A single sentence about every movie I saw in the cinema in 2024
The title is, I hope, pretty explanatory. For a few crumbs of clarification: the list is in the order I saw the films, and each includes the quick note I made afterwards. They’re not all 2024 releases, because the cinema did some fun reruns. There are no explicit spoilers - and often no useful information - but I can’t promise you won’t infer some of either.
Scroll to the end for my pick of the year, if that kind of thing floats your boat.
The Boy And The Heron
Miyazaki at his most beautiful and medium-est coherent.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
lol wat
The Beekeeper
One daft thing - and I say this with affection - just happens after the other with no archness or artifice until the story is done, and it's joyful for it.
All of Us Strangers
Haunting.
Mean Girls (2024)
It's not entirely clear that this was necessary but it was certainly slick and enjoyable.
American Fiction
The reviews seemed to focus on getting angry that his didn't make people feel more guilty for being white, which is ironically reductive in context, and overlooks a really solid farce with things to say about commercialised creativity.
Argylle
Enjoyable technicolour caper that does a good job of keeping its stupid twist options open and lands some pretty solid jokes.
Wicked Little Letters
Olivia Coleman says fuck (beautifully).
Dune: Part II
Very loud.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Why?
Late Night With The Devil
You can point to flaws, but the execution of satanic panic and seventies talk show manic fragility come together so well.
Abigail
Gleeful murderchild turnabout escape caper with a smidge more depth than it needed.
Challengers
Bisexual tennis smouldering intensifies.
The Fall Guy
Paint by numbers action comedy (complimentary), with a very good dog.
Inside Out 2
No, you're crying.
Fly Me to the Moon
If Netflix made a musical version of Oppenheimer, then at the last minute cut the songs and toned down the social critique it would be slightly worse than this but feel unnervingly similar.
Twisters
They didn't need to add reasonable character work to the big dumb disaster movie, but I'm glad they did.
Deadpool & Wolverine
The weakest Deadpool movie is still an enjoyable Deadpool movie, and you gotta love the playful contempt for the IP.
Borderlands
I have literally no memory of this movie except for something about piss?
Alien: Romulus
A loving apology for the post 1992 franchise.
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
A tight little adventure caper where everyone gets in the way of two gay robots trying to do their jobs.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
An extended chase scene in which two idiots continue to try to save a princess who does not need saving while Chewbacca rolls his eyes.
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
Much better than I remembered.
The Mummy
Not at all what I remembered - slightly less stupid, more atmospheric, and longer for a start.
Carrie
Fascinatingly uncomfortable from just about every angle.
My Old Ass
If I called this a playful Gen Z inversion of a coming of age comedy, you'd throw up in your mouth rather than going to see it, which is a pity because it's my pick of the year.
The Wild Robot
A little twee and a little on the nose, but stylish and ultimately beautiful.
Heretic
Hugh Grant's villain renaissance is a delight, and I don't know that anyone else could have landed something like this that works by squirming self-consciously around whether it works at all.
Venom: The Last Dance
Mildly amusing.
The Last Dance (Cantonese)
Makes something more powerful - but I think less interesting - out of abandoning a buddy comedy setup early on, leaving a sense of two or three premises in a trench coat.
Wicked
We know from the existence of opera that you can cover absolute gibberish with solid bangers and spectacle, so I shouldn't have been surprised that this was brilliant.
Gladiator 2
Naumachia, motherfuckers!
Conclave
If you visit the Vatican you see historical high camp in tension with philosophical sincerity and jarring splashes of modernity, and this captures that beautifully, elevating a cape-swishing melodrama with acute performances and exquisite shot framing.
Queer
Daniel Craig gives us an excellent horny derelict, drifting around some sound-stage-unreal Wes Anderson adaptation of Under the Volcano, and swerving into unrelentingly stylish ayahuasca gibberish.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Nonsense (complimentary) that sees you wonder if Jim Carey is funding himself.
Fine, you saw some films. Were any of them any good?
Yes, several!
Here’s my top five of this year’s releases:
My Old Ass
All of Us Strangers
Conclave
Heretic
Dune: Part II
Late Night with the Devil would be on the list too but I just checked and it was actually released in 2023.