My favorite films of a year in which, like most, the cinematic offerings were much better than you’d think from all the anti-Hollywood doomers. But whether that creative burst can out-run studio consolidation and the rise of A.I., remains to be seen.
—One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson has once again successfully cracked a Thomas Pynchon novel, turning Vineland into a modern-day story about a Weather Underground-like radical group in which the revolution failed, but a sliver of the idealism remained. About a half-dozen great performances, from Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, and Regina Hall.
—Marty Supreme. Timothee Chalamet does career-best work as a Jewish-American table tennis prodigy on the make, while juggling a half-dozen scams and hustles at all times. Josh Safdie, working without his brother, has re-captured the magic of Uncut Gems, with period detail and a bunch of non-actors, from Kevin O’Leary to Abel Ferrara, in key roles.
—Eephus. Carson Lund’s look at the final day of an adult baseball beer league is not only the best baseball movie in years, but an equally funny and melancholy riff on Goodbye, Dragon Inn, featuring a group of middle-aged men raging against the dying of the light.
—Sinners. Ryan Coogler’s 1930s-set vampire crime film about a doomed juke joint is an original, featuring two of Michael B. Jordan, a sonic landscape, and a perfect epilogue.
—Blue Moon. The first of two outstanding Richard Linklater films this year about great moments in showbiz history, this one features Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart, sulking in Sardi’s as his former partner Richard Rodgers exults in the glories of the opening night of Oklahoma! It’s frequently funny and even more frequently heartbreaking, and full of musical theater history easter eggs.
—It Was Just an Accident. Jafar Panahi’s film about a group of formerly imprisoned dissidents who confront their former torturer is a beautiful meditation on the nature and morality of revenge, a subject very much on the filmmaker’s mind following his own persecution by the Iranian regime.
—Train Dreams. Clint Bentley’s adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella follows eight decades in the life of a railroad man (Joel Edgerton), who meets a succession of great characters played by great character actors. Also full of beautiful vistas, although unfortunately, most people will watch it on Netflix instead of in a theater.
—Eddington. Ari Aster’s film about the massive conflicts of the summer of 2020 coming to bear on a New Mexico town is, after many failed attempts, the only American film so far to successfully crack the code of satirizing that specific moment.
—The Voice of Hind Rajab. This film by Kaouther Ben Hania tells the story of the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl in early 2024. It’s political, but never loses sight of the human story. And no movie I saw this year led to more in-theater tears.
—My Father’s Shadow. Akinola Davies Jr.‘s powerful drama follows a day in the life of two boys, spending a day with their estranged father on a historically significant day in 1993 Nigeria.
Honorable mention: Friendship, The Phoenician Scheme, Splitsville, Die My Love, Art For Everybody, Pee-Wee as Himself, The Life of Chuck, Sentimental Value, The Shrouds, Rats!, Black Bag, Pavements, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Sorry Baby, and Peter Hujar’s Day.
Best documentaries: Art For Everybody, Pee-Wee as Himself, Pavements, The Perfect Neighbor, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Mr. Scorsese, Riefenstahl, Holding Liat, Come See Me in the Good Light, and Zodiac Killer Project.
The 10 worst: Kinda Pregnant, War of the Worlds, Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media, In the Lost Lands, The Invisible Doctrine, The Electric State, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Journey to America with Newt and Calista Gingrich, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and October 8.