Subscribe
×
Many films flocked the charts during this 2024 year. We saw more underdog films make huge waves with success rather than large blockbusters. Here are some of my favourites from the year.
The two big heavy hitters:
Dune: Part Two
Challengers
Both coincidentally have Zendaya in the lead cast and are my two favourites from the year. With Dune, I think everything came together to give a delightful film and moviegoing experience, from the triumphant music and sounds, story, huge cast and stunning visuals. Dune Two was an epic in all the right ways. It outperformed the previous installment and left me wanting another. Challengers was very refreshing, as A24 seems to deliver on frequently. It was a very different and unique approach to a story that I did not expect. A fairly simple tennis film was what I was expecting when going to see it, but that could not have been further from the truth. It had incredible tension and kept me right on the edge of my seat for the first time in a while.
Other notable works I watched from the year are The Fall Guy, Wolfs and Scoop.
I watched Wolfs recently; it was a uniquely different take on a thriller. However, I did find it a bit slow. The idea and premise, I thought, was quite good; it felt like it was trying to be an A24 film in a way. Nevertheless, I did appreciate the unique take on two lone wolves colliding and having to work together in an awkwardly slow environment. The Fall Guy is very entertaining, and I found it to be a very high-quality action and comedy film which is quite rare. Many action comedy films are created but simply don’t follow through. This one does, from the idea of the story, setting and all sorts of emotional problems being thrown at the characters. Scoop, I thought, was a very interesting study; I found the film itself very thought-provoking and insightful, following along a journey from real life that happened just 5 years ago. When it comes to scripted works, usually when making a dramatic film or series based on true events, it takes a long time or at least longer than 5 years from the event taking place. This shows just how important relevance is in our culture today. Scoop is based on the famous BBC interview that took place interviewing Prince Andrew on his relationship with Jeffery Epstein; the interview took place less than 5 years before the film was aired, which is quite something.
Musicals always seem to have very mixed opinions and thoughts, which I find very interesting. At the end of last year, we had Wonka; this year, we had a sequel to the Joker film, Joker: Folie à Deux. And just coming out over the next week is Wicked. All three of these musicals had very divisive thoughts by viewers. Some thought they were misled by trailers or promotions leading up to the films, thinking that they were, in fact, not musicals. Others can sometimes find the music and singing as a distraction to the plot or dialogue as the film moves through. I can also think back to when Cats came out in 2019 and how so many people didn’t enjoy it. Perhaps it is the genre itself that is so misunderstood consistently. I’m looking forward to seeing Wicked soon, and am eager to see how the world reacts to this one.
Some big hits I’m looking out for, still to come this year:
Wicked a feature film from the huge Broadway hit story.
Gladiator Two an eagerly anticipated sequel to Gladiator from 2000.
A Complete Unknown, a musical biopic about Bob Dylan
