A Note to Movie Lovers: Don’t Forget These Hidden Gems of 2024
Banel & Adama (Kino Lorber), Pictures of Ghosts (Grasshopper Film), The Settlers (MUBI), Eureka (Film Movement)
Looking back on 2024 within the landscape of cinema, trends and patterns become apparent on both the commercial and the critical sides: Pre-existing IP drove the global box office, with blockbuster films such as Deadpool & Wolverine, Inside Out 2, and Wicked selling millions of tickets across the globe. Contrastingly, movies like Anora, Longlegs, and The Substance were able to channel their passionate fervor from critics and die-hard fans to become cross-over hits with a significant cultural presence, a mastery not often achieved in the contemporary world and our impossibly fast-paced consumption of media.
But what about the films that audiences may have missed or overlooked? The ones lacking star-studded casts or (more often) marketing budgets that cannot possibly stand up to the millions poured into major studio productions? Whether international titles, festival holdovers from last year, or independent productions, 2024 was stuffed to the gills with compelling and emotive works of cinema that may have flown under your radar. Fret not; Foremost Film is here to bring some of our most noteworthy hidden gems to your attention, just in time for the holiday break! Continue reading to check out 10 of our favorite underrated films from 2024 and add them to your own watchlist.
‘Banel & Adama’
With her debut feature film, Banel & Adama, French-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy subverts traditions of the tragic romance and incorporates her own cultural heritage, culminating in a work of visual poetry centering around a passionate devotion between two young lovers torn apart by the community they inhabit. Shot in the Fula language of West and Central Africa, Banel & Adama interprets ill-fated lovers within a cultural context the Western world rarely glimpses. The film bypasses the stereotypical socio-political context found in much of modern African cinema to present a universal tale still firmly anchored within the culture it depicts. An absolute visual feast, Banel & Adama works as a bold and promising feature debut from Sy and one of the most hypnotic pieces of world cinema in 2024. Stream Banel & Adama on Kanopy.
‘Eureka’
Through Eureka, Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso bridges a metaphorical relationship between the primordial freedom of birds and the plight of Indigenous communities across the Americas, delivered through a singular vision that abandons traditional narrative cinema to take a path towards something more poetic, more experiential. The film is presented as a triptych, traveling to different locations and through epochs of time to examine the complex dynamics of Indigenous communities and their American surroundings. Through Alonso’s considered crafting, Eureka culminates in a demanding work that oppugns virtually all forms of orthodox filmmaking. While the film employs Viggo Mortensen and French actress Chiara Mastroianni–featured in the first two sections– these notable stars are pushed to the periphery, allowing the Indigenous non-actors to hold the movie’s focal points. Although challenging through its extended sequences, elliptical framing, and opaque themes, Eureka offers a deeply mesmerizing glance into Indigeneity in a post-colonial world. Rent or purchase Eureka on Apple TV.
‘Evil Does Not Exist’
Enrapturing in its portrayal of the natural world yet uncanny in its ominous tone, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist works as the director’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.
‘Green Border’
Agnieszka 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, 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.
‘Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person’
Vampire folklore and coming-of-age stories have been revisited time and time again throughout the history of cinema. Although conventionally quite dissimilar, both inspire concepts of powerful character transformation that open countless ideas to explore visually and narratively. For her feature debut, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, Quebecois filmmaker Ariane Louis-Seize interweaves her own creative concepts regarding the vampire and coming-of-age genres to assemble a fresh and thoughtful movie full of promise for the director’s future projects behind the camera. The look and feel of Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person works as an homage to the arthouse traditions of vampire flicks before its time, capturing the effortless ennui found in Only Lovers Left Alive and the offbeat humor of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Yet, through its tender portrayal of the despairs of growing up, Louis-Seize'sdebut stands alone as a distinctive coming-of-age piece with all of the folklore and grisly bits of violence audiences have come to associate with vampire movies. Stream Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person on MUBI.
Read our full ‘Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person’ review
‘Pictures of Ghosts’
Directed by celebrated Brazilian critic-turned-filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, Pictures of Ghosts investigates Filho’s own origin story and lifelong passion for cinema. Shot in the seaside city of Recife, Brazil—the director’s hometown—the documentary is mainly comprised of archival footage and Filho’s home videos, filmed in his familial home and the movie palaces where he first fell in love with cinema. Simultaneously reflective, melancholic, and delicate, Pictures of Ghosts is by far the director’s most personal and touching work to date. Watch Pictures of Ghosts on The Criterion Channel.
‘Queendom’
In Queendom’s opening scenes, the documentary’s subject, Russian drag artist Jenna Marvin, is photographed in the frigid, desolate surroundings of the former gulag town of Magadan in the far east of the country. Against an endless background of snow-covered earth and white skies above, Jenna is like an alien creature within an empty landscape that continues into infinity, wearing conceptual makeup and an avant-garde outfit transformed from everyday materials. This striking imagery as Queendom begins speaks resolutely to Jenna’s extraordinary sensibilities as a visual artist - their work is greatly informed by and rebels against the normative expectations of what life is like in contemporary Russia, a place simultaneously influenced by its complicated past and its current despotic leader where the Queer community is increasingly under attack. Directed by Agniia Galdanova, Queendom was shot between 2019 and 2023 and follows Jenna’s life in the increasing turmoil of Russia during the lead-up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Galdanova powerfully platforms Jenna’s experience as an isolated Queer figure within their society and the politically revolutionary elements of their artistry. On December 16, Queendom was announced as part of the shortlist for Best Documentary at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards. Rent or purchase Queendom digitally.
‘Red Rooms’
With Red Rooms, French-Canadian filmmaker Pascal Plante takes a hard look at the phenomenon of hybristophilia –– the attraction to people who have committed crimes–– through a thoroughly modern and deliberate perspective, assembling a serial killer film that sharply circumvents all expectations. Red Rooms takes place in Montreal, where a man is on trial for the brutal torture and murder of three teenage schoolgirls, which he live-streamed on a dark web pay-per-view “red room” for wealthy customers. Present every day of the trial is Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), an intensely enigmatic model/computer aficionado whose committed stake in the case begins to splinter her everyday life. The movie compellingly explores pop culture’s complicated obsession with violent crime and the frenzy that often surrounds it. Without ever wilting, Red Rooms confronts the gruesome violence of its perpetrators and the influences it has on those affected by it, both consciously and unconsciously. Intellectually challenging and wholly unpredictable, Red Rooms is a must-see of 2024 for any die-hard fans of horror. Rent or purchase Red Rooms digitally.
‘The Settlers’
Visually and narratively ambitious in form, Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s The Settlers is one of cinema’s most searing explorations of colonial power in recent memory. The Settlers takes place in the early 20th century in the Chilean archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. It centers around a hodgepodge of men deployed to rid a wealthy landowner’s territory of its Indigenous populations of Selk’nam people, known in the film as the Ona. Some may compare The Settlers to movies of the Western genre, but the film’s historical fabric exists so far away from the traditional tales of the American West, making the film much more connected to Chile’s uniqueness than any genre exercise. Unlike conventional Westerns, this film lacks any actual heroic figures, instead maintaining a hyper-focus on the perpetrators and the perpetrated. Overall, the movie speaks to contemporary cinema as a crucial spotlight on a moment of significant change and violence in Chile’s national DNA. Stream The Settlers on MUBI.
‘Tótem’
With Tótem –– her follow-up to 2018’s The Chambermaid –– writer/director Lila Avilés solidifies her subtle skills for intimately depicting the multitudinous facets of her Mexican culture. Emotionally penetrating and intricately designed, Tótem captures a tremendous day in the life of a middle-class family through the perspective of one of their youngest members, a seven-year-old girl. Inspired by Avilés’ personal history and her interest in capturing the innocence and turbulence of youth, Tótem explores the joys of living and the sorrow of loss through its richly sketched central family. From the film, audiences can piece together a beautiful work that emphasizes the persistence of a middle-class family and the tragedies they may face together. Watch Tótem on the Criterion Channel.