2024’s Cinematic Highlights

As regular readers will know, I don’t rush into choosing my favourite films of any given year until a few months into the next one – partly because a film’s staying power is a key factor for me when picking my favourites, and partly because there are still some films left to catch up on.  But that said, as we’re now entering Hollywood’s awards season, I do like to mark the New Year with a look back at the last year to hand out a few light-hearted prizes of my own!

So without further ado, here are some of my highlights from 2024’s movie releases.

Best Score of 2024 – Dune: Part Two.  Although I really enjoyed Lorne Balfe’s score for Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Junkie XL’s score for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Hans Zimmer’s work on Dune: Part Two was phenomenal, and his score over the final scene of the film moves me every time I listen to it.

Biggest Surprise of 2024 – Monkey Man.  This was a double-surprise, as firstly, I was not expecting Dev Patel’s directorial debut to be a bone-crunching tale of revenge and redemption, and secondly, I had no idea that Dev Patel was the British action hero that we never knew we had.

Best Franchise Redemption of 2024 – Alien: Romulus.  There were some excellent sequels in 2024, some of which found their audience (Bad Boys: Ride or Die) and some of which did not (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), but there were three that were real ‘make or break’ sequels: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was the first film since the Andy-Serkis-starring trilogy, and it presented an engaging new era in the saga, while A Quiet Place: Day One opened up that fictional universe beyond the Abbott family – but it was Alien: Romulus which (for me) was the real redemptive sequel of 2024, because it restored my faith in a once-great franchise.

Best Sci-Fi Movie of 2024 – Dune: Part Two.  The second half of Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece went in directions I was not expecting (not having read the novel), and delivered one of the most cliché-subverting third acts of any blockbuster I can remember seeing.  Not only did it deliver more in terms of epic, visually-stunning action sequences, but it also never lost sight of the tragic character drama at the heart of the story.

Best Animated Movie of 2024 – Inside Out 2.  As much as I enjoyed the excellent Moana 2, there’s a reason why Inside Out 2 became the highest grossing film of 2024 and the highest grossing animated film of all time, and that’s because it’s a masterpiece that can rightly stand alongside the original.  The complex psychological and emotional issues are dealt with deftly, and I came out not only having had a great time, but also feeling like I’d had a productive therapy session.

Best Soundtrack of 2024 – The Fall Guy.  I know it’s a “jukebox” soundtrack, but the soundtrack to The Fall Guy was the perfect marriage of music and material, from the genius deployment of Taylor Swift to the incorporation of KISS into the score itself.  Deadpool & Wolverine also earns a mention for its effective deployment of Madonna’s Like a Prayer.  In terms of original soundtracks, Bad Boys: Ride or Die had some great new Latinx-flavoured songs, and Argylle was a great melding of old and new songs.  (And although I’m not a huge fan of musical theatre, I have to mention that I really enjoyed the playful “What Is This Feeling?” and “Popular” from Wicked (Part One)).

Best Comedy of 2024 – Deadpool & Wolverine.  You can certainly argue that Deadpool & Wolverine is not actually a “comedy” (and it has some genuinely emotional moments) – but these are my awards and I’m making up my own rules – and the truth is, no film  in 2024 made me laugh more consistently throughout its runtime that Deadpool & Wolverine.  Even if the odd gag here and there didn’t work, you only had to wait a few seconds for the next one – but the humour never took anything away from the emotion and pathos when it was needed.  Easy to see why it became the highest grossing R-rated film of all time.

Best Original Movie of 2024 – Civil War.  There were some great original films in 2024 (including Argylle, Abigail and Hit Man), but Alex Garland’s Civil War was an entirely original concept that stayed with me long after the end credits rolled.

Most Divisive Film of 2024 – Joker: Folie a Deux.  I know that the number of people who enjoyed the Joker sequel can probably be counted on one hand – but I loved that way that it completely subverted expectations, and deliberately stuck the middle finger up at all the incels and misogynists who held the first film up as being some kind of call to arms.  Without getting into specific spoilers, I loved the way that it completely undermined the concept that Arthur Fleck was any kind of role model, and the ending not only was the perfect dénouement for his story, it was also a brilliant way to remedy any problems people (like me) had over continuity issues.

Biggest Disappointment of 2024 – The Crow.  There were probably worse films in 2024 (although none spring to mind…), but there was no greater disappointment in 2024 that The Crow remake.  A great premise and a great actor were completely wasted in this utter mess of a movie.

Most Unfairly Maligned Films of 2024 – I do get that Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman films can be a bit of an acquired taste, but I thought Argylle was a delight with hugely enjoyable performances from Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell, so I’m still saddened that it was such a commercial flop.  In a similar vein, The Fall Guy is another of my favourite films of the year, and I don’t quite understand why this joyously action-packed romantic-comedy didn’t connect with audiences more.

Hidden Gems of 2024 – There were a tonne of great films in 2024 that may have flown under the radar of mainstream audiences, but my favourites were probably the blood-soaked vampire horror-comedy Abigail, the darkly comic romantic thriller (based on a real-life premise) Hit Man, and the unsettling and thought-provoking thriller Civil War, all of which are not to be missed.

Best “Breakthrough” Performance of 2024 – Cailee Spaeny for Civil War and Alien: Romulus.  Yes, I know that Cailee Spaeny has been around a while, and garnered a lot of attention for her performance in 2023’s Priscilla, but I’m not a huge fan of biopics, so she really grabbed my attention with her scene-stealing performance in Civil War, which she then followed up with her lead performance in Alien: Romulus – and now she’s certainly someone whose career I’ll be following with interest.

Villain of 2024 – Denzel Washington for Gladiator II.  I had feared that Gladiator II would just be a retread of the first film, and that Denzel Washington’s character would simply fulfil the Oliver Reed role from the original film – but in fact, Denzel Washington’s character had many more layers of complexity to him that I first suspected.  Also worthy of recognition are Austin Butler’s transformative performance as the almost shark-like Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, Jason Bateman’s engaging blend of easy-going charm and cold ruthlessness in Carry-On, and Chris Hemsworth’s layered performance in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which conveys a tragic sense of hopelessness at the core of Dementus.

Guilty Pleasure of 2024 – Road House.  I wasn’t expecting much from this reboot, but it had a real twinkle in its eye, a dark sense of humour, and some interestingly staged fight sequences, that made it a tonne of fun and a great Friday night movie.

Person of the Year 2024 – Glen Powell for Twisters, Hit Man and Anyone But You.  Anyone who saw Glenn Powell as “Hangman” in Top Gun: Maverick knew this was a movie star in the making, but 2024 feels like the year he really took up that mantle, with leading man performances in a great rom-com, a great romantic-thriller, and a great old school summer blockbuster.  Sydney Sweeney also had a breakthrough year with Anyone But You, Immaculate and Madame Web (even if the latter was not a good film…), and Timothée Chalamet had an amazing 12 months with Wonka and Dune: Part Two (but Wonka was a 2023 release).

Favourite Cinematic Moment(s) of 2024 – Deadpool & Wolverine.  The truth is, there are simply too many amazing moments in Deadpool & Wolverine to choose just one, and probably my favourite half-dozen cinematic moments of 2024 are all in this one film.  Even now, I don’t want to give too much away to anyone who’s not seen the film, but the unexpected appearances of several characters was handled so sensitively, so that the emotional impact of those characters is felt, rather than it just be stunt-casting for the sake of stunt-casting.  That said, the surprise appearance of an actor playing his second most famous superhero role was a moment of comedy genius, and my Best Cameo of 2024.

These movies aren’t necessarily all of my favourite films from 2024, but they are certainly some of the highlights!

Watch this space for my Top Ten of 2024 in a couple of months, but for now, you might want to check out some of the above highlights if you’ve not seen them already.