by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

The nature of making a list in the middle of December, is that there are two to three weeks of movie releases that would, otherwise, have a very good chance at being in my top ten films of 2024, but won’t be because of timing. These are my ten favorite films of the year at the time of writing, but there’s no accounting for Nickel Boys, The Brutalist, Nosferatu, or Babygirl, all of which I’ll be seeing before the year ends, but after this list is completed. If my list changes in the aftermath, you will know from my Letterboxd Top 10 in 2024 list. Until then, check out my favorites so far!

10. Look Back (dir. Kiyotaka Oshiyama)

I had no idea what this film was about when I stepped into the theater. I don’t think I was expecting Tatsuki Fujimoto’s most famous work (Chainsaw Man, a classic shonen), but I was not expecting a soft and quiet story about friendship. It’s about two girls who meet in elementary school when they are both drawing for their school’s paper. They start writing and drawing one-shots as they move through high school and then separate when they go to college. Tragedy strikes, both messiness in their friendship and actual physical tragedy, and the film does one of my favorite kinds of story elements: a sort of Sliding Doors alternate universe. Oshiyama, who also wrote the script, does such a great job at adapting the manga. It’s sweet and painful and messy and beautiful.

9. The First Omen (dir. Arkasha Stevenson)

Without having seen a single piece of media related to The Omen, The First Omen absolutely ripped me apart and rocked my world when I saw it. I think that Arkasha Stevenson has created one of the truly great debut films. The script is supreme, with inventive storytelling and an honest way into the mainline story of The Omen. I legitimately think cinematographer Aaron Morton created some of the most insane and perfectly brain scratching images in recent religious horror. Nell Tiger Free, who has been in a small handful of things (including Game of Thrones) is a true revelation as Margaret, the novice nun who ends up giving birth to the Antichrist. It’s got stunning cinematography, editing, and acting. Seriously, everything is firing on all cylinders for this film, I cannot believe it’s a debut, let alone a legacy prequel that works this well.

8. Lisa Frankenstein (dir. Zelda Williams)

I talked a bit about this film in my “Overlooked 2024” piece about weird (and sad) girls in 2024 movies, but I barely touched on the things that truly made me love this one. Obviously, there’s the Mary Shelley vibes of it all, but I didn’t actually talk about the things that made me absolutely love this film: it’s so entirely romantic. Beyond it being the most authentic feeling 1980s film of our recent wave of nostalgia with the decade, Lisa Frankenstein is filled with love and a need to be understood. Which are themes that almost always resonate for me. Cole Sprouse, every millennial woman who grew up on Tumblr’s internet boyfriend from ten years ago, is supremely charming without having many lines. It’s a really specific performance and you understand what the two of them see in each other quickly.

Additionally, Lisa’s relationship with her family is deeply interesting to me. She has a fine relationship with her dad, a terrible relationship with her stepmom, and an actually pretty good relationship with her stepsister. I actually really love the relationship that Lisa (Kathryn Newton) and Taffy (Liza Soberano) have and how soft and caring it really is. Lisa feels deeply alone in her new family, but she’s not! Taffy, despite being a bit oblivious and popular in the 1980s, is actually kind and wonderful.

7. Longlegs (dir. Osgood Perkins)

I got to see the very first screening of the completed version of this film at a Beyond Fest event hosted by American Cinematheque (I love living in Los Angeles, and AC is one of the greatest things I’ve been really getting into this year). I was excited because Longlegs had some of the coolest promo I’d seen in a long time. It was mysterious and weird. Unsettling and had the aura of the scariest, most nightmare inducing Adult Swim short you’ve ever seen at 2AM. Which is not quite where the film lands, as a satanic thriller, but I think is a good enough setup for the vibe going in.

Which is to say that I was not disappointed by the film in the least. I wrote about it a fair amount in my newsletter, alongside the obvious inspiration of The Silence of the Lambs. Something I didn’t talk about, and haven’t really heard people speak on too much, is the charming and wonderfully unexplained psychic nature of this film. It really grounds it, honestly, as a story set in the 1990s. Like Lisa Frankenstein, Longlegs is a film set decades ago that does a great job of both feeling like a true encapsulation of that time period, but also like a film that might have been made during it. Among its many great qualities, this is one of the ones I love the most.

6. Sing Sing (dir. Greg Kwedar)

If Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin don’t get nominated for their roles in this film, I might simply lose my mind. The last two years has been huge blunders for A24 actually distributing things (I largely think they have taken on too many things both years that could, and should, be awards contenders). Sing Sing has been a notable example of such blunders because this is truly one of the great films of our lives. The plot is fairly simple, it’s just about the theater group that got created at Sing Sing prison and the ways in which that program really helped the prisoners. But it’s bigger than that. Colman Domingo is the only actor not playing himself and the ending credits, especially after the emotional journey of the film, are a sight to behold.

The prison system, especially in America, is an abject nightmare and any piece of media that explores that and gives humanity back to the people we’re propagandized to think deserve to be treated this way should be celebrated. Beyond that notion, though, Sing Sing is a stunning film. It’s shot beautifully by Pat Scola on 16mm, with some match cuts that make my heart break to simply think about them. And the performances, which are the absolute stars of this film, are nothing short of perfection.

5. Your Monster (dir. Caroline Lindy)

Your Monster is also a film I talked about in that aforementioned piece about weird (and sad), and I've been thinking about it every single day since I saw it. Melissa Barrera has had a really specific kind of year since vocally supporting Palestinian liberation and condoning the genocide in the region. She was fired from the Scream franchise and then had what she described as “the darkest and hardest year of my life” to Hollywood Reporter.

However, she had two films come out in 2024, which were both shot prior to her firing from Spyglass, that she’s excellent in. I truly hope the success and good reception of both films will allow her to continue to work. Your Monster is the perfect example of exactly what Barrera can do—and why she’s such a rising star. She sings, she dances, and she can scream queen it up with the best of them. And beyond all the fun aspects of the film, the romance is just so, so wonderful. Similar to my feelings on Cole Sprouse in Lisa Frankenstein, I was absolutely floored by the charm and ease of Tommy Dewey as Monster. I’d loved him for a while from his work on the Hulu Original Casual, so it was wonderful to see him in something else—something like this, even. Everybody just needs a monster boyfriend, honestly.

4. Conclave (dir. Edward Berger)

I actually really, really love talk-y dramas. I think they’re so incredibly good and fun and engaging, when done with care and precision. I had a feeling Conclave was going to be right up my alley from the trailers, but then the talk of it being “Gossip Girl at the Vatican” made me feel extra sure that I was going to vibe with the film. Which, given the film’s location on my list… I clearly did. I don't have strong opinions on religion, in terms of having tons of religious trauma or anything. Shocking, I know, but I grew up in the Bible Belt and I have a vested interest in them and their portrayal in media.

Because of where I grew up, though, Catholicism was an unknown element to me outside of TV and film. The machinations of something like a conclave of cardinals after the death of the Pope was a mystery to me. So, the plot elements of this film really, really work for me. Conclave does very little exposition on how or why things are happening, and I think that’s actually a very smart piece of structure in the film. You get the way the voting works once, and then every single time you see it again, you’re just caught up in the pure drama of what you’re seeing. Every twist and turn feels like a revelation and I was shocked to be shocked by the end of the film. Conclave’s got stellar performances, stunning cinematography, and a script to die for.

3. Queer (dir. Luca Guadagnino)

Okay, I should first say that I know Drew Starkey. We went to college together and he was the male lead in my thesis short film (my big final project of film school). He’s truly great and it’s been a really wonderful and lovely experience to watch his career take off in such profound and interesting ways. And he’s stunning in this film. He’s with such a huge hitter like Daniel Craig and absolutely holding his own. Much like All of Strangers from last year, Queer takes a deep, interesting, and ultimately heartbreaking look at the need to be loved. The need to reach out and find someone who will understand you and care about your existence when you’re not there. While elements are deeply weird (a result of William S. Burroughs’ work), I think it works for what it's actually trying to accomplish.

2. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)

I knew I was going to get absolutely emotionally wrecked by I Saw the TV Glow and boy howdy did it destroy my life, in the best and most profound ways. There was a lot of conversation about this one from people who really didn’t feel like they “got it,” which is par for the course when something this specific goes somewhat mainstream (A24 distribution for a horror movie is pretty mainstream, comparatively). However, the focus on nostalgia in the discussions of this film truly baffles the mind.

I Saw the TV Glow features some stunning performances from Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine (and Ian Foreman is a standout as young Owen) as two teens obsessed with a TV show that goes a bit beyond the veil of what is true and honest in their lives. It’s a film about trans identity and how often people are made, either by the fists of society or its menacing words, to turn their TVs off and sit blankly in the dark. Eric K. Yue’s cinematography is some of the most stunning images I’ve seen all year, perhaps in the last five years, and Sofi Marshall’s editing is an absolute gut punch. You know it’s good when a cut makes you burst into tears, you know?

1. Challengers (dir. Luca Guadagnino)

I do not have enough words available to me to actually finish talking about how much I love Challengers. I’ve been saying since April that it’s my number one, with a bullet, for this year and nothing has changed that thus far—not by a long shot. This film was so perfectly made for me. Not since Guadagnino’s own 2022 film, Bones and All, has it felt like a director looked at me through the screen and delivered something so perfectly for me. I’ve written about it in my newsletter, which I largely started because I needed to talk about the film. I’ve even written about the costumes for MovieJawn, which I think are deeply supreme modern (or recent period) costume design by Jonathan Anderson.

Luca Guadagnino and his 2024 creative team, including writer Justin Kuritzkes, cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (who also shot M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap this year), and editor Marco Costa have had a hell of a year between Challengers and Queer. The editing in Challengers is electric and a stunning display of both sports scenes, but also intense emotional relationship scenes. Not to mention that there are shots in this film I’m gonna think about for the rest of my life—including the shadow shot of Tashi (Zendaya) when she’s playing in a match. That’s just mad genius, honestly.