Favorite Films of 2024

*Flow (Sideshow and Janus Films), The Brutalist (A24), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Neon), All We Imagine as Light (Sideshow and Janus Films)*

Many publications and platforms approach their “best movies of the year” lists playing by specific conventions with the purpose of reaching the broadest possible audience, usually including a mixture of popular favorites from the year with a sprinkling of arcane new titles that serve as discoveries for the masses. This strategy of approach –– while advantageous for many–– can lack the passionate zeal propelling Foremost Film and its mission of championing cinema that incites a spirited response that stays with you hours, days, or even years after seeing a movie that genuinely challenges or even transforms one’s point-of-view.

These sentiments are deeply reflected in Foremost Film’s list of favorite films for 2024. Hailing from nearly every corner of the globe, first-time directors and seasoned auteurs alike, our top ten of the year is a kaleidoscopic combination of emotional expression and political statement, a roster of movies that elicit vibrant reactions and serve as powerful declarations from the teams behind their creation. Looking at our list in its entirety, it becomes apparent that the works that resonated most strongly are not just made to entertain audiences but shine a light on perspectives and concerns overlooked by more dominant forms of filmmaking. Without further ado, continue on to find out Foremost Film’s ten favorite films of the year, ranked in ascending order, along with a few honorable mentions:

10. ‘The Settlers’ dir. Felipe Gálvez Haberle

For his feature debut, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2023, Gálvez turns to the colonial roots of his Chilean homeland to probe the violence and cruelty woven into the country’s national DNA from the jump. Set in the ravishingly beautiful landscapes of Tierra del Fuego, the movie tracks a group of men –– A Scottish soldier, a Texan hustler, and a Mestizo worker –– hired to rid a wealthy landowner’s vast property of its Indigenous populations circa 1890. Simultaneously upending traditions of the Western genre and the national myths of Chile’s Eurocentric structures of power, Gálvez works with a bold style and ravishing visual language that delves with purpose into colonization’s ravaging impact in South America, which still haunts many social and infrastructural aspects of the continent today. The Settlers works as one of contemporary cinema’s most searing critical explorations of colonial influence. Stream The Settlers on MUBI.

9. ‘La Chimera’ dir. Alice Rohrwacher

Rohrwacher’s La Chimera is a warm and fantastical examination of human connection to the past and how we choose to observe it. Josh O’Connor stars as Arthur, a moody yet sexy British archeologist turned tomb raider in the countryside of 1980s Italy, speaking the language and wearing a raggedy white suit that only adds to his charm. While his kindly henchmen are more interested in pawning the Etruscan relics they find, Arthur has a mysteriously spiritual connection to his ancient artifacts, which comes into focus as the film moves forward. Stunningly shot and hilariously written, La Chimera makes Italians look like the most amusing, fiery people on earth, yet another vibrant celebration of the Italian working class from Rohrwacher. Watch La Chimera on Hulu.

8. ‘The Brutalist’ dir. Brady Corbet

With his first two feature films—and now The Brutalist—Corbet proves to be one of American cinema’s boldest voices through his explorations of power and its reverberations. “The Brutalist” himself is László Toth, played by Adrian Brody, a once iconic Hungarian architect whose life is imploded by the Holocaust. Separated from his wife and niece (Felicity Jones and Raffey Cassidy, minuscule roles in comparison) during the Second World War, Toth heads to New York City, where he expects to rebuild his life, only to slowly understand the fable behind the American Dream. Over three-and-a-half hours (including a fifteen-minute intermission with a convenient countdown clock), The Brutalist is just as enormous in scope as the building Toth toils over, presenting a time-spanning narrative filled with soaring highs and crashing lows. Shot in just thirty-three days on a slim ten-million-dollar budget, Corbet masterfully combines performance, narrative, and craft with assured brilliance, returning to VistaVision film stock from the 1950s to capture the movie’s specifically mid-century ambiance. The Brutalist only sputters in its final act with a jarring shift that feels like a rushed summative assessment in disservice to the rest of the movie. Unhurriedly making its way to a broader audience, The Brutalist is likely to be en route to a major awards campaign in the coming months.

7. ‘Pictures of Ghosts’ dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho

Simultaneously reflective and melancholic with a remarkable delicacy, Pictures of Ghosts is Filho’s intimate examination of the places and spaces that shaped his life. Shot in the filmmaker’s hometown of Recife, Brazil, the documentary begins by exploring the seaside condo owned by his mother and later himself, where Filho made many of his early works and first fell in love with cinema. Leaving the apartment behind in its latter half, Pictures of Ghosts moves on to reminisce on the heyday of Recife’s movie theater culture, once packed with impressive movie palaces that perished as time passed and the city evolved. Through voiceover narration from the director, Filho conveys his own memories with a touching openness and honesty, combined with an amalgamation of home video, archived photos, and scenes from his first films that come together to create the director’s most personal and moving work to date. Watch Pictures of Ghosts on The Criterion Channel.

6. ‘Green Border’ dir. Agnieszka Holland

Holland’s Venice Jury Prize-winning Green Border should be a required viewing for 2024. Shot in less than a month in early 2023, the black-and-white film draws its motivations from the injustices of humanity that have taken place at the forested border between Belarus and Poland over the past three years. Sparked by Belarussian President Lukashenko, who began falsely promising safe passage for refugees into the EU from his country, Green Border chronicles the dire experiences of displaced people as they are punted back and forth between two countries that refuse to protect them, leaving them in a scarce and dangerous situation lacking any sense of dignity or security. The film oscillates its attention between the refugee families affected by such situations –– most of whom are coming from the Middle East and Africa–– the Polish border guards enforcing their country’s political agenda, and the resistance workers volunteering their time to aid the crisis. Far from an easy or lighthearted viewing experience in part due to its verité approach, Green Border’s condemnation of human rights violations and the rise of nationalism work with a vital sense of urgency and purpose. Stream Green Border on Kanopy.

5. ‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World’ dir. Radu Jude

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is a riotous denunciation of contemporary capitalism, as essentially told through a rambling day-long car ride through Bucharest, Romania. Centering around Angela (the gut-busting Ilinca Manolache), a production assistant for a workplace safety PSA, the audience witnesses the bullshit she endures trying to make a living, the ins and outs of her exhausting days as she weaves through dangerous traffic. Jude mirrors this Angela’s experience with one from the past, incorporating footage from the 1981 film Angela Goes On, about a female taxi driver of the same name during the sunset of Ceausescu’s regime. Playing with a myriad of cultural references, the movie operates with a sort of “high/low” quality that allows the director to flex his intellectual perspectives and understanding of cinema. Through its commentary on consumerism, social media, and Romania’s Communist past, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World presents an extraordinarily tragic image of the modern world that frankly connects with the feelings of living through such absurd times. Jude entirely plays by his own rules to create one of the year’s most richly textured and hard-hitting movies. Watch Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World on MUBI.

4. ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ dir. Mohammad Rasoulof

From its first moments, you can sense the crucial urgency with which The Seed of the Sacred Fig was created, a work assembled in secrecy by a filmmaker whose future was entirely uncertain. Since its last-minute addition to the 2024 Cannes Competition line-up, Rasoulof’s harrowing exodus from his home country of Iran after facing protracted criminal trials over the years has been notably at the forefront of the film’s public impression, showcasing the director’s unjust treatment in the hands of the government and further stressing the persecution of artistic and critical voices by the theocratic regime. The film begins as a domestic drama, confined mainly within a Tehran apartment where a lawyer named Iman lives with his wife, Najmeh, and two adolescent daughters, Rezvan and Sana. When Iman is promoted to a judge within the Islamic Revolutionary Court, he faces pressure from above to convict individuals of crimes without fair investigations, eventually appalling his household when they figure out their father’s unethical deeds. As the Woman, Life, Freedom protests ratchet up on the streets below their apartment, Iman’s increasing authoritarianism over his household gradually splinters the entire clan, leaving the women vulnerable to his rising paranoia. As it moves through its lengthy runtime, The Seed of the Sacred Fig never ceases to swell in scope and purpose, transforming from a film of hushed whispers into a work of guttural screams of total despair. Rasoulof’s commitment to the movie and its condemnation of the forces tearing Iran apart platforms the potent political qualities that cinema can convey, the statements that can be made when using the medium as a critical mechanism instead of just a form of entertainment.

3. ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Enrapturing in its portrayal of the natural world yet uncanny in its ominous tone, Evil Does Not Exist works as Hamaguchi’s most restrained and lyrical film to date, an allegory vilifying environmental degradation in the modern age and the often voracious perpetrators responsible for such devastation. Set in a snowy mountain village a few hours from Toyko, the film follows the natural unbalance that ensues when a corporation enters the peaceful hamlet to build a tourist trap in the form of a glamping site. In reference to the film’s name, Hamaguchi creates a deceptive work that does not toil to answer such a question, leaving the viewer to build their own ideas. As with all of the director’s films, Evil Does Not Exist assembles intricate characters representative of reality, yet this movie exists as a compelling departure for Hamaguchi to explore more poetic ideas and themes about the natural world and humanity’s increasingly detached relationship with it. Watch Evil Does Not Exist on the Criterion Channel.

2. ‘Flow’ dir. Gints Zilbalodis

Directed, co-written, co-produced, and co-composed by the multi-hyphenate Latvian talent Zilbalodis (Away, 2019), Flowis a cinematic rarity. Chronicling the story of a black cat and a motley crew of other critters who find their lives interconnected after a monumental flood leaves them stranded together on a rickety boat, the film balances never-before-seen animated renditions of the natural world with a heartwarming yet simplistic narrative that flaunts the rare ability to communicate with every type of movie lover from all corners of the globe without a single word of dialogue. Flow merges cutting-edge 3D animation (all created with the free software, Blender) with a handcrafted quality to create its singular atmosphere: glowing, post-apocalyptic sunsets are reflected on a never-ending sea of crystal-clear water, with jewel-toned fish swimming just below its surface. Verdant forests flaunt their leafy abundance moments before being swept away by tidal waves. Through his detailed vision, Zilbalodis has an unmistakable understanding and appreciation for nature, further reinforced by his refusal to anthropomorphize his central characters in a way that Disney or DreamWorks could never resist. Above all, Flow moves with sincerity and freshness that feels largely unparalleled in contemporary filmmaking, like a welcome breeze of escapism that harkens back to some of the most satisfying foundations of the movie-going experience.

l. ‘All We Imagine As Light’ dir. Payal Kapadia

Since its earliest days, the world’s biggest cities have woven their contemporary identities into the foundations of cinematic iconography, from Taxi Driver to Tokyo Story. By watching such films, audiences often make profound connections to places they have possibly never visited, speaking to the magically transportive powers of filmmaking that will never, ever lose their potency. For her narrative feature film debut, Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine as Light, Kapadia constructs a quietly expressive and unforgettable portrait of her hometown, Mumbai, as experienced through the perspectives of women whose careers led them to the bustling metropolis, one of the most populous on earth. Combining Mumbai’s rich atmosphere with a subtle screenplay that delves into considerations of female desire, loneliness, and autonomy in contemporary India, Kapadia constructs the most exceptional movie of 2024.

The film gracefully follows three nurses—all women facing significant moments of change—as they toil to make a living in an ever-expanding Mumbai. Head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) holds the film’s heart with her caring yet authoritative nature, thrown into emotional disarray when a European-manufactured rice cooker is mysteriously delivered to her apartment, possibly a gift from her husband, who all but disappeared from her life after taking a job in Germany years earlier. Twenty-something Anu (Divya Prabha) is Prabha’s roommate, caught between her provincial parents’ wish for her to settle down in an arranged marriage and a passionately sincere forbidden romance. Their coworker, the middle-aged Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), faces an uphill battle to secure the deed for the apartment owned by her recently deceased husband, set to be demolished and re-zoned for modern high-rise apartments. Amid these three female figures navigating their urban existences, decisions lead them away from their busy schedules for a few days to the seaside. Removed from the nonstop bustle of Mumbai, the women are finally granted the space to manifest their distinctive desires for life.

Unpretentious through a serene lyricism that is continually emboldened but never renounced by emotive storytelling, All We Imagine as Light is a rare film that blazes in your memory thanks to its quietest moments and the prosaic beauty of spaces and characters that it meticulously showcases in every scene. Transforming from an examination of urban isolation into a breathtaking celebration of female friendship, All We Imagine as Light operates on many levels to present a sweeping work veiled by verismo for real people and the places that shape their lives. Despite its arthouse sensibilities and detours from the conventions of crowd-pleasing cinema, Kapadia’s efforts on her narrative feature debut demand to be seen and, more importantly, experienced

Honorable Mentions

Anora dir. Sean Baker

Challengers dir. Luca Guadagnino

Dahomey dir. Mati Diop

I Saw the TV Glow dir. Jane Schoenbrun

I’m Still Here dir. Walter Salles

Love Lies Bleeding dir. Rose Glass

Nosferatu dir. Robert Eggers

Queendom dir. Agniia Galdanova

Red Rooms dir. Pascal Plante

Vermiglio dir. Maura Delpero