The Best Movies of 2024 (So Far)

Halfway through this year of cinema, a review – in alphabetical order – of the feature films that most excited us in theaters.

The Beauty of Gaza by Yolande Zauberman

A street in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. A sidewalk, silhouettes, lights piercing the warm night. Behind the camera, Yolande Zauberman makes her way through this darkened darkness. She is looking for the Beauty of Gaza, a trans woman who left the Strip of the same name to join these bits of asphalt. But the Beauty eludes her, remains untraceable. Through this absence, Zauberman reveals other presences, trans prostitutes. They share pieces of chaotic lives and prove that grace can lodge in the darkest corners of the world to make them shine from within.

The beast by Bertrand Bonello

This is awesome Beast. A play of mirrors between eras, hatreds and desires, fuel for a science fiction engine that is not afraid to take the risk of being old-fashioned with its story of past lives to explore and clean up in a science fiction Paris that evokes the Forum des Halles after the last metro… If Bonello is still such an overpowering filmmaker (the club scenes are always crazy, the heartbreaking playlist), The Beast is in reality a fascinating study of its actors (Léa Seydoux and George MacKay), of the variation of their bodies, against a trompe-l'oeil backdrop (the green screens, the fake California…). Until an inevitable final heartbreak. It's a bit like if Hideo Kojima had remade The Jetty. That's to tell you how great it is.

Bis Repetita by Emilie Noblet

Latin high school students who are completely useless at Latin go to Italy to take part in a competition of excellence that they absolutely cannot afford to lose, in the company of their resigned teacher (Louise Bourgoin, cooler than ever) and a very annoying khâgneux (Xavier Lacaille, the funny intellectual of Parliament)… Emilie Noblet succeeds in making a very endearing feel-good movie, often hilarious, mixing a comedy of teachers, an initiatory story and a sensitive portrait of a thirty-something out of step, all sprinkled with reflections (never boring or professorial) on the elitism or the malaise of teachers. But if we like this film so much, it is above all because it explodes on the big screen the insane talent of Xavier Lacaille, a bespectacled comedy beast, slapstick heir to Mathieu Amalric and performer of one of the best covers of Céline Dion ever heard.

Borgo by Stéphane Demoustier

Inspired by a news story that is still in the process of being finally judged, this film depicts a prison guard trapped by her ties to the Corsican underworld, doing away with the usual clichés surrounding the Isle of Beauty. A slow descent into hell, with finely chiseled writing that plays on both the different points of view of the characters concerned and the temporality of the story, which gives rise to an intense thriller over the course of two hours without any downtime. And in the central role, Hafsia Herzi once again proves to be impressively powerful and natural.

The Chronicles of Tehran by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami

Iranian comedy like the Italian one used to be, with this ability to mock the absurdities of reality to relieve oneself and bear witness. Nine sketches, nine lunar situations filmed from the eye of the authorities, therefore of evil. A subjectivity that makes the spectator, at the same time, an accomplice and a witness for the prosecution. A device that questions above all our relationship to intimacy, because in these spaces that are a priori closed (administrative offices, car interiors, etc.), the off-screen listens at the doors. It is a father who is forbidden to call his son David, a young woman who is accused of having driven without her hijab, a job interview that turns into a heavy flirtation… The weight of supposed faults holds the beings prisoner. The two filmmakers shot their film in one week while Iranian society was going through a wave of protest following the murder by the police of a young girl for “inappropriate wearing of the veil“.

Civil War by Alex Garland

Bigger, more lavish, more explosive: Alex Garland, master of the pocket science fiction fable since Ex Machinaenters the blockbuster arena, and combines its B-movie obsessions with the scale of an ultra-contemporary war fresco. By recounting the progress of a small group of reporters led by Kirsten Dunst towards a besieged Washington, it addresses very serious questions (journalistic ethics, photographic morality, and how to think about all that in the midst of chaos) in the form of a tense road movie. The breathless crossing of a Twilight Zone 2024 which could well be our immediate future.

the count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte

It was the most anticipated French film of this first half of the year. And the Delaporte-de la Patellière duo succeeded in their challenge with flying colors. Their adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel, faithful to the story but in which they were able to slip their own obsessions (the game of social massacre of the First namethe game of masks and disguises ofA famous unknown) reveals itself to be astonishingly romantic, like the performance of Pierre Niney in the title role which superbly confirms his central and major place in the small world of French cinema.

Dune: Part Two by Denis Villeneuve

Dune Two will go down in history. Timothée Chalamet's definitive anointing as a superstar, a snapshot of the young heads “so hot right now” (as they say in Zoolander) of the 2020s like Austin Butler and Florence Pugh, breadth of narrative driven by brutalist visuals that… oops, maybe we’re going a little too far. Relax, we can also watch Dune Two like a big, huge, kick-ass sci-fi blockbuster, and it works really well like that too.

Furiosa, a Mad Max saga by George Miller

The world may not have been ready, and many stayed home, snubbing one of the biggest shocks of the beginning of this year, of the entire year, and certainly of the following ones. This Mad Max saga without Mad Max (fleetingly glimpsed from behind) re-rolls the dice that Miller himself threw nine years ago with Fury Road. Where the previous opus played on narrative tightening, established an organic relationship with bodies, leather and bodywork, this Furiosachaptered like a great adventure novel, kneads space and time to sign a feminine survival, sandy and heady. Far from polishing his material, Miller kneads it to produce an inner bubbling which, by exploding, ends up at 200 an hour on the asphalt of the screen.Do you have it in you to make it epic?” asks the boastful Dementus at the end of the race to a haggard but combative Furiosa. It was indirectly appropriate for the audience to respond. For us, there is no doubt, the epic Furiosa did indeed take place and is immediately part of the firmament of our cinephile odyssey. And too bad for the tired people.

Iron Claw by Sean Durkin

It deserved to be a triumph in theaters. But it seems that French viewers were somewhat put off by the idea of ​​seeing a film about mulleted Texan wrestlers led by Zac Efron, an actor whose name remains synonymous with Yankee by-products… It's a shame: behind the 80s folklore, the hairy hard rock aesthetic and the tight shorts, Iron Claw superbly examines some American fads (competition, family, spectacle, faith) and explains how this cocktail can destroy you when it is cut with steroids. Stellar cast (Jeremy Allen White, Holt McCallany…), captivating staging with neo-gothic accents, XXXL humanity, and a huge lump in the throat when the final gong sounds.

Mrs. Hofmann by Sébastien Lifhsitz

After The Invisibles, Little girl and the multi-caesarized Teenage girlsSébastien Lifshitz has offered us a new exceptional documentary by recounting the very last months before the retirement of a nurse manager in a hospital in Bouches du Rhône after 40 years of good and loyal service and a post-COVID that has left its mark on her body and on the daily life of her department exhausted by limited means. A film in his image: never desperate, with a deep-rooted faith in the generations to come. A deeply human and powerfully political documentary.

Evil does not exist by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

With this new feature film, the Japanese Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Senses, Drive my car…) explored, nothing less, than the depths of human nature starting from the surface. Here, representatives of a communications agency try to sell a glamorous camping project for urban CSP+ to wary villagers. As soon as an eco-system is threatened, the entire chain of relationships between man and nature is disrupted. Evil is there, everywhere, ready to pounce. However, Hamaguchi, as a good disciple of Chekhov, tries to renew the dialogue. Evil does not exist is a fable that under the cover of ecological realism turned into a cruel tale for our present times. Its epilogue is one of the craziest things seen at the beginning of this year.

Poor Creatures by Yorgos Lanthimos

Six months after the global success of BarbieYórgos Lánthimos shook the coconut tree with his very personal definition of a feminist film. A rereading of Frankenstein taking the form of a deranged fairy tale where a woman, not yet shaped by a patriarchal society, seeks to enjoy (in every sense of the word) her freedom. In the exact opposite of Greta Gerwig's vision, Lánthimos situates female emancipation at the level of the body (it is, at ease, the most “ass” film of the year) and adopts an uncomfortable tone between farce and drama. An exploration of enjoyment that assumes its baroque impulses but has divided even within First. No quibbles, however, in the editorial office about the extraordinary and joyfully shameless performance of the gifted Emma Stone. Her greatest role?

Priscilla by Sofia Coppola

The King by the dark and supposedly secret side. A self-absorbed guy sadizing and sanctifying a minor reduced to playing in her room before the idol reappears. Jacob “Elvis” Elordi is impeccable in cruelty. Sofia Coppola leaves the jubilation off-screen and prefers – this is the subject of all her films – to film the wait in all its forms: that of emotional and sexual desire condemned to be partly frustrated, that of a possible emancipation and perhaps also that of revenge… Priscillathe title doesn't lie… Baz Luhrmann had chosen Elvis. Coppola responds to the excess with a form of refinement… We still said to ourselves when watching it that the preciousness and affection of the staging prevented us from seeing it well. They were in reality used to embalm the victim (Cailee Spaeny perfect). Priscillathe biggest horror movie of early 2024? Maybe.

The Kingdom of the Abyss by Tian Xiaopeng

During a sea cruise, a little girl falls overboard and enters a fantasy world that would make Lewis Carroll look like Robert Bresson. The result: too crazy, too noisy, too colorful, too weird… In fact, few people have experienced The Kingdom of the Abyss in theaters: those who have tried it have come out… changed, perhaps? In any case, we do not exclude that this enormous, unforgettable and heartbreaking trip, located somewhere between One Piece And Life of Pi was a collective hallucination (even among the happy few). But after all, isn't that the very definition of cinema in theaters?