The 10 best movies of 2024 (and 5 worst)

Last year was a high-water mark for modern movies, from the box office supernova of Barbenheimer to grand artistic statements from old masters. But 2023 also featured extended strikes in the entertainment industry, and this year’s movies have unfolded in the shadow of that standoff. As a result, there have been fewer big-budget Hollywood releases than any time since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic…but there also aren’t many Oscar-season frontrunners. Smaller, darker movies have gotten attention they might not otherwise have been able to achieve, while flashy ambitious projects have crashed and burned. That chaos makes year-end list time extra entertaining since everything feels up for grabs. So here are EW’s critics' picks for the best and worst of 2024 cinema. 

The 10 best movies of 2024

10. The Substance

Equal parts scathing social satire, gross-out body horror, and twisted dark comedy, The Substance defies both expectations and genre conventions. Recently nominated for five Golden Globes, the latest from Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a former Hollywood superstar who’s unceremoniously fired from her popular, long-running workout show when she turns 50. Desperate to turn back the clock, Sparkle injects herself with a mysterious serum that causes a younger version of herself to spawn from her body. The only catch is that Sparkle must trade off consciousness with her nubile new clone, dubbed Sue (Margaret Qualley), every seven days. But when Sue decides she doesn’t want to give up the driver’s seat, the consequences are as severe as they are gut-churning. Featuring career-best turns from Moore and Qualley, The Substance skewers Hollywood’s obsession with youth and the pressure on women to cling to it while delivering buckets of blood, guts, and pitch-black humor. —Mike Miller

9. Nightbitch

Nightbitch bursts with a buoyant absurdity that both celebrates and lays bare the primal truths of motherhood. Amy Adams gives her most fearless and feral performance as Mother, a woman unraveling in her isolation as she raises her toddler — until she begins to believe she is becoming a dog. Directed with heart, whimsy, and pulsing anger by writer-director Marielle Heller (adapted from the novel by Rachel Yoder), Nightbitch is a visceral indictment of the unequal distribution of domestic and emotional labor between men and women, as well as a profound ode to the agony and the ecstasy of motherhood. The film’s commitment to its bizarre premise, its off-the-wall humor, and its unparalleled honesty make it not just one of the best movies of the year but one of the bravest. —Maureen Lee Lenker

8. I Saw the TV Glow

Perhaps it’s no surprise that we at Entertainment Weekly responded strongly to a movie about how the pop culture we love can transform our lives for both better and worse. But the sophomore feature from director Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) is more than just a pithy paean to the power of art. Drenched in psychedelic pink colors and mind-bending stories-within-stories, I Saw the TV Glow finds Schoenbrun channeling their own teenage obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (who can relate?) into an unsettling exploration of what can happen when art tells us things about ourselves that we’re not ready to hear. Justice Smith gives a brave and harrowing performance as Owen, a millennial teenager from the suburbs who lacks friends and is misunderstood by his parents. The only thing Owen really connects with is a familiar-looking cult show called The Pink Opaque, which soothes the pain of high school and helps Owen connect with another loner (Brigette Lundy-Paine)...for a time. Unlike Emilia Pérez, the trans narrative of I Saw the TV Glow is neither triumphant nor tragic. Instead, it gives viewers a powerful reminder that there is still time to become yourself. —Christian Holub

7. A Different Man 

Sebastian Stan’s Edward and Adam Pearson’s Oswald are like the Joker and Batman, General Zod and Superman, or Venom and Spider-Man…They are two individuals who begin under similar circumstances — both men have neurofibromatosis — only one takes their struggles with public perception down a dark road while the other cranes toward the light to become an even better version of themself. There’s just a lot more subtle comedy to the way Stan delivers the laughably unhinged downward spiral of Edward, a struggling actor who lands the theater role he was born to play after an experimental procedure makes him look like everybody else, only to then lose it all to Oswald, a man who finds the joys of his life with the condition. It’s a villain origin story more entertaining than most comic book fare out there at the moment and a performance by an actor that digs into every stage of the character’s mad descent. —Nick Romano

6. The Last Showgirl

Mirroring elements of star Pamela Anderson’s real life, The Last Showgirl delivers an empathetic tale of strength and perseverance in the face of broken dreams. Shelly (Anderson) has defined herself by her life as a Vegas showgirl, so when her show, the last of its kind, announces its closing date, she’s left grasping for a future that has passed her by. Anderson — who earned her first Golden Globe nomination for her work here — brings a fragile courage to Shelley, a role that interrogates the misogyny that has shaped her own career. Her captivating performance is buoyed by heartbreaking work from Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Billie Lourd, Kiernan Shipka, and Brenda Song. Director Gia Coppola lends a lyrical quality to her meditation on the tarnished sequins of the American dream, offering a requiem for any woman who has ever been underestimated. —Maureen Lee Lenker

5. Conclave

Sometimes we don’t need movies to be existential meditations on the meaning of life; sometimes, we just want to watch an impeccably crafted thriller that keeps us guessing. That’s Conclave, a highly entertaining look at the soap opera that is the selection of a new Pope. Ralph Fiennes courts Oscar buzz as Father Lawrence, the troubled Cardinal tasked with overseeing the voting process amidst his own crisis of faith. Fiennes excels at exuding Lawrence’s moral agnosticism while ensuring he maintains an utterly human dignity of spirit. As secrets are revealed and treachery exposed, Berger proves that the inner machinations of the Catholic Church remain a potent dramatic subject. This cabal of cardinals is the best movie clique since the original Mean Girls (the bitchery is divine!). But it’s the subtle ways in which Conclave asks us to consider faith, doubt, and the true nature of God’s love that elevate the film from a mere religious offering to a spot in the year’s cinematic canon. —Maureen Lee Lenker

4. Dune: Part Two

The greatest blockbuster trilogy of the 21st century, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, was filmed all at once, so fans never had to worry about a dip in quality. By contrast, Denis Villeneuve had to fulfill his lifelong dream of adapting Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune one piece at a time. The existence of the second movie was dependent on the success of the first, which had to contend with both the COVID-19 pandemic and Warner Bros.’ 2021 policy of simultaneously putting their theatrical releases on streaming. The fact that Villeneuve and his collaborators triumphed over all of these challenges not just to win a bunch of Oscars but also to deliver a sequel that lived up to the epic scale and mythic promise they set for themselves feels like as much of a miracle as the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach. Dune: Part Two found stars Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya deepening their performances, while Austin Butler and Florence Pugh brought new flavors to the mix. Filmed in 2022 but delayed by the strikes, Dune: Part Two continues to tower over its fellow 2024 blockbusters — even WB’s other desert-set sci-fi epic. All hail Shai-hulud! —Christian Holub

3. Wicked

Popular doesn’t always equate to best, but in the case of Wicked, we couldn’t be happier. From the moment Ariana Grande delivered a seemingly effortless Kristin Chenoweth-worthy high note in “No One Mourns the Wicked,” you knew she would be the G(a)linda for an entire generation. If you haven’t seen the documentary footage of Grande singing along while actively producing her own tracks, this more operatic performance offered a different shade to the “Dangerous Woman” songstress of the pop charts, showing she just might be the brightest witch of her age — musically speaking. And who needs a twister when you have Cynthia Erivo blowing the roof off Emerald City with her ferocious belt in “Defying Gravity”? But even that has a rival for best moment with the way the Broadway star’s voice trickles down the melodic scale with the lyric “lithe limb” in “I’m Not That Girl.” We could go on, but there’s only one short day to explain how Wicked has changed us for good. —Nick Romano

2. Anora

Few modern American directors have been chronicling our country’s ever-increasing inequality as viscerally as Sean Baker. In previous films such as Tangerine and The Florida Project, Baker has contrasted the difficulties of modern working-class life (personified by sex worker protagonists) with the dream of American wealth and glamor that lingers just out of reach (embodied, in those films, by Hollywood and Disney World). But in Anora, those worlds finally collide when the titular stripper (played by Scream’s Mikey Madison in a full-bodied performance) enters into a whirlwind affair with the spoiled son (Mark Eydelshteyn) of a Russian oligarch. The roller coaster that ensues is a kaleidoscopic fusion of so many awesome movie genres: There is a “love story” as promised by Anora’s subtitle, but also elements of slapstick comedy, road trip odyssey, Succession-style family politicking, and even some bloody action. Ani is no fool, but even her world-weary cynicism melts in the face of a golden opportunity to escape her grinding job for the celestial comforts of the global one percent. Wouldn’t we all be tempted by the same? —Christian Holub

1. Challengers

Director Luca Guadagnino delivers the most delicious film of 2024 with Challengers, a love triangle between three tennis players whose codependency both threatens and amps up their game. Retired-from-injury star tennis player Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya) finds herself caught between husband Art (Mike Faist) and washout former flame Patrick (Josh O’Connor) when the two meet in the titular Challengers match. The film experiments with audience expectations and camera angles, crafting a zippy, playful, electric tale of competition and eroticism. Faist and O’Connor are riveting in their volley of homoerotic jealousy and one-up-manship, while Zendaya provides a chilly center around which these two hapless men pivot. Add in Guadagnino’s perverse glee in his storytelling and cinematic choices, as well as the pulsating, addictive score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and Challengers becomes that rare thing — a scintillating crowd-pleaser and artistic gem.

With its April release, the film has perhaps fallen off some critics’ radars with the onslaught of buzzy festival titles. But we found the operatic relationship drama disguised as a sports movie as unforgettable as Tashi’s backhand, making Challengers our choice for 2024’s cinematic grand slam. —Maureen Lee Lenker

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Honorable mentions

Civil War

Alex Garland directed some of the most visionary sci-fi films of the past decade, but his newest one feels painfully real. Though much debated online, Civil War’s few political details (including an alliance between California and Texas against a fascistic federal government led by President Nick Offerman) aren’t as important as Garland’s poetic imagery of unleashed violence. The viewer rides along with a crew of photojournalists (led by an indomitable Kirsten Dunst) on their harrowing journey to the heart of American darkness. Civil War may not tell you who to vote for, but it can inspire some serious reflection about how we visualize and process the crises around us. —Christian Holub

Thelma

If you thought Tom Cruise was pushing the boundaries of age when it comes to action heroes, watch 94-year-old June Squibb kick ass and take names in Josh Margolin’s delightful new comedy, Thelma. The Oscar-nominated nonagenarian stars as the titular granny, who takes matters into her own hands when she’s conned out of $10,000 in a phone scam. Margolin based the story on his own grandma, Thelma, who was targeted in a similar scam but fortunately escaped unscathed. Also starring Parker Posey, Gladiator II's Fred Hechinger, and the legendary Richard Roundtree in his final role, Thelma delivers the laughs while cleverly borrowing visual cues from action classics such as Mission: Impossible and the James Bond movies. Just swap the Astin Martin for a motorized scooter and the spy gadgets for hearing aids, and you’ll start to get the idea. —Mike Miller

The Fall Guy

The sheer joy and whimsy of The Fall Guy got buried in the flurry of discourse about its opening weekend box office, which kickstarted a wave of anxiety about the state of the industry. But we’re here to remind you that the movie is a hoot and a half, delivering everything you could want from a popcorn flick. Ryan Gosling stars as stuntman Colt Seavers, who agrees to return to work to help his one-time lady love, Jody (Emily Blunt), as she directs her first film. From incredible stunt sequences to the potent chemistry between the two Oscar nominees to the giddy sense of humor threaded through all the danger, The Fall Guy is the stuff that summer movie dreams are made of. —Maureen Lee Lenker

Hit Man

2024 was indisputably the year of Glen Powell at the movies. After stealing scenes from Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, Powell has now emerged as a movie star in his own right. Anyone but You proved there’s still a theatrical audience for rom-coms, and Twisters is looking to demonstrate that summer blockbusters don’t have to be about superheroes anymore. For now, though, Hit Man is the most impressive proof of Powell’s power. As philosophy professor turned undercover police operative Gary Johnson, Powell gets to demonstrate his range by shapeshifting into a number of hilarious fake “assassin” personas — but it’s his sizzling chemistry with Adria Arjona that really gets the movie cooking. —Christian Holub

Furiosa

Mad Max: Fury Road is a perfect action movie, one of the very best of the 21st century. Needless to say, it’s a tough act to follow. So visionary director George Miller decided to dive even deeper with his prequel, expanding the world of his wasteland and really showing what it would feel like to grow up as a woman in this hellscape. There are still some spectacular car chases, and Anya Taylor-Joy does an admirable job of stepping into Charlize Theron’s shoes, but Furiosa is most interesting when it diverges from Fury Road, such as with Chris Hemsworth’s charming new villain Dementus. —Christian Holub

The Bikeriders

Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders is a movie about nostalgia that itself feels like a product of a bygone era. “It's like I was looking at a movie that was made in the ‘80s that has been part of pop culture for a really long time,” the writer-director told Entertainment Weekly of his latest film. Maybe that’s because it brings to life some of the iconic images from Danny Lyon’s 1968 photobook of the same name. Based on interviews Lyon recorded during his stint with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, The Bikeriders chronicles the rise and fall of a fictional Chicago biker gang led by Tom Hardy’s Johnny and Austin Butler’s Benny. A love story at heart, the film is narrated by Jodie Comer’s Kathy, who falls for Benny after he sweeps her off her feet (literally) when they meet at a biker bar. Goodfellas on wheels, The Bikeriders romanticizes an alternative lifestyle forged with good intentions that ultimately spirals out of control. —Mike Miller

Inside Out 2

While the first Inside Out hit on the bittersweet notion that you can’t have Joy (Amy Poehler) without Sadness (Phyllis Smith), the second film delves even deeper into the vagaries of the mind, introducing a slew of new emotions as Riley enters puberty. The most notable of them all is Anxiety (Maya Hawke), who, in an attempt to help Riley navigate her summer hockey camp, takes over her brain. The film bursts with all the things that make Pixar movies great, from sly puns (Brainstorm! Sar-chasm!) to gut-wrenching truths about life (maybe we all do just have a little less joy as we age). But it’s the film’s rendering of Anxiety as a live-wire frenetic force with good intentions that makes it one of the animation studio’s best in several years. Inside Out 2 gives a visual language to our innermost struggles with warmth, humor, and empathy — and that makes us pretty darn emotional. —Maureen Lee Lenker

The Idea of You

For anyone dying for movies to be sexy again, The Idea of You delivers and then some with its age-gap romance between suburban mom Solène (Anne Hathaway) and boy-band heartthrob Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine). It is at once a soapy, exuberant love story and a heartfelt look at the ways in which we push women and their dreams and desires to the background as they age. Hathaway channels her own hurts and history into this coming-of-middle-age story that is littered with frothy falling-in-love sequences, erotic interludes, and genuine heartbreak in the midst of maternal sacrifice. It’s earnest and cathartic, and everything we hope to see more of in big-screen romances. —Maureen Lee Lenker

OTHERS: The Order, Juror #2, The Apprentice, Emilia Pèrez, Sing Sing, September 5, A Real Pain, The Wild Robot, Nosferatu, Love Lies Bleeding, Deadpool & Wolverine, Nickel Boys, Problemista, Maria, The Piano Lesson, The Brutalist, Strange Darling

The worst movies of 2024

5. Joker: Folie à Deux

The follow-up to Todd Phillips’ billion-dollar, Oscar-winning, genre-redefying Joker is a film so bizarrely dour and anti-climatic that it can perhaps best be understood as a giant, 200-million-dollar middle finger to certain fans of the original. While Phillips has pushed back on that interpretation, many fans came away feeling like the joke was on them nonetheless. (Even the characters seem to be in on the punchline, with Joker admitting at one point, “I don’t think we’re giving the people what they want.”) Suspicions were raised early when the director revealed the film would be a musical, but in the end, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s stilted duets were the least of the complaints. Far from fully embracing his inner Joker and assuming his rightful throne as Gotham’s Crown Prince of Crime as many hoped to see, the sequel finds Arthur defeated and depressed, awaiting trial for his crimes. While his love affair with his devious fellow inmate Harleen "Lee" Quinzel nearly pushes him to finally break bad, Arthur ultimately gives up the act, revealing himself to be the sad, broken loser he always was — much to Lee's (and some fans) disappointment. —Mike Miller

4. Uglies

It took 19 years to turn YA novel Uglies into a movie...and no one was ugly? The wildest part of the adaptation is its attempt to convince us that Chase Stokes (with a bump on his nose), Joey King (with a squint), and Keith Powers (as-is) would be considered anything less than aesthetically pleasing. That doesn’t even take into account the film’s nonsensical plot: In the future, scientists develop a “beautification” procedure to supposedly prevent discrimination, but it turns out the surgery is just a ploy to brainwash the populace. This is a retread of YA stories we've seen before on-screen, but even with a Netflix budget, Uglies doesn't live up to any of them. —Alamin Yohannes

3. Madame Web

Back in 2019, after the one-two punch of Avengers: Endgame and Tom Holland’s second solo outing as Spider-Man, it felt like the Marvel movie machine might last forever. But after five years and several culture changes, superhero cinema seems lost at sea — just like every cast member of Madame Web. Here, then, is the 21st-century comic-book franchise installment totally devoid of any ability to justify its own existence, seemingly composed entirely of overlapping and contradictory studio notes. To name just a few issues, the precognitive power of the protagonist (Dakota Johnson) is not helpful at all for action or plot, the villain’s (Tahir Rahim) performance seems entirely redone via ADR after the fact, and starlet of the moment, Sydney Sweeney, is dressed as a middle-schooler for some reason. All of these make for a pretty incoherent movie, but it’s also as entertaining as any good trainwreck. —Christian Holub

2. Borderlands

With an entire award-winning video game franchise to pull inspiration from, it’s truly bonkers that Borderlands basically refused to delve into its vault of material in favor of creating a generic, Guardians of the Galaxy-esque ripoff that not even Jack Black’s quirky Claptrap witticisms could save. Film adaptations of beloved games have always been a bit of a mixed bag, but recent projects like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Last of Us have proven that they can be both commercially and critically successful if done correctly. Borderlands could’ve easily been a delightfully unhinged yet secretly moving R-rated romp not unlike Deadpool & Wolverine if given the chance, but instead, it felt like everything that made the games special had been drained out of it, leaving behind lifeless characters, a forced and forgettable storyline, and a ridiculous amount of flatly-delivered poop and sex jokes courtesy of its PG-13 rating. We’re sorry, Borderlands. You deserved better. —Emlyn Travis

1. Megalopolis

There's no contest for the worst film of the year (perhaps even the century) — Francis Ford Coppola's bloated, boring, solipsistic saga Megalopolis. Adam Driver sleepwalks through the picture as Cesar Catilina, a politician and developer dedicated to the idea of creating an urban utopia open to all. It's a noble aspiration, much like Coppola's desire to impart that optimism via what he clearly hoped would be a magnum opus. But it's buried in a muddled, incoherent script, riddled with misogyny and an outdated view of the world. It's not merely that the film is bad (it is) so much as that it's not even interesting in its terribleness. Megalopolis commits the cardinal movie sin of being duller than dirt, a far worse fate than a bats— big swing that doesn’t land. This is definitely a cinematic offering we can refuse. —Maureen Lee Lenker