Film critic Jesse Hawthorne Ficks breaks down his favorite films—plus one music video—of the year that was, in his preferred format of double-headers. Check out part one of his 2024 breakdown here.
10. The Last Summer (L’été dernier, Catherine Breillat, France, 104 minutes)
Catherine Breillat is 76 years old and she has made yet another absolutely gripping romantic melodrama in the spirit of her own 1988 film 36 Fillette. Breillat is one of our great cinematic masters and it would be a shame to overlook how incredibly she handles her uncomfortable subject matters. I suggest tracking down other later-era gems such as Abuse of Weakness (2013), Bluebeard (2009), The Last Mistress (2007), Anatomy of Hell (2004), and Sex is Comedy (2002).
Available on all major streaming sites.
+ (plays with) Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding (US/UK, 2023, 104 minutes)
Writer-director Rose Glass lays the scene for another earnest performance from Kristen Stewart as a reclusive gym manager who falls hard for an eager weightlifter, embodied with gusto by one-time real-life body-builder Katy O’Brian. As the two fall in love (and with a gold medal dream in their sights), they lead this erotically charged romance completely off the rails in all the best ways, with the help of Ed Harris as Stewart’s truly maniacal dad. Fans of Callie Khouri’s Oscar-winning script for Thelma & Louise (1991) and of David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) must seek this out at all costs.
Available on all major streaming sites.
11. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, USA, 113 minutes)
While perfectly capturing the pitfalls of progressive parenting in the early 1990s, Julianne Nicholson is a sight to behold as her free-spirited character bounces from one disastrous relationship to the next. It’s one of the best films distributed by A24 this year, and audiences who know Massachusetts well will be delighted by writer-director Annie Baker’s deep-cut representation of the particular region.
Available on all major streaming sites.
+ (plays with) Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams, USA, 101 minutes)
This directorial debut by Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda is led by a fantastically gothic PG-13 script by Diablo Cody. While it definitely lives in the cult universe Jennifer’s Body (2009), I was particularly struck by the seemingly-clunky-yet-thoughtful pacing. A definite cult classic for future generations.
Available on all major streaming sites.
+ (plays with) Sade’s “Young Lion” (Sophie Muller, USA, 5 minutes)
Being Sade‘s first song in six years, the artist apologizes to her son, Izaak, for not understanding him better when he first began gender-transitioning. The music video, directed by longtime collaborator Sophie Muller, masterfully uses decades of real footage of the two growing up together.
12. A Traveller’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 90 minutes)
Hong Sang-soo has procured two more mini-masterpieces this year, bringing the prolific South Korean filmmaker to a total of nine films in four years. The first showcased legendary French actor Isabelle Huppert in a performance as memorable as her Oscar nominated turn in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (2016). In A Traveller’s Needs, she embodies “a nomadic Frenchwoman named Iris, who drifts into the lives of a disconnected group of people in a Seoul suburb.” As soon as the film ended, I wished for two or three more further adventures. Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at this year’s 74th Berlin International Film Festival, this is one of the filmmaker’s best and most accessible.
Will be available later this year through The Cinema Guild.
+ (plays with) By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 111 minutes)
By the Stream follows an infamous theater director who is asked to quickly fill in for a university instructor fired for being unprofessional. Hong’s quintessential satirical humor and experimental editing is on full display here as he explores the modern era’s complexities in regards to inappropriateness. Hong’s favorite actor Kim Min-hee (who has starred in his last 13 films) gives another subdued yet extraordinary turn as the director’s estranged niece. Hong still finds inspiration in French impressionist Paul Cézanne’s paintings for many of the quiet moments, while building to a truly earned, emotionally therapeutic climax.
Will be available later this year through The Cinema Guild.
13. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France / India / Netherlands / Luxembourg / Italy, 115 minutes)
Deserving every one of its many accolades, this romantic road trip explores the lives of two working-class Malayali nurses living in Mumbai. Writer-director Payal Kapadia’s exquisite pacing, combined with Dardenne-like immediacy, leads to an absolutely dazzling conclusion. Similar to Kapadia’s previous gem, A Night of Knowing Nothing (which won the Golden Eye award for best documentary film at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival), this is an unforgettable experience.
Will be available to stream on all major streaming sites.
+ (plays with) Girls Will Be Girls (Shuchi Talati, India/France/USA/Norway, 118 minutes)
An immensely surprising look at a 16-year-old girl attempting to uncover her romantic desires in a strict boarding school deep in the Himalayas. What makes this hidden gem so interesting is how the perspective slowly shifts to her mother, who was never able to “come of age” herself. Talati is a genuine voice to pay attention to. Also check out her 13-minute treasure, A A Period Piece (2020), about a woman who finally has sex one afternoon—only things quickly turn messy when blood spills all over her pristine couch.
Available streaming on Amazon Prime.
14. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan, 106 minutes)
With a cast of non-professional actors, Hamaguchi’s follow up to Drive My Car (2022) is a fascinating call to environmental action.
Available on all major streaming sites.
+ (double bill plays with) Santosh (Sandhya Suri, UK/India, 128 minutes)
The year’s best Dardenne Brothers movie not made by the Dardenne Brothers.
Will be available to stream on all major streaming sites.
15. Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (US/Russia, 324 minutes)
This astonishing 324-minute document shot on an iPhone-10 begins with its lead meeting up with an incredible group of “independent media journalists in Putin’s Russia” and slowly builds like a scripted thriller in real time. With shades of Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) along with Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023), Loktev shifts gears with each new obstacle, locking the film’s viewers in a non-stop thriller. As one of the journalists argues, “important stories don’t tell themselves.”
The film is currently seeking American distribution.
+ (plays with) Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium/France/Netherlands, 150 minutes)
Similar to Ezra Edelman’s 467 minute documentary O.J.: Made in America (2016), this exploration of history of America by way late 1950s jazz music will change the way you see the world.
Currently screening locating at the Roxie.
16. Civil War (Alex Garland, UK/USA, 109 minutes)
Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons give two of the best understated performances of the year.
Available on all major streaming sites.
+ (plays with) Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, USA, 131 minutes)
This pitch-perfect thriller showcases Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson by combining Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood (1982) with John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). From the director of Blue Ruin (2013), Green Room (2015), and Hold the Dark (2018).
Available to stream on Netflix.
17. Realm of Satan (Scott Cummings, USA, 80 minutes)
This gawd-damned transcendental masterpiece is cinema verité at its finest, exploring the Church of Satan around the world. Deliciously designed and ingeniously edited, it quietly portrays everyday lives along with engagement in outrageously fetishistic and magical rituals.
The film is currently seeking American distribution.
+ (plays with) Welcome to the Enclave (Sarah Lasley, USA, 12 minutes)
This modern manifesto is a terrifying, eerie exploration of two Texas sisters as they fight to rescue their digital utopia from obscurity. The film showcases a deliciously diabolical dual performance by longtime collaborator Brenna Palughi.
Available to stream free on NoBudge.
+ (plays with) Yuula Benivolski’s why i never became a driver (Canada, 2023, 11 minutes)
A deeply compassionate rumination on three women who are seemingly trapped within the medical system. The found footage slowly starts to shift as their disassociation and uncontrollable “other” selves start to emerge. Benivolski hand-processed, bleached, and poignantly painted the footage as well as constructed the haunting sound collage.
Currently unavailable to stream.
18. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 138 minutes)
Available on all major streaming sites.
+ (plays with) Here (Robert Zemeckis, USA, 104 minutes)
Available on all major streaming sites.
19. The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols, USA, 116 minutes)
+ (plays with) The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, Canada/Denmark/Ireland/USA, 122 minutes)
+ (plays with) A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, USA, 141 minutes)
Jesse Hawthorne Ficks is the film history coordinator at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and is part of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle. He curates and hosts “MOViES FOR MANiACS,” a film series celebrating underrated and overlooked cinema, in a neo-sincere manner.
