Salt in Wound

Call me optimistic, call me someone who makes claims based on anecdotal evidence, “Call me… irresponsible…,” but I feel like maybe, maybe people are starting to go to movie theaters a little more? Like, I’ve been at crowded screenings recently that in the past few years would’ve just been me and my medium popcorn.

Here are the best new theatrical releases that I saw last year. Annual caveats: I didn’t see everything I wanted to see, and you and I might like different movies and we’re both right.

10) 28 Years Later This sequel to 28 Days Later was only 23 years later, but reunited director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland (whose Warfare appears elsewhere on this list). Of course we get lots of zombie action and scares, plus some laughs. But the movie also has emotional heft thanks to a strong performance from 12-year-old newcomer Alfie Williams and a bizarre-looking Ralph Fiennes.

9) The Phoenician Scheme Classic Wes Anderson in the form of a road picture/antihero’s quest. It’s a satire of oligarchs and theocracy, tackling redemption and forgiveness, and the meaning of family, all blended up in an old-fashioned screwball comedy. Plus appearances by every star who’s ever been in a Wes Anderson movie.

8) Bugonia Director Yorgos Lanthimos returns with a satire of both corporate America and of conspiracy culture, with his 2024 Kinds of Kindness dream team intact: Emma Stone note-perfect as a cold-blooded but always smiling CEO who always knows what to say, and Jesse Plemons nearly matching her as an aluminum-foil-on-the-windows The Truth Is Out There type. It’s fun, funny, keeps you guessing, and Lanthimos totally sticks the landing.

7) Sinners Writer/director Ryan Coogler pulls out all the stops in this super entertaining (and yes, eventually pretty violent) horror flick that is a whole lot more! Perhaps he was inspired working again with his muse Michael B. Jordan, who plays twin brothers who open a juke joint in the old-timey south. We’re dealing with religion vs. sin, city vs. country, and a head-on battle with racism and discrimination. Oh and SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. And music sweet music. There is a performance by breakout cast member Miles Caton that is absolutely hypnotic, placing the blues securely in its place in the history — past, present, and future — of black music. 

6) Frankenstein Like some sort of mad doctor, the amazing Guillermo del Toro stitches together Mary Shelley’s classic novel with bits of the 1931 Hollywood classic film and some of his very own ingenuity to create this highly satisfying movie! Oscar Isaac is excellent, taking Dr. Victor Frankenstein from driven to obsessed to a God complex to madness and desperation. And rising star Jacob Elordi is perfectly cast as The Creature: a beautiful face that uncannily looks a bit like Boris Karloff’s Monster.

5) Sorry, Baby How great to have a fresh, smart, funny voice in Eva Victor, who also stars in her debut feature as writer and director. The tragic story could’ve been maudlin in less-skilled hands, but Victor gently shows us how awful events change us but that we can also slowly carry on, navigating through idiocy and occasional sweetness.

4) The Secret Agent Writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho crafts a thinking person’s thriller based in the real-life military dictatorship and government corruption of 1977 Brazil. Wagner Moura is excellent as the latest resident in a community of political refugees. The director includes a few Lynchian touches which for me is value added!

3) Warfare My boy Alex Garland (Civil War, Annihilation, Ex Machina) co-wrote and co-directed this no-nonsense, stellar piece of filmmaking: 95 tight minutes, showing a harrowing incident that took place in 2006 during the Iraq War, in real time, based solely on the recollections of the Navy SEAL participants. I was really impressed with the portrayal of soldiers relying on their training, chain of command, standard procedures (and necessary improvisation), and care for each other when the shit goes down.

2) Marty Supreme Sometimes at the movies you just want to be entertained, and Marty Supreme was a non-stop blast. It felt like After Hours set in the world of 1950s table tennis and with a willing protagonist. With a different lead actor, scheming Marty might’ve been insufferable, but Timothée Chalamet puts this film on his back and absolutely carries it from start to finish.

1) Sentimental Value The writers, director, and star of 2021’s The Worst Person in the World return with an even better film, exploring the late stages in a nuclear family’s history with great emotional depth. As in Jay Kelly (see Honorable Mentions), this explores how professional ambition can damage personal relationships, and does it with more nuance. No other movie this year affected me as deeply.

Honorable mentions: One Battle After Another, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Blue Moon, Jay Kelly, The Long Walk, Weapons, The Naked Gun, Honey Don’t!

Worst movie: The Running Man

New releases I saw in a theater this year: 44 (including the superb 2024 international film The Seed of the Sacred Fig and the very good but not widely released till 2025 The Room Next Door)

My best-of lists from: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019,2018, 2017/16, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009

You can check out all my movie reviews by clicking here.