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I haven’t done one of these in a few years but I think it’s time to resurrect the best and worst films segment of the year gone by.
As always, the ‘rules’ of the game are films I have seen this year, either on streaming platforms or at the cinema in 2024 with a UK/Ireland release date.
These aren’t in any particular order, and I can only pick five for each category so here goes nothing.
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Andrew Haigh’s meditation on love, loneliness and forgiveness is a stunning piece of filmmaking in my book. Andrew Scott plays a screenwriter in a lonely tower block in London who begins a relationship with Paul Mescal’s mysterious neighbour while at the same time resolving issues around his own sexuality with the ghosts of his dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell). A completely, pardon the pun, haunting experience.
Based on the Stephen King novel, this big-screen version was made three years ago and only theatrically released outside of the US where it was dumped on streaming. Lewis Pullman’s writer goes back to his hometown and becomes embroiled in fighting vampires, pulling in people like Bill Camp’s policeman and Alfre Woodward’s doctor for a silly, laughable ride.
Luca Guadagino’s first film of the year (his next, ‘Queer’, is in cinema’s now), is a pulsating tennis-based love triangle involving two tennis pro friends (Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor) and the woman who has come between them (Zendaya). Three wonderful performances of good actors playing utterly horrible people anchor this story of jealousy, love and manipulation all in the name of success.
Cillian Murphy’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning turn in ‘Oppenheimer’ couldn’t be further from the bomb, playing a coalman in a small Wexford town in the ‘80s, fighting both the Catholic Church’s Magdalene laundries and the code of omerta from the townspeople. Lacking huge emotional, bombastic beats, the film is an intimate portrayal of one man’s struggle with his own past and how he can make the future better, if only for one person.
Okay, it may look like I’m picking on horror, but there’s been SO MANY BAD ONES this year. A long-gestating project, a remake of the 1994 classic, leaning heavily more towards the graphic novel, this is a dud. Bill Skarsgard played the titular hero, dealing with a soapy love story with FKA Twigs and Danny Huston’s rent-a-villain. One decent action sequence is the highlight.
I believe this was rubbish. David Gordon Green’s ‘sequel’ (which conveniently forgets all about the original films) is lazy as hell. Green ultimately backed out of a new planned trilogy and it’s just as well. Believer has a few Easter eggs from the original, including the return of Ellen Burstyn who got paid a boatload for it, but has nothing else to entice people to see it.
Alexander Payne’s heart-warming Christmas drama sees Paul Giamatti’s stern private schoolmaster forced to spend Christmas with Dominic Sessa’s student and the school’s dinner lady (DaVine Joy Randolph in an Oscar winning turn). Despite initially butting heads, the pair come to a mutual respect. One of Giamatti’s best in years.
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A remake of a 2008 film of the same name, The Strangers follows a couple who get stranded in a rural backwater town and are terrorised by a knife-wielding trio. Another first of a trilogy, all three movies were filmed in just under two months; you have to wonder why they bothered.
Alex Garland’s film follows three war reporters (Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley Henderson) as they traverse a war-torn America, ripped asunder by Nick Offerman’s dictator-like President. The dystopian drama can be unsettling and intense. For some, it might lack the action they crave, but this timely drama is a must to watch.
A satire that sees the leaders of the G7, led by Cate Blanchett’s German chancellor, stranded in the woods as the world ends, is well-meaning and am sure will have its fans among those who enjoy Canadian abstract artist Guy Madden’s work but large pink brains and babbles about previous summits do not a quality film make.
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