FILM FRENZY

Flow (Sideshow & Janus Films); Sing Sing (A24); Anora (NEON)

By Matt Brunson

Assessing the crop of motion pictures that had been released over a 12-month period, former Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin wrote, “It wasn’t a bad year for movies; it was a terrible year.” He was referring to 1975, a year that produced such works as Jaws, Nashville, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, The Sunshine Boys, Love and Death, Barry Lyndon, The Man Who Would Be King, Night Moves, Shampoo, Death Race 2000, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Three Days of the Condor. Perhaps you’ve heard of one or two of these.

It would be grandstanding for me to make a similar declaration about the cinema scene of 2024 — after all, it’s possible that in 50 years, film scholars will fondly look back on, say, Reagan and realize it’s every bit the equal of such presidential flicks as John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln or Oliver Stone’s JFK, or lovingly gaze back at, say, Borderlands and decide it’s just as exemplary as other sci-fi grunge flicks like George Miller’s The Road Warrior and Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men. Possible, but not likely. I will say that this struck me as a particularly dismal year for film, with numerous movies that entertained me but precious few that rocked my world.

Unlike most years where I have a clear favorite or at least a couple of astonishing films battling it out for the number one spot on my 10 Best list, nothing in ’24 really stood above the pack — in fact, I daresay that some of the movies that ultimately landed on my list wouldn’t have made the cut in other, more robust years.

Still, there were enough quality films to keep me engaged, so I wasn’t lacking for selections. Admittedly, some big titles are missing here. I quite liked but did not love Challengers, A Complete Unknown, Dune: Part Two, and Nickel Boys, pictures that landed on hundreds of other 10 Best lists. I didn’t like or love Emilia Pérez, a clumsy, simplistic movie that, like 2019’s Joker, leads in Oscar nominations even though it’s the worst — and worst-reviewed (as per Rotten Tomatoes) — of all 10 Best Picture nominees.

Two films among my Honorable Mentions would have easily made the top 10 if they had only known how to finish. The Substance is excellent for its first two hours, but instead of ending at the logical place (the last time in the apartment), it drags on for another punishing 20 minutes, apparently just so writer-director Coralie Fargeat can have the movie conclude with the same visual as it began. And the Iranian-German production The Seed of the Sacred Fig is intelligent and intense, or at least until it decides to turn into The Shining for its grand finale.

But enough grousing. Here are my picks for the 10 best movies of 2023, followed by 10 worthy runners-up and other assorted superlatives.

THE 10 BEST

1. SING SING (Greg Kwedar). The best film of 2024. Sing Sing is a beautiful example of real life and reel life blending in the most unique and inspiring manner possible. In the year’s finest performance, Colman Domingo stars as John “Divine G” Whitfield, an innocent man serving time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for a crime he did not commit. Through the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, Divine G joins with other incarcerated men to create stage shows, often writing the plays themselves. It’s an uplifting tale about the redemptive power of art, but Domingo and Paul Raci (the Sound of Metal Oscar nominee, here playing the outfit’s non-incarcerated director) are just about the only professionals at work in front of the camera. Instead, the film employs formerly incarcerated men who participated in the program to portray the younger versions of themselves; chief among them is Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, a surly, combative prisoner who blossoms as a human being through these artistic endeavors. Sing Sing has a story credited to director Greg Kwedar, producer Clint Bentley, Whitfield (who appears in a cameo), and Maclin, but the spirit of improvisation flows through every moment of this divine undertaking.

2. CONCLAVE (Edward Berger). In this riveting papal thriller (adapted by Peter Straughan from Robert Harris’ novel), the Pope has died, and it has fallen to Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) to arrange the conclave in which all the cardinals will choose the next Pope. The frontrunners appear to be one liberal (Stanley Tucci), one moderate (John Lithgow), and two conservatives (Sergio Castellitto and Lucian Msamati), but as the balloting gets underway, Cardinal Lawrence gains knowledge of various secrets involving some of the candidates. Conclave is fashioned like a murder-mystery, with plenty of mystery but the murder replaced by a string of character assassinations. It’s heady, harrowing stuff, pumped with intriguing back-and-forths between the players. The ending is best described as bittersweet, demonstrating that while progress can be made in a world often defined by rigidity and rejection, it might have to do so in a covert and unheralded manner.

3. I’M STILL HERE (Walter Salles). There’s a nice symmetry in the fact that, 26 years after directing Fernanda Montenegro to a Best Actress Oscar nomination for the Brazilian import Central Station, Walter Salles has now overseen Montenegro’s daughter Fernanda Torres receive a Best Actress nod for another exemplary effort. The target of a failed boycott by Brazil’s right-wing faction, this forceful, fact-based picture takes place in 1971, during that lengthy period when the country was ruled by a military dictatorship responsible for the torture, disappearance, and/or murders of 20,000 dissidents. Torres plays Eunice Paiva, whose architect husband Rubens (Selton Mello) is carted away from their home one day, forcing Eunice to comfort their five children while also seeking answers regarding his disappearance. Every family member is perfectly cast, the coda is enormously moving, and the closing text will infuriate those witnessing our own country’s hard shift toward autocracy.

4. ANORA (Sean Baker). Writer-director Sean Baker, whose remarkable work The Florida Project earned my vote as the best picture of 2017 (go here for that year’s complete Best & Worst), now offers a romantic comedy for modern times. Initially, Anora is carved from the Cinderella / Pretty Woman mold, as a Brooklyn stripper (Mikey Madison) appears to find true love with an impetuous kid (Mark Eydelshteyn) from a powerful Russian family. So far, so fairly pat. But then comes one of the very best set-pieces found in 2024 cinema — that explosive and uproarious living room scene — and we’re suddenly off to the races, as the punk’s parents want the marriage annulled and Anora and various goons (including a soulful sort nicely played by Yura Borisov) are forced to embark on an after-hours jaunt of seemingly Homeric proportions. Anora is fast and furious and funny, but prepare for some tenderness and tears to possibly hit you on the way out.

5. A REAL PAIN (Jesse Eisenberg). Two mismatched American cousins, the fussy and focused David (Jesse Eisenberg) and the unpredictable and insensate Benji (Kieran Culkin), journey to Poland to honor their late grandmother by partaking in a Holocaust-themed tour before visiting her former home. Eisenberg scores as director, writer, and star: His helming is fleet-footed, his scripting is sharp-witted, and his performance — well, it’s the same he generally gives, but the addition of some vulnerable shadings marks it as one of his best yet. Yet the talking point is Culkin, who locates the inner suffering in his character’s insufferableness. Benji is a real pain, no question about it. But the real pain rests elsewhere, be it coping with the specter of the Holocaust, wading through personal trauma in the modern age, or finding a way to reconcile both past and present and emerge as a more balanced person because of it.

6. SEPTEMBER 5 (Tim Fehlbaum). During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the Palestinian terrorist outfit Black September took 11 Israeli athletes and coaches hostage; approximately 20 hours later, all 11 were dead, assassinated by the militants as the German police were bungling the rescue attempt. Several films have centered on this tragic event (including 1999’s Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September and Steven Spielberg’s 2005 Munich), but the unique slant here is that the story is told from the POV of an American television crew. ABC Sports president Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) and his outfit must cope with murky intel and disturbing developments, making massive decisions while figuring out how best to cover the momentous moment. Like the best news stories, this sobering drama allows the facts to speak for themselves … then lets the emotional chips fall where they must.

7. THE WILD ROBOT (Chris Sanders). A simpatico soulmate to The Iron Giant, The Wild Robot is similarly a film in which a metallic being grows increasingly self-aware as it connects to the world around it. In this adaptation of Peter Brown’s book, a robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) finds itself herself on an uninhabited island following a shipwreck. Feared by all the animals surrounding her, “Roz” manages to learn all their languages in an effort to communicate. This is a lovely movie that deftly explores a number of issues, including the different ways in which a family can be formed and the necessity of cohabitation in increasingly hostile environments. There are many darkly humorous moments, which is apropos when the setting is a wilderness in which animals are often hunting or hurting each other. As for the style of animation, it’s crisp and inviting, with a definite touch of the Miyazaki about it.

8. FLOW (Gints Zibalodis). Who could have guessed that not one but two of the year’s best movies would be pro-environmental animated treats in which Mother Nature commands a starring role? Hailing from Latvia, this follows a cat and various other animals as they try to navigate their way through a suddenly flooded world. What happened to all the humans? Why is the water so high? Even more than The Wild Robot, Flow feels vaguely futuristic, with even the more commonplace scenarios transmitting a surreal sheen due to the distinctive animation. The critters, created (like the whole film) via a free software program, are not anthropomorphized, speaking only in their native meows, barks, grunts, and chitters. And for the most part, they’ll allowed to act like real animals, which at this point in time feels positively revolutionary for a toon tale.

9. SCALA!!! OR, THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE RISE AND FALL OF THE WORLD’S WILDEST CINEMA AND HOW IT INFLUENCED A MIXED-UP GENERATION OF WEIRDOS AND MISFITS (Ali Catterall & Jane Giles). In a stellar year for nonfiction films about films — Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger, Music by John Williams, The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout, and the heartbreaking Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story — this was the best. This documentary looks at the history of the beloved London movie theater that screened over 4,000 flicks between 1978 and 1993. The Scala often showed pictures that inspired future filmmakers (Eraserhead is cited by several interviewees), and with its code of inclusivity (it was a favorite hangout for the LGBTQ community) and its roster of outrageous movies, it served as a middle finger to Thatcherism. So does this rowdy doc.

10. THE PEOPLE’S JOKER (Vera Drew). Forget the bloated Emilia Pérez — for a superior picture starring a transgender woman, check out this dazzling DIY effort from actress-writer-director-editor Vera Drew. Drew plays Joker the Harlequin, a comedian who falls for a trans man known as Mr. J (Kane Distler) — they begin dating, but she soon realizes that their relationship is the working definition of toxic. Even with a “fair use” disclaimer at the beginning, it’s amazing that Drew gets away with so much, considering the picture presents Batman as a fascistic pedophile and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels (rendered in CGI) as something of a nitwit. At its center, this outrageous piece is a coming-of-age story in which the protagonist learns about both self and self-acceptance — everything else is a kaleidoscopic array of satiric superhero riffs and trippy visual flourishes (love the glimpse of the Superman II villains!).

The Next 10 (Honorable Mentions, In Preferential Order):
11. The Substance
12. Wicked
13. Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger
14. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
15. Music by John Williams
16. Juror #2
17. Hard Truths
18. The Brutalist
19. Saturday Night
20. The Fall Guy

Best Actor:
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Daniel Craig, Queer
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

Best Actress:
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
Amy Adams, Nightbitch
Mikey Monroe, Anora
Cynthia Arivo, Wicked

Best Supporting Actor:
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing
Yura Borisov, Anora
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

Best Supporting Actress:
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Leonie Benesch, September 5
Michele Austin, Hard Truths
Ariana Grande, Wicked

Sleepers:
Blink Twice
The Last Stop in Yuma County
Last Straw
Monkey Man
Wicked Little Letters

Overrated:
Babygirl
Coup de Chance
Emilia Pérez
Transformers One
Twisters

Disappointments:
The Bikeriders
Drive-Away Dolls
MaXXXine
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Nosferatu

2024 Movie I’m Most Sorry to Have Seen:
The Crow. There’s much to appreciate about the 1994 original and absolutely nothing to tolerate in this cynical and soul-sapping retelling that’s bereft of any humanity or humility. Bill Skarsgård is a bore in the central role, and this picture doesn’t even bother with great villains, replacing Top Dollar and his gang with (yawn) a wealthy philanthropist (Danny Huston) in league with Satan himself. A sequel has likely been nixed, thank Heaven (or Hell, given the premise).

2024 Movie I’m Least Sorry to Have Missed:
The Apprentice. I don’t care that it received decent reviews and earned a pair of Oscar nominations for Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. It’s nauseating enough seeing His Vileness on social media 24/7 — I don’t also need to see him in my cinematic diet. Besides, unless there’s a scene in which he and Satan are shown locked in each other’s arms, then the film is obviously just a puff piece.