My favorite movies and TV shows of 2024
From movies about theater to TV shows about space
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One of the challenges of my career is that I’m basically trying to operate as a full-time film critic and a full-time TV critic at the same time. But the upside is that I can offer a ton of recommendations at the end of the year! After spending January catching up on some of the stuff I missed, I rounded up my 12 favorite movies and 13 favorite TV shows of 2024.
As is often the case, genre TV is what stole my heart this year. Cinematically, meanwhile, I was drawn to stories about art, photography, and the act of bearing witness. Hopefully you’ll find something new to check out from this list—and I’d love to hear your own favorites in the comments as well. If you’d like to keep up with my movie watching in real-time, you can follow me over on Letterboxd.
MOVIES
1. Nickel Boys
When I first sat down to watch Nickel Boys, I wasn’t sure if it would just feel like a gimmick. RaMell Ross’ historical drama is shot entirely in first-person, a style associated more with video games than narrative storytelling. Yet Ross uses that visual device with incredible thematic and emotional intent. Set at a racist, abusive reform school in 1960s Florida, this two-hander explores what it means to see and be seen and what it’s like to experience something that shatters your sense of self forever. It’s the most distinctly cinematic achievement of the year and a movie I hope everyone gets the chance to experience on the biggest screen possible.
2. Sing Sing
As a former theater major who believes we should abolish the prison industrial complex, I was always going to be in the bag for a movie about a group of incarcerated men using theater as a rehabilitation method. But even for those without my background, Sing Sing makes a vital case for the importance of restorative justice and the power of the performing arts. Anchored by a tremendous performance from Colman Domingo, Sing Sing tells the true story of a real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison and even features many formerly incarcerated men playing themselves. It’s a moving, infuriating, and ultimately uplifting cry for a better way forward.
3. Challengers
There can be a tendency for end-of-year lists like this one to focus on the most serious, dramatic achievements of the year. But what I love most about Challengers is how fun it is. Sure, there are emotional layers to this psychosexual tennis love triangle, but it also has a pulsating, edge-of-your-seat quality that makes it feel as much like an action thriller as a romance. Josh O’Connor delivers my single favorite performance of the year (I truly didn’t know he had it in him). And while I don’t really understand why this one didn’t make a dent in the Oscar race, it’s still a top seed in my heart.
4. Civil War
Easily the most divisive entry on this list, a lot of my fellow critics wrote off this dystopian thriller as shallow political commentary. But as a devoted Alex Garland fan, I found it to be a thrilling return to form after the disaster that was Men. Though the film follows a team of war journalists through a modern day American civil war, Garland is far less interested in politics than he is in photography. Why do we have the impulse to capture images of war? What purpose do they serve? And does capturing a moment of violence inherently glorify it? Garland delivers some boldly cynical answers to those questions—more so than some people give him credit for and perhaps even more than he himself realizes. Coupled with fantastic performances from Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, it’s a film I haven’t stopped thinking about all year.
5. Wicked
Wicked is a good movie musical that’s also an absolutely stellar act of adaptation. And it’s that latter quality that really made it something special for me. As I wrote in my review: “Whereas Chu’s In The Heights adaptation felt muddled in its attempts to figure out where to anchor its story, he knows just where the heart of Wicked lies. And working with Grande, Erivo, and screenwriters Dana Fox and Winnie Holzman (who wrote the script for the musical), he crafts a platonic love story that’s arguably even more powerful onscreen than it is onstage.” (You can also read my A.V. Club piece on Wicked’s most moving dance moment.)
6. The Brutalist
It feels a little funny to rank this Adrien Brody-led architecture drama so high when I really only loved half of it. But as I wrote in my review from the Chicago International Film Festival, “The sheer ambition of what [director Brady] Corbet is trying to do with this American immigrant epic gives the film an innate power, even if it never quite adds up to more than the sum of its parts. There’s a boldness to both the small moments and the big ones. Like a piece of brutalist architecture, The Brutalist may be impenetrable, but it’s certainly impactful.”
7. Memoir of a Snail
As I wrote in my review of this stop-motion tragicomedy, “A moving, off-color story about hope in the face of suffering, Memoir of A Snail is above all a love letter to the wallflowers and homebodies among us; the people who sometimes feel more like snails curled up inside their shells than flesh-and-blood human beings. Despite the inherent whimsy of Grace’s animated world, her problems are more relatably human than most animated heroines have to deal with: anxiety, self-sabotage, grief, and depression, all beautifully captured in [Sarah] Snook’s empathetic voice performance. But while writer/director Adam Elliot puts his heroine through the wringer with a relentless string of tragedies, this is ultimately a story of perseverance and hidden inner strength.”
8. No Other Land
One of the great ironies of this awards season is that the film most widely favored to win the Oscar for Best Documentary isn’t available for the general public to see because no American distributor will pick it up. A collaboration between two Palestinian directors and two Israeli ones, the film documents years of forced displacement in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank, focusing on the uneasy friendship between local activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham as they attempt to document what’s happening. Watching Masafer Yatta be repeatedly razed and raided over the course of four years is a harrowing, infuriating depiction of violent apartheid in action. Yet No Other Land is even more so about the emotional weight of experiencing so much tragedy that living anything but a shell of a life feels impossible.
9. All We Imagine as Light
Living in a city can be beautiful but it can also be exhausting, and that’s something Payal Kapadia’s Mumbai-set drama understands on a bone-deep level. The film follows three working class women trying to carve out a life for themselves in the face of absentee husbands, interfaith dating prejudice, and high-rise developments that want to force them from their homes. Though All We Imagine as Light is in many ways a minor-key drama, it evokes major emotions thanks to the dreamlike quality of Kapadia’s filmmaking. Without ever feeling hokey or naive, Kapadia celebrates the strength of female friendship in the face of adversity.
10. A Real Pain
As I wrote on Letterboxd, “It’s long been my belief that we need more movies about cousins, and WOW did this one deliver!” Kieran Culkin and writer/director Jesse Eisenberg play polar opposite cousins who travel to Poland to take a “Holocaust tour” and visit the childhood home of their late grandmother. Eisenberg’s David is anxious to the point of being inflexible, while Culkin’s Benji is free-spirited to the point of being reckless. And Eisenberg’s funny, heartfelt script paints a nuanced portrait of how those two very different personality types move through the world.
11. I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun’s elusive, eerie coming-of-age psychodrama won’t be for everyone, but those who do connect to it are likely to love it with a deep passion. Fittingly, that’s basically the plot of the movie itself. In 1996, two lonely, offbeat teenagers bond over their shared love for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque TV show called The Pink Opaque. As Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven) grow, the show takes on an increasingly all-encompassing role in their sense of identity. The film is Schoenbrun’s exploration of the “egg crack” moment in a trans person’s life; the moment they first begin to realize their identity doesn’t match their assigned gender. And for those who can get on its wavelength, I Saw the TV Glow is an elliptical, emotional character study that will stick with you long after the credits roll.
12. Ghostlight
Another film about the healing power of theater, Ghostlight centers on a Midwestern construction worker reeling from family tragedy who gets roped into joining a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. It’s a quiet, small-scale film with a slow-burn emotional impact. And it’s elevated by fantastic performances from real-life father/daughter Keith Kupferer and Katherine Mallen Kupferer.
Honorable Mentions: Conclave, Furiosa, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, Hard Truths, Zurawski v Texas, The Piano Lesson, Will & Harper, Dune: Part Two, Meet Me Next Christmas, Didi, The Last Showgirl, Hit Man, The Idea of You
TV SHOWS
1. House of the Dragon
After feeling neutral to negative on Game of Thrones during most of its run, I still kind of can’t believe how hard I fell for House of the Dragon. Where Thrones felt like a deeply cynical take on the fantasy genre, House of the Dragon engages with themes of medieval history in a far more compelling way. In fact, in many ways it’s a show about history—who makes it, how it gets recorded, and what gets left out of the history books. And while the shortened second season did feel a little unfinished by the end, the nuanced character work was more than enough to tide me over for now.
2. Shōgun
Shōgun is a bit of a sleight of hand series. The 17th century historical epic starts with the big, bombastic energy of a Game of Thrones only to slowly and meticulously pare back to something much more wistful and contemplative. It’s an arc that mirrors the experience of British sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), as he grows from a conqueror mentality to a genuine respect for Japanese culture. But it’s the standout performances from Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, and especially Anna Sawai that really make this lush period piece sing.
3. 3 Body Problem
This early 2024 Netflix sci-fi series came and went in the pop culture discourse, but it’s one I haven’t stopped thinking about all year. Based on the Chinese novel series Remembrance of Earth’s Past, 3 Body Problem starts with a few mind-bending ideas about interstellar communication and science-gone-wrong before spinning out in all sorts of directions I never could’ve predicted. It’s not a perfect show, but it’s one that made me think in ways I hadn’t before. And that’s the quality I crave most from my sci-fi TV shows.
4. Baby Reindeer
As I wrote for The A.V. Club, “On paper, Baby Reindeer tells the story of a bartender and aspiring comedian who finds himself being stalked by an odd woman with a checkered past (a stellar Jessica Gunning). But what makes the series special is less what it’s about than how it chooses to tell its story in a way that’s equal parts horrifying, empathetic, funny, uncomfortable, and hopeful (and sometimes all at once). Time and again, [creator/star Richard] Gadd lures viewers into thinking they’re watching one type of tale only to pull the rug and swerve in a different direction instead. Yet his strong authorial voice and some fantastically moody direction from Weronika Tofilska and Josephine Bornebusch ensure the show always feels cohesive, even in its wild tonal shifts.”
5. Doctor Who
Ncuti Gatwa’s first full season as the Doctor may have dropped the ball in its finale, but it was still an absolute breath of fresh air for the long-running series. As I wrote in my review of the Christmas special, “For whatever storytelling complaints I have about the Gatwa era so far, the show feels like Doctor Who again in a way it never quite did during the Chris Chibnall era.” Between Gatwa’s stellar central performance and standout episodes like “Boom,” “Rogue,” and especially “73 Yards,” I’m more excited about Who than I have been in years. (I reviewed the whole season weekly for Episodic Medium.)
6. Girls5Eva
This Tina Fey-produced series is basically the daughter of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and the granddaughter of 30 Rock. And while it was a bummer to see Netflix rescue it from Peacock’s cancellation only to cancel the series itself, I’m still glad we got three seasons of its absurdist musical comedy. Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell, and a scene-stealing Renée Elise Goldsberry play four members of a ’90s girl group who decide to get the band back together after years apart. And it’s beat-for-beat one of the funniest comedies of the decade.
7. Abbott Elementary
One of my favorite things to do is let a bunch of Abbott Elementary episodes build up on my Hulu watchlist and then spend a whole day binging Quinta Brunson’s delightful take on the Philadelphia public school system. It’s great to see the network sitcom alive and well, especially with a show that manages to balance laugh-out-loud comedy with pointed social messaging. 2024 included both the slow-burn will-they-won’t-they of the show’s strike-shortened third season plus a good chunk of the show’s especially strong fourth season as well. And I can’t wait to binge-watch the rest of season four this spring.
8. Agatha All Along / Echo
Agatha All Along rightfully got a lot of praise for its clever continuation of the WandaVision universe, but I would also stand up for Marvel’s early 2024 binge-release, Echo, which tells the story of a violent vigilante who returns home to reconnect with her Native American roots. Both shows start a bit uneven (particularly Echo) but grow into something really special and unexpected throughout their runs. And both put women at their center in a way I found incredibly moving—and more than welcome from Marvel. In fact, Agatha’s Patti LuPone-centric hour and Echo’s finale are two of my favorite episodes of the year. (I reviewed both shows weekly for Episodic Medium.)
9. Skeleton Crew / The Acolyte
Disney offered two very different takes on the Star Wars universe this year: Skeleton Crew is a straightforward kids adventure story set in the same era as The Mandalorian, and The Acolyte is a wildly ambitious, wildly messy murder mystery set hundreds of years before the Skywalker Saga. Together, they’re a portrait of the diversity of what modern day Star Wars can be. Skeleton Crew thrives on the simplicity of kids-on-bikes Amblin charm mixed with Treasure Island-inspired space pirates (and a great Jude Law performance). And The Acolyte is weird and bold and ambitious with an all-timer Star Wars turn from Manny Jacinto. It’s just too bad Disney wouldn’t trust it with a second season.
10. The Diplomat
As I wrote in my Daily Beast review of this Keri Russell-led Netflix series, “While The Diplomat may have a serious-minded interest in the talky work of diplomacy, the secret to the show’s success is that it also has a sense of fun about it. Essentially, The Diplomat is to The West Wing what Grey’s Anatomy is to ER—a sexier, lighter riff on a familiar genre, with a lovably messy female lead to ground it.”
11. Good Trouble
This is less of a recommendation for a specific season and more of an overall love letter to one of my favorite shows of a bygone Freeform era. While Good Trouble is technically a spinoff of The Fosters, it can very much be enjoyed as a standalone series too (I’ve never seen The Fosters). Set at a communal living space in downtown Los Angeles, the series offers an earnest, passionate, and zippy look at life as a young, progressive person trying to make a difference in the early 2020s. It's a little bit social issue drama, a little bit soap opera, and the last show standing of a run of feel-good millennial dramedies like The Bold Type, Younger, and Jane the Virgin. While Good Trouble was unfairly cancelled too soon this year, I’ll always fondly remember the five seasons we got.
Honorable mentions: Squid Game, Only Murders in the Building, The Girls on the Bus, Land of Women, St. Denis Medical
Other stuff I’ve worked on lately: I reviewed the oddball Kristen Stewart/Steven Yeun robot rom-com Love Me for The A.V. Club
Thank you for speaking truth to power for the decarceral movement!
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