The ultimate films of 2024 by genre

Drama

Twenty years after the success of "Sideways", "The Holdovers" reunited director Alexander Payne with actor Paul Giamatti for a drama set in a New England boarding school in the 1970s. It is a "gentle, redemptive" tale that "hits the happy/sad sweet spot", said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

For something rather weirder, there is Yorgos Lanthimos's "Poor Things", about a young woman (Emma Stone) with the brain (and curiosity) of a child. A "gloriously bonkers fairy-tale", it offers "an experience of purest Technicolorgasmic delirium", said Justin Chang in the LA Times.

"Anora" is about a stripper (Mikey Madison) who hopes she's struck lucky when she charms the son of an oligarch. Raw, brash and "in-your-face", it deserves to win an Oscar, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times.

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Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest" explores the family life of Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss. It's a searing film that will haunt you "today, tomorrow, and maybe for all your days to come", said Deborah Ross in The Spectator.

Horror

The third in a trilogy about an invasion by monsters with super-sensitive hearing, "A Quiet Place: Day One" imagines the day of their arrival. What could have been disappointing turns out to be "the best 'Quiet Place' yet", said Kevin Maher in The Times: it's "original and inventive, yes, but thoughtful too, and with the kind of emotional complexity rarely found in wham-bam alien invasion flicks".

"Longlegs" has Nicolas Cage as a serial killer whose MO is to persuade previously respectable men to kill their families, then themselves. Director Osgood Perkins fills every "sickly vista" with menace, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph; and "nested away" within the film is "perhaps the most terrifying performance of Cage's career".

Foreign

Set in a country house in France in the 1880s, "The Taste of Things" is the story of a famous gourmet (Benoît Magimel) who is in love with his cook of 20 years (Juliette Binoche). There is something "refreshingly unconventional" about its depiction of the well-worn love between a couple "in the autumn of their lives", said Wendy Ide in The Observer.

Wim Wenders's film "Perfect Days" follows the quiet life of a man who earns his living cleaning lavatories in Tokyo. This "elegant, touching" film may be Wenders' best drama in 35 years, said Donald Clarke in The Irish Times.

A "rich and mischievous" comic drama, "La Chimera" stars Josh O'Connor as a scruffy English expat who falls in with a group of Italian tombaroli (tomb raiders), said Danny Leigh in the FT. Directed by Alice Rohrwacher, it has the feel of a film that "might have been found in the projection booth of a small-town Italian cinema" last open in 1985.

In "My Favourite Cake", a widow (Lili Farhadpour) makes a bold dash for companionship in theocratic Tehran by inviting a divorced taxi driver into her home, for what turns out to be an evening of music, wine and food, said Leslie Felperin in The Hollywood Reporter. A "great, bittersweet film", it is a "crowdpleaser through and through" – and "exceedingly funny, even in translation".

Inspired by real events, the Nordic western "The Promised Land" stars Mads Mikkelsen as an 18th-century soldier who sets out to cultivate a vast expanse of hostile heathlands. The film has "sweep, romance, violence and spectacle", said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times; "but what makes it finally work as well as it does is that it largely avoids the ennobling clichés that turn characters into ideals and movies into exercises in spurious nostalgia – well, that and Mads Mikkelsen".

Indie

Set in noughties California, "Didi" follows a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy who is trying to fit in with the local kids. Based on writer-director Sean Wang's own childhood, it's a "funny, heartfelt" coming-of-age story that will make you feel a sense of "great relief" that you are no longer 13, said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times.

Written and directed by Annie Baker, "Janet Planet" recounts an 11-year-old spending the long summer holiday at home in rural Massachusetts in the 1990s with her New Age mother. It's a "nostalgic, suffusive film, which chooses the formative ordinary over dramatic convention at every turn", said Adrian Horton in The Guardian.

Nathan Silver's offbeat comedy "Between the Temples" stars Jason Schwartzman as a widower and cantor in upstate New York who reconnects with his childhood music teacher. "Soulful and delightfully tetchy", it has a charming, "gentle" humour, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times.

Comedy/satire

Based (loosely) on a true story, Richard Linklater's "Hit Man" is about a university lecturer who takes a second job posing as a professional assassin in order to stave off "hits". The film is a "sizzling romance, a hilarious dark comedy and a tense action flick rolled into one", said Larushka Ivan-Zadeh in the Daily Mail.

At the age of 94, June Squibb took her first leading role in "Thelma", playing a resourceful nonagenerian who is scammed out of $10,000 and sets out on a quest to get her money back. "The journey, a Tom Cruise-inspired action arc if the obstacles were stairs and the gadgets hearing aids, is a delight to behold," said Adrian Horton in The Guardian.

In "American Fiction", Jeffrey Wright plays a frustrated African-American novelist who dashes off a cliché-ridden "ghetto" novel titled "My Pafology", and becomes an overnight sensation. "Satire is just a wraparound gimmick for a marvellously acted, naturalistic drama about a prickly, privileged black man and his family," said Amy Nicholson in The New York Times.

Documentary

The BBC documentary "Atomic People" tells the story of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki through archive footage and interviews with survivors, or hibakusha. It is a "heartbreaking" film that offers a harrowing reminder of the "human cost of war", said Rachael Sigee in The i Paper.

Shortly after US forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, the Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash travelled to the country and persuaded Taliban officials to let him film them. The result is fly-on-the-wall documentary "Hollywoodgate", which offers a "raw and uncompromising" insight into Afghanistan's new ruling class, said Linda Marric in The Sun.

"Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again" describes the horrific events at the Nova music festival in Israel last year via interviews with people who were there. "I can't, in any ordinary sense, recommend" it, said Rachel Cooke in The New Statesman: "it will destroy you; sleep was impossible for me afterwards. But it is an astonishing thing."

Action/thriller

"Twisters" is a stand-alone sequel to 1996's "Twister", starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as a meteorologist drawn to Oklahoma to monitor an especially virulent tornado season. Along the way, she befriends a bunch of disreputable storm chasers. The film is a "wholehearted, warm-blooded, meticulously crafted good time", said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph.

The Netflix thriller "Rebel Ridge" stars the Brixton-born actor Aaron Pierre as a former US marine who finds himself on the wrong side of corrupt cops. Don't be fooled by the film's "generic title", said Benjamin Lee in The Guardian: this isn't some "anonymous action slop", but an electrifying triumph that keeps the viewer gripped.

The dystopian thriller "Civil War" imagines a US torn apart by conflict, said John Nugent in Empire. "Always gripping, always pummelling your senses, always ghoulishly compelling", this is a "gorgeously made film full of shock and awe" that asks: "What if it happened here?"

Children's

An animated adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's 1999 book, "Kensuke's Kingdom" follows a boy who washes up on a desert island where he is saved by an elderly Japanese war veteran. A "gently touching adventure", it is the perfect film to fill a rainy afternoon, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday.

Pixar's 2015 cartoon "Inside Out" introduced us to Riley, a girl living in San Francisco whose internal life is governed by five emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger. The long-awaited sequel "Inside Out 2" picks up the story two years later, with Riley on the cusp of adolescence and now also contending with Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui. It's a "beautifully crafted film that's equal parts hilarious and moving", said Erik Kain in Forbes.

The animated adventure "The Wild Robot" tells the story of a robot who takes a baby goose under its wing. "You'll be hooked from first scene to last," said Peter Travers on ABC News.