3. Universal Language
4. Hard Truths
5. Anora
6. Last Summer
7. Good One
8. MadS
9. The People’s Joker
10. Smile 2
Notes
It was between Smile 2 and The Substance for number 10, but I think Smile 2, which has some parallel themes to The Substance, is the better movie.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
How to Produce a Successful Indie Film in Three Easy Steps (by Doing Everything Wrong)
Alison Star Locke
1. Heretic
2. A Real Pain
3. Anora
4. A Quiet Place: Day One
5. Strange Darling
6. My Old Ass
7. Blink Twice
8. The First Omen
9. The Substance
10. Lisa Frankenstein
Notes
In addition to the amazing films on my list, I had the good fortune to take in a bunch of big favorites at the theater this year, thanks to Beyond Fest, the New Beverly and the Egyptian. Seeing The Babadook with Jennifer Kent doing a Q&A and watching The Women of Elm Street panel with a whole row of my horror filmmaker girlfriends were both such moving, fun experiences. Women in horror are growing stronger by the day.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Terrifying and Beautiful: On A Nightmare on Elm Street at 40 by Julia Marchese
Julia Marchese
1. Beatles 64
2. Terrifier 3
3. Love Lies Bleeding
4. MaXXXine
5. Hell Hole
6. The Substance
7. Oddity
8. Heretic
9. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
10. Hundreds of Beavers
Notes
What a fun year for cinema – and a brilliant year for horror especially! I saw most of these films in the cinema and the audible audience reactions really heighten the viewing experience so much. Thank you to everyone who created these works of film that gave me great joy.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
My Rocky Horror Picture Show Obsession
James Marsh
1. Anora
2. La Chimera
3. I Saw the TV Glow
4. The Devil’s Bath
5. September 5
6. A New Kind of Wilderness (documentary)
7. Red Rooms
8. Black Box Diaries (documentary)
9. The Substance
10. The Apprentice
Notes
There are certain films I might love that I’ve yet to see. Interestingly, this list has the film I most enjoyed this year (Anora) and the film I least enjoyed this year (The Apprentice).
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Fantasy and reality in Sean Baker’s Anora
Jim McKay
1. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
2. Perfect Days
3. On the Adamant
4. Mambar Pierrette
5. Occupied City
6. The Stimming Pool
7. Where the Olive Trees Weep
8. The Body Politic
9. Janet Planet
10. Dahomey
Notes
Appearing in Origin, Exhibiting Forgiveness and Nickel Boys, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor was the actor of the year. Her work is so thoughtful and deep and it’s wonderful to see her getting solid, well-drawn roles. The Seed of the Sacred Fig was just outside my top 10, but I think it’s the most brave film of the year, without a doubt. Thanks to Anthology Film Archives for all their special programming this year focusing on Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, etc. And shoutout to Upstate Films, who have been bringing outstanding programming to the folks lucky enough to be north of the city …
Nina Menkes
1. No Other Land
2. The Substance
3. Nocturnes
4. The Bibi Files
5. Nickel Boys
6. Queendom
Kristian Mercado
1. Anora
2. Wicked
3. Dune: Part Two
4. The Wild Robot
5. The Substance
6. Emilia Pérez
7. Challengers
8. Snack Shack
9. Alien: Romulus
10. Deadpool & Wolverine
Notes
Anora was so unique and interesting I couldn’t keep my eyes away, the blend of humor, heart, and reality, all hit. Snack Shack deserves more eyes on it, more people need to see that film! A lot of great animations this year, and even some good franchise films like Alien: Romulus really touched on what made Alien feel so great, and Deadpool & Wolverine achieved impossible levels of self awareness and parody I felt was lacking in franchise films.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Three Great Things: Stavros Halkias was a highlight!
Sarah Elizabeth Mintz
1. Kinds of Kindness
2. Anora
3. Femme
4. The Beast
5. La Chimera
6. Challengers
7. A Real Pain
8. The Crow
9. Love Lies Bleeding
10. Asphalt City (Black Flies)
Notes
Honestly … tough year, but a few gems. I literally wrote in The Crow … Plenty I still have yet to see!
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
I want to read Zia Anger’s piece and am very excited to watch her film!
Adam Egypt Mortimer
1. I Saw the TV Glow
2. The People’s Joker
3. Red Rooms
4. Baby Assassins: Nice Days
5. Hundreds of Beavers
6. Anora
7. How to Have Sex
8. Kill
9. Smile 2
10. Universal Language
Notes
The People’s Joker was one of my favorites when I saw it at Fantastic Fest in 2023 and it remained in my top faves when I saw it again this year. It shares something with Hundreds of Beavers in being a homemade lo fi no money masterpiece with so much to say and to do cinematically. Baby Assassins: Nice Days was incredible and the third one, which will be released next year in the U.S., will definitely scream for attention on my list next year. I Saw the TV Glow really put me into a beautiful alienated headspace both times I watched it. Red Room showed a brand new disturbing and hyper modern style with which tell a giallo type of story. Anora and Kill are among the most ecstatic theatrical experiences I had in 2024 and would make for a fascinating kinetic double feature.
Crystal Moselle
1. The Black Sea
2. Flow
3. La Cocina
4. A Different Man
5. Sing Sing
6. Anora
7. Bird
8. The Last Year of Darkness
9. My First Film
10. Challengers
Notes
Flow was a magical journey. The Black Sea should be seen in a theater. La Cocina is incredibly beautiful. A Different Man was bonkers. Anora‘s hidden love story was very tender. Sing Sing was the warmth I needed.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Three Great Things: Jordan Firstman
Sheridan O’Donnell
1. A Different Man
2. Anora
3. Civil War
4. Hard Truths
5. A Real Pain
6. Megalopolis
7. His Three Daughters
8. Janet Planet
9. Inside Out 2
10. Challengers
Notes
A Different Man has stayed with me the most of all the films this year — it’s refreshingly open ended in an age of certainty. A singular tone that transcends its influences and a star-making, underrated performance by Adam Pearson. Sebastian Stan has also never been better.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
I’m biased, but my piece is all right!
Jenni Olson
1. Sabbath Queen
2. I’m Your Venus
3. Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr
4. My Old Ass
5. The People’s Joker
6. Orlando, My Political Biography
7. I Saw the TV Glow
8. Queen of My Dreams
9. Janet Planet
10. Inside Out 2
Notes
I’m Your Venus — Kimberly Reed’s fantastic feature doc about the life and legacy of ballroom legend Venus Extravaganza — is currently on the festival circuit and doesn’t yet have distribution. So I also look forward to it being my top film of 2025.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
a poem is a city asking a clock why by Jac Cron
Kent Osborne
1. Sasquatch Sunset
2. I Saw The TV Glow
3. Hundreds of Beavers
4. Anora
5. Aggro Dr1ft
6. Standup Solutions
7. The Turnaround
8. Civil War
9. Rebel Ridge
10. Challengers
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
“I Fucking Hate Folk Music” by Kentucker Audley
Diana Peralta
1. La Chimera dir. Alice Rohrwacher
2. The Substance dir. Coralie Fargeat
3. The Brutalist dir. Brady Corbet
4. Challengers dir. Luca Guadagnino
5. Nickel Boys dir. RaMell Ross
6. Alien: Romulus dir. Fede Álvarez
7. Anora dir. Sean Baker
8. All We Imagine as Light dir. Payal Kapadia
9. April dir. Dea Kulumbegashvil
10. Between the Temples dir. Nathan Silver
Pascal Plante
1. Yintah (Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano)
2. The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)
3. Crossing (Levan Akin)
4. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni)
5. Bird (Andrea Arnold)
6. Dahomey (Mati Diop)
7. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
9. In a Violent Nature (Chris Nash)
10. Intercepted (Oksana Karpovych)
Notes
Some of them haven’t been theatrically released in the U.S. … I might be a dissident here, but I figure that might put them on people’s radar – and that’s the point of this exercise, right?
James Ponsoldt
1. Dahomey
2. Anora
3. A Real Pain
4. Sasquatch Sunset
5. Flow
6. Nickel Boys
7. Twisters
8. I Saw the TV Glow
9. His Three Daughters
10. The People’s Joker
Notes
Jesse Eisenberg directed a brilliant film and was also fantastic in front of the camera, but it was his performance in a furry suit in Sasquatch Sunset that truly devastated me (he, Riley Keough, Nathan Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denek were perhaps my favorite film family of 2024).
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
In Defense Of: Bob Dylan’s Christian Era
Taylor Purdee
1. A Real Pain
2. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
3. Emilia Pérez
4. Bird
5. Thelma
6. I Saw the TV Glow
7. Speak No Evil
8. The First Omen / Late Night With the Devil
9. Last Summer
10. Oh, Canada
Notes
Favorite Debuts: Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, Problemista, Scrambled, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, The Movie Man.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Lucinda Williams Talks with M Ward on the Talkhouse Podcast & A Language Beyond Words
Nicole Riegel
1. Civil War by Alex Garland
2. The Old Oak by Ken Loach
3. A Whole Life by Hans Steinbichler
4. The Substance by Coralie Fargeat
5. The Outrun by Nora Fingscheidt
6. The Apprentice by Ali Abbassi
7. My First Film by Zia Anger
8. Anora by Sean Baker
9. Free Time by Ryan Martin Brown
10. Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story by Charlie Hamilton-James
Notes
Some of my favorite films could not be included because they do not yet have distribution. Those films are Helen and the Bear by Alix Blair; Chaperone by Zoe Eisenberg; American Delivery by Carolyn Jones. It wasn’t strange but it was disheartening that 2024 American cinema marked the return to a lack of recognition for women in directing and cinematography just as gains were being made in the past few years; and when so much compelling and entertaining work was released by women. It’s unsettling how few American independent theatrical distributors are left. Demi Moore in The Substance is genius.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
The Process by Zia Anger
Jessica Dunn Rovinelli
1. Our Body
2. Last Things
3. Dahomey
4. The Beast
5. Kokomo City
6. No Other Land
7. Union
8. Love Lies Bleeding
9. Conclave
10. A Different Man
Cosmo Salovaara
1. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
2. Janet Planet
3. Last Summer
4. Perfect Days
5. A Different Man
6. How to Have Sex
7. Between the Temples
8. Dogleg
9. I Saw the TV Glow
10. La Chimera
Notes
I’m sure this list will change by December 31.
Leah Shore
1. Anora
2. Universal Language
3. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
4. Love Lies Bleeding
5. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
6. I Saw the TV Glow
7. Smile 2
8. Oddity
9. Daddy’s Head
10. The Substance
Chelsea Stardust
1. The Substance
2. Love Lies Bleeding
3. Strange Darling
4. I Saw The TV Glow
5. Butterfly in the Sky
6. Rebel Ridge
7. Anora
8. Longlegs
9. Heretic
10. In a Violent Nature
Notes
2024 was another amazing year for cinema. I’m still playing catch up, but these are the standouts for me right now. The Substance was so deliciously wild, I am happy to exist in a world where films like that are getting made. That goes for a lot of the films on my list. I loved all of these for different reasons but ultimately I thought about how these films made me FEEL. Excited, anxious, in awe, nostalgic, shocked, giddy, terrified, etc. Each of these checked an emotional box I was searching for. And of course I want to shout out a few honorable mentions that I really enjoyed: Abigail, Babygirl, The Fall Guy, Infested, MaXXXine and Nosferatu.
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2024
Lynchian Delights by Julia Marchese
Goran Stolevski
1. All We Imagine as Light
2. Hard Truths
3. The Room Next Door
4. Flow
5. Nickel Boys
6. Anora
7. Sing Sing
8. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
9. Crossing
10. I Saw the TV Glow
Notes
What an amazing year for actresses: Tilda x Julianne, Nicole Kidman in Babygirl, every single cast member of Hard Truths, and in particular the goddess that is Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
Dawn Storey
1. Longlegs
2. Sing Sing
3. The Piano Lesson
4. The Substance
5. Anora
6. Wicked
7. Heretic
8. Challengers
9. A Real Pain
10. The Last Showgirl
Sandi Tan
1. The Brutalist
2. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État
3. Grand Theft Hamlet
4. A Different Man
5. Love Lies Bleeding
6. A Real Pain
7. Challengers
8. Spermworld
9. Joker: Folie à Deux
10. Anora
Notes
This list of December 17 differs slightly from my list of December 6, and is definitive only for the two seconds after my fingers have left the keyboard.
Alex Thompson
1. A Different Man
2. Zone of Interest
3. Queer
4. Challengers
5. Presence
6. Femme
7. Love and Work
8. The People’s Joker
9. To a Land Unknown
10. Dune: Part Two
Note
As always, I haven’t seen most folks’ top 10, including The Brutalist, The Beast, Anora, How to Have Sex, Nosferatu or Evil Does Not Exist, all films I imagine I will love. But I still saw 10 movies this year worthy of a list like this. My takeaway for 2024 is that Pete Ohs, Steven Soderbergh and Luca Guadagnino should do a roundtable or get on the phone and talk about their prolificacy.
Kit Zauhar
1. The Brutalist
2. A Different Man
3. Last Summer
4. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
5. My First Film
6. Trap
7. Evil Does Not Exist
8. The Beast
9. Black Dog
10. Twisters
