The Best Movie Performances of 2024 So Far

Welcome to the midway point of 2024. I hope you’ve accomplished 50% of your goals and resolutions and are looking forward to all the fun we have in store for the second half of the year (if I could insert a skull emoji, this would be the place to do it). While 2024 isn’t on its way to being one of the best movie years in recent history, we’ve actually had a pretty solid first-half slate with some fun surprises dropping over the next six months.

When you get past the movies as a whole, however, what performances jumped out? Who made you think, “holy shit, I didn’t know he/she/they could do that”? What new face left the biggest mark? And is there a dog coming for Messi/Snoop from Anatomy of a Fall’s canine actor crown? The answer is oui, definitely oui. 

While we have plenty of big roles and opportunities for onscreen seduction coming later this year, these are the five* best movie performances of the year so far.

Want to read about the best movies of 2024? Check out the full list here.

Jodie Comer as “Kathy” in The Bikeriders

The Bikeriders is a film about choices. There’s director Jeff Nichols’ choice to create an entire cinematic world based solely on a book of photographs of ‘60s motorcycle club members. There’s Tom Hardy’s choice to continue his streak of mumbling half his lines in a movie when he could just as easily not. There’s the choice to have Boyd Holbrook wear this earring through the entire film. And then, there’s Jodie Comer’s accent. Is it a bit goofy? Yes. Does it sound somewhat accurate based on my experience of interacting with older folks in Chicago and northern Ohio? Kind of also yes. Is it also a perfect distillation of the character she’s playing? According to Nichols, huge yes.

But beyond the accent, Comer is the glue that holds this movie together. In a story that revolves so heavily around dudes rocking out, she’s the one woman with something to say and the only one who’s really able to point out how insecure, lonely, and sad most of the Vandals (the fictional motorcycle club in the film) really are. While Austin Butler basically plays himself and Hardy kind of does Carhartt Eddie Brock for much of the movie, it’s Comer who guides us through this weird world of wack jobs and loners without ever missing a beat. Speaking of Butler though…

Austin Butler as “Feyd-Rautha” in Dune: Part Two

Dune: Part One has one of the most stacked casts in recent movie history (you can read all about that here if you’d like), so when they announced the additions of Christopher Walken (hell yeah), Florence Pugh (doubly hell yeah), and… Austin Butler, I had some doubts. While he sparkled in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood being “as real as a donut,” his follow up as Elvis sort of, let’s say, changed the feeling around him a bit. While his performance was impressive, he seemed unable to shake it, and when I saw him in Masters of the Air as a straight-laced, sober pilot from Wyoming, I started to wonder who Butler really is. But that was dumb because this is who Austin Butler really is:

There is no one Dune-ing harder in Dune: Part Two than Butler as the psychopathic nephew to Baron Harkonnen, Feyd-Rautha. He kills chambermaids to feed to his courtesan wives. He scowls with black teeth. He passionately kisses his uncle. Everything he does in this movie is interesting and rather than having to shoulder the entire story as Paul/Lisan al-Gaib/Muad’Dib/Usul, he gets to show up, own every scene he’s in, and peace out, no strings attached. Especially after the Elvis experience where he was the focus of every shot and scene (minus the flash forwards when Tom Hanks’ Colonel is recounting the past in a very Baz Luhrman-y way), it’s nice to see Butler get to just have fun and be weird as shit. Fingers crossed he keeps that going in Ari Aster’s western Eddington next year too.

Tom Burke as “Praetorian Jack” in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Look, if it wasn’t for the fact that Fury Road is a stone cold masterpiece, then the follow-up prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga would be regarded as being hella epic. Instead, it’ll go down as a pretty good, pretty interesting, and pretty impressive anthology film that recast the striking lead with a much less commanding screen presence in a movie without any real stakes. But again, all the stuff with cars and trucks? Very rad.

Once you’re an hour into Furiosa, however, you might become numb to the gross destruction, to the stylized look of all the warboys and overlords, to the grandiose loquaciousness of Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus – which is why Tom Burke’s Praetorian Jack stands out so much. In a story where everyone (except Furiosa) is simply damaged and/or evil, Praetorian Jack is a soldier with an actual human backstory who doesn’t use his trauma as fuel to destroy the world. He’s a cog in a terrible machine, yes, but one whose head is still bobbing above the sea of guzzolene and blood. He’s also one of the only kind people in this entire world, which makes him stand out so much from the grim landscape of humanity the movie’s set in.

Burke carries on the tradition of delivering a huge amount of pathos with very few lines (a la Hardy and Charlize Theron in Fury Road) while also looking fucking cool and just being a bad ass at everything that’s valued in this universe. And as a fellow white guy with a beard, a sizable forehead, and medium length hair, it’s always nice to feel seen.

Gabriel LaBelle as “Moose” in Snack Shack

Imagine you’re a young actor and your first movie role ends up being a fictionalized teen version of (arguably) the greatest director in the history of the medium – that was exactly what happened to Gabriel LaBelle when he played a young Steven Spielberg in The Fabelmans a few years ago. And you know what? He was pretty good, but after you go head to head with David Lynch as John Ford as he teaches you about the importance of the horizon line, what do you do? You absolutely crush it in Snack Shack.

This small, coming-of-age dramedy set in the 1980s midwest is just… perfect. It’s funny, nostalgic, heartwarming, and crushing all in equal measure. My guy Nick Robinson comes in and steals the movie for a bit, and you can almost see the heatwaves radiating off Mika Abdalla in most of her scenes, but it’s LaBelle who walks away with it. He’s the co-lead who also happens to propel the entire movie forward. He’s charming, sly, and dumb in the very specific manor that select teenage dudes adopt around 16. He’s the friend you wish you had and even though he isn’t the main protagonist, Moose is definitely the character you want to grab beers with once the credits roll.

Glen Powell as “Gary Johnson” in Hitman

I’ve been holding my Glen Powell stock for eight years and guess what? That shit is spiking. The thing that’s so great about Powell’s performance in Hitman though, which he co-wrote with director Richard Linklater and co-produced, is that he gets to play so many different characters throughout the film. Sure, there are all the different fictional hitmen he dresses up as (the hill-jack marksman, the crazed goth Russian, Tilda Swinton), but it’s his performance as “Ron” where everyone who’s never seen Everybody Wants Some!! gets to learn how smooth and magnetic Powell can be. 

Obviously working alongside Adria Arjona, who could have sexual heat with a tree if she needed to (then again, maybe Powell can as well, as evidenced by Sydney Sweeney’s performance in Anyone But You), makes things easier, but as the center of basically every scene throughout the movie, all eyes are on GP the whole time and they’re all looking for any mistakes they can find. The funny thing is, even between all nine of the identities he takes on throughout Hitman, it’s hard to find a single crack. 

And a Few Fun Honorable Mentions…

Two female Kelpies as “Jean-Claud” in The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy is a perfect example of a fun movie that I imagine a lot of people will enjoy on an airplane at some point, just as director David Leitch intended. There are a slew of fun performances in the movie, but none that are super memorable. Well, except for Ryan Gosling’s sidekick stunt dog, Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude fights crime, attacks on command as long as said command is made in French, and just overall seems like a good hang. 

While The Fall Guy is plenty goofy with only humans, it’s Jean-Claude who brings just the right amount of cartoonish joy to a movie that’s very reliant on the sparkle of its two leads. And while this dog character doesn’t carry quite the same level of importance to the story as Messi/Snoop from last year’s Anatomy of a Fall, the two Kelpies that played JC will walk away with the Best Dog award at my fictional Oscars next year.

What I Can Only Imagine Were 17-52 Different Churros as “the Churro” in Challengers

This could very easily go to Josh O’Connor, who is absolutely terrific as the scummy antagonist Patrick Zweig in Challengers. Zendaya and Mike Faist are both fine-to-good as well, but the real star is at the center of arguably the best scene in the movie: when our two tennis lads share a churro in the Stanford cafeteria.

The sweet fried treat stands in as a metaphor for lust, desire, and control that only a churro can pull off. It bends, but doesn’t break; it holds its shape under immense pressure; it brings a smile to both guys’ faces that only something phallic seems able to (sorry, Tashi). Most of all, it’s made me consider buying a subway churro tens if not hundreds of times since, which in itself is a true demonstration of power. While we still don’t really know who won the final match in Challengers, we can all safely say from the bottom of our hearts that it’s the churro who pulled off the biggest upset of them all.