Following the Actors and Screenwriters’ Guilds both going on strike last July, a dip in the quality and quantity of films in 2024 was going to be inevitable. This wasn’t a bad year for movies but there were just not many (if any) game-changers, compared to as many as five last year (including the eventual Best Picture winner, “Oppenheimer”). This year I approached my list a little differently, factoring rewatchability and prestige on top of simply how much I enjoyed the films. As always this is my subjective list, and there are plenty of films I liked this year that didn’t make the cut, including: “Late Night with the Devil,” “Inside Out 2,” “Rebel Ridge,” “We Live in Time,” “Babygirl,” “His Three Daughters,” and “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.” But enough talk, let’s get into it.

Honorable Mention: Saturday Night

This is one of those films that is just a fun hang, stacked with young stars including Gabriel LaBelle (who was also great in the underseen “Snack Shack”), Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, and Andrew Barth Feldman, as well as some established ones like Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons (my mom and dad, who both grew up with SNL, thought all the actors did a great job portraying their respective real-life counterparts). I think in 10-some years we will look back and be impressed how one film managed to pack so many up-and-coming names into one place.

10. The Apprentice

I went into this film with little-to-no expectations, so for a Donald Trump biopic released in 2024 to be as (relatively) unbiased as this is was a breath of fresh air. Sebastian Stan (who is quietly having the best post-MCU career of his co-stars) does a good job portraying the one-day-to-be President, depicting his transition from a bright-eyed entrepreneur to the shrewd businessman with comedy and some pathos, alongside a very fun Jeremy Strong as Trump’s flamboyant mentor, Roy Cohn.

9. Heretic

I’m a big Hugh Grant fan, so to see him take a break from his recent run of blockbusters and go against-type of his typical romcom schtick was a treat. I thought he did a great job being amusing yet unnerving, and the film itself managed to ask some questions without insulting its audience, in a year when a lot of religious horror this year fell flat (“Immaculate,” “First Omen,” and “Pearl”).

8. A Complete Unknown

I do not care one ounce about Bob Dylan. I think he’s overrated as an artist, and as a performer his contempt for paying fans has always rubbed me the wrong way (I saw him in 2016 and he was booed off the stage after 30 mumbling minutes). All of this is to say, James Mangold’s biopic does a surprisingly blunt job portraying Dylan as the jerk he’s always been, as well as giving an honest opinion about the genre of music he changed forever. Timothée Chalamet establishes himself as the most diverse actor of his generation, and Edward Norton, Monica Barbaro, and Boyd Holbrook all turn in solid supporting performances. Sometimes, returning to formula isn’t a bad thing.

7. Nosferatu

I really like Robert Eggers’ style, and tend to like his films. His eye for period detail is one thing, but his commitment to constructing horror films that are built to last is equally commendable. “Nosferatu,” a remake of the 100-year-old silent film of the same name (which, for the record, holds up to this day), has a haunting atmosphere and is dripping in creepy vibes, and will be watched during both spooky and holiday seasons by fans for years to come.

6. Red Rooms

An 11th-hour addition to this list, “Red Rooms” was entirely my jam. I much prefer slow burn, get under your skin horror films like this, “Heretic,” and 2022’s “Watcher” to gross-out body horror, and “Red Rooms” has at least two scenes that made me have an involuntary reaction while watching. It subscribes to the idea of “what you don’t see is scarier than what you do” and offers commentary about real crime enthusiasts and how we as a society may fixate on the wrong things when it comes to “trials of the century.”

5. A Real Pain

One of those simple movies that feels authentic. Jesse Eisenberg’s neurotic persona has grown old with some people over the years but I am no such people, and he does an effective job here as director/writer/star alongside an emotional Kieran Culkin. We’ve seen an odd couple going on an emotional journey together before, but thanks to Eisenberg’s simple touch and Culkin’s humorous but pained performance, “A Real Pain” is anything but to sit through.

4. Dune: Part Two

2024 had a few movie markers for me, from realizing my love of the Muppets (beyond their infamous Christmas Carol) to doing a 180 on the “Dune” films. When I saw “Dune” back in 2021 I was lukewarm on it, and upon rewatching it in preparation for “Part Two” this year found myself really not liking it much at all. I saw “Part Two” and thought it was solid, and then a funny thing happened: I rewatched the first film with a friend who had never seen them and suddenly everything clicked, Villeneuve’s vision became clear, I drank the blue Kool-Aid. I still think from a cultural importance level the “Dune” films are overrated by their fans, but that aside “Part Two” improved upon its predecessor in every way, and Timothée Chalamet’s descent from reluctant prince to bloodthirsty warlord was just another notch under his ever-impressive filmography (this coming out just three months after the whimsical “Wonka” and the same year as the quiet Bob Dylan shows his range and eye for project parity).

3. Sing Sing

I have an interesting relationship with “Sing Sing.” The first time I saw it was in July while visiting New York City (it was limited and had no set plans to play anytime soon in my hometown), and while we were in the lobby my phone blew up about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump (we had nearly gone to an earlier showtime, in which case I would have walked out into a very different world and had dozens of texts and tweets to catch up on). Two days later I went to a Regal Mystery Movie and lo and behold it was “Sing Sing,” so I saw this emotional drama twice in 48 hours, and it will always be a randomly noteworthy film to me personally. All that being said, the film feels like a documentary at points (thanks in-part to starring real-life former members of Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison, including Clarence Maclin, who also co-wrote the film) and Colman Domingo continues to go from underrated supporting player to cherished awards contender.

2. The Brutalist

A sweeping epic about the American Dream that is made all the more impressive knowing it had a budget of under $10 million, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” features a booming musical score, dizzying cinematography, impressive period detail, and layered performances. I got major “Once Upon a Time in America” and “The Godfather: Part II” vibes from this, and the 215 minute runtime (complete with a 15 minute intermission) moves along at a wonderful pace. Not a film for a casual viewing experience, but it feels like it was ripped right out of the 1970s studio era and only crept up my Top 10 list in the weeks since I saw it.

But as great as “The Brutalist” is, there was only one film that I found myself referencing all year when people asked what I thought the best film of the year was. And that film is…

1. Challengers

No film this year entertained me like “Challengers” did. The story of three tennis players’ rise and fall in fame, friendship, and love is just so much fun, so kinetic and texturized (when a characters stares longingly at a Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich, your mouth starts to drool, too). All three leads (Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist) turn in career-best performances, the score but Reznor and Ross gets your blood going, and even the tennis sequences (despite director Luca Guadagnino’s open contempt for the sport) are engaging. When I saw the film back in April I knew it would be on my top 10, but I assumed that over the next eight months something would come along and knock it off the perch. Maybe it is destiny because this was released on my birthday, maybe it was a weaker year for film, maybe half of the plot taking place in the 2000s scratched my nostalgia itch, but for whatever reason nothing ever ended up giving me the “I liked this film more than ‘Challengers'” feeling, and I think it makes for a very fun #1 film of the year.

I hope you had a great holiday season, a healthy New Year, and enjoyed your time at the movies in 2024! 2025 has some exciting things on the horizon, and I can’t wait to keep talking about them.