I’M RIGHT REVIEWS’ DEFINITIVE RANKING OF 2024 MOVIES – PART 1 (#44 – #36)

Five years after the first time I did this, I’m finally returning with a little review of every single 2024 movie (that I’ve seen; obviously I can’t be expected to see them all. As much as I’d love to)! This was, undoubtably, the best year for movies since 2019, so I’m very excited to share with you everything I loved this year – and everything that sickened me to my core, rattled my cinematic inner ear, and forced me to reconsider the things I love the most. But let’s not get too dramatic. Some housekeeping before we begin: I saw a lot of movies at TIFF in 2024 – in fact, they would make up more than a quarter of the films on this list were I to include them all. With that being the case, I’ve made the decision to still include every single TIFF film I saw – with the exception of Friendship – but replace each review with a link to my earlier TIFF review roundup post. My thoughts on the films haven’t changed significantly enough for me to write a whole new review and I don’t want to clutter my list any more than I already have. In terms of Friendship, I think it’s best to save it for my 2025 list since that’s when it’ll get a proper release. The other films are murkier since many of them won’t get a wide release at all, so I have fewer reservations about including them here. Anyway, enough chit-chat, let’s see what tickled my hatred bone the most last year!

Dishonourable mention: SUBSERVIENCE

There’s something about Subservience that’s so far removed from actual cinema that I don’t think I can bring myself to put it on this list. It wasn’t made to be watched, it was made to be leered at. It left me feeling gross and empty like I had just seen something so utterly, entirely not made for me that I can’t even process it. This could and should probably take the final spot on my list and yet…I can’t bring myself to dignify it with a number. It’s unratable not only due to its quality but due to its lack of an attempt at being even remotely watchable to someone who actually wants to think for at least a moment while watching a film. The bottom five movies on my list I would consider failures to attempt something. This is a success; I feel like the filmmakers and the studio made the movie they wanted to make and it just so happens that they wanted to make indigestible slop. I will not respect a piece of art that cares so little for its creative medium.

#44. EMILIA PEREZ

Some things haven’t been done before because they’re stupid ideas. A TV show where a deaf alligator steps on a rake over and over every episode? Hasn’t been done. A musical/crime drama/comedy (?)/telenovela/farce about a cartel boss trying to escape her life of merciless killing and transition to a woman with themes that include but are not limited to Mexican identity trans identity cartel politics misogyny capitalism love hate ethics motherhood redemption sex violence? Shockingly, hadn’t been done before 2024. Plenty of ink has been spilled about how this is regressive representation of trans people and the entire damn country of Mexico and I agree wholeheartedly with all of that. My question is simply…why? Why did anyone think this idea deserved to see the light of day? I think we only have the French to blame. The film is almost-but-not-quite winking at you, telling you that you shouldn’t take it seriously while at the same time begging to be taken seriously and I cannot wrap my head around such a bizarre clash of intentionality and purpose. The reception went from generously polarizing upon its release at various festivals to ice-cold (and it’s thankfully not received any post-backlash backlash to the backlash) but don’t we dare forget those who defended this movie out of the gate. Emilia Perez is that bad. It’s everything you’ve heard about it and so, so much worse. Do not watch it. Not even as a joke. This isn’t funny, it’s just upsetting and embarrassing and makes the whole industry look like a circus. I shudder at the thought of where we’d be without Gascon and Arnaud’s flagrant bigotry – this movie might’ve had a chance at cinema’s biggest award. Thank god for giving idiots a platform, I guess. No feet deserved self-inflicted gunshot wounds more than theirs.

#43. INCOMING

When you wanna shamelessly rip off another movie, you have to try harder than this. Especially since Booksmart succeeded at ripping off the same movie just a few years ago. Yes, this is yet another shameless Superbad wannabe. Take Superbad and remove all the funny jokes and replace them with lame Gen Z-pandering placeholder humour. Remove the charmingly dorky characters and replace them with obnoxious losers with zero personality. Replace Superbad’s unparalleled longevity with a film I can’t remember a damn thing about just a few months later. Oh wait! I do recall one thing, a girl shits all over the back of a car and it’s significantly more disgusting than it needed to be. I really wish I didn’t remember that. 

#42. ODDITY

I could’ve written this movie in Grade 8. There is nothing here that resembles what a grown-ass person could ever conceive of. The bloated, repetitive script takes tens of minutes to say what could’ve been said in a few brief lines. The performances are too grounded to be funny and too amateurish to be compelling. The twists – don’t get me started. Even the worst Saw movies have twists more clever and believable than any of the nonsense that happens in Oddity. There’s a sequence – the climax of the movie, in fact – involving a secret trap door that goes toe to toe with Emilia Perez’s most absurd moments and yet it’s somehow played entirely straight. I hate this movie and I hate that this is inexplicably a horror highlight of 2024 for some people. I will concede that the scene prior to the title drop is a fun little bit of tension-building featuring the only impressive actor in the film (Tadhg Murphy), which keeps Oddity just barely out of the running for worst of the year. 

#41. TIME CUT

Within the bizarrely saturated new subgenre of teen girl time travel* nostalgia slasher flick, Time Cut is the blandest. While films like Totally Killer are out here having tons of fun with their blast from the past premises, Time Cut seems to be going back in time out of obligation. The cast isn’t as charming as Happy Death Day or Freaky. The twists are lame and predictable. 2024 needed another entry and I suppose this is it. At least it’s a little better than Happy Death Day 2 U. 

* or adjacent gimmick (trapped in a campy slasher movie, Groundhog Day time loop, body swapping with serial killer Vince Vaughn, etc.)

#40. MEGALOPOLIS

How. The fuck. Did it take this long to get to Megalopolis?!?!?!?! Objectively, this probably rivals Emilia Perez for worst movie of the year. Like that movie, it’s everything everyone has said about it and more; it’s confusing, poorly acted, shoddily directed, etc. But Megalopolis has the almighty distinction of being absolutely fascinating. Movies this batshit ludicrous are a god forsaken god given miracle. Francis Ford Coppola vomited his soul onto the silver screen and his soul is the most baffling entity I ever done seen. There is not a single decision made that didn’t have me questioning Coppola’s sanity (or senility). This is the only film outside of my top 20 that I would ever consider watching again and something tells me I’ll be seeing Megalopolis upwards of ten times in my lifetime. I want to show my children Megalopolis once they’re old enough to laugh at Jon Voight saying “how do you like this boner I got?” Megalopolis flopping was devastating to me; people need to understand that this is our generation’s The Room except with a handful of A-C list actors and a legendary director. You owe it to yourselves to give this hideous creature the attention it – well, maybe not deserves, but demands nonetheless.

#39. PEDRO PARAMO (TIFF)

#38. A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

I came in knowing next to nothing about Bob Dylan and I feel like I now know even less. The film postures at a story worth telling; it postures at historical significance; it postures at meaningful relationships, and yet none of it is actually on the screen. I’d get more emotional insight into Dylan’s life from a Wikipedia summary. This glorified concert film leaves the audience to fill in the blanks of a story that it seems to assume I already know. Without the necessary context, it’s a collection of random scenes about an insufferable musician who passively coasts through life, rising to success as everyone around him expresses mild-to-great annoyance at his baffling mumbles. I have no doubt there’s more to the man himself – the movie just does a tremendously lacking job of showing me that I’m wrong. Instead it just revels in self-parodical self-importance and willful genericism. This is 2024’s Maestro but worse; at least Bradley Cooper cared too much. Mangold didn’t seem to care nearly enough. 

#37. DON’T CRY, BUTTERFLY (TIFF)

#36. BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE

Top Gun: Maverick needs to share its secrets with an industry that can’t figure out how to make a legacy sequel to save its life. Beetlejuice^2 is packed to the brim with ideas, not a single one of which is satisfyingly paid off – some aren’t paid off, period. The compulsory cast is back, the torch is passed, the references to the original are made, and then it just sort of…ends. Some fun but frustratingly meaningless sequences can’t redeem a film that can barely even pretend it had a reason to come back after so many years. Let’s leave the franchise be and not say his name three times, please. 

Stay tuned for the rest of the list releasing over the course of the next week or two!