Josh’s Favorite Movies of 2024 — Part One!

I’m excited to begin my look back at 2024 with a list of my favorite movies of the year!

As always, let me begin by noting that, while I did watch a lot of movies in 2024, there still remain many other (possibly/probably great) movies that I didn’t get to.  These include, but aren’t limited to: A Real Pain, Babes, His Three Daughters, I Saw the TV Glow, It’s What’s Inside, My Old Ass, One Life, Robot Dreams, Sing Sing, The Brutalist, The Idea of You, The Piano Lesson, The Outrun, The Wild Robot, Wicked Little Letters, and Will and Harper.  I hope to find time to watch all of those movies some time in the not-too-distant future!

Let’s start with two honorable mentions:

First off, one of my favorite movie-related things I saw in 2024 wasn’t a movie at all: it was The Naboo Movie, a jaw-droppingly hilarious live staged reading of the script for Star Wars: Episode I.  They assembled a tremendous group of comedians to perform the script, and the result was a joyous display of pure love for Star Wars, accompanied by a delightful willingness to poke a lot of fun at the strange, hokey script for The Phantom Menace.  I thought the tone was perfect, and I was howling with laughter repeatedly throughout.  You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced Eric Bauza performing Jar-Jar Binks as Daffy Duck, or Matt Gorley performing Nute Gunray (the alien who, in the actual movie, speaks with an awful, racist Japanese stereotype voice) as Truman Capote.  Also great: Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Veep) as Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jin; Tawny Newsome (Star Trek: Lower Decks) as Padme/Queen Amidala; Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, Silicon Valley, The Spoils of Babylon) as Anakin Skywalker; Bobby Moynihan (SNL) as both Darth Maul and Yoda; and many more.  I loved this so much!!  Click here to read my full review.  Click here to watch it now on YouTube!

Probably my favorite movie that I saw in 2024 was The Saint of Second Chances, even though that came out in 2023.  Directed by Morgan Neville, the film explores the story of Mike Veeck. His father was Bill Veeck, one of the last non-super-wealthy baseball team owners.  Mr. Veeck (pronounced Veck) was a showman, willing to do all sorts of wild and creative things to get people to come to the ballpark.  His son Mike had many of those same qualities, but he was run out of baseball for the disastrous “Disco Demolition Night”, in which disco-haters were invited to a game at Comiskey Park with the promise of burning disco records, and chaos ensued.  The film tells the story of how Mike eventually put his life back together and made his way back to baseball.  The film is joyous and also deeply moving.  It’s a delightful expression of the love of baseball, and also a wonderful and nuanced story about fathers and their children, and about second chances.  Click here to read my full review.  Click here to watch it now on Netflix!

And now, on to my TOP TWENTY:

20. Music By John Williams — This documentary (directed by Laurent Bouzereau), is a joyous salute to the life and work of John Williams.  Can anyone argue against Mr. Williams’ status as the greatest film composer of all time?  Mr. Williams’ music has been a constant companion throughout my life.  He has written music that almost everyone on this planet knows: scores for Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Superman and Jurassic Park and Harry Potter and so many more beloved movies and characters.  He has been nominated for a whopping 54 Academy Awards.  This documentary is a jauntily-paced look back at all of the incredible work Mr. Williams has done over his career.  We get to hear at length from Mr. Williams’ perspective, telling his stories and sharing his insight.  We also get to hear from many of his collaborators and admirers, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Mangold, Lawrence Kasdan, Chris Columbus, and J.J. Abrams, and we also hear from many other talented film composers and musicians.  Watching this doc made me fall in love with Mr. Williams’ music all over again.  Click here to read my full review.  Click here to watch it now on Disney+!

19. Watchmen (Two-Part Animated Adaptation) — I rolled my eyes when I first read that DC/Warner Brothers would be releasing a two-part animated adaptation of the classic Watchmen twelve-issue mini-series; haven’t we gone to this well enough at this point?  But dang it if I wasn’t blown away by this beautifully animated, extremely faithful adaptation.  I loved every minute of it!  The CGI animation beautifully captured the look of artist Dave Gibbons’ designs, and packed each frame as full of luscious background detail as Mr. Gibbons’ original drawings.  The script, by J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) did a great job of condensing and gently restructuring this sweeping story to work as a pair of films.  In the best way, it feels perfectly faithful to the original, even though I know many changes were made.  The voice-catch is spectacular, featuring Titus Welliver (Bosch, Gone Baby Gone, Lost) as Rorshach; Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars, The Mandalorian) as Laurie; Matthew Rhys (The Americans) as Dan; Adrienne Barbeau as Sally Jupiter; Jeffrey Combs (Brunt and Weyoun on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as Moloch, and many more.  Click here to read my full review of Chapter One; my review of Chapter Two is coming soon.  Click here to buy or rent Chapter One on Amazon Prime Video.

18. Hellboy: The Crooked Man — You might not know it, because this film didn’t get a theatrical release, but they went and made a fourth Hellboy movie (which is a second try at a reboot of the franchise).  This new film is an entirely stand-alone story, directed by Brian Taylor, who co-wrote the film along with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (who has written or co-written a lot of wonderful Hellboy comic books and novels).  The film is a direct adaptation of the three-issue 2008 mini-series Hellboy: The Crooked Man, written by Mr. Mignola and illustrated by Richard Corben (a phenomenal fantasy illustrator).  Whereas all three previous Hellboy films have aimed to be big and epic, The Crooked Man is a small-scale horror story set in Appalachia in 1959.  This is a low-budget film (just $20 million, from what I’ve read online) with a small cast and a small scale.  The goal here is clearly to capture the feel of the many, many great stand-along Hellboy comic book short stories, which fans love so much (and of which The Crooked Man comic-book is a strong example).  And while the other three Hellboy films have leaned more towards the approach of a superhero film, this new movie is 100% a horror film.  These are smart choices, and Mr. Taylor succeeded in making a story that is interesting, suspenseful, and that captures the feel of the Hellboy character.  The film looks pretty good considering its small budget.  The film’s main weakness is that I felt they leaned too heavily into “horror movie” stylistic tropes, which got a bit tiresome for me.  But this is worth seeing for fans of the character, or just cool mysteries/horror movies.  Click here to read my review.  Click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video!

17. The Instigators — This engaging, fast-paced heist-gone-wrong caper reunited director Doug Liman with Matt Damon two decades after The Bourne Identity.  The script by Casey Affleck and Chuck Maclean is sharp and very funny, and Mr. Damon and Mr. Affleck are an absolute hoot in the lead roles as two loser wannabe Bostonian criminals.  The film also features Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man, Steve Jobs, The Post, The Shape of Water); Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spider-Man: No Way Home); Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, The Green Mile, the Mission: Impossible films); Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Drive, Nightmare Alley); Toby Jones (Infamous, Frost/Nixon, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Captain America: The First Avenger); Paul Walter Hauser (The Afterparty season 2, Orion and the Dark, Inside Out 2), and Hong Chau (Inherent Vice, Watchmen, Asteroid City).  This is a great cast, and it’s fun to watch this gang bounce off of one another — especially Mr. Damon and Mr. Affleck, who are tremendous fun together on-screen.  This isn’t Citizen Kane; it’s just a fun action romp.  Click here to read my review.  Click here to watch it now on Apple TV+!  (It’s also available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.)

16. Hitman — Here’s another fun action romp!  Hitman was directed and co-written by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Boyhood), who wrote the script with Glen Powell, who stars as the titular hitman: Gary Johnson, a quiet and unassuming high school teacher who also works part-time for the New Orleans police departments, helping behind the scenes to set up sting operations designed to catch people who are planning a murder.  When Gary winds up getting roped into actually impersonating a hitman for one operation, he discovers that he’s quite good at the charade!  One thing leads to another, and soon Gary winds up involved in some real-life trouble.  This fun, affable story about mostly bad people was a pleasure to watch.  Mr. Powell is terrific playing Gary playing multiple different characters, and Adria Arjona Torres is great as the beautiful young woman, Madison, who’s at the heart of a lot of the trouble.  This fast-paced caper was great fun to watch.  My full review will be coming soon.  Click here to watch it now on Netflix!

Thanks for reading!  C’mon back tomorrow for numbers 15-11!

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