It’s time to once again go over the best of worse movies of the past year. This year I will be doing it a bit different, instead of assigning a rank to each movie I will divide them into a few categories from worst to best. Keep in mind that these are my personal opinions, it’s totally fine if you liked a movie I hated and vice versa.
Truly awful
Not sure this category will be here every year but it’s here this year and it only has one movie in it!
Kinds of Kindness
This is more like three movies in one. You see the same actors act out three different stories with loosely connected themes between them, each story weirder than the last. I’m not sure what point of this movie was, maybe it went completely over my head but for large parts of it I was extremely bored. I will add the trailer here but I don’t think it gives you any idea of what the movie is about so keep that in mind if you are going to see it.
Would not see again
Argylle
It has its moments of being just the kind of fun you are probably looking for in a movie like this but as the movie goes on you start to see there are just too many plot twists. Felt like they could have had something if they shortened it and made the story tighter, now I feel like you lose interest after a while. It’s also not helped by so so acting and special effects.
Civil War
An interesting idea for a story that I don’t think would have been made during any other time of the existence of the United States, except during the 1860s of course if film had been invented. If you haven’t figured it out yet it’s about a civil war in the United States in modern times.
I feel the story falls pretty flat though. It never really has time to develop enough to get really interesting. This might have done better as a TV series where you can get more time to develop a story. It’s also not helped by the extremely cliche ending, I’m sure you can guess it not that long into the movie.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Think a lot of people will disagree with me on this one. My problem with this movie is that I’m not that into super hero movies and I haven’t really seen most Marvel movies. I have seen X-Men so I’m very familiar with Wolverine and I have seen the previous Deadpool movies. But anything that didn’t reference those movies went well over my head which at times made this movie quite boring to watch. I’m sure that wasn’t the case for all of you that understood all the references.
Megalopolis
It’s an interesting idea, what would present day New York look if the Roman empire had persisted and continued to spread. But it mostly just gets weird. I heard Francis Ford Coppola spent over 40 years making this movie and I feel like this is what you get when you work on something for too long.
I happened to see this right after seeing the first Gladiator for the first time and it really made me compare the two since they are both about power struggles in the Roman empire. But Megalopolis is just a weird mess compared to the focused and well made Gladiator.
Visually though Megalopolis is quite stunning and it was very nice seeing it in IMAX.
Solid
Hammarskjöld
Only Swedish movie on this list. Most of the movie is in English though so it works fine even if you don’t like subtitles.
Based on the true story about Dag Hammarskjöld, the world famous Swedish diplomat, of how he as head of the UN was killed while trying to negotiate a cease-fire between United Nations Operation in the Congo forces and Katangese troops under Moise Tshombe.
I’m usually not a fan of Mikael Persbrandt that portraits Dag Hammarskjöld but in this instance he does an excellent job a long with all the other actors. The movie also does a good job of focusing on what is important to the story which I was worried about when there is so much complicated political context in this case.
If you want to know more after watching this I would recommend you watch this episode of the documentary Air Crash Investigation that deal with the crash of Dag Hammarskjölds plane: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4831048/
Fly Me to the Moon
Was a bit worried since it’s labeled as a romantic comedy but I’m happy to report that the romance is kept at a minimum while the comedy is quite good. My main drive to see this movie though is the space angle. I really liked how they incorporated real space events with fictional parts. If you are into space and don’t take it dead serious at all time then I think you would enjoy this movie.
Scarlett Johansson pretty much outshines everyone in this movie with her acting. Channing Tatum gives an okay effort and does what the role requires of him but the contrast between them is quite stark.
Dune: Part Two
This is probably a lot of peoples favorite movie of the year but I feel like it falls short of the first one. My main gripe is that it strays very far into fantasy/religious themes which just isn’t my thing. So I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, more just not my thing.
It’s a very well made movie and it looked amazing in IMAX!
Gladiator II
Considering how good the first one is this one has a lot to live up to. Unfortunately it can’t really make it anywhere near the first. For large parts of the movie it feels like the first one all over again.
I just have to mention the awful CGI also, I don’t understand how CGI can look that bad in 2024. Was the problem time crunch to get it out in time?
Generally the acting is very good, especially Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal. I really liked the ending also, it really tied up the loose ends from the first one.
Good
The Zone of Interest
A very slow and chilling movie showing the good life in the shadow of Auschwitz. While most movies/documentaries portray what happened to the victims of the concentration camps this shows the life on the other side of the wall, how the people running Auschwitz lived. But from time to time you get reminders of what is going on right besides them, which they either turn a blind eye to or directly enable.
So basically not a very fun movie but a very good one.
Poor Things
A very weird film which I’m not quite sure how to summarize. I also don’t want to say too much because I think the film is better if you go in blind. It’s quite interesting and at times very funny. It’s exceptionally well played by all the actors and the visual style of it is quite stunning and different.
The Fall Guy
Funny, well played, good production value. Just a good solid movie that you should see.
Hit Man
Was pleasantly surprised by this movie. It’s quite funny, smart and well acted. Perfect if you are looking for something funny to pick you up!
Not sure what to say
Here we do a bit of a left turn in order to talk about Joker: Folie À Deux. This movie is at times truly great and at other times just awful. The acting of Joaquin Phoenix is really the best I’ve seen since probably his performance in the first Joker movie. He is even better in this one which I didn’t think was possible. But after the first movie I don’t think anyone expected a musical, including me. There are times when this is working very well within the context of the movie and at other times it falls flat and just become weird.
Lady Gagas performance as an actor is very good as well. But it feels like Lady Gaga is carrying the singing parts of the movie and Joaquin Phoenix is carrying the acting. I also feel like the character of Lee (Lady Gaga) didn’t really develop into anything, she was mostly kept there for the musical portions.
Mostly I was disappointed in the ending. I knew they had to tie this back into Batman somehow cause it didn’t make any sense how this could be the Joker that fought Batman considering Joaquins age but considering how they did it I would have preferred they had just left that plot hole.
Best of the year
I feel like this year was a bit of a disappointment in terms of really good movies. There were a lot of movies with high expectations, like Joker 2, but none of them lived up to the hype. So for me there isn’t really a best movie of the year. Instead I will call this an honorable mention since I did actually see it in the cinema during 2024.
Gladiator
I managed to avoid this movie (without trying) until this year so I went in knowing pretty much nothing about it and boy was I pleasantly surprised!
Everything in this movie is top notch, the acting, story, production value. If I have any criticism is that the dream sequences were a bit weird but it’s not really a big deal.
As in most movies he’s in Joaquin Phoenix gives a superb performance. All the other actors are excellent as well and still he manages to stand out from them.
That is it, lets hope for a better year for movies in 2025!