The Best Films of 2024: A Year in Review

Are the movies finally back? After COVID lockdowns and the writers/actors’ strikes, Hollywood seemed to rebound in 2024. Our writers were busy all year, getting back to the theatres and reporting from festivals. And we generally liked what we saw. (Except, of course, Joker: Folie à Deux!)

It was a good year for movies. Maybe not quite on the level of recent years, as the effects of some of the aforementioned problems rippled through the release cycle. But it was at least a good year for independent movies with our collective list of the best films of 2024 generally favouring smaller to mid-sized adult-oriented films. Blockbuster-wise, 2024 got its best “big” movie out of the gate quickly with Dune: Part Two hitting theatres before the Oscars even aired. Wicked picked up the steam otherwise, delivering one of few live-action box office achievements, but movies like The Substance proved that an indie could make serious bank if it got people talking. Then, of course, there were festival favourites like Conclave, Anora, Sing Sing, and Flow that had our team talking with high levels of enthusiasm. 2024 rewarded cinephiles who made the effort, but the stuff at the multiplex was generally a step up from the junk that took one for the team during the COVID years.

If 2024 was a good year for movies, though, it was a great year for actors. Several of Hollywood’s top performers delivered career-best work. Oscar winners like Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Angelina Jolie (Maria), and Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) outdid performances that earned them their first Oscars. Meanwhile, some top stars delivered turns that will make the next two months one of the most competitive award seasons in recent memory with Amy Adams (Nightbitch), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande (Wicked), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice), and Zoe Saldaña and Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez) among the many actors getting raves from That Shelf’s critics.

All contributors at That Shelf were invited to submit their picks for the top ten best films of the last 12 months. We received 9 ballots with a spread of 50 different films receiving at least one vote. (Plus a bunch of films netting honourable mentions.) Please join us in celebrating the best films of 2024!

The Best Films of 2024

1. Conclave

That Shelf’s vote for the best film of 2024 had white smoke coming out the chimney after the first ballot. Edward Berger’s riveting drama about petty bitches in the Vatican trounced the competition by a wide margin. It’s no wonder that the film starring Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, and Stanley Tucci is an Oscar frontrunner across the board. Conclave restored our faith in Hollywood’s ability to make movies that are as smart as they are entertaining. “Constructed like a thriller, just when you think Conclave has revealed its hand, another twist is added to the mix, keeping audiences on their toes. And rest assured, this is a story about faith and men, more than it is a story of religion. The Catholic Church and the Vatican are neither celebrated nor are its more controversial elements condemned. Instead, the good and the bad are presented and discussed, not judged, as Lawrence and his peers weigh the future of the religion in a changing world,” Rachel West wrote in our review of the film. “Fiennes, with his wearisome furrowed brow and shoulders hunched by the burden of the task at hand, is mesmerizing. Quietly conflicted, he struggles between his devotion to the Church and his doubts. The actor delivers one of the finest performances of his career, and certainly his best in years.” Can we get an Amen?

2. Sing Sing

Don’t you love how Colman Domingo is in his leading man era? After scoring an Oscar nomination last year for Rustin, Domingo’s back in the hunt with this extraordinary drama about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme that lets incarcerated men at Sing Sing Correctional Facility use theatre as a tool for rehabilitation. Many of the program’s graduates star alongside Domingo, including newcomer Clarence Maclin, who gives one of the breakout performances of the year and could easily—hopefully!—become a regular screen presence. “With a screenplay written by Kwedar and Clint Bentley, and containing a real play written by Divine G and the programme’s theatre director Brent Buell, Sing Sing is all about community and resilience. Anchoring the film is the talented Domingo, who brings a great amount of warmth to his role as he manages to command the screen without ever overshadowing his non-actor co-stars,” wrote Rachel West while reviewing Sing Sing at TIFF ’23. “Brimming with energy and life, Sing Sing is a joyous, celebratory film whose greatest aim is to spread the message that the industrial prison complex needs radical change and that broken human beings can be made whole again through the arts.”

3. Anora

Sean Baker pulled another rabbit from his bag of tricks while continuing his exploration of sex workers on film. His latest romp followed twentysomething exotic dancer/escort Ani (Mikey Madison) as she seemingly landed her golden ticket by hooking up with a rich and horny Russian boy, who’s basically Bart Simpson incarnate. But the screwball comedy of sorts that followed suggested that Ani wasn’t getting the fairy tale ending she imagined. “For much of the film, Baker lovingly employs the close up, especially on Ani, and for good reason. The camera loves Mikey Madison, and she knows how to keep the look on her face enigmatic enough so as so draw the viewer in to try to understand what exactly is happening with her and why. Plus, despite her tough as nails exterior, Madison has an inviting, beaming countenance,” wrote Barbara Goslawski while reviewing Anora. “In Anora, the viewer is drawn into the process of growth that this character undergoes. It happens over a short time span, but it is deeply impactful. The process can seem a bit jolting but then so is Ani’s behaviour most of the time.”

4. Dune: Part Two

Denis Villeneuve seemingly did the impossible by making the “unfilmable novel” of Frank Herbert’s Dune into one hell of a movie back in 2021, and then told everyone to hold his beer while he did it again. Big screen adventures don’t often deliver flexes this impressive in Hollywood these days, but Villeneuve did Canada proud by surpassing all of the extremely high expectations he set for himself with the first Dune movie. “The strength of the cast and the substance of the storytelling shows that Villeneuve hasn’t forgotten his roots while going bigger. Instead, he leans into what makes movies like Incendies, Polytechnique, and Arrival so intensely compelling. He understands that audiences need to be invested in the characters to go along for the ride,” said Pat Mullen in his review of Dune: Part Two. “And what a ride it is. Grand set pieces are thrillingly and breathtakingly realized. The sheer scale of filmmaking here is extraordinary. Villeneuve and his team build a world from scratch and take audiences on a literal roller coaster ride through the sand dunes as Paul et al latch onto the worms and careen into battle. Every aspect of the impeccable standards set by the previous production—costumes, production design, sound, and score—all up their game here.”

5. Challengers

Three tickets to Challengers, please! The first of two smoking hot collaborations between writer Justin Kuritzkes and director Luca Guadagnino (the other being Queer), Challengers brought the heat with Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist serving cinematic realness in the year’s best love triangle. From the ball smacks to the orgasmic tennis grunts, Challengers had great fun creating sexual tension while getting a viewer a little sweaty in the seats. Especially thrilling was Kurtizkes’ take on a story we saw last year by his partner Celine Song in Past Lives, which probably means that movie night is really fun/weird at their place. “Audiences looking to compare the love triangles of Challengers and Past Lives will get the rewards they expect. Coming from the male’s perspective, Challengers inevitably offers the hornier of the two stories. It’s just about the hottest movie ever made in which the three stars mostly keep their clothes on,” wrote Pat Mullen in his review. “At the same time, the films are a perfect match. Both films are kindred spirits emotionally. They find common ground with the story of a marriage threatened by the arrival of a former flame. But whereas Past Lives generally keeps the men separate, Challengers ups the ante by connecting their past lives with Tashi’s own. There’s no easy walk away here, and the past is tangled, messy, and oh so very, very hot.” No movie served as hard in 2024 as Challengers did.

6. Nickel Boys

After wowing audiences with his Oscar-nominated documentary feature Hale County This Morning, This Evening, RaMell Ross crossed the floor to drama without missing a beat. His adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about two young men in a violent reform school boldly reimagined the ways we observe Black bodies, and considers the weight and responsibility of representing lives on screen. His Malickian camera gave audiences to moments of awe and wonder, especially when Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor sat down, looked the camera straight in the eye, and delivered a performance from the heart. “Freely adapting Whitehead’s densely textured, heavily researched novel, Ross and co-writer Joslyn Barnes decided to take an impressionistic, expressionistic approach to the material. They focus on lived-in, everyday details fixed to a first-person point-of-view—Elwood’s for roughly the first hour, then alternating between Elwood and Turner’s for the remainder of Nickel Boys’s running time,” noted Mel Valentine in his review. “In effect, Ross replaces the typical, third-person point-of-view of mainstream cinema with an embodied point-of-view. We’re not just seeing the world from Elwood and Turner’s eyes, but experiencing it on a fundamental level as well. Sense memories—and with them a deeply felt emotional connection—take precedence over the usual succession of plot points and narrative turns.”

7. I Saw the TV Glow

Arguably a film that has audiences just as excited about what it represents as it what it actually delivers, Jane Schoenbrun’s sophomore feature adds another major crack in the glass ceiling for trans cinema. It’s a major step up from their feature debut We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and a truly exciting and original voice that refashions the coming of age story anew through a distinctly probing, inquisitive, and imaginative lens as two friends get drawn into the aura of their favourite TV show. Great performances by Justice Smith and breakout star Brigitte Lundy-Paine give us more reason to be excited. “Few films this year have pulled me into its mesmerizing, and at times mystifying, lure like I Saw the TV Glow,” Courtney Small wrote on the film earlier this year. “Jane Schoenbrun transforms suburban malaise into a haunting environment where pacification and conformity are the ultimate soul-sucking illness. Emphasizing the dangers of suppressing one’s identity, the film finds strength in the unifying power of art and fandom, while simultaneously reminding viewers that even the pop culture we find ourselves reflected in has an expiry date.”

8. Civil War

As we get ready another four years of “these trying times,” Alex Garland created an ominous portrait of the USA in a not so distant future. Kirsten Dunst stars as a photojournalist at the front lines of an ambiguous war, capturing images of a nation in turmoil, reminding audiences of power of a free press that captures history in the making. This unlikely blockbuster tapped a nerve with our team, and audiences as well, with its tough snapshot of a divided nation. “The film is almost indifferent to the motivations for the war, perhaps suggesting that our real-life indifference is what led to this outcome. It is – and should be – shocking for Americans to see this level of carnage and brutality on American soil,” said Rachel West in her review of Civil War. “These are images of war that have thus far remained far from the suburban U.S., brought to the masses by photojournalists at the heart of the conflict. Both Lee and Jessie remark how their parents are ‘on a farm’ somewhere, pretending this entire conflict isn’t happening on American soil. They are a stand-in for those who are complacent about the current social unrest, adamant that this vision of a civil war couldn’t possibly touch close to home.”

9. Hard Truths

Did Mike Leigh rewatch Blue Jasmine on the BBC and have a brain wave? Whatever inspired his story of Pansy, a woman struggling with depression (Marianne Jean-Baptiste in one of 2024’s best performances), her indefatigable sister (Michele Austin, the unsung hero of 2024), and their Afro-Caribbean community in London, Leigh delivered one of his best films in years with Hard Truths. “The story as a whole may seem slight at first glance, but there is so much at play here emotionally that there is a constant sense of momentum – a sense of moving forward, even as Pansy herself would rather remain still. In the hands of anyone else, our central character could remain remote and cold, but Jean-Baptiste manages to infuse flashes of charisma and understanding beneath the prickly exterior,” wrote Emma Badame while reviewing the film at TIFF. “You care for Pansy almost despite yourself in the beginning, but as the story unfolds, your compassion for her builds at pace with the revelations of what made her the way she is. It helps too that Austin’s Chantelle cares so deeply for her, that you begin to see Patsy through her more understanding gaze and that you to love her, despite not completely understanding her.”

**10. All We Imagine as Light (tie)**

A lot of people slept on Payal Kapadia’s debut feature, the 2021 shapeshifting documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, but her sophomore film All We Imagine as Light is a work of poetic realism that proves she’s a major talent who’s here to stay. The film follows three women as they endure the daily grind in Mumbai, looking for love with their relationships twisted by factors of class, caste, and geography until a rice cooker arrives, gifted from afar, to remind them that pursuing love on their own terms is a deeply political act. “Kapadia’s sophomore film marks a complete change of pace following her extraordinary debut A Night of Knowing Nothing. Her prior film is a shapeshifting documentary about a student undergoing a personal and political awakening amid India’s student revolution. Stylistically, these films couldn’t be more different,” Pat Mullen wrote in his review from TIFF. “After the densely layered mix of archival in A Night of Knowing Nothing, All We Imagine as Light offers a work of poetic realism. Yet the documentary roots of Kapadia’s eye are on full display here as she takes in the sights and sounds of the city while harnessing its hectic energy… All We Imagine as Light is a delicate film that slowly and methodically washes over you and warms the heart.”

10. Flow (tie)

The late, great Agnès Varda once said that all you need in life is a computer, a camera, and a cat. One can only think of the smile that Flow would have put on the iconic filmmaker’s face with its animated story of a cat surviving a great flood with the aid of some stupid dogs and a trusty capybara. This extraordinary Latvian animated film by director Gints Zilbalodis was conceived through the open source 3D animated program Blender. It proves the wonders available to anyone with a computer, a cat, and an active imagination. It’s the most intense and heart-pounding thrill ride of the year as the adorable cat endures one trial after another, and uses his wily skills to help his fellow animals. Imagine 1917 with a cat, and you get a sense of what a fast-paced adrenaline rush this movie is. The film is a welcome wonder at time when Hollywood’s animated features almost exclusively tend to be sequels or IP renewals of sorts that offer dazzling animation, but stories with little originality. Flow, simplistic as the animation may be, truly is a wonder in building a world from scratch and investing audiences in its hero’s survival without a single word. Admittedly, the meows help a little. Cats deserve a Palme D’Og equivalent!

More of 2024’s Bests

Best Canadian Film

The Shelf crew had turkeys on the brain with Matthew Rankin’s comedy Universal Language receiving four votes (from Courtney, Dakota, Jason, and Pat) for its madcap portrait of Winnipeg as the land of opportunity for Persian-Canadians, while Sophie Deraspe’s poetic true story Shepherds received one vote (Rachel). And in the most Canadian thing ever, one film that received two votes, Sugarcane (Colin, Lida), technically isn’t Canadian at all due to financing, although the filmmakers and subject matter made it one of the more notable “Canadian” tales of the year. We’ll let it stand.

Best Documentary

With only one film receiving two votes in the vote for Best Documentary, Mati Diop’s Dahomey (Emma, Lida) drew passionate support from our team for its artful consideration of the ghosts of colonialism that haunt the present. One-vote wonders that illustrated what a good year it was for docs were Elizabeth Lo’s observation of a love triangle in Mistress Dispeller (Rachel); Lucy Walker’s inspiring and thrilling Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (Pat); the Palestinian-Israeli shared plea for peace, No Other Land (Courtney); Steve McQueen’s epic endurance test and Holocaust memorial Occupied City (Jason); Benjamin Ree’s heartfelt look at gaming and community, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Colin); Jeremy Workman’s offbeat study of makeshift housing Secret Mall Apartment (Dakota); and the study of a TV masterpiece, Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos (Colin).

Best Series

It’s a toss-up for this group with two limited series based on iconic characters netting two votes each. Ripley (Adam, Emma) starred Andrew Scott alongside a scene-stealing cat in a black-and-white update of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Riply, while The Penguin (Courtney, Colin) let Colin Farrell chew some scenery as Oswald Cobblepot on the small screen. Other favourites from the crew included Alfonso Cuarón’s study of storytelling Disclaimer (Rachel), season three of Jean Smart’s tour-de-force in Hacks (Pat), and the comedic game show Taskmaster New Zealand (Dakota).

Best Film Awaiting Release or Distribution

Displaying the varied (good) tastes of our writers, six films received one vote for best film awaiting release or distribution. Fleur Fortune’s eco-thriller The Assessment (Dakota) should keep audiences glued to Prime Video at a later date, while Chinese thriller Black Dog (Jason) will make hope to make a splash next year with new distributor The Forge. Bring Them Down (Rachel), meanwhile, offers one more reason to sign up for MUBI, and TIFF People’s Choice Award winner The Life of Chuck (Emma) will see if a Toronto favourite can carry that Oscar love across seasons when it opens Summer 2025. Rachel’s top doc, Mistress Dispeller (Pat), is still looking for a home and should find one as the only film to appear in two categories of this survey. Finally, A24 has On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Courtney) set for a March release in the USA, but there’s no word yet if and when it’s coming out here in Canada. (Votes for films already released in North America were omitted.)

Best “New to You” Film of 2024

Proving that any good movie has a long shelf life, our writers were taking in golden oldies amid new releases and hitting up retro screenings to cleanse the palette. Favourite oldies that our writers discovered included Addams Family Values in a toss-up with Dial M for Murder for Adam, while Lida liked the buddy comedy Carole & Grey. Jason, meanwhile, caught up with Akira Kurosawa’s classic High and Low and Pat loved filling a blind spot by catching John Greyson’s Lillies at TIFF Cinematheque. Dakota went way far back with Fritz Lang’s iconic Metropolis and Courtney pegged Elaine May’s crime comedy Mickey and Nicky as a hidden gem. Finally, Rachel gave William Friedkin’s oft-overlooked Sorcerer a gander, while Emma’s enduring passion for British cinema put Sunday Bloody Sunday atop the list.

Most Anticipated Films of 2025

After agreeing on Dune: Part Two two years in a row, our writers had to get creative when looking ahead to 2025. Mickey 17’s shifting release date, however, makes it a repeat on this list after last year, as Rachel pegs it as one to watch along with The Ballad of a Small Player and Good Fortune. Meanwhile, Adam expects 2025 to get off to a good start with Steven Soderbergh’s ghost movie Presence (out Jan. 24). Colin can’t wait for Barbarian director Zach Creggan’s new film Weapons and Courtney hopes to see lots of action with Ballerina starring Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves. For Emma, 2025’s must-see British movie looks to be The Thing with the Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch and based on the book by Max Porter. Speaking of Brit pics, Pat can’t wait for Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal to make some noise in Oliver Hermanus’s The History of Sound. There should be lots of sound of the vroom vroom variety in Jason’s pick F1 and plenty of train crashes, explosions, and bigscreen booms in Dakota’s pick Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. And for Lida, she’s looking forward to a double bill of horror with The People Under the Stairs and The Monkey.

Individual Lists for the Best Films of 2024

(alphabetically by contributor)

Dakota Arsenault

Conclave
Sing Sing
Civil War
Saturday Night
Didi
Challengers
The King Tide
Dune: Part Two
Universal Language
The Substance

Honourable mentions: Rebel Ridge, The Mother and the Bear, Love Lies Bleeding, It’s What’s Inside, and The People’s Joker.

Lida Bach

The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Dahomey
I Saw the TV Glow
Daughters
Police
The Devil’s Bath
No Other Land
Wild Diamond
Love Lies Bleeding
Anora

Honourable mentions: New Dawn Fades, Youth (Hard Times + Homecoming), Joker: Folie a deux, MaXXXine

Emma Badame

Hard Truths
Conclave
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing
The Substance
Queer
A Real Pain
Wicked
The Wild Robot
All We Imagine as Light

Honourable mentions: Heretic, Bird, Gladiator II, Book of Clarence, Memoir of a Snail, We Live in Time

Colin Biggs

Dune: Part Two
Anora
Sing Sing
Love Lies Bleeding
The Brutalist
Nickel Boys
The Bikeriders
I Saw the TV Glow
Civil War
Exhuma

Jason Gorber

Anora
Conclave
Flow
The Bikeriders
Universal Language
Green Border
Hundreds of Beavers
Femme
A Real Pain
His Three Daughters

Pat Mullen

Challengers
Emilia Pérez
Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
Dune: Part Two
All We Imagine as Light
Conclave
Daughters
Flow
Universal Language
(tie) Femme and Wicked

Honourable mentions: The Brutalist, I’m Still Here, Kneecap, Nickel Boys, Nightbitch, No Other Land, Shepherds, Sing Sing, The Wild Robot, Yintah