Josh’s Favorite Movies of 2024 — Part Two!

Welcome back to part two of my list of my favorite movies of 2024!  Click here to read part one.

Let’s continue with my list:

15. Here — I enjoyed this reunion of the Forrest Gump team of director Robert Zemeckis and actors Tom Hanks & Robin Wright; it’s not perfect, but it’s a far better film that its dismal reviews and poor box office performance would have you believe.  The film is a bold narrative experiment and visual effects exercise.  Mr. Zemeckis bravely stuck to the conceit of the original graphic novel by Richard McGuire, in that we have a static camera with an unchanging viewpoint on one single room in a home in suburban New Jersey.  He also stuck to the graphic novel’s playfulness with time.  There is a basic forward thrust as we watch the Young family move through the decades, but as that story is being told, we also drift backwards and forwards through the years, weaving in and out of the lives of several different families who have lived in that house (and even jump way back in time to before the house was even built).  The film’s weaknesses are that some of the scenes are a little stiff, and the film can veer sometimes into too much schmaltz.  But when it works, I found it to be a beautiful and heartbreaking encapsulation of how quickly human beings’ lives come and go, and the preciousness of the moments we have together.  My full review will be coming soon.  Click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.

14. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare — Guy Ritchie directed and co-wrote this fun, exciting WWII adventure, (loosely) based on true events that were only recently declassified (and detailed in the 2014 book Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII by Damien Lewis).  It’s 1941, and Winston Churchill is desperate to find some way to disrupt the Nazis’ control of the Atlantic, so he recruits a secret group of ruffians to mount an undercover mission to disrupt the supplies of equipment needed  to maintain the Nazi U-Boat fleet.  This is a solid old-fashioned WWII “men on a mission” type of adventure film, smoothly blended with Mr. Ritchie’s modern sensibilities.  It’s got some great action set-pieces and a top-notch cast: Henry Cavill (Man of Steel); Alan Ritchson (Reacher); Eiza González (Baby Driver); Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride); Babs Olusanmokun (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Dune); Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians); Alex Pettyfer; and Hero Fiennes Tiffin.  At a time in which Anti-Semitism has been running rampant across the globe, I was pleased that this film featured a Jewish hero (Elia González’s Marjorie) who even gets to deliver a speech about the fortitude of the Jewish people despite millennia of persecution.  Click here to read my full review.  Click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.

13. Wicked — This movie is a bona fide phenomenon… and it’s also pretty darn good!  This isn’t my type of film — I’m not so into musicals — and yet this film charmed my socks off, and I was thoroughly engaged despite the lengthy run-time.  The film uses every minute wisely, giving us a beautifully faithful adaptation of the wonderful broadway show, while also allowing the story time to breathe, so that we fall in love with these characters as the story progresses.  Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth were iconic in the original show as Elphaba and Galinda (Glinda), and yet Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande do the impossible, completely and immediately owning these roles and making these characters their own.  They are now forever Elphaba and Galinda!!  They are both magnificent, commanding the screen and captivating audiences.  The rest of the cast ain’t too shabby either: Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, and everyone else in the cast are all terrific.  Director John M. Chu has created an all-timer.  Click here to read my full review.  Click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video, or go watch it in the big screen at your local movie theatre, where it’s likely still playing!

12. Civil War — Alex Garland (Ex Machina)’s riveting film is set in the very near future, in a world in which the United States has collapsed into civil war, with several secessionist factions violently battling a central government led by a third-term president.  The film centers on Lee, a veteran war photographer who, after years of chronicling wars abroad, is now photographing this devastating war on her home soil.  Civil War is powerful and haunting, filled with intense action and moments of quiet beauty.  All four lead actors — Kirsten Dunst (the Spider-Man films), Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus), Wagner Moura (Elysium), and Stephen McKinley Henderson (Lincoln, Lady Bird, Dune) — are all terrific, and the film has a strong message to convey about the state of our country today.  Civil War is a warning, a clarion call to take action to deal with the divisions threatening to rip apart the United States right now, lest we find ourselves in the world this film depicts.  Alex Garland’s film is trying to tell us that a civil war is something real, something that could actually happen right here.  This is a warning that should send a chill down the spine of anyone paying attention.  Click here to read my full review.  Click here here to watch it now on MAX.  (It’s also available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.)

11. Orion and the Dark — This lovely animated film tells the story of Orion, an eleven-year-old boy who is wracked with anxiety.  One night, alone in his room, Orion meets Dark, the embodiment of nighttime darkness.  Dark takes it upon himself to bring Orion along with him for 24 hours, as Dark goes about his job of bringing darkness across the globe, so he can teach Orion that there’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark.  Of course, things don’t go exactly as planned!  I loved the way the film depicted Orion’s struggles with anxiety, something which can be appreciated by kids and adults alike.  This is an adult topic, and the film strikes a lovely balance in that it doesn’t oversimplify these issues or jump too quickly to pat, simple resolutions; but the film has a lightness and a humor that keeps the story entertaining at all times.  The film is very funny, but it’s also moving.  It was written by acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and as such it’s a story filled with rich emotional depths and fun narrative playfulness.  But this is not a for-adults-only work like Mr. Kaufman’s previous venture in animation, the stop-motion Anomalisa.  Orion and the Dark is that rare bird: a film that can truly be enjoyed by all ages, kids and adults alike.  Click here to read my full review.  Click here to watch it now on Netflix.

Thanks for reading!  I hope you’ll rejoin me tomorrow as we enter my TOP TEN!

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