MAIN CINEMA 2024: Preserving Memories
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As the new year begins, it’s the perfect time to look back and reflect on 2024 — a year of challenges, discoveries, and transformations. And what better medium than cinema to capture our emotions, fears, hopes, and dreams? Films, like mirrors of time, reflect the spirit of an era, preserving not only frames but also the emotions we experienced while sitting in dark theaters or watching screens at home.
Ukrainian film critic and director Andriy Alferov invites us to revisit the past year through the lens of cinema — an art form that, despite the turbulence of reality, continued to inspire, provoke questions, and provide answers.
He has curated a highly personal and subjective list of 10 films that, in his opinion, best encapsulate the atmosphere and mood of 2024. These films serve as markers of time, preserving not only captivating stories but also the impressions of the days we lived through.
Each selected film is more than just a story told on screen. It reflects who we are — our anxieties and joys, struggles and hopes. Perhaps it is through these movies that we will remember not only the year that has passed but also ourselves within it — who we were and who we aspired to become.
#1 BABY REINDEER, 2024
A truly groundbreaking mini-series that has ushered in a new era of male vulnerability on screen. Scottish comedian and playwright Richard Gadd adapted not just his stage play but his personal experience for the screen. He also plays himself — a struggling bartender, comedian, and playwright who, after surviving sexual assault, faces relentless stalking by an obsessive fan (a phenomenal performance by Jessica Gunning).
#2 KINDS OF KINDNESS, 2024
After the relatively «normal» Poor Things, one of today’s most striking directors and a master of cinematic provocation, Yorgos Lanthimos, has returned to the desperate domestic surrealism that marked his early work.
2024 will be remembered for his absurdist, visually rich anthology presented as a «fairy-tale triptych», where the director’s favorite actors — Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Jesse Plemons — explore the limits of control among average suburbanites.
Once again, Lanthimos dismantles social conventions, but this time, the dull existence of an American suburb proves far more unsettling than the exaggerated worlds he created in The Favourite and Poor Things as satirical mirrors of modern society. Lanthimos clearly allowed himself to push boundaries further than ever before. The result? Disturbing and funny. And sometimes just disturbingly funny. After all, the humor here is pitch-black.
#3 CIVIL WAR, 2024
A chilling commentary on modern America — with its clashes between Republicans and Democrats, BLM movements, and privileged Marxist uprisings in Ivy League universities.
The United States, fractured by civil conflict. Tracer bullets streak through the night, suburbs burn, and the separatist rebel group Western Front advances toward Washington. Meanwhile, the president, barricaded in the White House, rehearses his final address to loyal citizens, promising the rebels’ swift defeat and a triumphant victory.
The screen erupts with ultraviolence, a fascination with death, and the weary elegance of a seasoned Kirsten Dunst in the role of a hardened journalist.
Alex Garland — who once penned Danny Boyle’s apocalyptic horror 28 Days Later and later directed powerful films such as the sci-fi meditation on artificial intelligence Ex Machina and the hallucinatory thriller Annihilation — imagines a terrifying near-future. A future where humanity continues to justify its madness with «higher ideals» and refuses to stop, all while reflecting on the ethics of modern reporters willing to sacrifice anything for the perfect shot.
#4 ANORA, 2024
An overrated, Cannes «Golden Palm»-winning dramedy by American director Sean Baker (Starlet, The Florida Project), about an awkward romance that unexpectedly turns into marriage between a Brooklyn escort (Mikey Madison) and the reckless, trust-fund son of a russian oligarch (Mark Eidelstein).
At times funny, at times odd — reminiscent of the later films of Eldar Ryazanov — this movie carries clear Oscar ambitions. Following five Golden Globe nominations, many predict Academy Awards recognition, at least for Mikey Madison’s performance.
It will be remembered in 2024 for sparking the question: How did a film like this end up at the Cannes Film Festival — and win?
#5 THE SUBSTANCE, 2024
A brilliant tragicomic body horror about a movie star whose desperate quest for the «fountain of youth» spirals into a bloody, neon-lit spectacle. It boldly examines society’s obsession with youth and unattainable beauty standards.
Demi Moore delivers a career-defining performance as a woman trapped by her own perfection — fighting self-loathing, societal judgment, and a newfound addiction to a miraculous anti-aging drug.
Layers of prosthetics and makeup were used to depict the grotesque transformation of a fading Hollywood diva into a monstrous being. Traditionally a genre aimed at teenagers, horror here serves a mature, reflective audience — one that stares into the screen as if gazing into a mirror.
#6 MEGALOPOLIS, 2024
Arguably the year’s most spectacular flop. Forty years in the making, this radically megalomaniacal «masterpiece» by the legendary Francis Ford Coppola tells the story of an eccentric visionary architect (Adam Driver) determined to transform a ruined New Rome into a utopian futuristic city of happiness. Standing in his way is a corrupt mayor with his own vision for the metropolis’s future.
2024 will be remembered for this psychedelic, technocratic fantasy — a passion project by a perfectionist fanatic — with a staggering budget of approximately $120 million. Coppola financed it by selling part of his winery business, only to see the money beautifully go up in smoke!
#7 EMILIA PEREZ, 2024
Unexpectedly dazzling in its phantasmagoric brilliance, this musical by the great Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Dheepan, Rust and Bone) tells the story of a stereotypical Mexican drug lord (played by Mexican transgender star Karla Sofía Gascón) who kidnaps a lonely lawyer (Zoë Saldaña) to help him become a woman — literally. To change his gender, his name, and begin a new, virtuous life.
With geometrically precise choreography alternating with scenes of total chaos, the film creates a whirlwind so powerful it’s nearly impossible to resist.
This grand, optimistic tragedy is not only one of the Cannes favorites of 2024 — winning the Jury Prize and a collective award for its four lead actresses — but also a major contender in the 2024 Oscar race, securing frontrunner status across multiple top categories.
#8 GLADIATOR II, 2024
An awkwardly captivating attempt by Ridley Scott to step into the same river twice. Returning to his iconic film took a quarter of a century. The new story follows Lucius (Paul Mescal), the son of Connie Nielsen’s character, and unfolds 25 years after the events of the first film — though it largely remains in its shadow.
Despite its cutting-edge visuals and a gripping performance by Denzel Washington, Gladiator II lacks depth, shamelessly recycling the old hero’s journey template — from general to slave, from slave to gladiator and people’s champion.
Paul Mescal’s Lucius, the nephew of Roman Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who was slain in the climax of the first film by former general Maximus (Russell Crowe), embarks on a path to the gladiatorial arena. His journey begins with rejecting the throne, leading to a life of solitude and war.
It’s far from dull, but ultimately hollow. And it’s a little sad — because it could have been something wildly brilliant had Ridley Scott embraced Nick Cave’s proposed sequel, in which Maximus, having died at the end of the first film, escapes purgatory and reincarnates through generations, fighting in wars across the 20th century and into the modern era.
#9 JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX 2024
2024 — the Year of Sequels (Venom, Inside Out, Beetlejuice, Deadpool, Planet of the Apes, Kung Fu Panda…). Loud and, for the most part, disappointing. Leading the charge was the second Joker, anticipated since 2019 like a cinematic second coming — quite literally, given the near-religious cult surrounding Todd Phillips’ anti-superhero epic.
The first Joker redefined the superhero genre, winning audiences not with superpowers but with raw human vulnerability and one man’s desperate dream to be seen — and loved. It earned two Oscars (Best Actor and Best Original Score), the Golden Lion at Venice, and over $1 billion globally, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film in history.
In the sequel, Joker’s story introduces his love interest, Harley Quinn, played by pop icon Lady Gaga. But gone is the original’s haunting ambiguity, tight structure, and signature madness.
Instead, what emerged is a hybrid of musical and courtroom drama that alienated mainstream audiences but thrilled Quentin Tarantino. He called Joker 2 — «Todd Phillips’ meta-statement, a failed film that succeeds as a mesmerizing, chaotic intellectual exercise financed by big studio money».
#10 THE APPRENTICE, 2024
The past year will be remembered not only for Donald Trump’s resounding triumph — and, consequently, the Democrats’ defeat — but also for a film about how a young, ambitious real estate businessman, Donald J. Trump, with the backing of infamous lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn, took control of Manhattan.
The Apprentice: The Rise of Trump hit theaters in the midst of the election campaign, clearly aiming to tarnish the already controversial reputation of the Republican Party’s leading candidate. Yet, it turned out to be an unexpectedly sharp, vivid, and tightly crafted portrait of a complicated, unpleasant, and endlessly fascinating figure — one who is poised to shape the world for years to come.
Photo Source: imdb.com
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