The Best Movies of 2024 So Far
2024 is on pace to go down as a valley year for the movies, both in terms of the quantity and quality of the releases. But when you remember all the greats from last year (Oppenheimer! Barbie! Anatomy of a Fall! American Fiction! Passages! The Holdovers! Past Lives! Killers of the Flower Moon! What a god damn year at the movies!) and the expected slate for 2026 (Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, Celine Song, Chloé Zhao, James Cameron, Lord & Miller, Craig Gillespie, Jon Favreau, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and Taiki Waititi all have films scheduled to come out nedxt year), it’s not hard to see why we’re in a bit of a lull.
Yet, there have still been quite a few good-to-great releases since the start of January. We got a kick-ass directorial debut from a guy that might also serve as a stealth audition to play Bond, a couple of great documentaries about funny men from the ‘70s and ‘80s, a fantastic coming-of-age teen comedy, and whatever the fuck you want to describe Challengers as (I had a good time). While there’s plenty of good stuff to look forward through the rest of the year, these are the 10 best movies to come out in 2024 so far.
Want more? Check out the best performances of 2024 so far here.
Dune: Part Two
I was upset, to say the least, when it was announced that Dune: Part Two would be moving from Thanksgiving 2023 to a March 1st, 2024 release date. Dune: Part One was my favorite movie of 2021 and only grew in my estimation after rewatching it at least five times since. While the film’s dialogue can be silly to say the least, it’s the incredible world building executed by director Denis Villeneuve that pulls you in almost instantaneously. So while I was psyched for the sequel, I was also hesitant to get too excited because, well, sequels are hard. And then, after sitting down in the perfect seats in a packed theater on opening night, the world of Arakis sucked me back in quicker than Shai-Hulud devouring a thumper as the words “power over spice is power over all” were chanted in Sardauker throat speak to open the film.
Looking at Dune: Part One and Part Two together, you realize they essentially exist as one long film with the former acting as all the necessary preamble in order to understand the much more propulsive second chapter. The whole gang is back (minus Jason Momoa, which we may or may not be saying again when Dune: Messiah comes out in in three to nine years) with the additions of Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, and the psychopathic goblin prince himself, Austin Butler. While your mileage may vary on their performances (Pugh will have a lot more to do in the next movie, Walken Walken’d all over the place, and Butler absolute crushed it), they all did their part to help make Dune: Part Two genuinely epic in a way we rarely see on screen anymore – especially the climactic scene in the Emperor’s throne room – and that alone makes it one of the best movie-going experiences of the year.
Steve!
It’s hard to believe that Steve Martin – known mostly by my generation for his role in Father of the Bride and prowess with a banjo – was once the biggest comedian on Earth. He was the first guy to fill stadiums. He created literal pandemonium when he showed up on the early seasons of SNL. He was a genuine phenomenon. While I was aware of much of this from listening to his old albums that my parents had and reading his excellent memoir, Born Standing Up, actually seeing the footage and hearing both Martin and his friends/contemporaries talk about his impact is truly something to behold.
The two-part documentary Steve!, which is directed by one of the great modern day documentarians in Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?), splits his life in half: from his birth to when he became the biggest comedy star on the planet to his mixed bag of a film career and contemporary life as a father, each of which includes tons of commentary from Martin himself as he talks about everything from his teen years as a magician at Disneyland to his decision to embrace his prematurely elderly look and his process for writing jokes. It’s a very inside-baseball account of how an unlikely person became the biggest comedian on the planet while also digging into questions around his love life (or lack thereof for most of his career), his extensive art collection, and the beautiful friendship he has with Martin Short. If you like to laugh and like to learn about the people who make us laugh for a living, you’ll like Steve!.
Monkey Man
Imagine John Wick, but in India… and also with a lot more mythology and modern politics added in.. and with a first time writer and director who’s also the star. If you can do all that, congratulations, you’re halfway to enjoying Dev Patel’s directorial debut, Monkey Man. I’ve already written extensively about this movie – from its origins at Netflix to its multiple montages to why the man playing the tabla in the film is so important – so I’ll just say this: parts of Monkey Man absolutely rock.
While Patel still has plenty to learn about pacing and distilling rather complex cultural and social ideas into a story, god damn does he have an eye for iconic imagery (watch the trailer and see for yourself). The fight scenes are also absolutely brutal and focus way more on the intimacy of hand-to-hand combat than the gun fu made popular by the John Wick franchise (a fact that’s also referenced in the film itself). If you like kung fu or revenge movies or big, bold swings where the highs are mega high and the lows are kinda forgettable, then do yourself a favor and watch Monkey Man the next time you really want to see a guy with nothing to lose go absolutely ballistic on an entire crime syndicate. And to the Broccoli family: nut up and get Patel a license to kill, come on!
Challengers
For a movie set in the world of tennis, the vast majority of Challengers’ biggest scenes center on two (or three) people talking in a room. There’s the scene towards the beginning where the three of them don’t have a three-way, there’s the scene where Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) don’t have sex her in her dorm room, but do break up, and there’s the scene where Tashi tells Art (Mike Faist) that she’ll leave him if he loses his match against Patrick the next day. There are also 17 other scenes in rooms we could highlight here (the trip to Applebee’s, the churro, the post-coital canoodling in the back of the Rav-4), but it’s the final 20-ish minutes or so of Challengers where it shifts from respecting the speed limit to blasting off into oblivion.
The final stretch of the film, which follows the tiebreak between Patrick and Art in the final of a tournament that can and will set both lads off into radically different futures, is shot in a way that’s somehow reminiscent of both a shoe ad and a dance sequence and something left on the cutting room floor of The Matrix. The excellent score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is used almost comically at times, but also propels you through all the sweat and tension you can handle before we reach the inevitable, ambiguous ending. Who won? Who will Tashi choose? Who the fuck cares? The entire theater where I saw it let out an audible gasp/grown/sigh as if they were all ready to share a communal cigarette after what we’d just witnessed, and frankly, I too was pleasantly exhausted and ready for a drag.
The Fall Guy
I say this with love: The Fall Guy is a terrific plane movie. It’s very funny at times, has lots of good action, and includes a lot of charming performances from the likes of Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Tayor-Johnson, Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, Hannah Waddingham, and Jean-Claude the dog. While it can be a bit overly wink-winkish at times (there’s a lot of “we’re making a movie full of stunts about guys who do stunts in movies, isn’t that fun?” stuff going on throughout), it’s also great to watch Gosling be a doofus, Blunt sing Phil Collins, Aaron Taylor-Johnson be an absolute twat, and again, Jean-Claude! Just terrific.
The next time you’ve got a three-hour flight and don’t feel like rewatching The West Wing or Fast X, look for The Fall Guy on your iPad or iPad-sized screen, maybe order a little overpriced drinky, and have yourself a nice time. If you aren’t amused and at least somewhat surprised at how definitely fine it is, I’ll be very surprised.
Snack Shack
It’s very hard to capture the magic of a high school summer. Ya got all the raging hormones, carefree mindset, sweat in lots of uncomfortable places… Did I mention hormones? Well, writer/director Adam Rehmeier absolutely nailed it with Snack Shack, a horny, wholesome little movie about two teen rascals/best friends who take over their local pool’s snack shack for the summer and get up to some stuff. I mean, just watch this and try to tell me that it doesn’t look like a fun time.
While the cast does include a few familiar faces, there are really three people who jump out as you watch the movie. First and foremost, Gabriel LaBelle as Moose, the co-lead and best friend of the protagonist who really gets most of the movie’s best lines and walks away with the title belt as a result. Then there’s Nick Robinson as Shane, the pseudo-older brother figure who just gets to drop in as the cooler, more mature figure to the two teen dweebs. While he doesn’t have a ton to do, Robinson’s performance is a reminder of why he was considered the next big thing by some after his starring role in 2013’s Kings of Summer, a movie that definitely plays in the same sandbox as Snack Shack. And lastly, there’s Mika Abdala as Brooke, the mysterious girl next door who’s only in town for the summer and becomes the obsession of the two main characters. Brooke is clearly a fantasy created by a dude, but beyond being able to melt any guy within her sightline by simply raising an eyebrow, she’s also the arbiter of chaos that the movie needs to move forward. If you’re from the midwest, grew up in the ‘90s, or have fond memories of going to a neighborhood pool when you were young, you will love this movie. And if none of those apply to you, I have a few questions.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road? Yes, it is literally that. However, by recasting Furiosa, using the movie to extensively flesh out the lore of the wasteland, and creating a villain so verbose and chatty that he sort of drowns out the silence of the rest of the cast combined, Furiosa becomes its own unique beast instead. The five-chapter anthology film follows Furiosa as she’s taken from the green place, thrown into hell, escapes (kind of) to become one of the biggest badasses around, gets her revenge, and then drops her off at the very moment that Fury Road begins. It is a lot. And while there’s tons of talk of Gastown and the Bullet Farm and lots of gross men who have accepted gout as their lord and savior, the best scenes all happen in the same place as the superior sequel: on the Fury Road.
In particular, there’s a chase sequence to and from the Bullet Farm that’s simply the most exciting scene in a movie this year (at least so far). Anya Taylor-Joy, who is in a surprisingly small amount of this film based on how it was marketed, rides shotgun with Tom Burke’s Praetorian Jack, the guy who mentors, trains, and possibly loves Furiosa, prompting her to adopt his distinct style just before his sacrificial death. They get attacked by flying bandits, use every aspect of their rig as a blunt-force club, and exhibit an understanding of each other that we don’t even get between Furiosa and Max in Fury Road. It’s one of the few examples of true humanity in a movie that states its mission when Chris Hemsworth’s villainous Dementus asks Furiosa “Do you have it in you to make it epic?” as he nears death. The answer, for both Furiosa and Furiosa, is a resounding, bogan-accented yes.
Jim Henson: Idea Man
Unlike Steve!, which has a format that’s almost as interesting as the subject itself, Jim Henson: Idea Man is worth watching because it’s about a creative genius rather than because Ron Howard directed it (although he does a perfectly fine job). There are few people I could ramble on about as much as the creator of the Muppets and while he might not interest you as much as he interest me (I’m so sorry you don’t like fun), this documentary does a great job of trying to explain where all of Henson’s creative output came from and the effects it had on those he loved most.
Sure, we get the reveals of where Kermit came from, how Big Bird works, and how Jennifer Connelly felt about hanging with David Bowie in Labyrinth (spoiler alert: she had a great time), but we also get a look behind the curtain and under the raised stage at someone who always knew their clock was ticking quicker than others and used every second he could to do one thing and one thing only: create. Howard paints over some of the choppier details of Henson’s later life, but as a Henson family and Disney-approved movie, there’s only so much darkness that’s allowed in the telling of the tale of the man who first asked how to get to Sesame Street. And while Jim Henson: Idea Man could’ve used a splash more grit, the joy of getting to spend 90 minutes with the man partially responsible for constructing my very sense of humor was reason enough to love it.
Hit Man
To all my fellow Everybody Wants Some!! heads out there, we did it. We god damn DID IT! Well, technically Richard Linklater and more specifically Glen Powell did it, but as someone who saw Powell play the mustachioed Finn in this ‘80s college baseball movie that’s really more about dudes being dudes and questioning the very notion of dudeness because it’s a Linklater movie after all and thought “that right there is a movie star,” I feel vindicated.
And yes, does Hit Man requires Powell to go full shining star to really make it hum? Absolutely, but that’s exactly why it’s good in the first place. We get to watch him play nine different characters throughout, literally teach a group of college students about the concept of identity (because, again, Linklater), and do something that’s all too rare in movies these days: copulate with an equally hot person. Adult movies Movies for adults, they’re so back! Kind of? Not really, well, at least we’ll always have Hit Man, and if Powell has it his way, this is only the beginning of his true rise to the top. I guess we’ll see if Twisters propels him higher or threatens to knock him a bit, but either way, the summer (or three quarters of a year?) of Glen Powell is truly here.
The Bikeriders
Another victim of the 2023 writer’ and actors’ strike, The Bikeriders is, in many ways, Goodfellas on wheels. There’s recurring narration throughout, although Jodie Comer’s Kathy is recounting the story to a journalist played by Mike Faist rather than Ray Liota’s Henry Hill who’s just kinda rambling into the ether because of how much cocaine he’s on. There’s also some great freeze framing during the intro of the movie that really sets the tone, plenty of gratuitous violence, a few laughs, and an absolute rogues’ gallery of character actors – including Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Emory Cohen, Norman Reedus, and Damon Herriman – absolutely chewing up the scenery. There’s also an excellent inter-generational conflict, beginning with Tom Hardy and Austin Butler before transitioning to Tom Hardy and the startling Toby Wallace (seriously, watch out for this kid).
However, while The Bikeriders is really a movie about dudes rockin’ on Harleys, it’s Comer who prevents the story from ending up as nothing more than a series of striking images and good music cues. She’s the heart of the story and the audience’s way in as she spends the full duration of the film recounting her entire experience with the Vandals to Faist, who idly sits by and simply remembers that he’ll get much more screen time in Challengers so he can just roll up his sleeves and cosplay as a Vandal rather than worry too much about his character arc. By no means is The Bikeriders the instant American classic that Goodfellas is, but nor is it trying to be. Instead it’s an in-depth look at a subculture that continues to this day, told by a director in Jeff Nichols who, much like Scorsese, doesn’t try to paint any of these guys as heroes or role models. And if he didn’t make Hardy and Butler in particular look so cool, he’d probably succeed.
