Well, here we are approaching the end of 2024. That means it is time for my annual wrap up. This year I am covering my top ten movies of the year, along with some honourable mentions. I’m also going to cover some of my favourite documentary and TV shows of the year. Part two will continue my top ten, suggest a few overlooked movies worth a second chance and have a look at the years box office. Hopefully between all that, I’ll give you a few suggestions that may have passed you by.

My Top Ten (Part One)

Honorable mentions first. Let’s start with the body horror “The Substance“. A film that tries to be more artistic than it needed to be, but ultimately unique and very well done. “Strange Darlings” is another horror worthy of mention. The psychological psycho movie relies a bit too much on it’s twist and the chopped up timeline, but is well acted and brutal. More of the fun and low budget side is the prog-rock comedy horror “Destroy All Neighbors“. Ridiculous, but had me in stitches, more for the prog-rock parody than the Troma style horror.

2024 gave us a good amount of solid popcorn action movies too. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” for example is easily the best American Godzilla movie. They learned from the mistakes of the previous movies in the franchise and finally nailed the formula. Also worth mentioning are “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes“, Guy Ritchie’s “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” and “The Beekeeper“. All flawed, but fun movies, with plenty of action and well worth a watch. Now on to the top ten!

#10 Saturday Night

First on my list is the high paced, frantic comedy “Saturday Night”. Full review can be found HERE. Despite never actually having watched the show, I know many of the more famous sketches and am a big fan of a lot of the comedians that made their name on the show. So while I wasn’t viewing this as a fan, I had a lot of interest and it didn’t fail to entertain. It is both a fascinating look behind the scenes of one of the most important comedy shows of all time and funny in its own right. The highlight for me was the performances of the actors playing the roles of these very famous characters. They were all pretty much nailed and that earned this a 6.5/10

#9 Arthur The King

Review (From a roundup) HERE. Another movie I wasn’t expecting to land in the top ten, but at the same time it is a heart warming story with a dog. It’s an easy sell to most people. It’s also very well made and since it’s based on a truly story, all the more compelling. The movie has a number of random changes from the true story that inspired it. That would be fine, but a lot of the changes didn’t really add anything, so just seem strange. Of course until you look up the true story, you wouldn’t even know that. If you want a compelling tearjerker, check this out. 6.5/10.

#8 The Fall Guy

I still don’t know what made anyone think rebooting the 80’s TV series “The Fall Guy” as a comedy action movie in 2024 was a good idea. However, it turns out it actually was a good idea! Ryan Gosling nailed the role and the movie became both a fun action movie and a fairly heartfelt tribute to movie stunt men. They even dropped in a cameo from Lee Majors and Heather Thomas (Stars of the old show). This movie reminds me of the Miama Vice one (Which did a similar end of movie cameo for the originals). Good, entertaining, but probably will be forgotten in a few years if they don’t follow it up. 6.5/10.

#7 Dune: Part Two

Full review HERE. Now this is a movie I did expect to be on this list. What is a surprise is that it didn’t make the top five. But there I had a lot of issues with this movie, especially in the area of the characters and the emotional connection to the events. I felt very detached as I watched this movie and yet the spectacle is certainly impressive. Villeneuve continues to be a mixed bag for me and not the infallible auteur some seem to think he is. I will never consider his Blade Runner sequel a good movie and a lot of the issues with that he had here too. That said, this is still my sixth favourite movie of the year. No one can say that Villeneuve is a bad director, I just disagree on how good he is. This was a 6.5/10 for me.

#6 Juror #2

Clint Eastwoods final (Probably) movie as a director is a court room drama with a twist of neo-noir. This hit theatres recently, but had a very short run (Blatantly to qualify for Oscar consideration) and is already on streaming. Court room dramas are strange beast, on the surface you expect them to be boring but once they get rolling they are among the most compelling dramas you can watch. This particular court room drama is very much in the style of “Twelve Angry Men”, which means a lot of the film is twelve strangers in a room talking. This is the kind of thing that is difficult to pull off unless you have good actors, a good script and a good director. No worries here though. I only just saw this one so there may be a full review at some point. Since I don’t have a review, let’s call this a very strong 6.5/10.

Documentaries

There have been a number of interesting documentaries released this year and I have to give a shout out to a couple. “Jim Henson Idea Man” was both interesting and emotional. We all love the muppets and if you grew up any time before the late 90’s you were probably impacted by at least one of his creations. Maybe The Dark Crystal, maybe Labyrinth, Maybe the Muppets. This is a pretty thorough documentary and I felt like you really get to know the man behind the creations. Definitely worth checking out.

One documentary though ended up an even more emotional journey and that is “Super/Man“. The Christopher Reeves documentary is focused mostly on his life after he became paralysed, but also covers his ground breaking role as Superman in. It is a reminder that while we generally separate the art from the artist, every now and then an actor comes along that so totally embodies the character they are playing it becomes impossible to separate the two.

TV Shows

On the TV side I have less recommendations as I don’t watch as much TV as I do movies. I have continued to thoroughly enjoy “Cobra Kai” in its final season. If you still haven’t explored this show, now is the perfect time. This is how you do a legacy sequel. Another favourite returning in 2024 was Sylvester Stalone’s “Tulsa King“. The shows second season provided both a good stand alone arc and a satisfying continuation of the story lines from season one. The year also saw the third season of the horror/mystery series “From” and the show continues to be good while offering something that looks very much like momentum and direction. I feel like we are going somewhere here, but then I’ve been fooled before (i.e. “Lost”)

One new show I enjoyed this year was the Rome based “Those About to Die“. It’s not the masterpiece that “Rome” was, it doesn’t have as much intrigue as “I Claudius” and it’s not as action filled as “Spartacus: Blood and Sand”. Instead it lands somewhere in between. What makes the season work is the immensely talented Iwan Rheon. A show I was more anxious about than excited was “Fallout“. However, the end result was actually a lot of fun and true to at least the Bethesda versions of the game (Which means, the lore is somewhat flexible). There’s plenty you could pick apart here, but they did pretty much nail the mix of grim reality, grey morality, retro 50’s sci-fi and outright comedy the franchise is known for.

Best TV Show of the Year

As I mentioned, I don’t watch anywhere near as much TV as I do movies. So before I get on to my favourite show of the year, I want to mention a few that are on my list to watch and that my friends and family have loved. First up is the Samurai Epic “Shōgun“. A new adaptation of the 1975 novel by the same name by James Clavell. Another popular show is Guy Ritchies “The Gentlemen“. I was a fan of the movie it follows on from and it seems the like series is close to that in quality. A few more names I’ve heard a lot include: “The Day of the Jackal“, “Masters of the Air” and “Three Body Problem“.

The best TV series I have seen this year is easily “The Penguin“. The reaction to the movie “The Batman” was lukewarm at best, but everyone did pretty much agree that Collin Farrell was great as The Penguin in his all too short cameo. The idea of a spin off series from that based on Penguin seemed like a bad idea with an outside chance of being great. Well, they landed on that outside chance! Farrell of course was great, but so is his supporting cast and the story itself. What stands out, is this is not yet another villain being turned into an anti-hero. Penguin is definitely a bad guy.

End of Part One

That’s it for part one. I’ll be back with my top five movies of 2024 and box office breakdown in a few days.