Here are the movies that impressed me most in the last twelve months, regardless of platform. Most of them did not earn big numbers at the box office, but they all have one thing in common — they put a smile on my face. You’ll notice that none of them are horror movies or involve superheroes.
The top two on this list could easily be swapped without me putting up much of a fight. My capsule reviews for all ten are below, and you can read my full reviews by clicking on the title of each movie.
Before we begin, I must note that the absolute best movie I saw in 2024 isn’t on this list because it won’t open in St. Louis until January. But it will be hard for any movie released in 2025 to top it.
#1) “Hit Man.” It’s been a while since I saw a movie that was this much fun from start to finish. Glen Powell plays a college professor who also works for the cops part time planting bugs and setting up wires while an actual undercover officer goes in for a face-to-face with people who hope to hire a murderer. But when that cop gets suspended, Powell is called upon to take his place and act like a hit man, and it turns out he has a real knack for it. One of the people he meets is played by Adria Arjona, who wants to hire him to kill her husband. But he is taken with her and talks her out of the plan, suggesting she just leave home and start a new life. She follows his advice and soon falls into a romantic relationship with him that feels at times as sexy as the scenes of Kathleen Turner and William Hurt in “Body Heat.” In the hands of a lesser director, “Hit Man” could have been full of cliches and boring pacing. But with a master like Richard Linklater at the helm, things move briskly and you can literally see Powell (who co-wrote the script with Linklater) turning into a Movie Star.
#2) “A Complete Unknown” is a biopic about the first five years of Bob Dylan’s career, from his arrival in Greenwich Village in 1961 to his controversial electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The movie was originally going to be made five years ago, but was delayed because of the coronavirus epidemic and some financing problems. But all that time gave Timothée Chalamet the opportunity to perfect his Bob Dylan, including singing and playing like him. His co-star, Edward Norton, is even better as folk music legend Pete Seeger, and Monica Barbaro is right there with both of them as Joan Baez. Director James Mangold keeps the story moving without sweetening Dylan’s arrogance, giving Chalamet’s performance an edge I wasn’t expecting.
#3) “Knox Goes Away.” This movie, directed by its star, Michael Keaton, got short shrift when it was released in theaters earlier this year, which is a shame. Keaton plays a professional killer with a problem. He’s been diagnosed with a fast-moving form of dementia and only has a few weeks before his brain turns completely to mush. On top of that, Keaton’s estranged son shows up with his own can of worms and asks his father for help. Meanwhile, two police detectives find several pieces of evidence that point them towards Keaton. He knows that, so he has to figure a way out of these messes before he’s caught and his mind goes on a permanent holiday. As for Keaton’s acting, it’s the best I’ve seen him offer in a long time.
#4) “Thelma.” June Squibb plays the title character, a nonagenarian living on her own who hasn’t gone out much since her husband died two years ago. Her slacker grandson, played by Fred Hechinger, drops by regularly to spend time with her and explain how to use her computer, which she is baffled by. One day, when Hechinger isn’t there, Squibb opens an email attachment of a man singing a song she likes. Not realizing it’s spam, she replies and unwittingly gets sucked into a scam that costs her $10,000 in cash. Disappointed in herself for falling for it, angry at whoever took her money, and refusing to be a victim, she vows revenge when the police offer no help. Along the way, Squibb calls some friends for help, but is distressed to find out they’re all dead, except for Richard Roundtree (in his final role). “Thelma” is very funny, has some clever action sequences (!), and may set a record for a movie that not only stars a group of talented oldsters but also sells tickets at a senior citizen discount.
#5) “Twisters” is not really a sequel to the 1996 movie “Twister.” It boasts none of the same characters, or the children of those in the original, and you don’t have to have seen the other movie to understand anything in this update, which stands alone. Nor do you have to wait long before you’re in the midst of a tornado, the first of several to come over its two-hour runtime. Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as a brilliant scientist who chases tornadoes in the midwest in order to study them, and has a theory about how she can reduce their ferocity. She gets recruited by Anthony Ramos, then finds herself competing with a team led by Glen Powell (yes, he had a big year!), who calls himself a Tornado Wrangler and comes off like a good old boy with a large YouTube following. You don’t need to know much more, except you’re going to see quite a bit of each other, along with a bunch of tornadoes and the destruction they cause.
#6) “A Real Pain” was written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who co-stars with Kieran Culkin as his cousin in a road trip movie about Jewish Americans traveling to Poland to learn about their ancestors’ struggles. Eisenberg is an uptight guy who likes to be in control, which isn’t easy around Culkin, who — like his “Succession” character, Roman Roy — blurts out pretty much every thought without a filter or a care about what anyone else thinks. In each instance, Eisenberg is horrified and feels he has to apologize for his cousin to the others in the small tour group (including Jennifer Grey as a sixty-something divorcee). The two leads have excellent chemistry, and it’s clear that Eisenberg, as director, decided to allow Culkin to run away with every scene. “A Real Pain” stayed with me for a few days as I let it tumble around in my brain. That’s a rare quality in any movie, which helped me realize I liked it more than I had originally.
#7) “Wicked Little Letters.” Olivia Colman plays a pious middle-aged woman who lives with her mother, Gemma Jones, and overzealously religious and misogynistic father, Timothy Spall. One day, a letter arrives containing profane personal attacks on Colman — just like the eighteen which preceded it. She and Spall both assume all the offending correspondence was written by their neighbor, Jesse Buckley, a lively mid-thirties Irish immigrant with a Black boyfriend, a young daughter, and a boisterous reputation at the local pub. Buckley is arrested, but female cop Anjana Vasan doesn’t believe she’s the culprit and — despite being told to stay away from the case by her boss, and with the help of a couple of other female free spirits — sets out to find who the poison pen really belongs to. “Wicked Little Letters” has some genuinely funny scenes and wonderfully drawn characters, thanks to the talents of Colman and Buckley, who are so good at playing it straight.
#8) “Daddio.” Dakota Johnson is a passenger who gets into Sean Penn’s cab at JFK Airport. A few minutes go by before Penn, who’s been eyeing her in the rearview mirror, starts asking questions and testing his abilities to figure out what kind of person she is. Amid their verbal volleying, there’s a third unseen character, a man texting (and sexting) with Johnson because he wants her to spend the night with him. As the ride goes on and the conversation with Penn gets more deeply personal while she’s simultaneously dealing with this other man, you can see Johnson’s luminous veneer chip away a bit. Her performance is pitch-perfect as she balances the interactions, which become more nuanced as the story develops. Meanwhile, Penn projects the world-weariness of a cabbie who’s been on the job for twenty years — and it shows in his craggy face.
#9) “Sing Sing” is not a documentary, but is based on the true story of inmates behind the walls and bars of the maximum security facility in upstate New York who are members of a group known as Rehabilitation Through the Arts. A dozen of so of them get together to put on plays and musicals the outside world will never see — often for just one performance. Colman Domingo stars as one of the co-founders of RTA, assisted by Brent Buell as a producer/director/writer who volunteers his time writing and directing the rehearsals and productions. All the other prisoner/performers are played by men who did long stretches in Sing Sing and agreed to return to portray themselves. Watching them reveals the value of RTA. While they lived in a dangerous, often violent setting, the program not only gave them a respite, but changed them, too. If that set them up for success outside the prison walls once they were released, so much the better for all of us.
#10) “My Old Ass” is the story of 18-year-old Maisy Stella, who lives on a cranberry farm in Canada with her parents, but will be leaving soon to go to college in Toronto. One night, she and two friends do mushrooms for the first time. While her friends are having their own hallucinations, Stella is visited by a woman who turns out to be her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). After getting past the initial shock, Stella begs Plaza to tell her what to expect in her future. Plaza doesn’t want to give too much away, but tells her to “stay away from anyone named Chad” — and you know how good 18-year-olds are at following directions from their elders. “My Old Ass” took about twenty minutes to draw me in because the time-travel aspect seemed a bit lazy at first. But then it turned into a clever combination of a coming-of-age story and a tearjerker. Stella, who is in every scene, has a face the camera absolutely loves. Writer/director Megan Park frames her perfectly, with light (both natural and artificial) giving her a movie star glow which reminded of the first time I saw Florence Pugh on screen.
Tomorrow: the Worst Movies Of 2024.