By Original-Cin Staff

How was your year at the movies?

We Original-Cin writers have been thinking a lot about that lately, both in our capacity at this blog and, for many of us, as members of the Toronto Film Critics Association. There were some terrific titles this year — and of course, some stinkers, both flagged below — but here is an interesting factoid: according to Box Office Mojo, just one of the top 10 grossing titles worldwide made our best-of lists.

Indeed, animated sequels dominated, with Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, and Moana 2 earning the first, third, and fourth spots, respectively. (Deadpool & Wolverine and Dune: Part Two took spots two and five, respectively, with Dune fêted here by Karen Gordon).

There are many ways we can parse that information, chiefly that those top-ranking films had both legacy and all-ages appeal, huge marketing budgets, and played to more screens than, say, Cannes-winning critical darling Anora (number 88 at the worldwide box office) or even the summer blockbuster Twisters (number 14). But still. For those of us championing what we think are genuinely brilliant films, it’s deflating.

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s all the more reason year-end lists like this one are essential. Any knucklehead with a Mastercard can watch Moana 2 at the multiplex. But will it pack the emotional wallop of a small but searing documentary like Sugarcane or a sprawling epic like The Brutalist? Not a chance.

In a year like 2024, without obvious smashes like Barbenheimer or sweeping critical favourites like Nomadland, tips from those who’ve spent hours and hours in dark movie houses can yield meaningful rewards. We hope you unearth something here that really sparks your imagination, as they did ours. Thanks for reading.

Jim Slotek

Loved: My Old Ass. I loved Anora as much as anybody, but I’ve loved Aubrey Plaza’s performances forever. My Old Ass sees a late-thirties Plaza connect with her teenage self (newcomer Maisy Stella) via a combination of magic mushrooms and texting (who knew?). What starts as the old chestnut about what you’d tell your younger self soon evolves from a straight-up comedy into a crushingly emotional tale of grief, love, and the commitment to same, even when you know how it must end.

Loathed: Trap. I’ve never been bothered much by M. Night Shyamalan’s self-indulgent excesses. I even cut him slack for The Happening. But this story about a serial killer (Josh Hartnett) who takes his daughter to see a concert by a red-hot pop diva (Saleka Night) in an arena full of undercover cops is a blatant commercial for his daughter’s music career. Audiences need be warned that about half the movie is Saleka performing. The rest is a series of hard-to-swallow plot turns. One of those movies that opened without advance screenings, so as to keep word-of-mouth to a minimum.

Looking Forward To: Him. Brevity is the soul of Jordan Peele movie titles (Him, Get Out, Nope, Us — four movies, five words total). And though the mileage may vary, he hasn’t disappointed me yet. He produced this sports-horror movie, directed by Justin Tipping, about a young sports phenom (Tyriq Withers) who’s taken under the dark wing of the team’s retiring superstar (Marlon Wayans). Universal describes it as, “a blood-chilling journey into the inner sanctum of fame, power and the pursuit of excellence at any cost.” Shut up and take my money.

Liz Braun

Loved: The movies that teach history even if education in schools is on the wane. Sugarcane comes to mind, as does The Six Triple Eight — documentaries and features that may keep us all from a total slide into a new Dark Ages. May they continue.

Loathed: Superheroes, social media numbers replacing talent, wretched excess, sexism, ageism, etc. So much to dislike at the movies, so little time…

Looking Forward To: There’s a P.T. Anderson movie set for next year (allegedly titled The Battle of Baktan Cross), and further into the future, Martin Scorsese is directing a film version of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder; both films will star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Thom Ernst

Loved: For reasons I cannot comprehend, this might be the only place where David and Nathan Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset gets the love it deserves. A weird, irreverent comedy unlike anything you’ll see this or any other year. (Well, we did actually give it some love on arrival - ed).

Loathed: That’s too strong of a word, but if I were to use it, it would be reserved to describe my reaction to director Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, an erotic thriller that manages to be neither. (But it did yield the year’s funniest scathing review - ed).

Looking Forward To: In a year that promises Liam Neeson as bumbling detective Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun, an updated version of Wolf Man, director Danny Boyle’s return of the original running zombies with 28 Years Later, director Edgar Wright’s updated take on Stephen King’s The Running Man, and an untitled film from Paul Thomas Anderson, what’s not to look forward to?

Karen Gordon

Loved: So many. Anora, A Complete Unknown, A Real Pain, Sing Sing, Dune: Part 2, All We Imagine as Light and, from very early in 2024, the very sensual The Taste of Things.

Loathed: The End. I respect the audaciousness of the idea: a musical about an apocalypse, with a really committed dream cast. With respect to all involved, I wanted to leave after the first half hour (though I didn't).

Looking Forward To: Again, so many! New movies from Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Bong Joon-ho among them. A few are giving me that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell directed by Kogonada (After Yang). And look at the cast in Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later, the third in this zombie franchise: Cillian Murphy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes. And while we're talking about A-list casts and creature features, I'm excited for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! starring Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley due in the fall.

Kim Hughes

Loved: Anora and Will & Harper, both hilarious and heartbreaking with astute messages about the perils of snap judgements. Flow, possibly the best animated film I’ve seen, and a clarion call about climate change. And Green Border, illustrating the complexity and savagery of the global refugee crisis at a time when it is destined to worsen.

Loathed: Millers in Marriage, screened at TIFF. My expectations weren’t huge, but its notable ensemble cast in a film written, directed, and co-starring Edward Burns held promise. Nope. If there was an awfulness index, this would register off the scale.

Looking Forward To: Glimpses of writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! – a riff on 1935s Bride of Frankenstein set in 1930s-era Chicago and featuring Christian Bale as Frankenstein and Jessie Buckley as his reanimated murder-victim companion – look spectacular. Also anticipating Ex-Husbands, with Griffin Dunne as a midlife man whose life is melting down amid a swirl of broken familial relationships. Though it premiered in 2023, Ex-Husbands is just now getting wider release. Dunne is enormously underrated as an actor, and he’s pretty swell as a writer, too. His 2024 memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club, is highly recommended.

John Kirk

Loved: The Dead Don’t Hurt. Viggo Mortensen’s film was a gritty and realistic appreciation of the American Western expansion, and it showcased his many talents, here as director and actor. In our interview, he discussed his performance, script-writing influence, even his work on the score. Both a poignant examination of the historical period and a chance to see a craftsman at his best.

Loathed: The Crow. This 2024 redux gave us nothing but a shaky premise and a presentation of the supernatural that seemed more mistake than mystic. Bill Skarsgård isn’t convincing as Eric Draven, Danny Huston’s talents are wasted, and even the music doesn’t fit. Makes one pine for the 90s… and that’s saying something.

Looking Forward To: Fallout S2. Geeks and gamers alike cheered for this staggeringly accurate rendition of the Bethesda video game franchise from Prime Video. With the storyline of New Vegas hinted at the end of S1, we know the filming for S2 is expected to wrap mid-2025 with a release date to be announced then. If there’s anything I’m champing at the bit to see, it’s a continuation of the stories of Lucy, the Ghoul and the suits at Vault-Tec.

Chris Knight

Loved: U Are the Universe. This low-budget Belgian-Ukrainian science-fiction-comedy has no big names, seemingly no advertising budget, and no apparent release plans beyond having played TIFF and a handful of other festivals in various corners of the world. But remember that title for the day it shows up on a streaming service or at an art-house cinema. It’s a deeply human story touching on love, loss and loneliness on a cosmic scale, as an astronaut who thinks he’s the last human alive suddenly receives a message from another space-stranded soul.

Loathed: It’s easy to pile on a film that no one liked (hello, Venom: The Last Dance) so instead I’ll choose Talking. That’s not a movie; it’s a verb, and one that should not apply to audiences during the movie, please and thank you. Oh, and phones off.

Looking Forward To: More old movies in cinemas. In addition to all the new releases I watched on the big screen this year, I also revisited some favourites, including The Third Man, Moon, Return of the Jedi, Cube and The Shop Around the Corner. Those were all big screen repeat viewings, but I also saw Barry Lyndon for the first time, and The Wizard of Oz with musical accompaniment by Pink Floyd. And no, I was not high. There’s something magical about seeing something larger than life after so many TV-screen viewings, and something special about discovering an old movie the same way people did when it was new. I plan more of the same in 2025.

Liam Lacey

Loved: Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. In Radu Jude’s stinging black comedy, an exhausted production assistant (Illinca Manolache) drives around Budapest, auditioning victims of work-related injuries for a video by a multinational company promoting safety products, making outrageous TikTok videos. Deeper, funnier, and more despairing than Jude’s 2018 breakout political sex comedy, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Do Not Expect Too Much from The End of the World conveys the cynical mood of our grim political times and flips the bird to the dehumanizing gods of technology and the marketplace.

Loathed: Reagan. Bad movies can be fun but Reagan — starring Dennis Quaid as the B-movie actor who became president — offers no relief from its single-minded hagiographic mission. Jon Voigt co-stars as a KGB agent who narrates the Gipper’s life story in a bad Rooshin accent, describing the life of his archenemy, the freedom-loving, Christian family man and capitalist hero who beat the Commie threat. As well as crap history, Reagan is embarrassing filmmaking, with the clumsy de-aging process making both Quaid and Voigt look wooden dolls in a propaganda puppet theatre production.

Looking Forward To: Eephus. I’ve already had the good luck to see this wonderfully written ensemble baseball comedy, which premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight last May, and am eager for others to see it. Eephus takes place in the mid-nineties, over the course of one October afternoon into evening. The sole setting is a baseball field in a New England amateur baseball league, and the single action is the final game of the season between rival teams of middle-aged players before their stadium is demolished. First-time feature director Carson Lund captures the companionship, salty jock talk, and above all, the peculiarly existential appeal of baseball, a sport without a timer.

Bonnie Laufer

Loved: The Brutalist was captivating from beginning to end. Even at three-and-a-half hours (with an intermission) the time flew by. Riveting story, perfect performances, and beautifully shot. It's a film I can’t stop thinking about.

Loathed: I might be in the minority here, but I don’t think I have hated a film more than The Substance. Absolute stupidity and a complete waste of my time. I would have preferred enduring a facelift to watching this film.

Looking Forward To: I’m pretty excited for the new Superman movie. The just-released trailer has gotten me pumped. David Corenswet is breathing new life into our beloved hero, Rachel Brosnahan is a great choice as Lois Lane, and with director James Gunn at the helm, I think this one is going to be a winner. And who can resist Super Dog?! I’m sold!

The Year in Film: What We Loved, Loathed… and What We’re Looking Forward To in 2025

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