Around this time last year, I was reflecting that the next 12 months would be different. Film would take a backseat to travel. To some extent this has been true, especially given that I write this on the eve of my third international jaunt since March. Yet movies remained a constant companion.
In a year when #Barbenheimer dominated the memes, it finally felt that cinema was back from its pandemic slumber. Yet the gross earnings fell short of analyst predictions, a combination of the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, some films being held back until 2024 and an perhaps even a superhero fatigue at the Marvel and DC camps.
Skip to: Top 11 | The best of the rest | Disney Minus Journey | 2024 and beyond
For me, it was as much about looking back as it was looking forward. I rediscovered my love of physical media, an excuse to rewatch favourites in 4K UHD. I continued my Disney Minus Journey. In my quest to watch all of the output of Disney, I managed to get through over 300 shorts and features this year. (More on that later). My partner also casually suggested she’d like to watch the Fast and the Furious films. I was happy to ride shotgun.
Somebody once said to me at a film festival that we all curate our own program, and I’ve always felt that’s true about a year in film. I sought out Asian cinema at festivals, so films like Monster, The Breaking Ice and THE FIRST SLAM DUNK made it onto this list. The inclusion of Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible were purely sensory reactions.
This list is very much about what I personally like. As always, if it’s not on this list I’ve either not seen it, didn’t like it or it wasn’t quite in my Top 23. My full ranked list of over 150 new releases can be found on Letterboxd, so feel free to follow and agree/disagree with me there.
TOP 11
1. Monster
Hirokazu’s Kore-eda’s film opens with sirens wailing from across the river. Flames flicker in the distance. We watch the scene unfold from a child’s point of view, the first of several Kore-eda trademarks on display. The child ignites a lighter just as the titles MONSTER (怪物) drop onto the screen. For the next few hours, the master spends his time unpacking this very leading montage. A masterclass of a character study in the ripple effects of lies and their consequences. Kore-eda demonstrates his ability to get to the core of these people, and the structure never lets us settle on any assumptions for long. Read the full review here.
2. Anatomy of a Fall
There’s a lot more going on in Triet and Arthur Harari’s screenplay than a first glance might suggest. On the surface, ANATOMY OF A FALL is about a literal physical fall. The investigation and courtroom scenarios ensure that we remember that. There’s reconstructions, deconstructions, and reenactments a plenty. At one point, we literally watch a crash dummy repeatedly drop onto the scene of the alleged crime. Yet it’s about other falls too. The private emotional fall of a person and the consequential public fall(out). Read the full review here.
3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Ok, so let’s do this one more time. The cinematic Multiverse is vast, never-ending, and filled with spiders. Our favourite webslinger returned with some groundbreaking animation, a killer soundtrack, and a whole lot of heart. As a ‘Part 1’, you might even argue that it’s only half a film. Still, it’s hard to feel anything less than thrilled walking out of this one. Like the best comic books, we can’t wait for the next issue to come out. Read the full review here.
4. Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan’s epic biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb”, arrives with a moment of quiet contemplation. It’s immediately followed by a literally explosive assault on the senses, coupled with textual reference to Prometheus. In these few moments, Nolan signals how he intends to go on, framing a life like the series of chain reactions that haunt its subject. Nolan delivers one of his most straightforward stories to date, but loses none of that explosive presence in the telling. Read the full review here.
5. Priscilla
The casting and styling of the magnificent Cailee Spaeny tells you almost everything you need to know about Sofia Coppola’s take. Here is the ‘great public romance’ told back through Priscilla’s lens. In that view, we see a child who was groomed by an adult man and kept like a doll on a shelf “to be there when I call.” It’s a dynamic everyone around them allowed, and by our pop culture obsession over the decades, Coppola reminds us of our collective culpability. Coppola and Philippe Le Sourd’s dreamlike photography is stunning, and Coppola’s ability to use the soundtrack like a scalpel – especially that final song – is killer.
6. Past Lives
Celine Song’s tale of missed connections over the course of decades is packed with so many emotional layers, we’ll be unpacking them for years. Here we watch Greta Lee and Teo Yoo’s characters live entire slabs of their life on screen, with all the intimacy of a documentary. This could have easily gone on for another four hours, or been a long-running drama, and I would have happily kept watching it. A wholly realised world told through the laser focus of these two people (and one other guy).
7. The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki’s latest last film, his first feature (and Studio Ghibli’s third) since they first announced a closure back in 2014, is arguably the strongest in years. Inspired by Genzaburō Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live? — which serves as a device within the film — the magical realism mixes the coming of age narrative with a fundamental sense of loss, choosing between destruction and creation, and the notion of mortality. It’s an incredibly grounded film, still packaged, of course, in Miyazaki’s inimitable sense of the absurdly surreal. In this way, it is both the Miyazaki who made Spirted Away and The Wind Rises working simultaneously.
8. Polite Society
This was utterly delightful. Although ‘fun’ and ‘awesome’ are probably more apt descriptors. While they are very different films, this reminded me of the sheer enthusiasm I had for Attack the Block over a decade ago. Priya Kansara lands with a star-making role that will hopefully be followed with many more offers from self-respecting filmmakers. The core of the film is the relationship between two sisters (with the equally excellent Ritu Arya), the coming of age aspects of letting go, and wish fulfilment. On this level, it works. As a genre film, the hyperkinetic style keeps you guessing right up until the end. Nida Manzoor, who you may know from her television work, makes a terrific feature debut here.
9. Godzilla Minus One
The theme of guilt and trauma that pervades Takeshi Yamazaki’s film more than anything else. The later period of Tokyo’s rebirth has long fascinated Yamazaki in the Always Sunset on Third Street series, but like In This Corner of the World or Grave of the Fireflies, here is a film that shows the raw devastation of Japan immediately after the war. (In this sense, it’s an interesting parallel with this year’s Oppenheimer). The ultimate thesis – that it’s ok if you don’t feel the need to die for your country – has no chance of getting lost in the action. It looms as large as Godzilla on the Ginza skyline. Yet this is still a kaiju movie, and those looking for large scale destruction won’t be disappointed either. Every cent of the modest $15 million budget is present on screen, and is infinitely more effective than some recent films that cost ten times that. Read the full review.
10. The Breaking Ice
In Anthony Chen’s feature Wet Season, there was often the pervading sense that we were tantalisingly close to something that never caught fire. Following Drift earlier in 2023, THE BREAKING ICE (燃冬) takes a similarly leisurely exploration of different kinds of relationship. Here a trio of unlikely connections explores longing and isolation on the border of North Korea and China. Much of the film exists in a floating world, one where Chen is almost a documentarian for the micro adventures of his three leads. They drink, they dance, there’s attempts at sex and stealing books, and something of a minor love triangle. Through this, we get hints at what has damaged each of these people, even if they aren’t willing to articulate to themselves. A masterclass in slow-building tension and character study gets to the heart of loneliness and the need for belonging. Read the full review.
11. May December
If offered, take the chance to devour every inch of this (melo)dramatic tension bubble. If you aren’t drawn in by the phenomenal cast, then it’s the slow-building suspense that’ll get you and while the Marcelo Zarvos score pins you to the wall. While Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore get the poster, it’s Charles Melton’s stunning performance that gets to the heart of this. His development has been arrested by his trauma and is now playing as much of a role as Portman’s Hollywood character is trying to do.
BEST OF THE REST
12. Poor Things
Constantly winking at the audience, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s feminist Frankenstein is not just highly quotable, but an uncensored and less commercial version of the same mirror Barbie so deftly held up this year. Is it completely unhinged? Unquestionably, but cheekily so. Is it gratuitous? Very likely.
13. THE FIRST SLAM DUNK
Blending multiple animation styles, sports films are rarely more exciting or immediately gripping than this debut from the creator of the original manga. Full review.
14. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
The latest entry in this franchise is a lot – although sometimes more really is more. Full review.
15. Strange Way of Life
Proving that good things sometimes do come in small packages, Pedro Almodóvar’s queer Western short film has compact storytelling that speaks volumes. Full review.
16. Flora and Son
Oh, my heart! This film plugged directly into it, being a wonderful union between Once and Natalie Morales’ Language Lessons. Sure, you might be tempted to call John Carney a one-trick pony — here we are again watching two misfits coming together through the magic of song (see also: Sing Street, Begin Again) — but it’s a hell of a trick.
17. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
There’s a universality to Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of Judy Blume. What has always marked this as an important is just how much of a representative story this is for adolescent girls and young women. The frank discussions of menstruation, bras and boys all translate over to the screen, not to mention the look at religion. Abby Ryder Fortson is phenomenal as the titular lead.
18. The Holdovers
It’s a rare thing for a Christmas film to be so real and grounded in a sense of place and time and also be completely free of treacle. This seems to be the magic power of Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti working in tandem. It’s Dead Poet’s Society several drinks in.
19. American Fiction
Like R.F. Kuang’s book Yellowface, Cord Jefferson recognises the hypocritical relationship the publishing industry has with race and representation. That he does this within the confines of a laser-focused character study of a closed-off writer, magnificently played by Jeffrey Wright, makes it all the more insightful.
20. You Hurt My Feelings
Nicole Holofcener’s seventh feature as writer/director doesn’t aim to change anything in the specific corner she’s carved out on film. Which is just fine and dandy. A grounded, and often laugh out loud funny, look at late middle age, relationships, and this business of being human. Full review.
21. Nimona
This startlingly original animated film moves marginalised narratives to the front and centre, questions the history of representation, and delivers one of the best hero arcs of the year. Full review.
22. Elemental
There’s a lot of Disney/Pixar’s history here. There’s clear aesthetic influences from previous hits. Yet reminds us exactly why they are the kings of heartfelt animation. A great reminder of the power of positive messages, personal stories, and why representation is essential in cinema. Full review.
23. Scrapper
Ken Loach with the lights on? Charming, real, and dare I say scrappy? Charlotte Regan takes something that could have been a big old pile of misery (or even super saccharine) and invests it with an offbeat energy and genuine heart.
DISNEY MINUS JOURNEY
One of the main things I did with my spare time this year was watch a whole lot of Disney. Disney’s 100th anniversary was a partial inspiration, but this really started back in lockdown times of 2020. I rediscovered all of my Disney Treasures DVDs, and realised just how much content was missing from the Disney+ streaming service.
After taking a while to get through Disney’s first decade, this year I watched the over 300 films the studio put out between 1933 and 1950. At one point, I found myself in the ACMI in Melbourne watching 16mm prints of a couple of 1940s industrial shorts on a Steenbeck. I delved into archives and even wrote a magazine article for a library about their Australian Disney ephemera from the 1930s and 40s.
Starting with the short film Giantland and running through to around Cinderella this year, it’s been wild to watch the animation techniques progress through their first forays into features, struggle to keep their head above water during the 1940s and restore their former glory in the 1950s. In the process, I discovered a studio that was constantly experimenting in the 1930s, took big gambles before the Second World War, clung on for dear life in the 1940s and reemerged sublimely confident by the halfway mark of the twentieth century.
If nothing else, it’s a way to pass the time.
THE FUTURE
Every year, someone predicts the death of cinema. This year it was David Lynch! In a widely reported interview with Cahiers du Cinema, he commented: “Feature films are in a bad place, series have taken their place … You could sit down and actually have the experience of stepping into a whole new world. Now that’s all in the damn history books. It’s distressing.”
He is, of course, referring to the many mediums that now serve up ‘cinematic’ storytelling. Like I said, this time last year I was contemplating what this year would look like for The Reel Bits. Now over 13 years old, the site is conclusively just one of the things I do between work, travel, drink beer, catch up on bingeable series and, of course, watch movies. Of the films mentioned here, I’d say the cinema to home ratio is still about 60:40 for me.
Yet I’m certainly not willing to pack it away. I love having an outlet where I can spontaneously decide to write 1,100 words on Star Trek: Nemesis or have whole columns dedicated to James Bond continuation novels. That’s kind of cool.
Until next year, I would like to thank everybody who has stopped by and supported the site by reading it, sharing it, chatting with me on the socials or even at the cinema. This is my weird little corner of the web and I’m always thrilled to know it connects with someone. Here’s to 2024!
