My favorite movie of 2024, “The Bikeriders,” features my two favorite scenes of the year.
In one, Kathy (Jodie Comer), a chatty, likable young woman who navigates life’s curves with an amusing bemusement, is taking her first ride behind silent rebel Benny (Austin Butler) on his chopper.
It’s nighttime, and they’re riding alone on a Chicago street, when she hears a roar behind them. She looks back and sees the lights of approaching choppers ridden in formation by Benny’s fellow biker club members. “Have to admit, took my breath away,” Kathy says as she recollects the moment, and as the Shangri-Las’ “Out on the Streets” accompanies the scene on the soundtrack, the magic of the moment takes our breath away, too.
In the second scene, Kathy is with Benny, who’s been seriously injured, in a motel room when Johnny (Tom Hardy), leader of the biker club, shows up and tries to persuade Benny to join the club on a road trip. Kathy, worried for Benny’s health and safety, doesn’t like it. Besides, she sees Johnny as competition for Benny’s attention.
While Johnny’s talking to Benny, Kathy loudly shakes ice in a cup.
“You want a drink, Johnny?” she asks.
“I’m good,” he replies.
Tom Hardy, left, as Johnny, and Austin Butler, as Benny, in “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features)
When I first saw this scene, I giggled. Comer and Hardy are just so good playing off each other that it’s funny, and a joy to behold.
For me, Comer’s performance is the cinematic highlight of the year. She affects a quirky Chicago accent in an engaging, comic way that comes across as so natural you’d never guess the actress is a Liverpool native. She so inhabits her guileless, openhearted character that you feel you know her, that she could be your next-door neighbor. There is no artifice, no acting, evident. It’s extraordinary.
Kirsten Dunst, left, and Cailee Spaeny play photojournalists in “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24)
Alex Garland’s “Civil War” stands out, too, but for its bold reaction to America’s current divisive political landscape. Garland (“Ex Machina”), who wrote and directed, envisions a United States in the middle of a savage civil war – no explanation of how we got there needed. The film serves as a warning of where we could be headed, a much-needed slap to the face that’s arguably as relevant and necessary as the work of George Orwell.
Here are my top 10 films of 2024:
1. “The Bikeriders.” Jeff Nichols’ biker film, based on a photo book from the 1960s, captures the history of a motorcycle club, with all of its brutality, rebellion, camaraderie and sense of freedom. It’s exhilarating and entertaining, with some of the most colorful performances of the year.
2. “The Beast.” Lea Seydoux (“Blue Is the Warmest
Lea Seydoux and George MacKay star in “The Beast.” (Carole Bethuel)
Color”) plays three versions of the same person in three different time periods (1910, 2014 and 2044) in Bertrand Bonello’s sublime sci-fi drama, “freely adapted” from the Henry James novella “The Beast in the Jungle.” As her character travels through time, having close encounters with variations of the same man (George MacKay), the film brilliantly considers the ramifications of A.I., the impact of emotions, and what it means to be human.
3. “Civil War.” Garland’s chilling film focuses on three veteran journalists (Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson) and an aspiring photojournalist (Cailee Spaeny) as they drive through war zones with hopes of interviewing the beleaguered president (Nick Offerman), not knowing if he will have them shot upon arrival. (He doesn’t like journalists, you see.) It’s a disturbing, necessary look at what we could face down the road if militant ignorance, cruelty and selfishness prevail.
4. “Flipside.” Christopher Wilcha’s documentary focuses on film projects he never got around to completing, and by returning to these abandoned works, he creates something miraculous. Presenting a hodgepodge of memories and overlapping storylines (featuring the likes of Judd Apatow, Ira Glass and cult TV comic Uncle Floyd), Wilcha deals with life choices, the passage of time, finding meaning – all exemplified by the lives of Wilcha’s subjects, including himself.
5. “Daddio.” An earthy cabbie (Sean Penn) and his sophisticated fare (Dakota Johnson) strip away their protective layers and open themselves up to each other as they make their way from JFK Airport to Midtown Manhattan. First-time feature-film director Christy Hall shows through this moving, thoughtful chamber piece how strangers from vastly different backgrounds can connect deeply under the right circumstances.
6. “A Real Pain.” Writer-director Jesse Eisenberg blends humor and heartbreak in this buddy dramedy in which he and Kieran Culkin play cousins who tour Poland in memory of their Holocaust survivor grandmother. David (Eisenberg) is nervous, cautious; Benji (Culkin), spontaneous, demonstrative. They must contend with their uneasy, yet close relationship while confronting their family history and how they’ve chosen to live their own lives.
7. “All We Imagine as Light.” Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia examines cultural clashes, forbidden love and economic hardship as she delves into the lives of two nurses (Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha) rooming together in Mumbai. Kapadia’s empathetic portrayal of the working class recalls the best films of Italian neorealism.
8. “The Piano Lesson.” Director Malcolm Washington delivers a fiery adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set mostly in 1936 Pittsburgh, about a Black family haunted by its family history as slaves in the Deep South. At the heart of the story: a piano stolen years earlier from a family of slave owners. Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler head an exceptional cast. (Brothers Malcolm and John David Washington are sons of Denzel.)
9. “Small Things Like These.” Cillian Murphy follows up his Oscar-winning work in “Oppenheimer” with another understated, yet powerful performance as a quiet Irish coal deliverer and family man who suspects abuse of young women at one of the Catholic Church’s Magdalene Laundries. Belgian director Tim Mielants’s drama considers whether one person can make a difference when confronted with institutional evil, and how.
10. “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger.” Martin Scorsese narrates this stunning documentary about the legendary partnership of filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Known as “The Archers,” the duo produced some of the most imaginative, hypnotic and beautiful films ever to hit the screen, including such 1940s classics as “The Red Shoes,” “Black Narcissus,” and “I Know Where I’m Going!” Director David Hinton presents shot after shot, scene after scene, in popping colors or black and white, from their otherworldly films.
Honorable mention: “September 5,” “No Other Land,” “Kneecap,” “Porcelain War,” “A Complete Unknown,” “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” “The Old Oak,” “Knox Goes Away,” “Back to Black,” “The Body Politic,” “Late Night With the Devil,” “Janet Planet,” “A Different Man,” “The Apprentice,” “His Three Daughters,” “Anora,” “Armand,” “Wicked,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” “Him.”
Top 10 performances
1. Jodie Comer, “The Bikeriders”
Jodie Comer gives 2024’s best performance as Kathy in “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features)
2. Cillian Murphy, “Small Things Like These”
3. Adam Pearson, “A Different Man”
4. Lea Seydoux, “The Beast”
5. Daniel Craig, “Queer”
6. Tom Hardy, “The Bikeriders”
7. Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”
8. Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
9. Timothee Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
10. Danielle Deadwyler, “The Piano Lesson”
Honorable mention: John David Washington, “The Piano Lesson”; Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker: Folie a Deux”; Nicolas Cage, “Longlegs”; Cailee Spaeny, “Civil War”; George MacKay, “The Beast”; Zendaya, “Challengers”; Dakota Johnson, “Daddio”; Sean Penn, “Daddio”; Renate Rensve, “Armand”; Renate Rensve, “A Different Man”; Mikey Madison, “Anora”; Margaret Qualley, “Drive-Away Dolls”; Kirsten Dunst, “Civil War”; Jesse Plemons, “Civil War”; Selena Gomez, “Emilia Perez”; Nathan Faustyn, “The People’s Joker”; Demi Moore, “The Substance”; Naomie Ackie, “Blink Twice”; Natasha Lyonne, “His Three Daughters”; Austin Butler, “The Bikeriders.”
The worst
I didn’t go out of my way to see terrible movies this year. Of the ones I did endure, here are the six worst, starting with the most awful:
1. “Immaculate.” Sexy Sydney Sweeney, playing a nun (!), can’t save this repulsive horror-in-the-convent flick.
2. “Lisa Frankenstein.” A high school girl brings a corpse back to life in this horror comedy clunker.
3. “Terrifier 3.” More torture porn, courtesy of Art the Clown!
4. “The First Omen.” Can this be the last “Omen”? Please?
5. “Founders Day.” Yet another slasher film. Trite, obnoxious, amateurish.
6. “Argylle.” Just when you think this labored spy spoof can’t get any worse, it does.
** Click here for Tim Miller’s previous movie columns for Cape Cod Wave **
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Tim Miller, Movie Critic
Tim Miller is co-president of the Boston Society of Film Critics and a Tomatometer-approved critic. He teaches film and journalism at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or follow him onTwitter @TimMillerCritic. Or you can ignore him completely.
