Favorite Movies of 2024

91. I Used to Be Funny dir. Ally Pankiw Watched June 19

I like Rachel Sennott a lot, but this is a good, old-fashioned stinker. The film completely whiffs on the laughs, which, unfortunately, makes the rest of it an extraordinarily tough hang that just reminds me of a bunch of YA stuff that's uncomfortably obsessed with trauma (Speak, The Lovely Bones, 13 Reasons Why), a disastrous endpoint if you're aiming for dramedy.

Sennott has a lane so clearly carved out that it makes this a bizarre error, but with such a small film, I suppose the stakes are low.

90. Emilia Pérez dir. Jacques Audiard Watched November 13

Every time I thought this movie had worked itself into a strange groove it got brave and made yet another bizarre turn. This continued for more than two hours. It's so completely untethered and audacious that I actually found myself rooting for it and yet I could never get there.

89. Self Reliance dir. Jake Johnson Watched January 19

As seemingly one of the few people alive who doesn't really like Jake Johnson or Anna Kendrick, I'm not sure what I was expecting here. Biff Wiff is wonderful, but the rest of this is just incredibly lifeless.

88. Am I OK? dir. Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne Watched June 14

I like many of the people who made this movie, but I do not really like this movie. This feels like an important story to tell. I've never really considered what it must be like to come to such a significant point of self-discovery/acceptance in your 30s and effectively have a coming-of-age journey while your peers are typically in a much different phase of life.

The trouble is that this is just not built right. It frequently borrows moves from other (not very good) movies and, despite them not fitting, blows through the stop signs anyway. Nearly every beat here feels labored.

I still believe Dakota Johnson has a wholly unique quality, yet she so rarely appears in movies that are able to harness it. I don't know whose fault that is, but I'd like it corrected. Get her back with Guadagnino.

87. Aggro Dr1ft dir. Harmony Korine Watched July 7

It's completely inscrutable, of course, but it still firmly fits within Korine's worldview. Self-implication isn't new ground in the medium, yet I don't think there's a director who so thoroughly revels in the madness of a world they readily and continually paint as evil. The man is practically a character in one of his own nasty movies at this point—a legitimate one-of-one.

Anyway, go watch Gummo.

86. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point dir. Tyler Taormina Watched December 3

This brushes against something I really like in places but is otherwise aggressively, flagrantly not on my wavelength in a way I rarely experience. One of the bigger disappointments of the year for me, and I’m okay admitting it’s probably a me problem.

85. That Christmas dir. Simon Otto Watched December 16

Kind of cute, kind of cozy, but mostly overwhelmingly bizarre. This screenplay made me feel like I had a head injury, and I guess at least some of that can be attributed to the fact that it seems to be adapted from three books. There is a lot of disparate narrative elements going on here and they don't really come together.

84. Blink Twice dir. Zoë Kravitz Watched September 17

The crazy thing about Get Out is not just that it's left its fingerprints on filmmaking for a decade and counting, but that you could tell it was going to while you were still sitting in the theater.

This is not a bad movie—insofar as the cast is pretty great and Kravitz has watched Get Out enough to know where to place her trap doors—but the issue it brushes up against is that it reveals itself to be erected in support of a whole lot of nothing. (Though, irritatingly, a brand of nothing that believes it's a whole lot of something.) Kind of a self-important movie.

83. Heretic dir. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods Watched November 12

First movie written by a team of Reddit moderators.

At a certain point the conceit becomes clear and I'd made the decision to play along. And then almost immediately after that, Hugh Grant's character literally spells it out for the audience, so we get to spend the final 90 minutes of the movie getting that reiterated over and over and over in the form of his expository dialogue. Give me a break dude.

To the extent that this is a rebuke of both heresy and prophesy, as it were, there's an idea at work here that—while maybe not impressive—is at least not as embarrassing as it seems on the surface. Still, it's operating in a mode that I despise by being wildly smug, a tone you'll almost never find in a movie that's actually good.

82. Y2K dir. Kyle Mooney Watched December 28

90-minute SNL skit.

81. Road House dir. Doug Liman Watched May 10

Gyllenhaal's the man for the job. He's the right actor with the right experience and charisma to keep this thing afloat for a while. He's done this type of heavy lift before (see: The Guilty), and this is no different. It's hard to be mad about the general vibe and setting, with a star swaggering around amidst a Florida Trash environment. It's thin but serviceable by the standards of what anyone could reasonably expect from this.

And then McGregor shows up and sucks all the air out of the room, completely snapping a movie that was already hanging on by a thread. He very credibly sells the violent cokehead thing, but it's not what the movie needs. He brings a chaotic unsteadiness, upending the grounded domesticity this had going for it and dragging us into a bizarrely CGI hodgepodge that may have been tolerable in a theater but plays flat at home, where everyone saw this. It's like if someone watched the original film and said, "You know what would take this to another level? Da freakin' Joker, baby!" But why is there a Marvel villain in the Florida Keys?

The truth is, this is not a movie that should've ever been "remade." The magic of the original—its hammy earnestness, chiefly—is not something that can exist in the current landscape, though they tried for a while. The first half does feel like a movie designed for fans of the '80s film. Unfortunately, the second half feels like a movie designed for idiots. I am not an idiot.

80. Civil War dir. Alex Garland Watched April 12

Garland would've been well-served to stick to science fiction (Ex Machina, Annihilation) and avoid the sociopolitical (Men, Civil War) because, while he remains a very skilled director, he has found himself completely out of his depth as a screenwriter.

Don't come here looking for a filmmaker in control of tone. You'll find yourself lurching from salacious thrills to morbid heavy-handedness to didactic grandstanding. And yet, Garland's ability to stage it all is still pretty hard to deny. It's an extremely confused movie, but a pretty uniformly slick and entertaining one.

(The cast is very good, though!)

79. Orion and the Dark dir. Sean Charmatz Watched February 4

The screenplay really does feel like Kaufman for kids, which is cool. Unfortunately, the movie itself definitely feels like it was jammed through the Netflix machine. Looks kinda cruddy!

78. Spaceman dir. Johan Renck Watched March 1

I’ve seen 31 Adam Sandler films and this is the #1 strangest, so I have to admire whatever the hell is going on here on those simplest of terms, if for nothing else. This is a complete fever dream that perhaps makes sense as a short film but still breaks down under any logic when you include these performers.

I can’t imagine how this movie came to be and I’m not sure I care to find out, though its brief collisions with poignant ideas are hard to ignore.

77. The Wild Robot dir. Chris Sanders Watched October 23

This year's TMNT: Mutant Mayhem—opening like a breath of fresh air before caving to convention. I don't know if it's studio interference, but the second half of this movie is both boring and completely disjointed, seeming to find a new thread every time I thought we'd reached a conclusion.

Very pretty though!

76. Caddo Lake dir. Celine Held, Logan George Watched October 11

There's some fun to be had here, and the O'Brien/Scanlen casting is the kind of moneyball stuff I enjoy in movies of this stature. Yet I cannot shake the uncanny feeling that I was just dropped blind into the last two episodes of a Hulu original series.

75. The Blue Angels dir. Paul Crowder Watched May 27

Me, fully under the spell of the marketing department of the military industrial complex: "Reporting from the front lines, dudes rock.”

74. Thelma dir. Josh Margolin Watched August 21

It's way too cutesy for my taste, though I greatly admire low-budget, (relatively) low-stakes movies that are made this competently. This could've been a half-assed gimmick.

73. Cuckoo dir. Tilman Singer Watched August 10

Surprisingly bleary-eyed (and European) for something I'd say got a pretty mainstream marketing push. Hunter Schafer gets her ass kicked through the entire runtime, and she's great as the lead, but it kinda just made me want to watch A Cure For Wellness.

Joins Longlegs, MaXXXine, and In A Violent Nature—2024 horror films I love for pruned aesthetics and cursed vibes and am pretty mixed on as actual movies.

72. Babes dir. Pamela Adlon Watched July 6

Worth it for fans of the good parts of Broad City, though the dramatic beats really struggle to maintain that sitcom energy across its 100 minutes. It's a weird experience to have some of the best laughs of the year interspersed amongst a lot of stuff that feels extremely by-the-book for this type of movie.

71. The Instigators dir. Doug Liman Watched August 9

Just enough fun that it can get away with being supported by the faintest whisper of a worldview. Sorta hard to hate for what it is, yet I also believe this is probably the worst possible film one could make with the roster assembled, which is not exactly an endearing quality.

70. Wolfs dir. Jon Watts Watched September 27

Either I'm getting better at sniffing out junk or studios are getting worse at masking it, because this is exactly what I feared it would be when I first saw the trailer. On the heels of The Instigators, the good folks at Apple TV+ released a second movie star buddy flick that delivers the least sauce possible given the players involved—a 108-minute caper with a second act that runs 200 minutes.

I love these guys. Behind Cruise, I'm not sure there are two dudes I'd rather spend a movie with. Their wattage shines through the cracks but doesn't do much to elevate this to anything I'll ever revisit, and in fact, the real takeaway is Austin Abrams. He's funny and surprisingly affecting. Not a bad movie but if this is what we're gonna get from a couple of the last true movie stars then what are we even doing?

69. Woman of the Hour dir. Anna Kendrick Watched November 7

I am no Anna Kendrick fan, so color me impressed that she's navigated a clunker of a script to make something pretty sharp in her directorial debut. This story is ripe for 2024 for a lot of obvious reasons, yet this screenplay is absolutely coated in a made-for-2024 grime, with flashing neons signs provided to let you know that this material is still relevant today. Thanks, we noticed.

68. Nightbitch dir. Marielle Heller Watched December 27

Not bad, but doesn't get nearly as weird as it threatens to in a few passages. Maybe this softening was a play at broader appeal (don't think it worked) or at an Amy Adams awards push (ditto). Regardless, I consider this a much-needed win for her. She's good here!

67. We Live in Time dir. John Crowley Watched October 26

This is just a Nicholas Sparks movie in fancy clothing.

Garfield and Pugh—both of whom I love by the way—are doing everything they can to make this more than it is, but there is nothing going on outside of heartstring pulling. This single note is sometimes effective but boyyyy is it cloying.

66. The Apprentice dir. Ali Abbasi Watched November 25

Considering that various ends of the spectrum would've made this either a hagiography or an SNL parody, finding the right stance to take was going to be a real challenge and I think much of this strikes that balance. The first act in particular is electric, largely on the back of Jeremy Strong and a frankly incredible Sebastian Stan performance. Portraying the most lampooned and most polarizing figure of a generation is a thankless task and somehow Stan pulled it off. Amazing.

65. Janet Planet dir. Annie Baker Watched August 4

In practical terms, my childhood was nothing like this. But Baker channels something far more intangible that, as I've gotten older, I've realized is universal about childhood. Kids are all kind of weird, powerless, and lonely, and that's what this feels like, set amidst an environment that really does feel like a melancholic late summer. I found this very sad! But also kind of comforting in its depiction of this shared experience.

64. The Contestant dir. Clair Titley Watched May 6

There was a summer during college when I worked one of my mindless manual labor jobs and listened to a downright disturbing number of podcasts. One of the most captivating I listened to that whole summer was This American Life Episode 529: "Human Spectacle", about Nasubi's story. It's hard to hear something like this and not be completely transfixed. I've thought about it a lot over the last decade.

I bring all this up to state the obvious: This American Life is better at storytelling than most. I don't think this documentary does anything special for this story, though I'll give it credit for giving Nasubi a platform to tell his side and for so successfully illustrating the gulf between how funny this TV show thinks it is and how sickening it is in practice. And it's got a character essential to good docs of this ilk: A guy willing to dig his own grave on camera. The universe owes this producer a prison sentence.

63. MaXXXine dir. Ti West Watched July 7

After being lit on fire by Pearl, this was probably one of my four or five most anticipated movies of the year. By those standards, I share everyone else's disappointment. Still, I am a bit surprised at the universal pan job this is getting amongst those whose opinions I trust.

These films have always been style first, substance second, so while it's fair to call it the worst of the trilogy and desperately in search of any kind of meaning, I also have to give it credit for perhaps my favorite aesthetic trappings of the series. MaXXXine is so stupid and squandering so much acting talent, but admittedly looks very cool while doing it.

62. In a Violent Nature dir. Chris Nash Watched June 30

Occasionally pretty striking. Frequently just boring.

This is a film explicitly designed for horror junkies, which I am not. Yet, I can imagine myself really enjoying this in the right setting. This is a movie for theaters and especially drive-ins, not really for how I watched it: on my couch on a Sunday afternoon.

61. Saturday Night dir. Jason Reitman Watched October 16

This will join an unfortunately growing list of 2024 movies that feel less than the sum of their parts. They've got the right people together, in service of the right material, but the movie spends its entire runtime taxiing around the runway. (Though there are some Michaels-Eberson and Michaels-Belushi moments in the third act that flirt with liftoff.) It's a movie with a built-in countdown clock and still manages to feel too long. It's a movie pitched at a frenzy that only shines when it quiets down. I blame the director.

LaBelle, Hoffman, Feldman, Morris innocent. I still really want to like this movie, in spite of how stagnant it is.

60. Twisters dir. Lee Isaac Chung Watched July 18

Very much like its predecessor: More concerned with its stars than its plot, playing fast and loose with the science, really excited to show you a series of big tornados.

Twister is very stupid, and yet I somehow wasn't braced enough for how stupid Twisters is.

From the beginning, I felt that Lee Isaac Chung's choice to pursue this "franchise" was a weird one, and unfortunately, I think his fingerprints are the ultimate sticking point holding it back for me. It's as if he tried to shy away from the inherent silliness of a bunch of crazy Oklahomans chasing storms and tried to shore it up with a strange kind of love triangle and economic exploitation subplot, which do nothing for the movie aside from creating a really bad beat character for Anthony Ramos to portray.

And yet, if you're on board for seeing half a dozen people get slurped up into the stratosphere, you'll be rewarded with another in a line of Glenn Powell movie star showcases. He's got the juice, even if this movie keeps undercutting him with a bunch of plotlines nobody could possibly care about.

59. Snack Shack dir. Adam Rehmeier Watched April 13

This would've changed my brain chemistry when I was 15, but being twice that age, I found it hard to jive with the second half and all of its trite coming-of-age stunts. It's a good movie, though! I'm happy someone is still making these for kids who need 'em.

58. My Old Ass dir. Megan Park Watched November 9

I thought the first half of this movie was gonna give me an existential crisis, but fortunately it mellowed out enough that I was able to enjoy it, at least until it got sad. A lot of that success is owed to Maisy Stella. This is marketed on Aubrey Plaza for obvious reasons, but it's the Stella show. I've never seen her before, but I thought she was pretty great all things considered, and being a relative newcomer anchoring the center of gravity for an above-average movie is no small feat.

This is definitely 15-Year-Old Core—which isn't a bad thing. I've stumbled on a few such movies in the last several years, and while they don't work on me as well now as they would've when I was 15, I'll say it again: I'm genuinely really happy that whatever kids out there still care about movies are getting good ones.

57. The Idea of You dir. Michael Showalter Watched May 5

You never really think about acting as being important in a movie like this, probably because Hollywood has never treated them as such. But here's Anne Hathaway, elevating the material. The script sucks, and it looks like total crud, but there's just enough freedom of movement in here for her to grab the thing by the horns and turn a couple of these very ordinary scenes into something special. It makes this an oddly unique experience that I'd like to see more of. Someone get Natalie Portman on the line.

56. I Saw The TV Glow dir. Jane Shoenbrun Watched May 18

It feels a little short on the narrative and technical polish needed to make it great, but Schoenbrun's perspective, voice, and taste are undeniable.

It's possible I'm a little held back by Justice Smith, who I have now seen in four films, which feels like enough of a sample size to determine he's not for me.

55. Here dir. Robert Zemeckis Watched November 10

This film and Megalopolis are not similar. Zemeckis hasn't reached the heights Coppola has as a filmmaker and this is still made within a studio system and therefore far easier to parse than this summer's bizarro, alternate reality, neo-Roman fable. And yet I think my experience with these films was similar. I didn't enter the theater expecting greatness, I went expecting something I've never seen before. The fact that we got two major films in a single year that fulfill a similar niche is pretty unique (and welcomed).

It's hard to capture the experience of this movie. It is, in varying measure, dull, depressing, and bizarre. I think to do what Zemeckis is aiming for, that's probably just what you'll get. He's a populist filmmaker who's constructed an experimental film, attempting to bridge the gap between the two halves of his brain: Shameless sentimentality and aggressive technological advancement.

You’ll get complete and total nonsense but you'll also get big swings and subtle choices, a few of which are effective. And I may be unique in this, but I found the central conceit of the film—the eon-spanning history of a tiny patch of earth and how lives intersect with it in a way that's paradoxically both existential and ephemeral—pretty stirring. But then again I'm a weirdo who thinks about this stuff organically. And apparently, Zemeckis is too.

Its ranking on this list betrays how cool and respectable it is that Zemeckis tried this. He’s one of the good ones.

54. Love Lies Bleeding dir. Rose Glass Watched March 16

Found this very silly but engrossing nonetheless, probably owed to a killer cast and some Coen Brothers residue.

53. Girls State dir. Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine Watched May 14

It doesn't reach the highs of Boys State, which is perfectly understandable and perhaps even lends more power to its predecessor. When I watched that doc (one of my favorite films of 2020), I couldn't figure out how they landed such an incredible cast of characters to focus on. It seems it was a lot of good fortune because Girls State lacks the same hit rate.

Regardless, I continue to be impressed by Moss and McBaine's ability to take this week-long event and tease out some pretty remarkable nuance and depth from each of these young people. In each person, they're able to find some sort of microcosm of the American (or female) experience playing out in a larger, louder, more despairing scale in the "adult world." While understanding the kids who sign up for Boys State and Girls State are not an accurate representation of an entire generation, it's hard not to watch this and feel a combination of sympathy and hope.

I watched this on a flight next to a man who was experiencing what could only be described as a mental collapse. It has nothing to do with the film or how I felt about it, but somehow it feels relevant to mention.

52. Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary dir. Garret Price Watched December 10

Toto is everything you'd dream they'd be. (I'd probably like this more if I listened to any of these bands.)

51. Wicked dir. Jon M. Chu Watched December 24

2024's Wonka. Aggressively serviceable, which I consider a compliment for a movie I figured would be a debacle. Grande is good and a lot of people clearly took a great deal of care to bring this to life, which brings me to my primary takeaway: Why spend so much money on these practical sets only to light and shoot it like... that?

50. Flow dir. Gints Zilbalodis Watched December 28

A remarkable piece of filmmaking, an emotional rollercoaster, and another animation standout in a year of standouts.

I'm sure everyone works in animation hates normies like me making everything about Pixar, but my god are they behind the times when it comes to prestige work. It used to be something they cared about and something they dominated, but now we've got Flow, Robot Dreams, and The Wild Robotcommanding critical attention all in the same year. (And The Boy and the Heron and Across the Spider-Verse last year.)

49. Inside Out 2 dir. Kelsey Mann Watched August 24

As an ”Inside Out Is A Product of a Fading Empire” truther, consider me pleasantly surprised to find this better than the original for some reason. Maybe it's the nature of incorporating more complex ideas and emotions. Maybe it's the experimentation in animation (the children's show dog and video game character are fun). Maybe it's just Maya Hawke.

I stand by my 2015 ruling that a studio famous for burying concepts just below the surface choosing to build a film around literally personifying those ideas is a bizarre misstep, but this ain't bad! Pixar is still in its flop era, but I had fun.

48. Hundreds of Beavers dir. Mike Cheslik Watched December 21

Mostly speaks to the creator half of my brain, as it's further proof that style and taste are free. Cool as hell, with an all-time late-film title card drop.

47. Kneecap dir. Rich Peppiatt Watched December 27

A quick and crude Letterboxd search pulls up just 19 narrative feature films containing the Irish language on the entire platform, and this is one. I often say "Never seen anything quite like this!" after watching a movie, but in this case it's especially true. It's not entirely my thing but its cult success isn't a surprise at all.

46. Drive-Away Dolls dir. Ethan Coen Watched February 22

This may be something like a 6/10 on the Good Movie scale, but it's running a cool 9/10 on the Cool As Hell scale. At 85 minutes, it's a blitz of chicanery—surprisingly wild and raunchy for what's a pretty mainstream movie. I cannot believe a 66-year-old Ethan Coen directed it, though I feel incredibly vindicated that he's as fascinated with Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as I am. If I had to name my two favorite actresses in the Younger Than Me category, it would've been these two, even before I saw this.

45. Longlegs dir. Osgood Perkins Watched July 11

I’m not typically an opening night guy when it comes to horror. My standards are pretty high for the genre and it takes a lot to get me excited. I caught a little bit of the viral marketing campaign but it wasn’t until early reviews started comparing it to Silence of the Lambs and Se7en that it rocketed up my list of anticipated films.

Sure enough, there is a lot of those movies here. Look at the three central actors in Cage, Monroe, and Underwood and you can draw lines to characters we’ve seen played by Jodie Foster, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Ted Levine. This reliance on proven methods doesn’t really make this film groundbreaking, but it also doesn’t make it any less effective. It hums when it’s a detective movie. Underwood is a surprise winner, Monroe is capable of holding the camera for 100 minutes, and Cage gets a villain role perfectly suited to his acting strengths and bizarre aura.

The trouble is that I don’t think Perkins wanted to make a detective movie. He’s taken the Silence of the Lambs and Se7en ingredients and tried to bake a full-blown horror cake. At a certain point the procedural topples and we discover a lot of the usual horror tropes. Someone yanked the Fincher and started running the Blumhouse playbook. It felt like I was watching M3GAN—not necessarily a bad thing but far less exciting than what Perkins had working.

I watched it in a theater in Georgetown, which—given its Exorcist setting—felt like a cool place to catch a horror movie.

44. Will & Harper dir. Josh Greenbaum Watched September 28

This is amazingly effective for such a simple exercise, which underscores the thinking that people only fear what they don't understand. This documentary has effectively zero plot and isn't trying to do anything more than share one person's experience, and yet I think its impact can be significant.

43. It's What's Inside dir. Greg Jardin Watched October 22

An incredible conceit, but not an incredible movie. It’s hard to decipher how much of the success here is coasting on that premise and how much actually occurs on screen, because—while this is cut from the Bodies Bodies Bodies mold—it’s aiming for something larger and I don’t think actually reaching it.

I’m not sure you’ll find much better from a Netflix film without an IP tie-in, and without an ounce of star power, but it’s also hard not to feel the whole thing slipping through your fingers by the end.

42. The Fall Guy dir. David Leitch Watched May 2

It hits a second-act rut. It feels a little stapled together in post. Entire passages don't even make sense to me. And yet, it feels like the movie Leitch set out to make.

There are performances that deserve praise here, but the headline is Gosling holding court in a way I haven't seen from him since The Nice Guys. The fact that he manages to be all-consuming in a David Leitch movie is his greatest achievement in quite some time.

41. Conclave dir. Edward Berger Watched November 5

Just a tremendously silly, contrived screenplay. Come on.

But entertaining adult 3.5 stars are the bedrock of our nation. This one's fun from front to back and has some clever filmmaking flourishes—an in-your-face score, thunderous doors, hilariously loud breathing—in addition to an awesome cast of highbrow performers your parents love. In some sense it's my ideal weeknight movie, regardless of how dumb it is.

Perfect for an Election Night distraction.

40. Kinds of Kindness dir. Yorgos Lanthimos Watched June 28

We're in the golden age of auteurs tripling down, folding back on themselves, and alienating non-believers. I fully support this venture, not just because we need the variety but also because it takes real clout to put a star-studded movie in AMC that not a single casual moviegoer will enjoy.

...that isn't reason enough to make me a fan, but I do support it.

I feel about Kinds of Kindness the way I feel about nearly all of Lanthimos' films (Sacred Deer goated though) in that I like it but don't love it. I get it. I can see why he has a cult following. I love that someone is getting away with all this. It just isn't my jam and doesn't seem like it ever will be. I'm excited to watch the next one, though!

The cast does rock. Stacked top to bottom with my favorites.

39. Strange Darling dir. JT Mollner Watched October 5

This functions best as a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-style cat and mouse chase through the woods. I feel somewhere between ambivalent and uncomfortable about the twist, which the film is very proud of. (It's also very proud of being shot on 35mm lol.) Kinda feels like you could've just told the story linearly without affecting my enjoyment at all!

38. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 dir. Kevin Costner Watched July 8

It feels like Costner left Yellowstone just to make a TV show for movie theaters. I can't really figure out why he did this outside of sheer vanity because if it were for reverence to cinema, I think this would be far more constrained, maybe shot on film, follow a story structure, etc. At the same time... cowboys! And guns! And Costner's grizzled face riding in on a horse! Across these sprawling 180 minutes, there are a few times when things begin to gel, and it's real magic, but a lot of it brings the kind of uninspired and nondescript storytelling you might find in a PBS original series.

This sucker is long and will live to be much longer if Costner has his way, but he still has the juice, and sitting in the dark watching his cowboy stories was a better three hours than I've spent on a lot of things this year. Maybe the bar is low, and maybe I'm desperate to like this. Either way, I sure hope this series manages to run a tighter ship moving forward, or our collective patience will wane.

37. Society of the Snow dir. J. A. Bayona Watched January 11

Harrowing, visceral, pulverizing stuff. I admire how this was made, as it feels like an achievement in bringing a nonfiction story to the screen in a way that seems to have it all: Respect, accuracy, and made-for-movie structure. Even the film's length is a weapon. This feels about a month long, fully basking in the story's prolonged isolation. As someone aware of the story but very few details, my shock and awe at this experience grew as the movie progressed. I cannot believe this happened.

This is a story about the triumph of the human spirit and the marvel of our will to survive, yet I feel pretty comfortable saying I'd rather be splattered on the side of some peak in the Andes than experience this.

36. Nosferatu dir. Robert Eggers Watched December 26

The Witch 2!

So much here in common with Eggers' debut: A female-centered story of an ancient evil come to lurk around in a modern world whose hubris led it to believe it had evolved past such things. I felt a similar 'Okay, cool' after first seeing that movie, yet ultimately, through repeat return trips to gawk at its craft, came to really love the film in spite of my initial misgivings remaining.

It's entirely possible Nosferatu will be another Eggers slow-burn for me, but I can't imagine I'll be hammering down rewatches to admire its construction. This is a director with his largest budget yet and I honestly don't feel the film is any better for it. Some of those exterior sets are awesome and I love the naturalistic candlelit scenes but so much of this just looks pretty crummy to me—unnatural camera moves and rendered landscapes kind of undermining the director's usual flair for toes-in-the-dirt realism injected with the supernatural.

Depp and Hoult are great, but it's kind of a shrug from me! I still believe in you, Bobby Eggers!

35. Babygirl dir. Halina Reijn Watched December 27

I enjoyed Halina Reijn's Bodies Bodies Bodies and I'd say this is another in that category: A lot of fun and smarter than what it presents as while still being perhaps a little confused about what it's aiming for. Reijn flirts around with something I'm really excited by, but as it stands I found this to be a relatively brief movie that still contained a lot of extraneous elements. Feels like it got caught between a 90-minute chamber piece and something much more airy and slippery.

I'll say this though: No other actress with five-star talent uses it as daringly as Nicole Kidman does. The movie is worth the price of admission for her alone. One of my absolute favorites. (Also the score is fantastic.)

34. A Quiet Place: Day One dir. Michael Sarnoski Watched June 29

This is doing a 25th Hour thing, mirroring the apocalyptic (alien invasion, 9/11) with personal ruin (cancer, prison), which is... kind of amazing? Or at least tremendously bold. Sarnoski inherited a large horror/thriller franchise with mainstream appeal and immediately hijacked it to Trojan horse some heavy ideas. He doesn't want the death in this movie to distract you from his ruminations about dying, so he's centered his film on a character whose experience in the apocalypse takes a backseat to the war going on inside of her. I can't help but be kind of in awe of that.

Through two films, he's very good at this kind of emotional subversion, though I'm not sure how much this particular play will engender him to a popcorn movie audience. What I found to be really exciting I sensed that many in my (packed) auditorium felt bait-and-switched by.

I suspect as he grows as a filmmaker, he'll learn to cut back against some of the more manipulative elements here. His characters are good enough to sell the idea without throwing in a helpless pet, for instance. But he can keep ending his films on trenchant needle drops. Those are working for me.

33. The Bikeriders dir. Jeff Nichols Watched June 20

A slice of Americana that does feel like a photo book come to life, a crude sketch of a plot, twisting through something far more reliant on memory, nostalgia, and romance.

Much more interestingly, this is a film about men—how even the women closest to them will never fully understand them, could never provide what male camaraderie does, and can't compare to the illusion of freedom (even a type of freedom clearly, blatantly, ominously marked for death). Not terribly dissimilar from what Guadagnino's film did earlier this year.

Butler and Hardy do exactly what you want them to do: Make you want to smoke cowboy killers and ride choppers. But this is Jodie Comer's movie. And alongside her is a cast of characters that feels eerily assembled for my personal amusement. Michael Shannon is an obvious ringer, but Nichols also dug Will Oldham and Emory Cohen out of abject retirement. What a wonder.

32. Bad Boys: Ride or Die dir. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah Watched June 10

What an absolute blast. Although it really tries, it doesn't have nearly the auteurist touch of the second film, but it might be my personal favorite of the series anyway. (Notably, the only one I've seen in a theater.) I don't know where this Chris Bremner guy came from, but the last two screenplays in this series are incredibly satisfying. Take the character of Armando, which is, on its face, a completely absurd, Fast and Furious-style machination. Bremner relies heavily on his arc and it just works. I hadn't seen any of these movies a week ago. Now I'm desperate for more if he's on board.

I think this is the series at its funniest. Martin Lawrence is on fire from the first frame.

31. The Substance dir. Coralie Fargeat Watched September 22

I'm not sure I can name many other movies so successful at nailing down comedy, tragedy, and pure revulsion. But behind all the grabby, you-won't-believe-this-scene type anecdotes one could use to tease this movie, the appeal for me is simple. Demi Moore left it all out there, Dennis Quaid gives an incredible supporting performance, and the Margaret Qualley stock I emptied my bank account to buy in 2016 keeps appreciating.

The movie is bonkers (to varying effectiveness) but at its best, it's an acting showcase.

30. Queer dir. Luca Guadagino Watched December 28

Quite a bit weirder than anything I've seen from Guadagnino, a frayed swerve I was initially unmoved by. But even just in the hour since the credits began to roll in my theater I've found myself warming to a lot of its bigger choices. It's crushingly sad movie and rather than play it straight Guadagnino brings in anachronistic music, hyperreal settings, and chubby Jason Schwartzman. I love delivering something this tragic and bleary-eyed immediately on the heels of the pop sensation that was Challengers.

In a canon of Sweaty, Horny, And Incredibly Doomed At The Edge of the World films. See: Happy Together, Stars at Noon, Beau Travail. (I think this movie is very Denis-coded.)

29. Between the Temples dir. Nathan Silver Watched September 29

Given that I am not Jewish—and given that this movie feels very Jewish—there's probably at least a little bit of subtext I don't have access to. Nevertheless, I am sustained by what transcends cultural boundaries: Jason Schwartzman cooking. This would make a great double feature with Asteroid City. They're almost eerily similar, as films about widowers searching in their grief outside of faith. Amazing stuff.

28. Rap World dir. Danny Scharar and Conner O’Malley Watched October 29

Strange experience feeling attacked by a mockumentary.

27. SPERMWORLD dir. Lance Oppenheim Watched April 17

Lance Oppenheim has the juice, man. This film and Some Kind of Heaven are each extremely stylized—especially by documentary standards—but what's notable is that they're each stylized in a way suited to their content. His debut is idyllic and serene, while this one is almost grotesquely intimate. These are very personal moments, and Oppenheim's camera feels like it's practically touching his subjects' faces. I don't know how he does it.

This is a Safdie or Korine cast come to life, captured in a thoughtful way. I don't know how he finds these people. Not only are they captivating characters, but their stories are almost too perfectly screen-built to believe. Hilarious, uncomfortable, heartbreaking.

(Absolute belly laughs during the Mullholland Drive scene, and that's one of a handful of knockout moments. The ChatGPT insert shot is unbelievable.)

26. Robot Dreams dir. Pablo Berger Watched September 29

One of those movies that I could see playing as unremarkable to a general audience but serves as an incredible breath of fresh air if you watch 250+ movies a year. Gorgeous and funny, with a screenplay that will sneak up on you. More animated movies that challenge expectations and conventions, please!

25. Chime dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa Watched June 16

No director is more concerned with the evil that seems to exist silently and move senselessly amidst everyday life than Kurosawa. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about a 45-minute film. It suits a director like him. He's a master of economy in the first place. It lacks the pockets for that pooling dread that exists in Cure, but what results feels like a pressure cooker with no fewer intricacies than his proper features.

24. Dìdi (弟弟) dir. Sean Wang Watched September 4

Almost overwhelmingly personal and heartfelt—like eavesdropping on a therapy session. For a coming-of-age story, I'd say that's a compliment.

Dìdi does a great job capturing what it felt like to be a high schooler in 2008. On a related note: I'm realizing I probably have some adolescent baggage I haven't sorted through yet. A pretty difficult watch for stretches!

I grew up in an era where coming-of-age movies (many of which I cherish) were largely pinned on dick jokes. I like that we're in an period with some much more complex, vulnerable, and diverse stories about youth. It's gotta be a cool time to be a teenager watching movies.

23. Carry-On dir. Jaume Collet-Serra Watched December 15

I've said before that part of the reason I love Die Hard 2 is the impossibility of its resurgence. In a post-9/11 America, Harlin's film was relegated to museum piece—a remnant of past threats and anxieties before we spent billions (trillions?) to remove danger from one of the most unpleasant spaces in American life: the airport.

But Collet-Serra approaches this material like a challenge, and (at least by the standards of the low-brow action programmer) explains the logistics of smuggling a bomb onto a TSA-guarded airplane pretty convincingly. And ultimately that's really the hard part here. This strain of thriller doesn't need to be believable or even plausible, it just needs to be good enough to squeeze past the viewer's baloney detector.

The rest is the fun stuff that a director with Collet-Serra's skillset can pull off pretty easily: plastic guns, tiny earpieces, nondescript baseball caps, a pregnant girlfriend, a desperate hostage, and a cat-and-mouse chase culminating in our hero speeding down the runway on a luggage cart. I found this tremendously fun.

22. Trap dir. M. Night Shyamalan Watched August 4

Sees a meeting of my two favorite Shyamalan modes—Family Under Attack and Pure Hitchcock—which delivers the predictable assembly line of tension and anxiety but results in something thematically rich in the same way my favorites from M. Night tend to be. You get to watch Hartnett (incredible, by the way) try to wriggle his way out of a pop concert closing in on him, but the horror ultimately felt is one specific to his role as a father: the terror of getting lost in another life—be that a career, addiction, an affair—and waking up to realize the skeletons have burst out of the closet and have come to take your family from you.

I don't think it will catch Signs as my favorite Shyamalan, but I think it's pretty easily his most well-rounded and airtight in the second phase of his career.

And, not to be brash, but anyone watching this and picking nits about naturalism in dialogue is a complete moron whose opinion should be discounted.

21. Megalopolis dir. Francis Ford Coppola Watched September 26

Far less self-obsessed and far more uncomfortably earnest than I'd have expected from a career-capping vanity project by the greatest living filmmaker. Sure, Coppola believes he's left a mark on the world (and he's right), and sure, he believes that world is currently at a terrifying inflection point (right again), but this is a movie much more concerned with pleading to those who follow to stride forward bravely.

Utterly, utterly, utterly insane, but also pretty beautiful for all of these reasons. Nobody else has the legacy (or the wine-soaked checkbook) to make a film like this, especially without an ounce of oversight, which is reason alone to admire it. Not many movies are a true one-of-one experience. God bless him.

20. Juror #2 dir. Clint Eastwood Watched December 5

I think what I enjoy most about Eastwood is how dissimilar he is from my favorite filmmakers. I'll admit it: I'm a flash guy. A razzle-dazzle guy. A bold move and big swing guy. A chewing the scenery guy. That's not Clint.

This is meat and potatoes work; simple, unpretentious storytelling. The only kind of visual flourish or stylistic move you'll see here (e.g.: an empty bar booth slowly crossfading into a shot of the same booth occupied by a lonely patron) is kind of chintzy. It's a movie made for your dad and it can only get away with being all of this by toting a screenplay this fun. Contrived and silly, yes. But a delightful story of a man who finds himself in the center of a maze and may have to betray himself to get out.

19. The Last Stop in Yuma County dir. Francis Galluppi Watched May 21

Confidently wild, tightly coiled, and aesthetically precise, I would empty my wallet every six months for something like this. It's a shame this type of venture is not financially viable as a career path because I want to tell director Francis Galluppi to stay right here and make 15 more. It takes just a few minutes to realize he gets it, but he proves that assumption correct across the following 90 with escalating tension, pitch-perfect gallows humor, and little nods to old movies. This kind of thing gets me fired up more than just about anything.

18. The Order dir. Justin Kurzel Watched December 27

We all dream of big budgets and blockbuster excitement, but so often watching movies I actually find myself yearning for smaller, more focused, leaner, simplified. The Order is the exception that proves the rule.

This is an incredibly juicy story and here's its received a pretty bare minimum treatment in terms of its budget and scale. That's no knock on Kurzel, who squeezes the absolute most out of what he was given (thanks in part to a very good cast), but I could feel the story pushing against its own walls as I was watching. This is an epic delivered as a built-for-cable movie. There's easily another 30 minutes in here with space for all of these characters—namely Smollett's—to get the breathing room they deserve. But I gotta give him credit: Kurzel brought a climax fit for a version of this film made for a lot more money and directed by someone like Villeneuve. The final passage here is absolutely stellar.

17. Challengers dir. Luca Guadagnino Watched April 25

Really clunky! Really corny! Really fun! This is an easy movie to enjoy, but it's possible it would be one of my favorites of the year if it were made by someone other than Guadagnino, whom I adore when he's not doing... stuff like this? I admit this is an unfair way to judge a movie, but it's how I feel.

But work past the lunacy of the non-linear structure and some of the anime-toned action (not for me!), and this is fireballs up and down, from a career-best Zandaya, to another Reznor & Ross banger, to a phenomenal Josh O'Connor showing, to some 'oh wow, they're just gonna do this' moments.

It's definitely not my favorite Guadagnino—a high bar to clear—but it feels destined to be his Hollywood leveling-up, a hard-earned moment for one of our best.

16. Gladiator II dir. Ridley Scott Watched November 22

A lot of fun performances, though none I'd say deserve to be anywhere near an awards conversation. A lot of exciting world building, though I kept sticking on weird holes in craft—be it shoddy CGI or crummy lighting. An engaging screenplay, though one that's constantly straining credulity. And yet I absolutely loved it.

This is a film greater than the sum of its parts, which is something I can say for all of Ridley's work in the last ten years. The man's fastball is gone, and maybe he's out of time working in the current blockbuster landscape, but he still knows what makes a good movie. It kinda feels like watching an over-the-hill athlete succeed with his mind rather than his athleticism. And maybe I'm grading on a curve—something I do too much. But the reality is that the vast majority of big, noisy blockbusters in this day and age are retreads, sequels, and IP fodder and Ridley's proved to be very good at winning in that arena.

15. Evil Does Not Exist dir. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi Watched December 8

"It might fight back if it can’t run."

Wonderfully entrancing. Took me no time at all to fall right back into Hamaguchi's rhythms with those long, pensive opening shots and quiet moments in nature. It's a movie about societal and environmental breaking points that's paced like a Kelly Reichardt movie. (Is this just a slow-cinema Night Moves?)

I'm most interested in what this says about capitalism as a mammoth, unquenchable beast that we're all cogs within, even the people who so happen to be an order above us in the social stratosphere. A random but fascinating scene sees the two glamping developer representatives leaving a meeting in which they've been steamrolled by their superiors and heading back to the village while chitchatting about their respective loneliness and half-baked dreams of breaking free from their mundane lives.

There have been times in my life where I've felt like the villagers—powerless to the world. Now that I'm older and have achieved some modicum of success, I identify a lot with the two representatives: Still ultimately as powerless, as lonely, as restless—but now required to leverage what little I have over those beneath me in the pecking order. Bleak!

I probably like this more as something beautiful to chew on than as a film, but those are important too.

14. Rebel Ridge dir. Jeremy Saulnier Watched September 6

Saulnier is an admirable director because he wields immense talent but disperses it in the kind of low-brow genre fair his peers usually only touch as a launch pad or a pet project. Blue Ruin (a modern pulp classic if you ask me) squeezes the most out of meager means and sparse plotting to form a revenge story that feels like a catchy song with a 90-minute chorus. It's a shame Rebel Ridge went straight to Netflix because it's a leveling up in scope, ambition, and form, but fortunately not in ethos. This rules.

The top five on the billing here each bring varying degrees of name and face recognition, coming together to make a B-movie ensemble wet dream placed on a track that navigates its ebbs and flows masterfully for 130 minutes. I thought "Oh hell yeah" about 80 times while watching this.

I found the ending to be a cop-out (and maybe even a sell-out), a regrettable wart on what would be one of my favorite movies of the year. Fortunately, the two hours that precede it are so dazzling and satisfying that this will go down as one of my favorite movie-watching experiences of the year, regardless.

13. A Complete Unknown dir. James Mangold Watched December 25

Musician biopics continue to endure in a post-Walk Hard world because the good ones have a sauce that’s tremendously hard to replicate: A hero’s journey coupled with historic music played loud enough to shake theater seats. Trite? Sure. But I kinda think you’re crazy if you sit in this movie and think, “Gosh, seen these moves before.” Of course you have. And there’s a reason why. They work.

One of the best movie-going experiences I had in 2024. Timmy’s movie star moment.

12. Red Rooms dir. Pascal Plante Watched November 1

Not many movies are able to keep you on the hook for a full two hours while keeping you in the dark about things as basic as main characters' motivations. I found it technically marvelous, and I also found it narratively unsatisfying, though I grant that the film is probably smarter for leaving me so. (I guess it would be kind of hypocritical if a film about the sickness of detached voyeurism was a serotonin machine.)

It's one of those movies that I want to read 1,000 words on from a dozen different viewers. It'll be rattling around in my head for a long while. One thing I don't need any time to chew on: Juliette Gariépy. Can't remember the last time I was this completely rapt by a new-to-me actor.

11. The Beast dir. Bertrand Bonello Watched June 22

An almost offensively ostentatious, era-spanning love story—like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by way of Cloud Atlas, filtered through a David Lynch film, culminating in a tragic, recontextualized wail (Blow Out?!?!). This feels almost lab-built to please my lizard brain, which makes it a disappointment that I can't quite clear its hurdles after one viewing.

And yet, the way it's brick-dense has me willing to admit I'm probably asking too much for a first lap. The balls to take a single theme and play it out in three vastly different tonal modes before cramming it into a single film isn't really like anything I've ever seen before. And I want to love it so much that it's unlikely I'll be satisfied just liking it. I think there's something big here.

It's certainly a stroke of brilliance for MacKay, but it's also probably the best work I've seen from Seydoux, which is saying something. One of those "I can't believe what I'm watching" movies, which, in and of itself, is to be cherished.

The last two films on this list feel destined to be much higher on an imaginary re-ranking I’d do in five or ten years.

10. A Real Pain dir. Jesse Eisenberg Watched November 17

A hilarious, adventurous, sad movie that will hit home if you have family members who've been dealt similar cards to you and handled that pain in disparate, scary ways. I guess this is probably pretty universal.

This will sit with me for a while, but it's also directly in my groove. I would've stayed in my seat and had AMC run it back from the top.

09. Monkey Man dir. Dev Patel Watched April 4

"I learned you need to destroy in order to grow, to create space for new life."

So much more than what it could've been. In fact, if Monkey Man has an Achilles heel, it's that there's too much packed inside of it. Some will probably find that the laundry list of ideas and influences distract from the film, but I tend to find these things fun and charming for a young director clearly making a film he's wanted to make for a while.

The comparison has been made—and will continue to be made—to the John Wick franchise. I don't think it's misplaced, but the two operate on different wavelengths. For one, Patel isn't working with Stahelski's toolbox. These fights are gnarly and satisfying but don't meet Wick's balletic staging. But he's more than able to make up for it by pumping in tons of what I've personally never found in Stahleski's work: big, bold ideas and visceral humanity. All this blood comes from a beating heart.

08. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga dir. George Miller Watched May 23

"No shame in hate. It’s one of the great forces of nature."

A Tarantino-stained sprawling revenge epic that's still unmistakably from the hand of its creator. It wasn't until I returned to Fury Road this week that I remembered just how unhinged it is, but with Furiousa, George Miller issues a reminder for anyone who'd forgotten one of the best action films of the 2010s: Nobody is doing it like him.

This dovetails perfectly into his 2015 masterpiece, backtracking to make Fury Road a kind of two-hour climax. And if Furiousa has a fatal flaw, it's that. It's built much more like a conventional origin story instead of the 120-minute drag race that made Fury Road so special. That's not to say it lacks rocket-fueled action because it doesn't. That third-chapter chase scene is the best thing I've seen in a theater this year.

And it feels silly to call a George Miller character weird, but I really do think Hemsworth's character is weird in the wrong way. It's like the MCU leaked into this franchise. Not sure what's up with that! But Taylor-Joy more than makes up for it. I hope this is the crowning of our next female action star.

07. Dune: Part Two dir. Denis Villeneuve Watched February 29

I continue to feel this series and I are on different wavelengths, but you can coast tremendously far by making the coolest-looking sci-fi movie I've ever seen and hinging it on Chalamet's first bonafide movie star turn.

06. Anora dir. Sean Baker Watched November 3

Best seen in a packed theater, which is what I was blessed with. It's a story of hijinks and big laughs that plunges into something much less funny but no less entertaining and riveting.

I had a lot to say about the ending that I won't put here in an effort to avoid spoilers (you can read it on Letterboxd).

But despite my conflicted feelings it's still hard not to be drawn into such a high-arching narrative pinned on such a breakout performance, or by Baker's work in spinning this Pretty Woman-goes-Zola screenplay into a class fable it deserved to be. Baker's films are flawed, but I'm never bored—or short on big, complicated opinions after. That's something.

05. Sing Sing dir. Greg Kwedar Watched August 24

"We're here to become human again."

An incredible piece of weaponized empathy that will radicalize parents nationwide if it can get some traction. Kind of a perfect 100 minutes of kinetic emotion.

I'd seen Colman Domingo in half a dozen roles before this, and I always appreciated his work, but I was never quite head over heels. This is it. Oscar or not, this will significantly level up his career. Just a barnburner of a performance—thanks largely to having Clarence Maclin to play off of. Any time they're on screen together is magic.

04. A Different Man dir. Aaron Schimberg Watched November 6

"Same bloke, new face!"

I always prefer to see a movie with no expectations at all, but A Different Man may be the rare film that's best experienced with incorrect preconceived notions. I went in braced for the kind of by-the-book satire we've come to expect a lot recently and found myself almost immediately underwater in something whip smart and almost dreamlike in its meter. It's an absolute delight for an audience with a taste like mine. I'm disappointed I didn't have time to catch this in theaters, because I'd have been on cloud nine to find myself in what's basically a Charlie Kaufman movie—a kind of Synecdoche, New York Lite. It's less existential (and not quite as pitch-black despairing) but still plenty intelligent and much more accessibly funny.

And I've always been very indifferent to Sebastian Stan, but something about his performance in 2022's Fresh, a movie I otherwise was lukewarm on, won me over. Here he's done it. This performance is fantastic.

03. Hit Man dir. Richard Linklater Watched June 7

"Seize the identity you want for yourself."

It's kind of my ideal movie—an intelligent crowd-pleaser spun together by an unassuming genius about a couple of hot people who let love lead them toward bad things.

The thing about the "elevated popcorn movie" is that they can live a double life. This is a fun little thriller starring a couple of sexy people. It satisfies on a Friday night on the couch. And then there's all this other, more extended-release stuff weaved in here about identity and permeability and how maybe every bookish loser would kill someone if they were deep enough in love.

Linklater has made a few of my favorite movies of all time, but I'm a sucker for the poetic, so I'm always drawn back to Before Sunset or Boyhood. It's easy to forget this guy also made School of Rock and Everybody Wants Some!!. The most underrated American filmmaker of his generation.

02. Perfect Days dir. Wim Wenders Watched February 23 and December 11

"Next time is next time. Now is now."

During college, I'd spend summers at home working crappy jobs. After my freshman and sophomore years, I drove a freezer truck in varying 100-mile loops around Greater Cleveland, delivering bags of ice to gas stations, mainly. It was an objectively lousy job. I worked too much—lots of weekends. I didn't make a whole lot of money. I remember being sore a lot. And yet, in many ways, it was the perfect fit for an avowed introvert. In the cab of that truck, I didn't have a boss looking over my shoulder. All my interactions with strangers were the way I liked them: predictable and brief. The A/C didn't work, and the company had ripped out the radio, so I'd spend long, hot hours with my thoughts, daydreaming about what life might be like in five or ten years. My work life now is better: more exciting, fulfilling, rewarding. I have what I imagine is the closest any average person could get to a dream job. And yet, I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes yearn for the honest simplicity of those summer days of sweat and diesel fumes.

01. La Chimera dir. Alice Rohrwacher Watched April 15 and August 19

"Who does it belong to now, ma'am?" "The station? No one." "What do you mean?" "It's a public building. It belongs to everyone." "Does it belong to everyone or no one?"

I discovered Rohrwacher's Happy as Lazzaro four years ago, in the deepest throes of the pandemic. I was quick to be swept up by a film so audacious because every risk worked. To relay the story to a friend, you'd sound like someone describing a student's creative writing essay. Yet, in the experience of the film, the way Rohrwacher treats her characters (and, in turn, her audience) is too understated and sure-handed to shrug off. It's so soft and quiet that you almost miss the moment you've stepped through the door to Oz. Is it possible to carefully swing for the fence?

I've been waiting for La Chimera since I first learned of it, and I'm thrilled to discover that original experience is evidently just part of Rohrwacher's toolkit. It's a story of graverobbers and ghosts lurking in the shadows of an encroaching world, of a man unstuck from home, from wealth, from love. And it's a story about what we should dig up, what we should leave buried, and of the things around us, within us, underneath us, that weren't meant for human eyes.

It's also minted a new favorite filmmaker of mine. I'm all in.