Top 5 Best Movies of 2024: Our Favourite Films You Can't Miss
As December rolls around once again, Christmas is just around the corner, Mariah Carey is playing nonstop, and 2025 is fast approaching. Before you set your New Year's resolutions and stare down the new year like a duel in a cowboy movie, join us as we take a look back at some of the best movies of 2024.
We’ve already covered many of the year’s biggest blockbuster films earlier this year, so here, we’ll highlight some of the standout films you might have missed. Hopefully we inspire you to discover something new before the year ends and make your 2024 movie watchlist complete.
Wicked
It's hard to have missed Wicked, but we've gotta talk about it. Wicked is every bit the musical extravaganza as one would expect. Defying gravity to take us soaring through Oz (yes, thank you, I thought of that myself) with all the heart, wonder and awe that we could ever ask for. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are a wonderful pair and come together very naturally as opposing personalities who become great friends. The music is a real showcase for Grande’s vocal range (as well as her acting abilities) as Glinda, and Erivo gives an emotional ride (as well as equally booming vocals) as the green-skinned future Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba.
The music is catchy, and the visuals are dazzlingly vibrant. What’s particularly impressive is that the majority of the film uses almost no CGI. From Shiz University to the Emerald City train and the field of nine million tulips, they were all physically built in various locations across London. Even if you don’t care for the music and have been dragged to the cinema by your significant other or musical-theatre-nerd loved one, it’ll be difficult not to at least get caught up in the world that’s been built.
Directed by Jon M. Chu, Wicked is a must-see for fans of the stage show and colourful campy musicals in general. For fans of The Wizard of Oz, there’s plenty of nods and callbacks (or rather call-forwards) to its events in a way that’ll make you point at the screen like that Leonardo DiCaprio meme. Filled with quirky delights, jaw-dropping vocals, and a generous sprinkle of magic dust, Wicked is, and pardon the pun but you knew it was coming at some point, absolutely *toss toss*… wicked!
Touch
Touch has a largely appropriate name because the story of an ageing man with a failing memory going on a journey across the world in search for a love he lost 50 years ago is just that. Following a non-linear narrative that jumps between past and present, Kristofer is an Icelandic student studying in London. He takes up a job at a local Japanese restaurant and falls in love with the owner’s daughter Miko, only for them all to disappear one day without a trace. As today we take for granted the internet and social media to stalk our exes, in 1969 you’d need have some reasonably decent detective skills.
Egill Olafsson delivers an emotional and sombre performance as the older Kristofer trying to tie up the lose ends of his life before he can no longer remember what they are. He decides to follow his heart from Iceland back to London and then to Japan, to find Miko, or at least find some of the closure that he has been desperately searching for for the past 50 years.
In the past are Palmi Kormakur and Mitsuki Kimur (better known as Koki) as young Kristofer and Miko, who give wonderfully authentic performances that are as awkwardly endearing as a young budding romance is, and as they love and lose each other, you find yourself awaiting their hopeful reunion with the utmost anticipation. It’s a really touching film, and has been chosen as the Icelandic entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Oscars.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Thailand have been making waves the last few years with a series of excellent films coming from the Southeast Asian country. With both domestic and international co-productions including The Medium, Bad Genius, Uranus 2324 and now How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Thailand are one to watch going forward.
Directed by Pat Boonnitipat, (Bad Genius: The Series), the story follows M (no, that isn’t a codename- just your common Thai nickname), a young generally uninterested high school dropout who decides to gain the favour of his dying grandmother to secure his fortune from her inheritance.
You might be thinking “well this doesn’t sound heartwarming at all” and “that M sounds like a d*ck” and hey, you’re totally right to think that. That is how the story starts. M learns that his cousin pocketed her grandfather’s inheritance off the back of being his primary carer, and M decides he wants in on some of that action. After his grandmother is diagnosed with cancer, he decides to move in with her to care for her.
Up until that point, M has never shown much interest in his grandmother or the family in general, preferring to spend his time trying to make it big as a video game streamer. But what starts as an entirely selfish venture turns into something much more wholesome. M and his quick-witted grandmother clash at first, but the two soon start to develop the bond that they’ve never had.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a lovely little tale of love, morals and intention. It will make you laugh and pull on the heartstrings as it serves as an ever-important reminder to spend time with your loved ones whilst you can. It has been selected as Thailand's submission for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.
Flow
What a year for emotional animal-led silent animated films! Although unlike Robot Dreams, the animals in Flow are not anthropomorphic, at least not physically, and they don’t have jobs or apartments. They do however offer the relatable themes that we humans can understand. After all, solidarity, friendship, cooperation, and survival are a universal experience exceeding species.
Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, Flow boasts a beautiful cel-shaded animation style (which is a style that personally I think is wildly underutilised) and rendered entirely in Blender with remarkably accurate animal movement. Due to its style, it looks a lot like a video game. In fact, at first I thought that this was 2022’s Stray, which is actually a video game about cats, and I had somehow mistaken Flow for a video game.
The film’s title is after its focus on movement and sound to express emotions without dialogue. Also, the backdrop of the film is a great flood so surely that has something to do with it. In light of this flood devastating a solitary cat’s home, he searches for refuge, comes across a range of other animals including dogs, a capybara and a lemur as they board an abandoned sailboat, beginning their adventure through this new world, and having to find ways to coexist.
Flow serves to remind us that no matter our differences, with solidarity we can accomplish anything. We may not all have the same strengths, but we can use them all to work together.
Flow has been selected as the Latvian entry for Best International Feature Film at next year’s Oscars.
The Substance
The return of great body horror! Let me tell you, it has been a long time since a horror movie has made me genuinely cringe and wince. Along with its fair share of humour, The Substance is an outrageously indulgent experience with all the blood, bodily fluids, splatter and gross transformations you could possibly want, and it fully revels in its absurdity.
Starring Demi Moore as you’ve literally never seen her as ageing movie star Elisabeth Sparkle, who is suddenly dismissed from her long-running TV series due to her turning 50. She decides to try a mysterious black market serum simply called “the substance”, which promises a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of oneself, and that’s exactly what she gets in the form of Sue (Margaret Qualley). As Sue, she gets re-hired to host her show, and things seem great. Until they aren’t. Despite having a shared consciousness, they are two are distinct personalities, and they clash (in more ways than one).
The Substance is, for lack of a better word, gross. I don’t think I’ve seen this level of body horror since Cronenberg’s The Fly. Special mention has to be for its sound though. The squelching, the bursting, the splatting. It’s all wonderful and I can just imagine the amount of cabbage ripping and wet paper towel punching that the foley artists behind this film had to do. Bravo to all involved.
There are plenty of other standout films the Rarewaves team enjoyed, so here are our honorable mentions: Blink Twice, Spaceman, Monkey Man, All of Us Strangers and, of course, major releases like Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4.
We hope you’ve loved the diverse range of movies that 2024 had to offer. Be sure to share your favorite movie of 2024 with us in the comments below – we’d love to hear what made it to the top of your list!
If we didn't talk about your favourite here, we might have in one of these:
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