Pop Mythology’s 10 Best Films of 2024

Last year didn’t exactly go as well as many of us wanted. Instead of righting previous mistakes far too many people decided to ignore the reality of those mistakes (along with the resulting chaos, destruction, and promise of even more chaos and destruction) thus assuring that this year, 2025, will go exactly as poorly as many of predict, if not so much worse.

Fortunately, the year in cinema was better than expected. While 2024 didn’t equal the highest cinematic achievement of 2023 (the undeniable masterpiece of Across the Spider-Verse), the overall quality of cinema made it more difficult than ever to narrow the year’s offerings down to a list of the ten “best.” Several films, such as crowd-pleaser Hit Man, star-maker Anora, last second cut Love Lies Bleeding, and two outstanding silent animated films: Robot Dreams and Hundreds of Beavers (the latter of which technically debuted in America the previous year), were left off to make room for others. This is even before considering films that I didn’t have time or access to watch, including The Brutalist, Flow, Emilia Perez, Sing Sing, and the ideal for PopMythology Super/Man. As such, including those mentioned above, this year’s list has more honorable mentions than usual, and more films than usual.

Conversely, it’s not at all difficult to find trends in this year’s list as many of the films chosen center on the same concerns that overwhelmed media this year: political divisions, the spread of false information, a general fear that the world is falling into a period of authoritarianism, and ponderings on why we’ve allowed our civilization to reach the point where those who have the most influence are those least qualified to wield such influence. Several films focus on characters knowing what disasters the future may hold, yet powerless to either stop either themselves or others from racing toward those disasters. By it through birth, lies, or even the constrains of their own society, many of 2024’s top films dealt with circumstances in which the characters find themselves trapped by consequences of events occurring long before they were alive. We are, after all, living through a time when historic mistakes have made present anomalies into future disasters. And, like many of the characters in the following films, most of us feel powerless to stop them, while others seem eager to repeat them.

On a personal level, 2024 was quite decent. I had to give up one job that I loved for another job that I also love but does require more time and has made this list later than I’d hoped. I finally finished the complete overhaul of a dystopian novel that is becoming less fictional every day and the revision of a previous novel which captures the anger I think society at large should feel (a real life event even mirrored one that I had written about two days after I revised that chapter). I got to serve as a judge for two short film festivals and completed a short script I’m in the process of producing. An old friend passed early in the year but most other people I care about have remained healthy and (mostly) safe. I couldn’t read as many books or watch as many new films as I’d have liked but most of them were quite enjoyable, and when one of them wasn’t I didn’t feel obliged to continue. I’ve discovered the power of ignoring things I don’t like in favor of surrounding myself in person, online, and in entertainment with people and things that I do.

I mention this all because, as we re-enter a period of entirely predictable (and entirely preventable) chaos, it’s important to remember that while billionaires, false geniuses, and criminals pretending as presidents may dictate much of the world, we ultimately control what we allow into our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts. Despite how much it may feel that everything is conspiring against us and everywhere villains are winning, we still get to decide our own rules. We don’t have to engage with things and people we don’t like. We can focus on the things which bring us joy instead of those which bring us fear or rage. For times when fear or rage are inevitable, we can chose how and where we direct them. After all, the best way to rebel against those who demand praise and attention, is to deny them those things.

At least until artificial intelligence replaces human creativity with only the most acceptable thought and mandatory cranial implants pump falsified images directly into our brains, as predicted by my new dystopian novel.

Honorable Mentions

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Alien: Romulus – In 2024, two long-running film franchises received new entries which succeeded in vastly different ways. With Furiosa, the Mad Max franchise returned from another stint in development hell, focusing this time on expanding beyond everything we’d previously seen of the Wasteland. In a radical departure from Fury Road’s extended chase sequence, Furiosa follows its titular driver through decades of growth and development, allowing the audience to witness the process by which a child abducted from the Green Place grows into a brutal fighter crammed into a water truck. A powerful performance by Anya Taylor Joy and a slimy, scenery-chewing one by Chris Hemsworth reinforce several of the themes started by Fury Road, making the film more a companion than a prequel.

Meanwhile, after three decades of steady decline through spin-offs and unnecessary philosophical lore building, Alien: Romulus returned to simple conceit of the first film: xenomorphs are terrifying. Sure, the film is predictable in the same way that every Alien film is predictable, but outstanding pacing, visual effects, and a “fourth act” twist which ups the tension to almost unbearable levels makes Romulus feel like the first true sequel to the 1979 original.

Sadly, given the box office of the two, with Romulus considered a success and Furiosa considered a failure, it seems audiences find the quality of film less important than how closely it validates their personal expectations. Never has this been more obvious than in the case of…

Joker: Folie a Deux – Joker was one of the most misunderstood films of 2019. It’s fitting then that its sequel would be the most misunderstood film of 2024. In Folie a Deux, director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix make it their mission to prove that filmgoers who loved Joker were wrong in lionizing the titular clown. The vitriol aimed in their direction, particularly by those who feel the film betrays a legacy character the film never portrayed in the first place, demonstrates how effective Phillips, Phoenix, and Lady Gaga are at shattering the illusion of Arthur Fleck. If nothing else, Folie a Deux is remarkable for its willingness to criticize its audience. While some more disturbed viewers may have seen Joker as a reflection of themselves, Phillips proves himself far more in line with the character by executing the most Joker-esque action imaginable: following a gritty crime film with a musical-romance courtroom drama which even further exposes its protagonist for the flawed, fragile man he always was. In a year when so many people in America choose to follow a known fraud, Folie a Deux is an examination in false messiahs, and a demonstration of the lengths people will push themselves to never admit being taken in by one.

The Substance – Speaking of not things we don’t want to admit, here’s one of my own: I could not finish The Substance. I was fine at first; engaged by the film’s themes of beauty standards and demands placed on female appearance, the critique of the risks people will take to remain attractive, the absurdist levels of Dennis Quaid’s repulsiveness… also that of his character, Demi Moore’s stunning performance, and the fascinating way in which director Coralie Fargeat so overly sexualizes Margaret Qualley that she becomes disgusting even before the turn happens. Then the turn happened. As I knew it would. I also knew this is a film. These events did not happen. Nothing on screen is real. Yet knowing and seeing are two different things. The Substance so effectively shatters viewer skepticism that I felt the same light-headedness I do when having several veils of blood removed during examinations. I thought I could power through it. I lied down. I waited for the room to stop swaying. Then I restarted, found out that I could not power through, and had to concede that the film had bested me. I managed to skim through the remainder, completing the story as a slide show, and while it seems that the initial social critique falls away as so often happens in modern horror, the staging and impact of the film remain powerful. I have quit on films in the past. This was the first time I quit on a film that I enjoyed.

10 – Kneecap

Before it was the soundtrack of Super Bowl halftime shows, musical biographies, and millennial nostalgia films, hip-hop was the music of rebellion, the expression of the repressed, and the artistic outlet of a subculture few outsiders knew. It was the voice of people for whom speaking itself was a crime. In Kneecap, debut feature director Rich Peppiatt along with first-time actors Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (who collectively form the titular hip-hop group) bridge the distance between New York’s hip-hop traditions and Ireland’s traditional language. Focusing on the “Creasefire Babies,” Kneecap touches on themes of neighborhood violence and generational oppression that typify early hip-hop. With the same abundance of confidence and style as found in the music, Kneecap’s infectious energy and wild humor keep the film breezy even through the flaws inherent of immature, do-it-yourself production. Kneecap both fulfills and parodies the heightened reality offered in musical biopics, fueled by over-exaggerated depictions of sex, drugs, and violence, compete with montages of the band’s most notable songs. It’s Straight Out of Compton in Irish, a self-aggrandizing musical biography which calls attention to the continued repression of Ireland and the death of indigenous languages through the world. Far from a film alone, to fully understand Kneecap is to enter a subculture few outsiders previously knew.

10 (tie) – The Wild Robot

(because this is my list and I’m going to do whatever I want)

Honestly, this spot could’ve gone to the aforementioned Robot Dreams. However, where Wild Robot proves superior over that delightful silent film is in its artistic quality, superlative voice work, and thematic resonance. Wild Robot furthers American animation’s break from the slick Pixar look. Pixar films still look amazing, but offerings like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, last year’s best Spider-Man:Across the Spiderverse, and now Wild Robot (with Robot Dreams making a strong statement for hand-drawn animation) remind us that animation is so much better when the story creates the style. Wild Robot’s textures and colors, along with its juxtaposition of metallic and organic, make for an absolutely beautiful film. Meanwhile, the voice cast is spectacular, highlighted by the commanding Ving Rhames and endearing Lupita Nyong’o. While a touching allegory for motherhood, the film threatens to become overly familiar just before taking the brilliant turn of introducing the wilderness to the greater world. This added element not only heightens the tension of film, as well as introducing opportunities for later expansion, but also allows new themes to emerge, making Wild Robot all the more resonant. There could not have been a better time to focus on themes of putting aside rivalries both instinctive and learned for mutual survival and defying one’s corporate programming than in the same year that voters placed hatred of race and gender over mutual benefit and corporations made the most blatant power grab in American history. With the ground work laid out, the quality proven, and ample room for expansion, a second time with Wild Robot would be much more welcome than a second time with a certain twice-impeached, four-times indicted convicted criminal.

9 – The Bikeriders

When I was a little kid there was an older boy at my school who didn’t like me. He’d call me “haole” (a Hawaiian Pidgin pejorative for “white”) and challenged me to a fight (“Like scrap?”). I don’t remember exactly what happened but he was older and bigger so he probably won. In fact, there were quite a few fights. Eventually, however, the kids I’d fought became the friends that defended me when other boys challenged “the haole.”In his adaption of Danny Lyon’s novel The Bikeriders, Jeff Nichols crafts two highly enjoyable scenes which better capture this uniquely male experience than any others in memory, even if the stipulations are “fists or knives.” Tracking the development of the Vandals Motorcycle Club, Bikeriders shows how social stigmas twist innocent enthusiasm into lawlessness, how that image of lawlessness then attracts outlaws, and how those outlaws then fulfill the social stigma, turning a club into a gang. As with much of the film, the moment of this change is portrayed with equal humor and terror, punctuated by Tom Hardy’s look of immediate regret over the power he suddenly wields. Hardy is extraordinary as Vandals leader Johnny, a family man who wants guys to ride with before his creation spirals beyond his control. As our narrator, Jodie Comer provides a wonderful outsider perspective and the necessary emotion to even out Austin Butler’s stoicism as the ideal quiet, handsome guy who just wants to ride fast. Structured like Goodfellas on two wheels, The Bikeriders parallels America’s own descent into malice, perpetuated by the traumas of war, inequalities within society, and easy access to firearms. Where once a challenge over leadership of the club is issued as, “Well, I don’t want to kill you, so, fists,” a later challenge over leadership of the gang is answered with a direct, “Knives.”

8 – Monkey Man

Derisively labeled as “Indian John Wick” Dev Patel’s passion project may have left fans of pure action wanting more, butMonkey Manis a marvel for people who demand more than pure action. Setting out to break his typecasting as the nerdy or needy characters of projects like Slumdog Millionaire, The Social Network, and The Green Knight, Patel uses his real life background in martial arts to absolutely slay his role, along with several dozen henchmen. Despite being a first-time director, Patel has no lack of confidence or style, using editing, camera positions, and choreography which make it plausible that his lithe frame would be capable of triumphing against larger men. There are of course logical missteps and Patel’s influences are obvious, but the themes which emerge more than make up for the film’s flaws. While this is most apparent when Patel’s Kid is taken in by the local community of hijra (the term for India’s trans or intersex people), themes of class struggle and religious oppression figure as prominently as punches and kicks. Most impressive of all is the fact that the film even exists. Originally slated for production in 2020,Monkey Man lost its initial distribution because of the pandemic and still hasn’t received official certification in India due to its criticism of conservative government. With Indonesia standing-in, the film was completed on a budget of only 10 million dollars, or one-tenth that of films of lesser quality and style. Like Mad Max: Fury Road before it, Monkey Man is further proof that action movies don’t need to be mindless or shallow. There can be actual thought and intention in them. Where most action films have nothing to say, Monkey Man lets its fists say so much.

7 – Do Not Expect too Much from the End of the World

At more than two and three-quarter hours long, director Ruda Jude’s absurdist satire freely roams through several aspects of modern life present in both Romania and the larger world. The choice to film almost entirely in black and white matches the mundane tone by which the characters go about a day filled with banal atrocities. As Angela, lead actress Ilinca Manolache offers a gloriously unself-conscious performance, darkly jesting with the people auditioning for a workplace safety video (produced so that their employer can avoid responsibility for accidents) while finding an outlet through obscenity-laden “Bobita” videos (an actual hobby of the actress) and unleashing her vitriol on fellow working class drivers rather than the bosses who force her into hours of travel. Yet, even with its several darkly comic, almost lyrical sequences – including a fascinatingly morbid series of grave markers for traffic victims along a single road – Jude’s greatest achievement comes in a closing where the chosen wheelchair-bound employee has his story stripped away bit-by-bit, each alteration a tacit acceptance of the next, until the company literally rewrites his story for him. In this scene, filmed from a single angle continuously for more than 30 minutes, Jude effectively captures what 40 years of “economic development” has done to Romania and several other countries around the world. As with the rest of the film, this scene is harsh, hilarious, and handled with such blind acceptance that we almost don’t notice the danger. Although focused on Romania, Do Not Expect Much from the End of the World is a stark reflection of the lack of outrage people around the world have shown even as unfeeling corporations, phony populists, and corrupt dictators are killing us. The world is ending, and all we do is our jobs.

6 – Challengers

Many times a film will attempt to use style to overcome a lack of substance (there are many examples of this but I’d place Quentin Tarantino and Michael Bay as the leading purveyors of meaningless flash). With its non-linear story structure, whiplash camera work, bright visuals, and marketing focused on the lurid love triangle, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers appears at first to be another entry in the Wild Things, Savages, Nymphomaniac genre of films that would be shipped in black plastic bags and require a shower after viewing. Yet as the film goes on, what becomes clear is that every bit of style – from the constant cutting through time to the slow motion shots of toned bodies dripping in sweat – is created in function of the story unfolding within that style. Although an obvious parallel, the back-and-forth structure adds much needed tension to the central showdown of former best friends Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). Their diverging journeys toss our sympathies between them while simultaneously adding a glorious ambiguity to Tashi Duncan (Zendaya)’s stern, almost scowling presence at court side. The easiest proof of this necessity of style comes in the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. There are times when it comes on far too strong, its relentless pulse so overpowering that it pulls our focus from the scene. Yet without that blaring, obstructive music, or any of the other flourishes which grab and hold our attention, Challengers would have been a very different, very bland, very boring film. Instead, Guadagnino uses the entire cinematic experience to make a simple, low stakes tennis match into a life-changing event. Many times a film will attempt to use style to overcome a lack of substance. Challengers is the rare film where style becomes substance.

5 – Conclave

Structured like a mystery, with a dead body, a list of suspects introduced through the first act, and new revelations slowly raising suspicions and eliminating outcomes, Conclave is a fascinating look into the politics and even the pettiness involved in picking a new pontiff. A cast of absolute professionals lead by Ralph Finnes, along with Isabella Rosellini, the always tremendous Stanley Tucci, and John Lithow (who with Larroquette and Leguizamo form a trio of underrated John L’s) deliver performances that turn the occasionally campy rituals of religious doctrine into serious cinema. While at times a bit over-simplified – with Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) being cartoonishly fundamentalist while Tucci’s liberal Aldo Bellini would receive death threats from most American “Christians” – or over-stuffed – with a third act twist that seems forced to address a current issue – Conclave illustrates how a world made complicated by a diversity of voices threatens an overly simplistic belief structure. As an adaptation of the novel by Robert Harris, Peter Straughan’s script is loaded with excellent and mature discussion, complete with the year’s most expansive vocabulary (there’s an entire discussion on being “mendacious,” Tucci cites his “temerity,” and even the subtitles “trundle”). Most of all, Conclave highlights how a reactive, traditionalist leader bent upon rolling back what he views as a lapse in authority can destroy any ability to survive into the future. In a year when Americans choose to trade safety, equality, science, and democracy itself for fifty cents off a carton of eggs (which isn’t even happening), Conclave reminds us of the importance in picking the right leader, and the destruction in picking the wrong one.

4 – Rebel Ridge

With an opening scene of police officers ramming Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) off his bicycle as heavy metal blares over his earphones, Rebel Ridge starts at an eight of ten in tension and only escalates from there. Skillful pacing and an often enraging script by writer-director Jeremy Saulnier recasts the structure of Rambo: First Blood (originally a commentary on PTS before becoming a franchise of military propaganda films) during a time where “de-escalation” is less a policy than a justification for making a situation so much worse, or the official tactic of “He started it!” Terry’s monk-like restraint, along with Pierre’s performance of this restraint and the consequences of breaking it, elevate the film far beyond its spiritual predecessor. Set in a struggling Louisiana town where state and federal budget cuts have caused severe damage to social services, Rebel Ridge captures many of the problems confronting American society. While there are heavy elements of institutional racism and police violence, of particular note is how Rebel Ridge examines the issue of known corruption. In explaining his actions, Police Chief Sandy Burnne (a great role for Don Johnson) establishes himself as the best type of villain: one who believes that he is doing not only what is right but what is necessary. His is the only way the town survives. Under his jurisdiction, Rebel Ridge illustrates the result of when people are aware of their problems and of the solutions, but refuse to solve them. Be it money, infrastructure, power dynamics, ego, “the system,” “how it’s always been,” or even plain laziness people too often choose wrong and easy over right and difficult (see also: climate change, gun control, and a felon being “elected” president). After beginning at an eight, Rebel Ridge lets the tension and frustration and the sheer outrage escalate until even the most sympathetic, tree-hugging pacifist would be screaming “ACAB” and ready to knock some racists the f**k out.

3 – The Monk and the Gun

It’s sad that I can only experience this film from an American perspective. Yet, perhaps this is the film’s preferred frame. Following the King of Bhutan’s decision to give up his monarchy for democracy, The Monk and the Gun depicts how citizens react to this new “freedom.” In only his second feature, director Pawo Choyning Dorji has an uncanny ability to craft scenes that are as gentle as they are devastating. In a similar fashion to The Bikeriders, The Monk and the Gun shows us how the images of Western culture shape the understanding of people outside that culture. While entertainment such as James Bond movies and the Spice Girls are mentioned, the funniest and harshest observations are given to how Western news stations flood the world with the idea of elections as battles, creating the image of democracy as civil war. One notable scene depicts an election official teaching rural citizens how to hate supporters of an opposing candidate, because that’s what democracy is. The Monk and the Gun shows us how one culture’s foolishness, such as unlimited access to firearms, can become another culture’s destruction. In the same year when Americans decided to give up our democracy for a monarch, The Monk and the Gun is an important reminder that representative government isn’t an impenetrable set of rules and principles. It can, and should, be catered to the needs of the people living in the country at that time, and when those needs change the people should have the courage to change their rules, such as when a convicted felon exploits appeal laws to receive immunity for his dozens of crimes. The Monk and the Gun wonderfully satirizes the value of modernization and dogmatic devotion to the vague notion of “democracy.” Contrary to the American perspective, not every democracy has to begin with violence. Nor should any democracy have to live under it.

2 – Molli and Max in the Future

Micro-budget science fiction is something that often ends in disaster (Primer excluded of course). Micro-budget science fiction romantic comedy is something that doesn’t often exist, because it would end in disaster. Yet Molli and Max in the Future is one of the most delightful, most creative films of the entire year. By mixing chromatic filters, green-screened backgrounds, practical effects, and toy robots, Molli and Max creates its own visual experience seeped in Blade Runner-like cityscapes and Tron-like retro futurism, more than making up what it lacks in budget with sheer inventiveness. Yet none of this matters compared to writer/director Michael Lukk Litwak’s absolutely cracking script. It helps that stars Zosia Mamet (Molli) and Aristotle Athari (Max) have such an easy chemistry that their exchanges, verbose as they are, feel entirely natural, their characters so well-suited and comfortable with each other that we genuinely want to see them together. Like the best science fiction, the film includes some social commentary in its already bizarre mélange of genres. The future of Molli and Max is less distant than its robot fighting arenas and alien wizard battles suggest as the film uses its setting to address several modern concerns including discrimination, the rise of celebrity culture, misinformation through cult-like followings, and environmental destruction. In fact, Molli and Max is so keenly tuned to our world that, even before its debut screening in March 2023, the film includes a political debate between a qualified woman of mixed-Indian descent and a literal demon promising to end the world, along with the complacent media sanitizing the demon as joking while decrying the woman as untrustworthy. Clearly a product of love for cinema and the need to express oneself, Molli and Max in the Future is that rare film where disbelief and skepticism fall away and the audience accepts it for everything it is, flaws and limits and all. Like its characters, we can’t help but love Molli and Max and their future, even when we know they aren’t perfect and we’ll only end in disaster.

1 – Dune: Part Two

In “Pop Mythology’s 10 Best Movies of 2021” I wrote, “After the success of Part 1, I’m personally reserving a spot at the very top of my 2023 ten best list for Dune Part 2.” This statement provided prophetic in every way except the year.

After Arrival and Blade Runner 2046, we all know what director Denis Villeneuve is capable of accomplishing, he is simply the best science fiction director and one of the most spectacular visual directors of the 21^st Century. After Dune: Part One, we all knew that Part Two would be yet another epic piece of cinematic storytelling, loaded with the same awe-inspiring visual and sound designs, the same intimate focus on characters, and the same auteur sensibilities as his previous work. What we didn’t know was how Villeneuve would approach completing his vision of Frank Herbert’s grand feat of imagination. And here is where, in my opinion, Dune: Part Two stands out not only from the other films of the year but also from the source material itself.

I go into great detail on this in my review for the film but, in an attempt to prevent an already overlong list from becoming even longer, Dune: Part Two’s greatest strength in how it shifts Herbert’s narrative from a battle to regain political power into a battle against fanatical rule. Timothée Chalamet, as Paul Atreides, knows of the cataclysm his actions will cause and yet generations of religious indoctrination make it impossible for him to prevent himself from following that path. He is, ironically, powerless to stop himself from becoming all-powerful. This framing of Dune’s narrative alters our perception of the story from one of triumph to one of devastation, making Dune: Part Two into a profound statement on how vast swathes of humanity thrust themselves into willing servitude. In a year when the world’s last superpower willingly surrendered itself to the rule of a false messiah whose zealous hordes previous attempted a violent overthrow of democracy, there is no more devastating moment in cinema than the emergence of Muad’Dib. Thousands cheered for their savior, while millions cried for their world.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading and my apologies for the tardiness of this post. I really do love being able to use these film reviews as a catalyst for examining social and cultural issues. It’s my sincere hope that we as a civilization never forget that art is a vital part of the human experience. It is how we interpret our lives, express our thoughts, and expand our understanding of ourselves, our world, and others who live within it. Thus it is imperative that we continue to tell our stories, our way, in our own words, and not those fed to us by machines, forced onto us by corporations, or threatened against us by tyrants.

Never let anyone usurp your truth with theirs.