Best films 2024. The SENTIREASCOLTARE ranking

The 2024 once archived it will almost certainly not be remembered as one of those essential ones and the strikes that took place in Hollywood during the previous year contributed significantly to this sad observation, which effectively blocked entire productions and postponed projects to a date to be determined if not even canceled completely. This also meant, however, that several “non-Western” productions found greater prominence, especially in terms of distribution. Not that before we weren't absolutely convinced of the superiority of cinematographic supply and research outside already known boundaries, it's just that in recent months a sort of clear divide between the traditional and “industrial” market has been increasingly evident, i.e. products of the big studios, and the independent one, be it American, European, Asian.

If in Hollywood, in fact, the public continues to fill the theaters for the usual sequels, prequels, reboots or similar, the so-called auteur cinema is certainly not doing very well, even if fortunately there are very clear examples that give hope for a possible trend reversal. If not even this, at least the belief that cinema still has many things to say will persist and in 2024 there have been many authors who have reiterated this concept. There will always be a need to tell new stories and worlds or reiterate classic narratives through a different point of view or style.

Below, we present a selection of films – strictly in no particular order because we blindly believe that art should not compete with itself – which this year have offered or tried to offer a unique, inspired or suggestive point of view on different themes and reflections. All the titles were released in Italy, in theaters or streaming, in 2024.

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry – Elene Naveriani

The second film by Elene Naveriani it is a free, suffered and poetic song of a transformation, that of a middle-aged woman who discovers sexual pleasure for the first time after a submissive life, not giving up her independence and distinctive identity even for a moment. An essential film, based on the novel by the feminist writer Tamta Melashvili, which, in an attempt to restore the portrait of a woman and an identity crushed by the weight of a repressive male education, describes an environment and a world at the same time very far from our eyes but extremely close to our heart (Davide Cantire).

Strangers – Andrew Haigh

After having amazed and thrilled with Weekend, 45 years old And Charlie Thompson (without forgetting the Looking series), Andrew Haigh returns adapting the novel of the same name by Taichi Yamada. In this atypical ghost story, the British director talks about regret for what could have been and wasn't, about identity and self-annihilation. In the tender and never banal dialogues between the protagonist and his deceased parents there is everything that the spectrum of human emotions is capable of containing, but the impact lies in the infinite unsaid things, in the looks between the characters, in the language of the bodies. A film that will be remembered for a long time (Davide Cantire).

Innocence – Hirokazu Kore'eda

After the foreign brackets with The truths (2019) filmed in France and Broker (2022) filmed in South Korea, with Innocence (怪物, Kaibutsu, i.e. “monster”) Hirokazu Kore'eda he returns to his land and his language, Japanese. On the one hand, there is the conventional and rigid world of adults, on the other there is the friendship of two extravagant kids, Saori and her friend Yori, oppressed by their classmates. Between slander and lies, between rumors and prejudices, what remains are the bitter reflections of the protagonists and the purity of two friends who carve out a space of their own, an escape from reality which leads them to transform a derailed carriage into a spaceship and to imagine them having been reincarnated (Carmen Palma).

I Saw the TV Shine – Jane Schoenbrun

That of Jane Schoenbrun it is a disturbing and distressing film but one that can be incredibly optimistic, which explores the theme of embracing the most authentic and hidden self. But above all, it is an allegory of gender transition. It is no coincidence that Schoenbrun identifies as non-binary and, during an interview, said he realized he was transgender during a hallucinogenic trip. The film, characterized by a sense of disorientation and pseudo-depression, touches anyone who has ever felt out of place. It is a journey of self-discovery, with references to masterpieces such as Videodrome And Twin Peaks (Carmen Palma).

The Holdovers – Life Lessons – Alexander Payne

In the hands of Alexander Payne this coming-of-age story thrives on realism, possible events and probable existences. It is a body that breathes, runs and moves with the typical agility of a student like Angus Tully, peering and observing through the one-eyed eye of the severe professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). There is nothing original about it The Holdoversbut it is precisely in this lack of extraordinaryness that the film's strong point is found: everything is ordinary, common, and therefore extremely human (Elisa Torsiello).

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Radu Jude

It's a long, complex film. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World; and yet, the one directed by Radu Jade it is an absolutely irresistible film. In his film body a heterogeneity of genres and cinematographic registers are condensed, never in cahoots, but perfectly in harmony. No spell, or magic, just a wise dosage of the ingredients at one's disposal so as to convey – between social networks and meta-cinematic inserts – all the exasperation of young people forced to interminable hours of underpaid work, who find a feeble and ephemeral satisfaction of escape between the screens of a smartphone (Elisa Torsiello).

Flow – A world to save – Gints Zilbalodis

The animated film directed by the Latvian director is a poem Gints Zilbalodis. A painted canvas that miraculously comes to life, portraying a planet Earth where human beings have disappeared, the water rises and submerges everything. The bearers of hope and survival instinct are a cat, a dog, a lemur and a bird, gatherers of a sensitivity and a sense of community too often lost, suffocated, in their human counterpart. Two-dimensional, yet so profound, animals do not speak of Flow; they don't need it to give back a heart that makes them much more human than humans themselves (Elisa Torsiello).

The Boy and the Heron – Hayao Miyazaki

The Boy and the Heron, despite having the characteristics of a film about senility, is not closed within the obsessions of its author. Of course it is full of self-citations (structure, themes, design, narrative points), but the focus must instead go on the quotes and the purpose. In doing so we discover that Hayao Miyazaki's latest film is even more of a testament than the previous one and that in depth it is a work about Life, because only when close to Death does one truly appreciate the beauty of being alive (Nicola Rakdej).

Anora – Sean Baker

After A dream called Florida And RedRocket, Sean Baker continues his essay on the human being faced with a rampant social discrepancy between poor and rich, dreamers and disillusioned, young and old. He does it with Anoraa cinematic rollercoaster winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival capable of conquering even the public less accustomed to an irresistible style, alive with a humor that is never banal, but always engaging and irrepressible (Elisa Torsiello).

The Area of ​​Interest – Jonathan Glazer

Evil is transparent, not banal. And in this transparency there is also Glazer's awareness of the limits of cinematic language, whereby a film cannot reproduce the pain of an entire community but only evoke it, often falling into an exaggerated pornography of pain. A film that works by subtraction, which needs to be eviscerated and stripped of its shell before being revealed in all its cruelty (Carmen Palma).

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – George Miller

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga it is the definitive synthesis of an epic story capable of rereading the canons of the blockbuster and returning them to its target audience in a more updated form, without ignoring everything that preceded it. The bravest blockbuster of 2024 (Davide Cantire).

Poor creatures! – Yorgos Lanthimos

Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, the winner of the 2023 Golden Lion is a powerful, ironic and grotesque film, but above all it is a political manifesto, a disenchanted analysis of the society that the Greek director observes through the lens of the gothic fairy tale (Carmen Palm).

The settlers – Felipe Gálvez Haberle

Trying to tell the barbarity and ferocity of American colonialism from a new, fresh and above all visionary perspective. This is what Haberle manages to do in a refined and intelligent way in this feature film, rigorous and dreamy at the same time, lucid and frank, with a style that remains, restoring in his own way the symmetries of Wes Anderson and the outbursts of violence at Tarantino (Davide Cantire).

The criminals – Rodrigo Moreno

Why work all your life for a miserable wage when with a single well-orchestrated coup you can raise the same sum and then live peacefully after just a few years in prison? This very human and dreamy comedy starts from this bizarre expedient Rodrigo Moreno which in outlining the protagonists with whom to establish a deep empathy, also outlines a lucid thought on life and the dreams that distinguish it, taking inspiration from one of the literary masters such as Borges. A film that talks about life itself, its nuances, desires that arise, are nourished and finally fade away like sand in the wind (Davide Cantire).

Love in Mumbai (All We Imagine as Light) – Payal Kapadiya

Three more women in a context that Indian cinema is beginning to explore in depth, making the gap with the West evident and demonstrating the desire for emancipation that is increasingly declared nowadays also thanks to social influence and the lack of digital barriers that they cause the physical ones to become increasingly thinner. In his second film, his first fiction, Kapadiya delivers a film that is both very sweet and bitter at the same time, elegant but also highly sensual (Davide Cantire).

Vermilion – Maura Delpero

In her second film, Maura Delpero constructs what is only apparently a simple story, which instead hides a stratification that travels on several tracks to give the spectator not only different well-rounded characters, but also a microcosm, an environment, a family dynamics that become universal. Starting from a deeply personal subject, the director manages to delve into the collective memory, awakening the conscience and humanity of an entire population (Davide Cantire).