Top 10 movies of 2024: From Anora to The Wild Robot we list the cream of the crop

It was a strange year in the world of movies, hampered by the hangover of the 2023 Hollywood writers and actors strikes.

There were a handful of big blockbusters that made more money than expected (Deadpool & Wolverine, Inside Out 2, Moana 2), that had studios and exhibitors breathe sighs of relief after a sluggish start to the year when other event movies (The Fall Guy, Furiosa) failed to fire with audiences.

But it’s still the case that viewers conditioned to stay home and stream, didn’t show up unless there was a splashy tent-pole title, leaving cinephiles and loyal movie lovers to pick up the slack.

While it wasn’t the most robust year of offerings, those that impressed still gave audiences a reason to show up, and stride out at the end either pepped, emotional or distressed.

Just a note: This list comprises only the films released in cinemas or on a streaming platform in Australia between January 1 and December 31 this year. That means some of the films on this list are leftovers from the previous awards season while other buzzy titles (Conclave, Sing Sing) that are making the best of lists in international publications may not have been released here yet, and might be included in the 2025 list.

ANORA

Director: Sean BakerStars: Mikey Madison, Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn

There’s a version of Anora in which it is a Cinderella-esque story about a stripper who hooks up with the son of a Russian oligarch, they elope and it all ends with a happily ever after.

That’s Anora’s first act, an intoxicating love story that sets up why she really believes in him when, later, she and a goon squad of her groom’s parents chase the man-child all over New York as he flees his responsibilities.

Anora is a screwball comedy with perfect timing, that dragoons you along for a madcap, kaleidoscopic ride. But at its heart is this character of Ani, seemingly tough but with a soft heart who just wants to believe in a fairytale.

THE WILD ROBOT

Director: Chris SandersStars: Voice talents of Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal and Kit Connor

When it comes to the warm-and-fuzzies, The Wild Robot is overflowing with it. Whether it’s parents relating big-time to its story or everyone delighting in its, ironically, humanist characters, it’s making weeping messes out of both kids and adults, but mostly the grown-ups.

The central figure is Roz, a helper robot who has washed up on a deserted island and tasks herself with raising an orphaned duckling. The fish-out-of-water plot is a classic but its sorcery is in crafting this story about how we can go against our natures to be better versions of ourselves.

Its vivid animation, evocative score and wonderful voice performances have made The Wild Robot a favourite among many struck by its emotional maturity.

AMERICAN FICTION

Director: Cord JeffersonStars: Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Erika Alexander

Anchored by a tour de force performance from actor Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction is a confident and playful film that delights in exploring thorny concepts through humour and irreverence. It’s not afraid to undercut its own lead character when the story calls for it.

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison considers himself to be a serious writer who disdains popular fiction, especially the kind that is, allegedly, playing into reductive black stereotypes to pander to a white readership.

To prove a point, he writes a book deploying exactly those tropes, and then becomes mired in a literary hoax when it becomes a massive hit.

THE HOLDOVERS

Director: Alexander PayneStars: Paul Giamatti, DaVine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa

History teacher Paul Hunham doesn’t like the kids in his class at the fancy boarding school at which he teaches. He refers to them as reprobates, fetid layabouts and hormonal vulgarians. He has quite the way with words.

Disconnected from people, the last thing he wanted was to be responsible for students who had nowhere else to go during the Christmas break, but time with Angus, whose mother decided to go on holidays without him to the Caribbean, is exactly what they both needed to realise they need people.

The Holdovers balances its sentimentality with an acerbic wit in colouring this quirky, small community of lonely souls, powered by career-best performances from Giamatti and Randolph. The latter won the Oscar for best supporting actress.

HIS THREE DAUGHTERS

Director: Azazel JacobsStars: Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon

There’s always a risk with “talky” movies set primarily in one place that it comes off as too stagey, as if you’re watching a play. But with His Three Daughters, any such reservations matters not because the performances from its lead cast are so entrancing that any quibbles melt away.

Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon are three sisters with strained relationships to each other who have gathered at their dad’s New York apartment as he’s given days to live. The tensions shift quickly from simmering to hostile as a lifetime of resentments come to the fore.

Each character is fully rendered and complex and the three actors are extraordinarily precise in their deeply compassionate performances.

ZONE OF INTEREST

Director: Jonathan Glazer Stars: Christian Friedel, Sandra Huller

This British, German-language film is a formalist experiment, deliberately filmed at a distance to use detachment as a way to explore the banality of atrocities. For a movie set super-super-adjacent to the Holocaust, it’s not interested in coddling you by giving you cinematic cues such grand monologues or sweeping music to feel horrified, scared or emotional.

The film is centred on Rudolf Hoss, the nazi commandant of Auschwitz and how he goes about with his life outside out of the walls of the concentration camp. There, his family lives what looks to be a idyllic pastoral life while on other side, the mechanical sounds of the ovens and the plumes of smoke can be seen and heard.

Glazer’s film takes a step back by forcing audiences to engage with the subject in a way that gives them no shortcuts and no directions. That period of human history is exactly that, human. The worst part of humanity is not the extraordinary nature of hate, but how ordinary and everyday it can be.

CIVIL WAR

Director: Alex GarlandStars: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson

In Alex Garland’s Civil War, there is no glory in battle. The British filmmaker’s drama is a provocation, a warning of the end result of extreme division. There are no heroes with guns, only those with cameras and a pen.

In an alternate/near future, the US is at war with itself, but in the dying days of the dictatorial president’s cling to power, four journalists are determined to travel to Washington DC to record his story. The journey is fraught with danger.

Garland has always been interested in big ideas and social anxieties, and Civil War is full of them. On a technical level, its final act fight is a visceral gut punch, a masterpiece of sound, action and pacing that allows for no reprieve or emotional catharsis.

ANATOMY OF A FALL

Director: Justine TrietStars: Sandra Huller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner

A tightly crafted courtroom drama about a successful writer accused of murder when her husband is found dead at the foot of their isolated chalet in the Alps, Anatomy of a Fall has the propulsion of a mystery.

But the question of whether he fell or was pushed is less interesting than the film’s dissection of a marriage in crisis.

Anatomy of a Fall is interested in construction and storytelling, and how we frame the truths and mistruths of our lives, perhaps even to ourselves, and how recollections can be manipulated to put forward one version.

Sandra Huller is spectacular as the woman at the centre, a performance that pulses with righteous fury just beneath the surface.

MY OLD ASS

Director: Megan ParkStars: Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza

My Old Ass starts with a fun premise: 18-year-old Elliott trips out on mushrooms on her birthday and manifests a meeting with her 39-year-old future self who has some advice. Some of the nuggets seem banal (be nice to your mum, wear your retainer) but there was also this, “Stay away from anyone named Chad”.

The film never explains the mechanics of its magical realism conceit but it’s only a device to explore what it’s really interested in, which is the coming-of-age moment of between high school and university, that time when you’re eager to grow up but not quite ready to leave childhood behind.

My Old Ass is warm, funny and thematically mature, and has the heart and smarts of the best films of its genre, including the likes of Lady Bird, Eighth Grade and Looking for Alibrandi.

ROBOT DREAMS

A beautifully animated film with restraint and grace, Robot Dreams is a pleasant amble along the boardwalk, a gem of a movie about friendship and companionship – and was made for adults with childlike optimism in their hearts.

Set in 1980s New York, the film’s protagonist is Dog, one character in a world of anthropomorphic animals. Dog orders a robot friend in the mail and the two bond in this slightly grimy but vibrant world of ghetto blasters, brick mobile phones and rollerskaters. Robot feels joy and sadness, and he dreams not of electric sheep but Dog.

The film is dialogue-free and draws on the wondrous traditions of silent comedy masters Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati, and even without speech, its heart is always open. Absolutely charming.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

A Real Pain, A Different Man, Kneecap, Kinds of Kindness, Twisters, Hit Man, Dune: Part Two, How to Have Sex, All of Us Are Strangers