The Best Movies of 2024 (So Far)

It’s not often that I exit a movie feeling utterly enraptured to the point of gratitude. But thank you, Alice Rohrwacher, because La Chimera was such an occasion. The film is centered around Arthur (a magnificent Josh O’Connor), the British leader of a band of Italian grave robbers. Recently released from prison and mourning the loss of a former lover, he stumbles back into his old vice—if you could even call it that. For Arthur, the action doesn’t seem to be the juice so much as it’s a means of camaraderie and momentary escape, part of a search for something that no longer exists. In the film, which is coursed with grief, longing, and lively humor, Rohrwacher pulls from fairytale, history, and a wide range of Italian masters before her—and yet creates something distinctly her own.

Tynan DeLong has compared his feature debut, Dad & Step-Dad, to a nature documentary. Indeed, it borrows the form’s slow, serene pacing and meditative music. But in observing a 13-year-old named Branson (Brian Fiddyment), his dad (Colin Burgess), and step-dad (Anthony Oberbeck) on a woodsy weekend getaway, DeLong shows that the human male is much stranger than your manatee or muskrat. And yet, despite heavily spoofing the awkwardness and toxicity of modern masculinity, this is a film that has a lot of love for its imperfect subjects.

I had some issues with this Neo Sora-directed concert film—it felt like it ended several times before it actually did; and though gorgeous aesthetically, its crisp black and white cinematography calls to mind an Apple commercial. Ultimately, these were minor quibbles. The bottom line here is that Sora brings the viewer into intimate contact with Ryuichi Sakamoto, as he performs a profoundly touching swan song.

Isn’t it great when the most anticipated blockbusters of the year mostly live up to the hype? Like Barbie and Oppenheimer last year, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune sequel is about as good as you could hope for from this notoriously tricky-to-adapt property. The film is a tremendous spectacle—packed with satisfying performances from a new generation of stars—that even manages to produce a few good laughs.

Is The Taste of Things the greatest food movie ever? If we’re judging by the sheer amount of hunger produced, the answer is a resounding oui! But Anh Hung Tran’s latest doesn’t merely succeed as a drool-inducing extended bit of French food porn. For Dodin (Benoît Magimel) and Eugenie (Juliette Binoche), cooking—and eating, too—is an art, a means of connection, and a way to savor life. Ultimately, The Taste of Things is equally great as a movie about romance and ephemerality.

Here, from Belgian director Bas Devos, follows Stefan (Stefan Gota), a Romanian construction worker living in Brussels, as he finishes a job and prepares to move back home. In his final days away, he makes a soup out of the remaining food in his fridge, and forms a connection with Shuxiu (Liyo Gong), a botanist who works part time in her aunt’s restaurant. The film is a beautiful, serene meditation on connection and the slow process of change—and an extremely justified celebration of soup.

In Free Time, Ryan Martin Brown subverts your traditional movie structure by giving his hero what he wants right off the bat. During a meeting with his supervisor, Drew (played by Colin Burgess) surprises himself by quitting his job in an effort to savor what’s left of his youth. But lacking direction—or similarly unemployed friends—Drew’s newfound freedom quickly becomes a burden of its own. The film is a comedy—and a very funny one at that—but if you’re among those who can relate, its discomfort might just verge into horror.

If you follow anyone around with a camera for long enough, you’ll probably observe some interesting things. That’s true of the young French painter Apolonia Sokol, whom Danish docmaker Lea Glob spent 13 years filming. Through Glob’s lens, we see Sokol grow as an artist and as a woman, build community, navigate the art world, and process loss. Sokol’s story provides plenty to chew on—about family, art-making, and modern womanhood. And it helps that Sokol is an extraordinarily captivating screen presence.

The Promised Land, from Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, immediately ranks as one of my favorite Mads Mikkelsen performances. In the 18th century-set drama, Mikkelson plays Captain Ludvig Kahlen, a poor Danish war veteran who tries to elevate his status and ingratiate himself to the king by growing crops on the vast, forbidding Jutland Heath. In addition to the elements, Kahlen faces adversity from the current nobility, particularly a diabolical aristocrat named Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg). Arcel makes great use of Mikkelsen’s mesmerizing visage. And the director gives The Promised Land such fine pacing that, even as he portrays great agony, watching the film is never a struggle.

Vietnamese director Pham Thien An has a gift for photographing his home country—both the city of Saigon and the vast rural land surrounding it—through wide shots that slowly pan and zoom. There’s a quiet, searching quality in the cinematography that’s echoed in the narrative. The film follows Thien (Le Phong Vu), a young man whose sister-in-law just died in a motorcycle crash, and whose brother long ago abandoned the family. Without any sense of clear direction, Thien casts about, both in the present and through past memories, for meaning, faith, God, and his brother. If his quest offers frustratingly little in the way of solid answers, it raises plenty of questions—and, better yet, leads to many potent encounters.

Totem, from The Chambermaid director Lila Avilés, is such an evocative expression of the extraordinarily specific and intense stew of feelings that comes when celebrating an end. The film is largely told from the perspective of Sol (Naíma Sentíes), a seven-year-old girl who is spending the day at her grandfather’s house, where the family is getting ready to hold a surprise party for her sick father. The build-up to the party is slow—giving Avilés the chance to paint subtly shaded portraits of the various family members—and results in a powerful climax.

This revisionist Western from Chile’s Felipe Gálvez is equally arresting visually and brutal experientially. The film follows an unlikely trio on a voyage through Patagonia, as they violently clear the Indigenous people off the land on behalf of the powerful man who owns it. In depicting the birth of his homeland, Gálvez interrogates narratives around colonialism and its ugly, often absurd realities.

There’s a danger of fetishization in a movie about a blue-collar worker whose zen approach to life makes, say, cleaning toilets, into a serene calling. And the endeavor only gets more precarious—stinky, even—when the film is funded by Japan’s controversial Nippon Foundation. But the meditative rhymes of Wim Wenders’s latest put me in an alluringly meditative trance, and ultimately felt less like propaganda for Japanese tourism than an argument for paying attention to the abundant beauty in the everyday. That, and analog rock and roll cassettes, which I now desperately want to accumulate.

Not so long ago, Recife, one of Brazil’s largest cities, was a thriving cinematic destination. It boasted several vibrant movie theaters and was an outpost for major Hollywood studios. But you wouldn’t know it from walking around the city today. There’s barely a trace of Recife’s cinematic past, as Kleber Mendonça Filho shows in this poetic film essay. A native of Recife, Mendonça Filho reflects on change, both in his own life and in his home city. Pictures of Ghosts is a testament to the power of film for recording history, but also for how it warps it—and how memories of life events blur into memories of movies.

Steve McQueen’s Occupied City is so long (clocking in at four-plus hours) and dense (it feels even longer) that, if you see it in a theater, you’ll get a brief intermission. The break is perhaps necessary for endurance, but it’s most useful for reflection. Over images of present-day Amsterdam, narrator Melanie Hyams tells the history of each space—and the people who occupied it—during the Holocaust. You get the point—that the city bares little trace of this defining atrocity—early in McQueen’s tour. But as the film goes on, McQueen gradually fills in the picture, giving your mind plenty of time to ponder all of the implications.

After seeing Love Lies Bleeding, a friend remarked on how uncannily some details in the interiors recalled her childhood home in New Mexico. I hadn’t clocked the kitchen tiling myself, but I was struck by the vibrancy of director Rose Glass’s 1980s American West. Even as Glass—who, by the way, is British—takes liberties with hair, gore, and human size, the film maintains a palpable attention to detail and period specificity. Which is to say: Throughout this thrilling, pulsating neo noir, you always feel like you’re in good hands.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a movie that better reflects this moment in late-stage capitalism better than Radu Jude’s grim, exasperating, and darkly funny Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Not only does Jude mirror and reference real people and events and break down the dynamics at play, his film slowly wears away at you, mimicking the sense of overstimulated exhaustion we’ve become inured to.

What we know: Pushed from its initial 2023 release date due to the strikes, Luca Guadanigno’s latest movie stars Zendaya as a championship tennis star/coach who winds up in a love triangle with her husband and her ex at a challenger event.

Why we’re excited: Guadanigno’s bread and butter—or peach and hand, if you will—is kinky love affairs. Throw in Zendaya and competitive tennis and you’ve sold us.

Release date: April 26

What we know: Joanna Arnow directs and stars in this absurd, structurally audacious comedy about a 30-something navigating an unfulfilling casual BDSM relationship, meaningless corporate work, and the awkwardness of her family.

Why we’re excited: Arnow is a terrific filmmaker, who’s world class at building comedy out of uncomfortable situations. We’ve heard lots of great things about her first feature coming out of Cannes and New York Film Festival.

Release date: April 26

What we know: David Leitch got his start as a stuntman. More recently, he’s directed giant action smashes like John Wick and Atomic Blonde. Now, he’s returning to his roots by remaking the hit 1980s TV show about a Hollywood stuntman who earns an extra buck by fighting crime.

Why we’re excited: Besides the director being a perfect match for the material, The Fall Guy has the perfect leading man for the part of Colt Seavers: Ryan Gosling.

Release date: May 3