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Best Movies I Saw in 2024

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It’s Oscars weekend! Which can only mean one thing: I bloviate about the best movies I saw in 2024, regardless of whether they were released that year. Fun fun! This was another year in which I did not see anything in a movie theater. Very sad; I miss the filmgoing experience. Streaming services make it easy to stay home and watch flicks, but some movies made specifically for streaming services land with a thud. (Examples: “A Family Affair,” “The Instigators,” “Wolfs,” “The Family Plan,” “Me Time,” “Family Switch.” Basically anything with “Family” in the title.) I won’t get into the “why” of it, but to me, one reason is that many of us are going to watch whatever is new on Netflix/Prime/Max/Paramount Plus/Hulu/Peacock etc., quality be damned. “Hey honey, there’s a movie with Mark Wahlberg murdering people while a baby is strapped to his chest! It’s a comedy!”

Anyway, the plan for 2025 is to get me to a theater. Let’s do this! My lovely wife Jen doesn’t have the time or the interest, so hit me up, readers! I’ll buy the snacks. (Who are we kidding? I’ll smuggle in the snacks.) Okay, here’s my list:

  1. The Holdovers,” 2023 comedy/drama directed by Alexander Payne, starring Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa. I believe this film will hold up over time. It’s a less cloying “Dead Poets Society” (which I loved). Set in 1970, the film takes place over Christmas break at a New England boarding school, where classics teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti), whose life has not worked out how he had hoped, has to chaperone for the “holdovers,” students who can’t go home for the break. He’s joined by a cafeteria worker (Randolph), who is dealing with deep pain and loss, and troublemaking student Angus Tully (Sessa in his debut film performance). Like anything Alexander Payne makes, humor and heartbreak go hand in hand.

2. “My Old Ass,” 2024 comedy/drama directed by Megan Park, starring Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Aubrey Plaza, Maddy Ziegler, and Kerrice Brooks. This is very much a Gen Z film (not the only one on my list). It has a strange conceit as its premise: Stella (in her film debut) portrays Elliott, a teen on the cusp of leaving her small Canadian cranberry-farming community for college. She and her friends decide to camp out on an island and take mushrooms; while her friends (Ziegler and Brooks) have relatively expected hallucinogenic trips, Elliott is visited by the 39-year-old version of herself (Plaza), who gives her advice on how to change her life for better outcomes. What young Elliott does with the advice is where the problems lie. Low-key, moving, and funny; I look forward to more films written and directed by Park

3. “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces,” 2024 documentary directed by Morgan Neville, with interviews of Steve Martin, Martin Short, Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Gopnik, Tina Fey, Diane Keaton, and many others. You should read Martin’s memoir of his stand-up career, “Born Standing Up,” if this movie interests you. Part 1 of this doc focuses on what the book did: Martin’s childhood and how it shaped his meteoric rise to becoming the first comic to fill arenas, and his decision to walk away from stand-up at age 35. Part 2 is about him looking back on the next chapter of his life, up to his two-man revue with Short and their hit show “Only Murders in the Building.” For anyone who likes to see how a creative mind works.

4. “His Three Daughters,” 2023 drama directed by Azazel Jacobs, starring Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Rudy Galvan, Jovan Adepo, and Jay O. Sanders. A moving film about three women who come together as their father Vincent enters hospice care. Lyonne is particularly good as Rachel, the daughter who has taken care of Vincent in his apartment for the past several years. Tensions any family deals with are heightened as the sisters wrestle with guilt, resentment, and judgement over who has and has not pulled their weight, and what that means for them moving forward. Somehow, Jacobs finds humor in the darkest moments.

5. “A Good Person,” 2023 drama directed by Zach Braff, starring Florence Pugh, Morgan Freeman, Molly Shannon, Celeste O’Connor, and Chinaza Uche. I delayed seeing this film, having a general idea of the challenging subject matter. Pugh is Allison, a musician who causes the deaths of two people in a car accident. Subsequently, she struggles with drug and alcohol addiction while her mother (Shannon) alternately coddles and pushes her to get help. If you have any experience with addiction, you half cover your eyes through this movie, hoping that each scene is rock bottom but knowing there’s more to come. She seeks help in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, only to be reunited with Daniel (Freeman, in what could have been a cliched role but not in his hands), a family member of one of the car-accident victims. We think he’s being the bigger person by befriending her, until we hear his own back story. Braff wrote and directed a film that you want to talk about with someone after viewing.

6. “Somebody I Used to Know,” 2023 romantic comedy directed by Dave Franco, starring Alison Brie, Jay Ellis, Kiersey Clemons, and Danny Pudi. A cringeworthy comedy about going home again. Brie (who co-wrote the film with her husband Franco) is Ally, who returns to her hometown in Washington state to lick her wounds after her reality TV show gets canceled. While staying with her mom (Julie Hagerty in a scene-stealing role), she runs into her old flame, Sean (Ellis). She accidentally invites herself along to his engagement party, and then to his destination wedding, and finds herself competing with his bride Cassidy (Clemons). So many awkward moments! A great supporting cast (Pudi, Hayley Joel Osment, Amy Sedaris, Sam Richardson, Zoe Chao). It’s “My Best Friend’s Wedding” with nudity and punk music.

7. “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things,” 2021 romance directed by Ian Samuels, starring Kyle Allen, Kathryn Newton, and Jermaine Harris. This film follows Mark (Allen), who is caught in a time loop a la “Groundhog Day,” repeating the same day of high school over and over. He perfects the day, hoping that this will jolt him out of the loop, to no avail. He eventually notices that a girl, Margaret (Newton), is suffering from the same fate, and they decide to make out a map of the best little things happening in their lives. As they come closer to solving the science of getting back to normal, they have to answer the question: Is what lies in the future actually better than being stuck in a perfect day forever?

8. “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” 2022 musical biopic directed by Eric Appel, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Toby Huss, Rainn Wilson, and Julianne Nicholson. I have to confess I was a Weird Al fan back in the day (by which I mean the 1980s because I am that old). This film is the only logical way to do a Weird Al biography: a bizarro, untethered from reality parody of Yankovic, with Radcliffe playing an Al whose father forbids him from playing the accordian and hanging out with polka lovers, and who dates Madonna, murders Pablo Escobar, and is upset because Michael Jackon’s song “Beat It” was actually a parody of Al’s “Eat It.” Hilarious and stupid.

9. “When You Finish Saving the World,” 2022 drama directed by Jesse Eisenberg, starring Julianne Moore, Finn Wolfhard, Jay O. Sanders, and Billy Bryk. Eisenberg is generating awards-show praise for his “A Real Pain,” and if you like that, you should check out his directorial debut. Wolfhard plays Ziggy, an Indiana teen who lives in the same house with his parents (Moore and Sanders), but they have no idea what he does with his time (mostly YouTubing music to an increasingly larger following). Ziggy is a loner at school. His mom, Evelyn (Moore), runs a domestic abuse shelter and develops a surrogate-son relationship with a resident to replace the estrangement of the son she actually has.

10. “Bottoms,” 2023 comedy directed by Emma Seligman, starring Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Kaia Gerber, Marshawn Lynch, and Ruby Cruz. This Gen Z over-the-top satire of high school life for queer kids follows Edebiri and Sennott as Josie and PJ trying to navigate a school that worships the football team and marginalizes anyone who is different. The principal and teachers are openly hostile to the girls (remember, this is a comedy), and Mr. G (Lynch, the retired football player) agrees to be the faculty sponsor for their fight club, which is actually just a chance for them to get physical with other girls. Josie and PJ end up trying to save the day when their football team faces their biggest rival. I had no idea where this movie was going. And that’s a good thing.

Films that just missed the cut: “I Am Chris Farley,” “Flora and Son,” “Love at First Sight,” “Theater Camp,” “Raymond & Ray,” “Meet Cute.”

Movies, Oscars

The Best Films I Saw in 2023

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I know it’s March, and I know I usually do some end-of-year posts, but things got a little away from me this winter (does the word “hibernation” mean anything to you? It does to me). Also, I was having tech problems with my computer and my website, so bear with me if anything goes off the rails. So, let’s finally get down to summing up my 2023 film faves.

Quick reminder: these are the best movies I saw in 2023, not Oscar predictions. Some were released in 2023, some were from the previous century (that makes it sound so long ago, but remember that I am also from the previous century), and some were about the early days of Hollywood (looking at you, “Babylon”). Here goes:

  1. Rosaline,” 2022 comedy/drama directed by Karen Maine starring Kaitlyn Dever, Kyle Allen, Sean Teale, Isabela Merced, and Minnie Driver. This comedy is built around a minor character from Shakespeare’s original play: Rosaline was a cousin of Juliet’s to whom Romeo was to wed, but instead he fell for Juliet. So the premise here is, Juliet asks her cousin to help her pair up with Romeo, so Rosaline pretends to help but actually wants to do everything she can to thwart Romeo and Juliet’s romance (because she thinks she’s Romeo’s true love). It’s a modern take with modern dialogue. No great revelations here, besides “be careful what you wish for” and “love blooms where you least expect it.”

2. “The Lunchbox,” 2013 drama/romance directed by Ritesh Batra starring Nimrat Kaur, Irrfan Khan, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. This Indian film takes place in Mumbai, where a lonely housewife attempts to spice up her marriage by cooking amazing lunches for her husband. A little cultural backstory is needed: thousands of home-packed lunches are delivered by bicycle, motorbike, and train across the city by various couriers. Somehow, the housewife’s meal gets misdirected day after day to a different man (the late, great Khan as Saajan), and a note-passing relationship ensues. Meanwhile, widowed soon-to-retire Saajan is training a co-worker to replace him, and his initial hesitation to get closer to him or anyone undergoes a change because of his budding pen-pal romance. This was a bittersweet look at how someone recovers from grief and gets on with life.

3. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” 2018 documentary directed by Morgan Neville. Neville examines the life of Fred Rogers and his long-running PBS children’s TV program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. If you grew up watching the show or had children who did, Rogers’ kindness and big heart in real life won’t surprise you. It’s a fascinating look at Rogers’ upbringing, his philosophy on producing valuable programming for children, his outlook on life, and his legacy. Years ago, I read a memoir called I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers, by Tim Madigan. This doc reinforces what Madigan had to say about Mr. Rogers, which was that you really need to see this film or read that book to see what it means to be a decent human being and an example for all of us.

4. “Love, Gilda,” 2018 documentary directed by Lisa Dapolito. Built around the audiotapes and diary of Gilda Radner, this doc explores the too-short life of one of the all-time greats from “Saturday Night Live.” Radner was an original cast member whose long struggles with an eating disorder and then with ovarian cancer she shared publicly at a time when many did not. I remember her death (at age 42 in 1989) as a shock; what I had forgotten until I saw this doc was how off-the-wall she was on SNL and so willing to get uncomfortable for a laugh.

5. “Dunkirk,” 2017 war film directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Harry Styles, Fionn Whitehead, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Barry Keoghan, Tom Hardy, and Kenneth Branagh. There’s another big-budget Nolan film that is dominating Oscar talk this year (hint: it starts with an “O” and ends with a “ppenheimer”). This war movie focuses on the rescue operation on the beaches of Dunkirk in May 1940, when German troops pinned Allied troops. Every vessel that could float was called to service to evacuate around 330,000 Allied soldiers. Styles is particularly good as a soldier who is just trying to do what it takes to survive.

6. “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret,” 2023 comedy/drama directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, starring Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, Elle Graham, Benny Safdie, Kathy Bates, and Echo Kellum. Based on Judy Blume’s beloved young adult novel, they don’t make many movies like this anymore, meaning ones that deal with big topics (religion, race, girlhood) in a loving way. Would it help to read Blume’s book before seeing this? Not necessary. But for those of us GenXers who grew up with Blume, this felt like a time machine back to our childhoods. Compare to the next movie on this list, a modern take on similar topics.

7. “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” 2023 comedy/drama directed by Sammi Cohen, starring Adam Sandler, Sunny Sandler, Dylan Hoffman, Sadie Sandler, Samantha Lorraine, Jackie Sandler, Idina Menzel, and Sarah Sherman. Similar to the previous film on this list, this is a coming-of-age story of a girl named Stacy (Sunny Sandler, playing daughter to real-life dad Adam and sister to real-life sister Sadie) struggling with boy problems, FOMO, and the awkward two-step of one foot in childhood and one in adulthood. Loved how this movie captured the diversity that exists in modern Judaism and the challenges young kids face when pressured to celebrate their bat and bar mitzvahs with over-the-top parties. Adam is particularly relatable as a dad who can’t seem to tune into the right frequency with his kids, and Sherman is hilarious as the cool, young rabbi.

8. “No Hard Feelings,” 2023 comedy directed by Gene Stupnitsky, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales, and Matthew Broderick. This one gave me the biggest laughs in 2023. Lawrence portrays Maddie, a thirtysomething bartender/Uber driver in the Hamptons who, through her own bad decisions, finds herself without a car or a job and at risk of losing her childhood home. She gets hired by wealthy parents to “date” their 19-year-old son Percy (Feldman) in exchange for a car, in the hopes of giving Percy experience before he heads off to college. So cringe, as the young folks say. I think people are afraid to make raunchy movies like this for fear of offending; thank goodness Stupnitsky and Lawrence did because (even though it’s not for everyone) I still laugh thinking of certain scenes. This one stayed with me, in a good way.

9. “Wham!,” 2023 documentary directed by Chris Smith. Talk about being the perfect audience for a movie: When I was 13 years old, my siblings and I went to see the massively successful but shortlived pop duo Wham! in concert on their first and what turned out to be only US tour. Imagine my shock when I wore the concert T-shirt to high school my freshman year only to find out it wasn’t cool to be a Wham! fan. That’s a story for another blog post. Similar to the Radner doc on this list, much of the film uses voiceover from the late George Michael and his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley to tell the story of their quick rise to fame from danceclubs in the UK to massive worldwide success, and then their just as quick disbanding after just 5 years and 3 studio albums. This film focuses mostly on that time and not Michael’s solo career. Much of the story is in Michael’s struggles with self-confidence, weight, and the challenge of when and if he should be open about his sexuality. I went back in time with this film.

10. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” 2022 action/comedy directed by Tom Gormican, starring Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Lily Mo Sheen, Ike Barinholtz, and Tiffany Haddish. Bizarre film about an actor named Nicolas Cage played by Cage who is taunted by his younger, more successful self (also played by Cage with help of CGI to make him younger). When his film career stalls, Cage agrees to take a large sum of money to hang out with a billionaire in Majorca (Pascal). The plot turns ever more ludicrous as the CIA extorts Cage to spy on Pascal’s character, Javi, convinced that he is an arms dealer. Javi also has Nic reading a script he wrote for an action film involving drugs, arms, and kidnapping, and it all turns very meta. Highlights include Cage playing a heightened version of himself (if that’s possible) and an argument over the greatness of the film “Paddington 2.” It’s all too hard to explain.

Movies that just missed the cut: “Hustle,” “Ghosted,” “Babylon,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Machine,” “Feast of the Seven Fishes.”