We contained multitudes: an uncontained year in cinema

In this inclusive diary compendium, 10 writers share their thoughts and experiences on the 2024 year in moviegoing.

It may have taken a little longer, but we got Tone Madison‘s film gang together, virtually speaking, to meditate on their 2024 year in cinema. In recent years, partly by my own suggestion, we’ve moved year-end music coverage to the quieter (and more appropriate) month of January; and so it does feel suitable and more conclusive to aim for that same general publishing window for the musings of our eclectic film section.

Through the course of editing and notating, the several-week extension has allowed our committed cast of freelancers (in order of response)—Edwanike Harbour, Emily Mills, Sara Batkie, Lewis Peterson, Maxwell Courtright, Jason Fuhrman, David Boffa, Hanna Kohn, and C Nelson-Lifson—adequate space to pore over their own habits and squeeze in a few more flicks they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to. (Many of us hibernate during those “free” weeks at the end of December and beginning of January to catch up on our interminable backlogs.)

This collection of diaristic writing, which in past incarnations served as the inspiration for our recent column, Cinemails, houses more than simple lists of favorites. Those are always indisputably fun to scan (and disputable in and of themselves), but the true goal is to offer exclusive records that stand apart from the truncated countdowns that inundate us on social media and YouTube during the holidays. We’re capturing the charmingly disorderly, expansive story of those who live here, about the shape of Madison moviegoing in the present moment, and perhaps an inadvertent dive into the media-minded Millennial consciousness as we hit the mid-decade mark (and also, Tone Madison‘s 10th year of existence).

Below, you’ll read about what 10 of us have been up to in the past 12 months most visibly (and invisibly), what has motivated and bothered us throughout the year with regard to movie theaters and the volatile industry, what we might hope to see in Madison in the near or distant future, and of course a fair share of distinct recommendations, including a free-to-stream list and personal movie-related inspirations. (And, yeah… given the length, feel free to return to read this piece in multiple sessions.)

Thanks so much for continuing to value our film coverage. For more of the 2024 picture, please see my “centering and illuminating the film conversation” reflection from December. —Grant Phipps, Film Editor

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Edwanike Harbour:

First off, thank you, Grant, for your repeated efforts and insights regarding film in general, particularly here in Madison. I always appreciate your perspective and insight when we’re discussing cinema. I found this year to be a bit more challenging than previous years, given the landscape of exhibition and how it seems to be rapidly shifting toward a theatrical release and then stream-it-as-fast-as-you-can model. I am definitely old enough to remember a time when a movie was initially released in theaters, it would take some years to come out on VHS. No part of me at all wants to return to anything like that. However, in 2024, I realized that, in Madison, if there is something in theaters that you absolutely want to see, make a plan to get to the theater within the week or it will surely be gone.

Recently, I wanted to see A Real Pain and missed my opportunity. I was able to sneak Anora in just under the gun. A friend and I tried to see Heretic ( and we did), but the original date we had in mind wouldn’t have worked as it was going to be pulled from the theater by then. As recommendations came flowing to me from other people, they would mention I would have to capture it on streaming, as the movie was already gone from theaters.

I am perfectly fine streaming a film, as it would be woe unto my soul if I weren’t, as that way of distribution is becoming the dominant force in the way we consume film. However, the experience and ritual behind watching movies is so paramount to me as a cinephile, I loathe to think of what the landscape will look like even a few years from now. Nothing can replace the feeling when the lights are turned down low and a dreamy AMC ambassador Nicole Kidman reminds us that “even heartbreak feels good in a place like this.” As much as I like the shared experience with my friends, there’s a famous quote, from a work that escapes my mind now, about film being like religion and should be enjoyed alone.

As I was unable to see quite a few things that were in the theater for a hot minute, I can’t even say that my top-five list is complete, as I am sure it would shift quite a bit had I seen all I wanted to see. Either way, I will include the top five of what I did see and a list of things I would still like to see.

Honorable mentions can go to Hundreds Of Beavers and Joker: Folie À Deux. UW Cinematheque will fortunately be screening The Brutalist on January 23, so viewers should block out time (literally) in their schedules to see this. I suspect this, for sure, would make my top five had I seen it by mid-late December. The other films I wanted to see in the 2024 calendar year were as follows: Nickel Boys, Queer, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl, and Exhibiting Forgiveness. A24 put out a steady stream of good content this year, and it appears as though they will keep this up well into 2025.

On a personal note film-wise, the final thing that happened this year is that Hirokazu Kore-ada broke into my top-five directors list, which I did not anticipate happening honestly ever. This is a hard list to crack into for me as anybody can have a stroke of luck and make a good film in the course of their life given enough time. But it is only a true auteur who can consistently make pure works of art. Even if they only release five films during their lifetime, to have all of them rise to masterpiece quality is no easy feat. Kore-ada for me is one of those directors. Granted, Monster was released last year, I only saw it recently and after watching Shoplifters (2018), he has made a believer out of me. I would love to hear some other people’s favorites.

Emily Mills:

My year in film was a very mixed bag in terms of how I engaged with movies: Coming out of the Covid-lockdown years, I’ve definitely enjoyed my theater-going experiences more, though I’m also more choosy about what I go out to see versus what I pay to stream at home. I do deeply appreciate the ability to rent and watch newer releases from the comfort of my couch + blanket + cuddly dogs. And I also think certain spectacles warrant the communal, big-screen experience. 

I’ve been getting more into seeing re-released movies from the days of yore in the cinema and had a ridiculously good time at “Rad” day in March, when the 1986 BMX movie, Rad, screened at theaters across the country to mark the 38th anniversary of its release. The theater was filled mostly with fellow Gen X/Millenials, some with kids in tow, many of them clearly longtime bike nuts. Getting to watch this ridiculous but somehow awesome throwback with that enthusiastic and nostalgic crowd was a delight.

I’ve been watching from afar and with envy as Wussy, a very queer media/event crew out in Atlanta, hosts regular screenings of arthouse and cult classics accompanied by themed drag performances. This year, they did everything from Election (1999) to High Tension (2003). How do we bring something like that to Madison? We have a killer drag scene, but I’m wondering what theater would be most amenable (and affordable) for such a thing. LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Meanwhile, I feel like this year was not great for the traditional tentpole offerings (aside from Wicked, which is remarkable and proves that movie musicals still got the juice). I am 100% all right with the fall of the bland, sexless, formulaic blockbuster offerings that have seemingly become the norm in recent years. That’s where a movie like Challengers made me sit up and take notice: An original story! Homoerotic tension! Intense soundtrack! Extra AF! A delightful departure from so much of what’s hit theaters in the last five or so years.

I’ve also been grateful for the steady increase in and diversity of LGBTQ-themed movies, largely among indies and smaller studios. Streaming and TV continue to be good places to get decent LGBTQ+ representation, though most of them seem to “mysteriously” get cancelled after just one or two seasons. Special shout-outs this year go to Somebody Somewhere, English Teacher, Arcane: League Of Legends, and Agatha All Along. 

Love Lies Bleeding was a wonderfully gonzo and very hot/gross/hot fever dream written with a clear, queer lens (and cast). I Saw The TV Glow was a gut-punch, surreal meditation on the perils of suppressed identities and lives. Monkey Man had an incredible and vital bit of plot revolving around a group of badass trans-women warriors.

The accessibility of film festivals making at least some of their lineup available via streaming has also been a welcome change since lockdown, and I hope they continue to do/expand. I was able to check out a number of excellent LGBTQ+ film offerings as part of NewFest, the annual LGBTQ+ film fest based out of New York City. The Teaches Of Peaches was a rollicking and thoughtful documentary about one of my favorite queer musical revolutionaries, and there were a whole slew of excellent shorts as well.

A sleeper entry in my favs of the year was National Anthem, which I only managed to see during its limited theatrical run because I happened to be visiting Denver while it was at the (wonderful) Sie FilmCenter. Based loosely on the real life experiences of director Luke Gilford, the movie centers on a 21-year-old, aimless but tender-hearted construction worker in New Mexico who stumbles into a community of queer and trans rodeo aficionados and competitors. It’s a beautiful portrait of rural queer and trans people, life, hardship, and possibility. And, extra notable to me for allowing its trans characters to exist in all their complexity but without fixating on body parts or even having to explicitly say they’re trans.

In short, my year in film has been focused on seeking out movies that try something new and/or offer interesting and unique perspectives that have largely been absent or poorly handled in most mainstream offerings. Having access to both in-person cinema spaces (especially places like the Barrymore, Cinematheque, and the adult-friendly, decent-food-having Flix in Madison) and online/streaming options, has certainly opened up a much broader world of film to me, and I’m grateful for it.

Top Five of 2024, in no particular order:

• Love Lies Bleeding (dir. Rose Glass)
• National Anthem (dir. Luke Gilford)
• Fancy Dance (dir. Erica Tremblay)
• Monkey Man (dir. Dev Patel)
• I Saw The TV Glow (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)

Sara Batkie: 

I recently went back through my Letterboxd to see if there were any particular patterns in my movie-going for 2024. It looks like Criterion Channel got the most of my eyeball time this past year, though Blu-rays and DVDs procured from Four Star were a close second. I do still try to get out to the theater whenever I can, though. As Edwanike mentions, I usually have to do so quickly, especially for smaller releases. I was delightfully surprised to be able to catch Rumours (a joint effort between Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, and Evan Johnson) and Andrea Arnold’s Bird during their blink-and-you’ll-miss-them runs at the Fitchburg AMC. While I understand, from a monetary standpoint, that booking such films for a brief time makes sense (there were only three other people in my showing of Bird, for instance), it does seem to be a shame that so much distinctive work from leading filmmakers gets so little time to shine on the big screen here. Like Emily, I’m grateful to have both streaming and in-person options.

I love Edwanike’s prompt about newly discovered or newly loved directors from this year. One of the former for me was Frank Perry. I watched a pristine Blu-ray of Diary Of A Mad Housewife (1970) back in May, and haven’t been able to get its strikingly sympathetic portrait of a woman in crisis out of my head. That was followed several months later by a 35mm screening of Play It As It Lays (1972) at the Chazen, and it was thrilling to watch its fractured vision of Hollywood in decay on a big screen, in part because, as director of programming Jim Healy noted, it’s such a rare opportunity. I don’t know yet if Perry will make it into my top five of all time, since many of his films are very difficult to see at home. Perhaps the Cinematheque gods will bless us with a screening of Last Summer (1969) sometime in the future. 

One director who might make that list is Lina Wertmüller, who had one of the greatest creative runs of the 1970s. This year marked the 50th anniversary of her original Swept Away, and revisiting it made me realize how timid so much so-called political work being made these days looks in comparison. I wouldn’t exactly call Seven Beauties (1975) or Love & Anarchy (1973), her ferociously funny portraits of life in fascist Italy, comforting watches. But as the country marched right back into the arms of an idiotic strongman in November, I was glad to know it’s possible to laugh at shameless sycophantism, even if it sticks in your throat.

Looking at my favorite new releases, though, I think what unites my top five—aside from the fact that I saw many of them at this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival—is that they have banger endings. I already discussed Anora‘s thoughtfully downbeat closing moments with Edwanike. But I was also thrilled by the operatically disgusting final sequence of The Substance. It’s exciting to watch filmmakers take their concepts to the outer bounds of what audiences might tolerate. In a similar and yet totally different vein, the last scene of Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World—a single unmoving shot that lasts almost an hour—was a masterclass in sustained antagonism. But the two that have continued to stick with me were the most transcendent: Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes with its melancholy ode (and possible elegy, given his advanced age) to the power of cinema, and Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, which twists back ouroboros-style to transform a recurring, mysterious image into a miraculous reunion.

That said, I found 2024 to be slightly underwhelming compared to other recent years, maybe because there was no “Barbenheimer” phenomenon to rally around. Maybe it was the movies I was seeing, but a lot of my theaters were pretty empty, which made for a less communal experience. Do others feel similarly, or am I being pessimistic?

Grant Phipps:

One of my favorite film moments of the year came early on in 2024, and didn’t involve the act of going out to a theater or watching a disc at home or even engaging in a dialogue with someone else; it was listening to director Jonathan Glazer’s 70-second Oscars speech about “victims of dehumanization” and what has happened since October 7, 2023, long after production wrapped on his film adaptation of The Zone Of Interest. “Look what we do now.” Glazer showed a level of courageousness that was not so frequently reflected in the anemic escapism that audiences and the industry chose to endorse the forthcoming calendar year. The 10 highest-grossing films (actually, the top 15) were all pre/se/quels or reboots, and I only saw one of them. Unsurprisingly, none of them are on my list of favorites. So, I’m not the best person to ask about the vitality of movie theaters in 2024, but I would mildly agree with Sara’s pessimistic assessment. Outside any opening-day screening, only The Substance (Marcus Point), Inside Out 2 (Flix), and Longlegs (AMC) seemed to pull in crowds that I’d not define as sparse. Maybe, as they say in baseball, a rebuilding year.

I did start to pay closer attention to where I watch things and on which format, though, because I was curious to wrap my head around the percentages and my preference for physical media. I had always tagged release years on Letterboxd; but, in 2024, I also began adding formats and theater locations. I watched over 100 features at home on Blu-ray / DVD, which is kind of wild. I think I owe this partly to a change in routine, the resources of Four Star Video Rental, and my inclination to just take advantage of online flash sales. (Though, Vinegar Syndrome needs to get their shit together and not instantly charge people for a purchase that takes them a month to ship out.) My overcrowded collection is in dire need of additional shelving and cataloging, though, to the point where I need an entire case for Blu-rays I haven’t yet watched, ha. An organizational task for 2025. But yeah, I don’t like relying on streaming platforms due to bitrate and image-quality issues. I know streaming has become the standard, and the general public, in my estimation, still seems to slightly prefer shows to movies; but the only series I devoted time to was Batman: Caped Crusader limited animated series on Prime Video in August (probably the best Batman media in over 15 years).

As I alluded, move-going this year felt…more detached than it probably should have. I tried to persistently show up to alternative programming that my friend Jim Kreul largely handles at Arts + Literature Laboratory and Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), especially during the summer, while sporadically trying to work with him to make strides to curate a series of my own somewhere…anywhere that’d have me. But it was to no avail, unfortunately, stalling without the right feedback and connections, and without the time and allowance (or some surplus money) to get that off the ground. Beyond those notes, though, I don’t think I had an infuriating personal incident at more traditional theater spaces in and around Madison. Audiences seemed more locked in and conscious of etiquette. Serious cinephiles have been speaking up more frequently, too, emboldened to nip those smart-phone disruptions in the bud. The most recent example I can cite was during the Christmas night screening of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu at Marcus Point. (If you’re reading this, thank you, Alex.)

After reacting so positively to Jacques Demy’s Model Shop (1969) at the very end of last year, I wanted to explore some of the hidden treasures of the New Hollywood era, from 1966 through 1976, approximately (and maybe somewhat analogously to Sara’s Frank Perry viewing). I only got to a dozen titles, but it’s a start, as I sought further input from my mom, who grew up during this time. Most recognizable in the list might be Midnight Cowboy (1969), an outright masterpiece, but the most significant discovery for me was Joseph L. Anderson’s Spring Night, Summer Night (1967). I love how this film captures the Southeastern Ohio locale in gorgeous (and very European) black-and-white cinematography that evokes Bergman regulars, Sven Nykvist and Gunnar Fischer. (SNSN‘s release and alternate-version history also feel comparable to Summer With Monika.) Anderson’s gritty depiction of small-town affairs was a lot more compelling to me than The Last Picture Show (1971)’s doldrums, but maybe I can attribute part of that to the shorter runtime and the familiarity of its Mid-Atlantic vistas, as someone from South-Central Pennsylvania.

Also on my mind throughout the year—and I’m curious if anyone else feels as intensely as I do about it—is my impression that movie runtimes are getting completely out of hand. Is this a hotly-contested subject? I’m not sure. Though, I perked up when I saw directors Sean Baker and Brady Corbet talking about it in one of the Variety conversations from mid-December. They defend their choices, of course (with films of 139 and 215 minutes, respectively), and provide some insight into the post-production process. But I can’t get behind Baker in Anora‘s case, especially. The well-paced feature hitting that 90-minute sweet spot was a rare bird in 2024. Several of my favorite feature films this year came across like expanded shorts (which isn’t, in any way, a complaint from my desk), running somewhere between 65 and 80 minutes. Those that tested the limits of my patience (or bladder) were typically 130-plus. Either the conceptual scope was needlessly ostentatious and needed workshopping, or editors broadly lost the plot and couldn’t commit to cutting redundant scenes. Are filmmakers adhering to some misplaced “more bang for your buck” idea, or (in Baker’s mind) driven by streaming and episodic prestige TV, trying to fulfill an imagined urge to live with “their” characters a little bit longer?

Last thought I’ll put down here is a desire for something else in Madison, maybe in mid-winter or the start of fall when it’s quieter. Emily detailed Atlanta’s Wussy-related event series in their diary, and that does sound like something we could pull off at the Crucible, for example. Ever since the 2021 Wisconsin Film Festival’s one-off virtual fest that took place a month later than usual, in May, I’ve been eager to see that return in some fashion. Additionally, a boon for immunocompromised people. Could we convince WUD Film to try a mid-2010s-like long weekend festival at the Marquee in Union South, but have them split it between online screenings and in-person events? I miss the days, seven to 10 years ago, when the Marquee was seriously competing for every cinephile’s attention on so many weekends. I also feel like we’re going to miss a lot more by the end of 2025. Here’s to progressive resistance, in art and life.

Top 10 of 2024:

1. Samsara (dir. Lois Patiño)
2. Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (dir. Radu Jude)
3. Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)
4. Janet Planet (dir. Annie Baker)
5. This Closeness (dir. Kit Zauhar)
6. Here (dir. Bas Devos)
7. Dahomey (dir. Mati Diop)
8. Matt And Mara (dir. Kazik Radwanski)
9. The Beast (dir. Bertrand Bonello)
10. Between The Temples (dir. Nathan Silver)

Five shorts: 

1. Seeds (dirs. Pisie Hochheim, Tony Oswald)
2. Between You And Me (dir. Cameron Kletke)
3. The Garden Sees Fire (dir. Kiera Faber)
4. Gruenfeld (dir. Albert Birney)
5. Impermanence (dir. Gabriella Maria Cisneros)

Lewis Peterson:

Any changes in my viewing habits were caused by changes in my life: for the first time in a decade, I have a full-time job that’s not working at Four Star Video Rental. As a consequence, I just have less time to watch movies, though I still try to get in one per day. I usually do a rough tally before I start writing my year-end reflection, and I only got somewhere in the 450 to 475 range. 

I started off 2024 by drunkenly telling a bunch of strangers at Mickey’s that I was going to finish watching every Robert Bresson and Hong Sang-soo movie I hadn’t already seen by the end of the year. That didn’t really mean anything to them, but I did hold myself to it for the most part (Hong has released three new features that still aren’t available on physical media or theatrically. Though, it looks like A Traveler’s Needs is screening in February at MMoCA, and Cinematheque is continuing their Bresson screening from this year with Pickpocket (1959) in 35mm. I didn’t make any similar declarations this New Year’s Eve, but I guess this is a good a space as any to state in publicly: I need to finish watching all of Maurice Pialat’s films, and should probably add Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, a series I’ve been meaning to get to for a few years running now.

I also was invited to be a Golden Badger Jury member for the Wisconsin Film Festival this year, which was a really rewarding experience. It also allowed me to attend way more Wisconsin Film Festival screenings than I ever have before. The end of the festival in April pretty much coincided with the start of my new job, so it did feel like a little bit of a last hurrah before moving on to something new.

To answer Edwanike’s prompt about directors I discovered this year, I’d have to list Shinji Somai, Tai Kato, and Patrick Tam Kar-Ming as three that I was unfamiliar with until this year. They have become watch-anything-I-can-from-them directors. As for Kore-eda, After Life (1998) was the first of his I saw years ago. I still kinda get devastated by thinking about the ending. And, of course as a video store guy, I have to shout out Air Doll (2009), the tale of an inflatable sex doll that comes to life and sets out to learn about humanity by working at a video rental store.

Anyway, onto the list: Top 10 2024 releases (going by when they were available for my own viewing, in alphabetical order):

Looking at this list, the thing that’s sticking out to me is how many of these I saw theatrically, often in almost empty theaters. I also have to give a thank-you to Alex Lovendahl (who coincidentally just launched a Substack listing Madison theatrical screenings [Tone story forthcoming!]), for telling me that The End was screening at Marcus Point when I ran into him at a screening of Queer. The End wasn’t even listed on Marcus’ own website, only Fandango, so it seems like they were being very haphazard in making their own screenings available. Oppenheimer’s film was my last addition to my top 10, but it has stuck with me just because I felt slightly indicted by its pretty straightforward presentation of the human capacity for denial. I’m not getting into an underground bunker anytime soon, but it does feel like you need to have some blinders on to live day-to-day life while climate disaster looms. And this is all while those with the most power seem concerned only with how you can’t prove anything is their fault or verifiable, much like you can’t prove Hell is hot.

The other thing that jumps out as a commonality on my list is how many of them are in the two and a half- to three-hour range. Even though it feels like I have less time to watch movies, I’m maybe more appreciative of something that only has the full effect with complete attention, and demands you follow along with its rhythm (thinking of About Dry Grasses and Yellow Cocoon Shell, in particular). So I’m going to maybe split hairs with you a little bit on your length comments, Grant. I enjoy a tight 90 as much as the next person, but I trust most filmmakers to know how long their own films should be, with the caveat I haven’t seen The Brutalist yet, and I wasn’t as enamored with Anora as most people seem to be, despite generally appreciating Sean Baker.

Anyways, to get back to consumerism as usual, I’m also going to continue my other list from last year, my top-10 physical releases of the year, also in alphabetical order, along with the labels that released them:

I’m realizing I fucking love Radiance, guys. And Grant, I personally don’t take issue with a smaller business like Vinegar Syndrome taking money upfront to cover overhead, but I’m going to stop myself from ranting too much about their FOMO-based release strategies. (I’ll still keep buying that garbage every month, though, lol.)

I’ll close out with my favorite theatrical experiences of the year: the completely packed screening of Hundreds Of Beavers at the Marquee at the end of January, sitting next to Alexander Payne and his girlfriend during The Burglars during the Wisconsin Film Festival, The World’s Greatest Sinner with Romeo Carey and Michael Pogorzelski during the Wisconsin Film Festival, Megalopolis in IMAX at AMC Fitchburg with seemingly every other film weirdo in town at end of September, talking to strangers after screenings of Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point and Oh, Canada at AMC Fitchburg, and hearing incredulous crowd comments during The Substance, appearing in costume for Aggro Dr1ft on Halloween night at UW Cinematheque. 

Maybe one more resolution: I also want to try to set up some more theatrical events around Madison in the next year. As others have mentioned, it’s sometimes hard to make stuff like that work financially, but I’m hoping to trade in whatever cultural cache Four Star has to get something happening.

Grant @ Edwanike and Lewis:

I appreciate your insight, too!

These days, I am more hesitant to proclaim new favorite directors or those that I’d usher into a new shortlist, as I always want to be forward-focused, keeping an eye on new work by emerging directors here and abroad. But I had a clear answer for this prompt in 2023, with Toronto New Wave pioneers Atom Egoyan and Patricia Rozema. This year, not really. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi remains one of my favorite international directors, though. I even took the initiative to bus down to Chicago to meet up with Max Courtright for a special May screening of Gift (the silent-film version of Evil Does Not Exist) with live accompaniment by Eiko Ishibashi at the Logan Center. Thanks to him for making that trip so memorable.

I actually don’t trust most filmmakers to know how long their own films should be, lol. That’s why, unless we’re talking about no-budge stuff, directors shouldn’t serve as their own editors. Patton Oswalt has an amusing bit from 2016 about female editors reining in the self-adulation of male directors of the “classics;” and while Oswalt grossly exaggerates with phallic analogies for comedic effect, I agree with the core point: film is an art form of duration, and not every frame of every take is a painting. I feel like my comment is referring to a grouping of films that were in the 130- to-145-minute range but more reasonably should’ve fallen somewhere in the 100-to-120 range. I’m all about sinking into a deliberately or even chaotically paced and novelistic epic if the inspiration is there. And it wasn’t absent this year, as a couple of those made my list of favorites above. But there are a lot of critical darlings (and the critically repudiated, lol) that just struck me as too long.

I’m mixed on Vinegar Syndrome as a distributor and partnering distributor. I love the attention they’re extending to more cult, indie, and international films on physical media in this era, but I’m not sure I’d refer to VS as a “smaller business” with their subscriber strategies, overpricing (that leads to scalping), and apparent antagonism towards existing video rental stores (*citation needed from you and Alex Jacobs, lol). If I’m placing an order of $100-plus and paying for shipping, I should be receiving an order within a reasonable time frame. Wasn’t the case this year.

Any slight disagreements or debates aside here, most importantly, thanks for thoughtfully engaging with me and others. Always inspiring to read your impressions on the year in movies that encompass not just what was in theaters and on streaming but what was happening on physical media and behind the scenes. And good luck organizing some events in 2025!

Maxwell Courtright:

I agree with the overall sentiment here that Hollywood/tentpole stuff seemed lackluster this year compared to others. That type of thing tends not to be my bag anyway, but usually I can rely on at least a handful of good horror movies to make the rounds. That supply seemed a little dry. The huge, glaring exception to this is Smile 2. It feels like the Smile series is the best possible outcome of the trauma-plot horror movement, treating high-trauma exposure and the mental horror that comes afterward as just one element of an expansive haunted-house sandbox. It still demands a difficult and showy performance (and Naomi Scott absolutely delivers on that front), but the film amounts to a cruel joke at the expense of all that labor, a prolonged look at a squirming insect. It feels like some kind of coup that something this mean made its way to a really successful wide-release, but I hope that means we get like six or seven more of them so that we can see the Smile Demon go to space, or Manhattan. 

As has been the case over the last couple years, I find myself more and more moved by largely internet-based works, both for their immediate accessibility and for their formal utility. Conner O’Malley had multiple projects this year as funny and ambitious as anything you’d see in a cinema (though Rap World did, inexplicably, get a brief run of limited engagement screenings despite being the most visually bland thing he’s been involved in in some time).

One of these projects that stands above the crowd for me is dd oO bentl’s I AM THE STRONGEST WOMAN WHO EVER LIVED: wyman gordon pavilion, harvey, il. Visually, it’s mostly a still image of a drawing the filmmaker made while checked into a psychiatric hospital, while she describes the experience in voiceover. It’s undoubtedly an “experimental film” modally, but one so personal and straightforward that it forces a sort of confrontation with what exactly constitutes an “experiment.” As we stare forward at bentl’s drawing, trapped in our protagonist’s head along with her, we ping between the moments of warmth received from other patients and occasionally nursing staff, and the deep lows of suicidal ideation. We reckon with the failures of our medical system’s last-ditch efforts to keep people from dying. 

Another experimental whatsit that I can’t recommend highly enough is Flo Mavy’s Running Fields series. Taking clear influence from Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale (1971), Mavy has, so far, made a series of four handheld camera experiments largely by (as the title states) running through fields and moving the camera around with increasing speed and range. It’s another thing that straddles certified avant-garde territory and something anyone could make on their phone. What’s the real difference?

For one, Mavy’s creation of this as a series allows for a textural differentiation between the films, their final abstractions being very much intentional. There’s intention in the peculiar motions of the camera, too, and it never feels repetitive nor truly random; there’s change in the speed and direction that develops over time, and combined with the filmmaker’s own motion this creates a true disorientation. In contrast with something like Snow’s film, where there’s constant tension between the fixity of perspective and the endless images that come from the one pivot point, each of these feels like spinning fully out of control, space infinitely expanding in all directions as Mavy moves. 

Here’s to another year of lo-fi invention on the ‘net. I’ve sent out a more general top-20 list elsewhere, so here’s one that’s hopefully a little more useful. Top 10 2024 films that you can watch free and legally online right now:

1. Timescan 2 (dir. Rob Taro)
2. I AM THE STRONGEST WOMAN WHO EVER LIVED (dir. dd oO bentl)
3. Running Fields I-IV (dir. Flo Mavy)
4. Skatefilm (dir. Gosha Konyshev)
5. I Shall Die Happily Among The Rats (dir. Jay Villalobos)
6. Rap World (dirs. Danny Scharar, Conner O’Malley)
7. Tomahawk Clouds (dir. Eric Marsh)
8. Melody Electronics (Full Game Walkthrough) (dir. Albert Birney)
9. Motel Hell (dir. Dave Fox)
10. Cave Video 2 (dir. Carter Amelia Davis)

Jason Fuhrman:

Nothing in my viewing habits substantially changed in 2024. I continued to see as many films at the Cinematheque as possible, while regularly visiting Marcus Point and Marcus Palace, as well as AMC Fitchburg on occasion. If I am going to see a movie at a commercial theater, then I tend to prefer Marcus. I generally try to avoid AMC unless I want to see something in IMAX or if a film I’m interested in is only playing there. I have really tried to stay tuned in to new releases that are outside of the conventional Hollywood genome and see them on the big screen whenever I can. However, I agree with Edwanike that you can’t afford to hesitate if there is something you really want to see on the big screen.

The cinematic landscape feels more and more volatile every year and moviegoing seems to be a rarefied lifestyle. While this might seem eccentric or even radical to some people today, I still refuse to subscribe to any streaming services and rarely watch films at home. I certainly understand the appeal of watching movies in the comfort of your own home, but I feel like I haven’t really seen a film unless it’s on the big screen. Naturally, maintaining such a rigorous moviegoing schedule can be exhausting and complicated at times. Nevertheless, for me, the benefits of this commitment far outweigh the costs. The cinema feels like my home now. I understand that the world and the film industry are rapidly changing and that cinema might not exist forever in the traditional sense. But I believe people will always find a way to keep it alive.

On the one hand, I agree that tentpole movies in 2024 were relatively lackluster and underwhelming. And more often than not, I found myself in nearly empty theaters. I always make an effort to catch arthouse and international fare at the commercial cinemas, but clearly I’m in the minority. Like everyone else, I went to see such hotly anticipated blockbusters as Alien: Romulus, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Gladiator II. Although I was entertained and had fairly low expectations to begin with, none of these mainstream popcorn movies made a lasting impression. But Dune: Part Two was the exception. I saw it on opening night in IMAX with a group of friends in a packed theater and it was spectacular! (I even went to see it a second time.)

On the other hand, I feel like there has been something of a shift in the film industry. Moviegoers are finally beginning to grow weary of superhero franchises, endless sequels, and trite remakes. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but it seems as though studios have become more willing to take risks and invest in original projects that push the envelope. The astounding success of a film as unapologetically absurd, caustic, and grotesque as The Substance definitely gives me hope for the future of cinema. I saw French director Coralie Fargeat’s debut feature—Revenge—at the 2018 Wisconsin Film Festival. Her highly stylized and visceral feminist twist on the problematic rape-revenge subgenre completely blew me away, and so I was very excited when I heard that her next film was a pitch-black sci-fi body horror satire starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley! I loved it. The Substance is the perfect example of a film that totally commits to its main concept.

I must respectfully disagree with Sara, though. Despite the frequent emptiness of theaters and the general decline of the communal moviegoing experience, my faith is always restored when I go to the consistently popular Premiere Showcase series at the Cinematheque. Cinephiles still show up to fill the auditorium for these Thursday evening events, which oftentimes offer the only chance to see many new releases on the big screen in Madison. And although this certainly did not match the widespread cultural significance of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, the release of Babygirl and Nosferatu on Christmas Day felt like the 2024 analogue to that. I tried to rally some folks for a double feature (which I dubbed “Babyferatu”). Only a few individuals, including Grant, joined me for both films, but we went out for dinner at Swagat Indian Cuisine in between showings and several more friends came out to see Nosferatu later that night. Both films were amazing, and they ended up having much more in common than I expected (e.g., exploration of dark, irrepressible appetites and the portrayal of complex, dangerous love triangles involving significant age gaps). 

One major change for me in 2024 was the revival of Cinesthesia (the monthly film series I host at the Central branch of Madison Public Library) after a nearly four-year hiatus. Frankly, I was a little worried about how many people would come out to screenings in the wake of the pandemic and after such a long time. However, the program was a success, attendance was consistently high at every event, and I received a lot of positive feedback. It felt like we picked up right where we left off in 2020. I was given the green light for another year, which I’m pretty excited about. In my own small way, I’m trying to breathe new life into the communal cinematic experience and it actually seems to be working. I’m certainly looking forward to the next chapter of Cinesthesia.

I genuinely tried to limit my favorite movies of the year to a list of 10, but it was quite a struggle. Top 20 films of 2024 in alphabetical order (because it was too difficult for me to rank them and I have OCD):

1. About Dry Grasses (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
2. Anora (dir. Sean Baker)
3. The Apprentice (dir. Ali Abbasi)
4. Babygirl (dir. Halina Reijn)
5. The Beast (dir. Bertrand Bonello)
6. Challengers (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
7. Civil War (dir. Alex Garland)
8. Dahomey (dir. Mati Diop)
9. A Different Man (dir. Aaron Schimberg)
10. Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (dir. Radu Jude)
11. Dune: Part Two (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
12. Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)
13. Green Border (dir. Agnieszka Holland)
14. Kinds of Kindness (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
15. Love Lies Bleeding (dir. Rose Glass)
16. Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders)
17. Red Rooms (dir. Pascal Plante)
18. Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat (dir. Johan Grimonprez)
19. The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat)
20. The Zone Of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer)

Grant @ Jason:

While I read a lot of your writing throughout the year through your submissions here and meticulous Cinesthesia program notes, it’s always insightful to get a sense of where your head is at in these personal reflections. You have a better grasp of moviegoing culture than anyone else I can think of, because you’re going out nearly every week of the year. If I had routine access to a car, I’d honestly try to make a resolution like that in 2025, to see how it’d alter my outlook on the movies and their range of audiences.

I’m pleased to read your hope of cinema surviving in some sense no matter what. For the majority of this decade, I might’ve been hesitant to support that belief. In 2020 and 2021, I even remember telling a couple people to urgently go out to the theater to see something they were curious about, because traditional venues might be gone in a short time. But I wouldn’t offer the same caution today. After the Covid closures and reopenings, and the very apparent struggles through the first half of this year, some theaters here are standing. The AMC in Fitchburg didn’t shut down. Marcus Point and Palace didn’t drastically reduce hours. Campus spaces continue to add sneak screenings. And other unorthodox spaces screen films either during the summer or year-round.

People like you are still going out to all these spots. And many others are supporting the “lifestyle,” even if it can be simply reduced to them finding “something to do.” You’re seeking a bit of enlightenment… a spiritual home, as you poetically put it. It’s worth recognizing that, yes, some screenings for smaller movies and more under-the-radar fare were sparsely attended. As the industry rebounds from the effects of the 2023 strike in ways that we can’t even fully account for, we’ll see if that changes attitudes and attendance. Or maybe we’ll assess how we’re just kind of stuck for a while with this model that favors a dozen overlapping showtimes for the biggest-budget movies and three (or fewer) showtimes per day for most everything else.

David Boffa:

The biggest change in my film viewing habits in 2024 was that I finally started to track my film viewing via Letterboxd, which means I didn’t have to rely on my (very imperfect) memory to reflect on the year. Presumably, this will also help me avoid moments like realizing mid-film that I’d already seen 1994’s River Of Grass. Not that rewatching a Kelly Reichardt film is ever a bad thing.

On a more substantive note, I also decided to really embrace “bad” movies this year, and not merely in the ironic or comedic sense. As much fun as it can be to watch something like 2003’s From Justin To Kelly—an absolutely terrible film—for laughs with friends, there’s also something rewarding about approaching a film like 2008’s Twilight on its own terms and appreciating it for what it is or what it’s trying to do. Both of those viewing experiences were satisfying this year and raised questions that got me out of the usual rut of seeking out only “good” movies—or even more limiting, only “great” movies. Why does From Justin To Kelly fail so spectacularly when, for the most part, it’s serving up pretty standard college romance movie fare? Yes, the script is awful, but that doesn’t stop plenty of other movies in the same genre from being perfectly watchable. And is Twilight‘s portrayal of romance any more inconceivable than that seen in an acknowledged classic like The Princess Bride (1987)? I can’t explain why Buttercup and Westley fall in love any more than I can explain why a centuries-old vampire likes going to high school, but the former has never stopped me from adoring the movie.

Appreciating “bad” movies is nothing new, but I do want to acknowledge two books that really inspired me to embrace films outside the usual bounds of good taste during 2024. The first is Katharine Coldiron’s Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter (which I technically read at the end of 2023); the second is Matthew Strohl’s Why It’s OK To Love Bad Movies. It was shortly after reading Strohl’s book that I caved and watched 2021’s Reminiscence, a movie that had intrigued me based on the genre, premise, and poster, but that I’d purposefully ignored in light of some pretty bad reviews. My hesitation was due to my usual concerns regarding finite amounts of time and near-infinite numbers of movies: how could I waste the most precious of resources on a lackluster film? In their own way, Coldiron and Strohl gave me “permission” to just admit that I was keen to scratch the sci-fi, tech noir itch with something like Reminiscence. And perhaps the critics would be wrong! As it turns out, the critics were not wrong: it is not a good movie, at least by conventional standards. But it did scratch the tech-noir itch, and it’s made me think about what did and didn’t work in a film that, by all accounts, should have had the ingredients of something great.

I did see some truly great films in 2024, though. None stand out for me more than Richard Mosse’s Broken Spectre, which I saw (twice) at MMoCA. Though it sits solidly outside of what Paul Schrader somewhat cheekily calls the “Tarkovsky Ring”—more at home in a museum than in the typical cinema—it still felt as narratively and emotionally compelling as anything I’ve seen in the theaters. And as much as I appreciate the 21st-century conveniences of home movie viewing via streaming or physical media, there is something undeniably appealing about a work that is, in its very nature, totally unavailable for home viewing (unless you have a very big home). It’s one of the best films I’ve seen, full stop. 

I also couldn’t agree more with Emily Mills’ take on last-year’s Love Lies Bleeding being “a wonderfully gonzo and very hot/gross/hot fever dream written with a clear, queer lens (and cast).” It worked on so many levels for me: visually, narratively, emotionally, conceptually. I was pretty much 100% on board from minute one, and the film’s climax felt perfectly tailored to my tastes. I don’t know that it’s the “best” film I saw all year, but there’s a good chance it will become the film that I revisit more than anything else from the past year, with the possible exception of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (not a perfect film but a very fun one).

Like many others here I saw some great films at the 2024 Wisconsin Film Festival, and Amanda Kramer’s documentary So Unreal was a standout. Essay films can be a hard sell, but the best of them use words and images in a way that transcends a simple illustrated text. So Unreal is that kind of film. For the Gen X/Millennial crowd (and we Xennials in particular), its exploration of the digital and virtual as portrayed in cinema can feel somehow both personal and universal.

Finally, although it didn’t make my top-six list, Rachel Lambert’s Sometimes I Think About Dying deserves an honorable mention for having way more of an emotional impact on me than would be suggested by its minimalism and its tight 93-minute runtime. It’s a superb film, and Daisy Ridley’s excellent performance is a (sad) reminder of how many of our contemporary actors are wasted in much of today’s mainstream cinema. Films like Sometimes I Think About Dying give me hope for the state of movies going forward; the challenge is in finding such gems scattered across an increasingly fractured and fragmented cinematic landscape. But there’s also joy in such journeys of discovery, and I’m already looking forward to watching many of the films suggested here by others.

Top Six of 2024 (in no particular order, and six because I can’t decide between The Beast and Perfect Days):

Hanna Kohn:

I agree with Edwanike about how fast the film exhibition cycle feels like it’s leaning (and how I too remember with a tinge of fondness how slow VHS tape versions of films were made available). It’s hard to schedule in time for a trip to a theater with two to four people fast enough to actually get to see the film (I missed seeing Anora in theatres for this reason). 

Thank you, Max, for your list of “Top 10 2024 films that you can watch free and legally online right now.” Movies to the people. I’ve been meaning to move on to watching Rap World (dirs. Danny Scharar, Conner O’Malley) instead of staying stuck rewatching O’Malley’s Leather Metropolis dir Michael Bay (2003) and Conner O’Malley Vine Compilation: The Transformation. Also, kudos to Conner for his latest YouTube Short, DM.

Seeing mention of Twilight (2008) being a bad movie from David, I have to jump in with a reminder that Twilight is a rich textual artifact regardless. When I saw the midnight premiere of Twilight at the now-closed Eastgate Cinema near East Towne Mall as a fourteen-year-old teenage girl, it was one of the first times that I experienced my peers talking openly about desire. I’m not commenting to say that “Twilight is good, actually” but I do need the record to show that there’s an important impact that that film holds in popular culture because of casting (the film launched Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s acting careers), color grading (still being recontextualized by fans), soundtrack, and merchandising. I am a proud fan of the film to this day (roast me if you want) and have even recontextualised some elements from the film myself. If you want to hear more insightful input about Twilight, from the girlies who were there at the start of it all, I recommend checking out locally-produced podcast Say It Out Loud.

Here are some of my notable movie-related moments from 2024:

→ This year I read director Susan Seidelman’s 2024 autobiography Desperately Seeking Something and decided definitely that I’m going to shift myself from singularly watching films (and making silly little Twilight edits) to directing a narrative film (before I R.I.P. at least). 

→ I saw Nosferatu at Marcus Palace Cinema and got tricked by a bartender there (I won’t name names but their ID badge listed Top Gun: Maverick as their favorite film) into staying for a cutscene at the end of the credits (there was no cutscene). 

→ I saw Nosferatu at Marcus Palace Cinema and decided to finally start reading Franz Kafka’s 1926 novel The Castle.

→ I sobbed while watching Pretty Woman (1990) on my couch one night when I couldn’t sleep and wondered how many other women have done the same. 

→ Longlegs infiltrated my psyche, and now I cannot help but wonder practically every other day if someone is secretly living in my basement.

→ I brought my Panasonic VCR television out of storage and faced it out towards the street for the month of October. I played tapes like Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1978), Cecil B. Demented, The Fly (1986) and Goosebumps: “A Night In Terror Tower” (1996) for my neighbors to glimpse upon while they walked their dogs. 

→ My eyes rested ever so slightly during the first half of Wicked at Marcus Point Cinema.

→ I enjoyed listening to Joe Coscarelli and Jon Caramanica talk about the film in episode 508 of the New York Times Popcast titled “Is the Real Wicked Movie the Press Tour?” and their discussion of sound quality in average American theaters slightly more than I enjoyed viewing Wicked itself. 

→ My friends and I ran to secure will-call tickets to see Napoleon Dynamite 20th Anniversary LIVE! at the Barrymore Theater in November, and then I fell asleep and spilled popcorn all over the floor (sorry, Barrymore crew!). 

→ I continued to recommend films to people who I knew they wouldn’t watch and continued to hand them a physical copy (like leaving a VHS copy of Director Gregg Araki’s 1994 film The Living End in a conspicuous place at the WVMO studio to lend to fellow local radio DJ and film enthusiast, Taylor Cherry) where I could.

Here are some notable YouTube videos that I watched in 2024:

• Atlantic Drift – Episode 16 – Vienna to Budapest (Thrasher Magazine)
• Catherine Liu: Trauma, Virtue and Liberal Elites (Doomscroll)
• Meet the man who has kept video art alive (American Masters PBS)

Grant @ Hanna:

Kind of the opposite initial response to Jason…I typically don’t have the opportunity to read much of your writing throughout the year (maybe twice or thrice), so it’s illuminating and honestly fun to check in with what occupied your time and attention. It’s also like we’re pretending social media doesn’t exist…a blessing, lol.

I admire your predilection for Twilight, and especially the perspective behind what it has meant to you over a considerable span of time, over 15 years now. It has also left me wondering: what iconic universes and indelible relationships do teen audiences have today that’d similarly pique their interest? I can’t think of anything comparable to the many cultural-event book adaptations throughout the 2000s decade. Older and younger Millennials were a bit spoiled. Today, things seem stifled by those standards.

Thrilled to read that you were inspired by Seidelman to direct something in the future, whenever that’d be. When you know a bit more, you’ll have to let us all know—and give Tone Madison the priority scoop, should we still be around, ha. I know you have starred in at least one short film, so I’m curious if that will shape how you approach your own production. Thanks so much for sharing that.

I like the idea of playing movies (and one TV episode) for an audience that’s not you. Maybe just one step removed from Four Star’s daily in-store themes. I don’t know your neighborhood, but you’re certainly adding character for the October season without traditional house decoration. Goosebumps is a pretty significant show for my brother and me (as were the books, to draw some parallel to Twilight); we watched it a lot of mornings between ages eight and 12. And I’m sure it’s shaped our impression of more adult “horror” into our teen years. I think my brother is trying to do the same for his now-nine-year-old daughter, as I remember her watching “The Haunted Mask” on Netflix a couple of years ago. I don’t know if you attracted any looky-loos, in a manner of speaking, or just people stopping to stare for a minute at your glowing CRT TV. But if you’re living at the same place next year, it might be amusing to jot down a little schedule and post it on the inside window beside the set.

C Nelson-Lifson:

The year of 2024 was one that I tried to take my education “seriously” in an attempt to finish my program (Video Audio Design at Madison College) at a faster pace than I had been. In my spring semester, I took four classes with an honors project, and started working part-time at Four Star Video Rental. In the fall, I took four classes while actively having two jobs, which ultimately led to burnout. (If anyone ever hears me saying I am thinking about taking four classes while doubly employed, I give full permission to slap me across the head). Even though I now work at a video store, for most of 2024 I was not in “movie mode,” but was instead in “school” and “music mode,” as I spent much of my free time working on my upcoming Sister Agnes* record. I have come to terms with the fact that it will take me a while to finish my degree, which will allow me to (ideally) not be burnt out and make time for more movies/art/socializing/anything else that adds to a life enriched in many different areas. 

While I was not actively in movie mode, I still managed (somehow) to get to the theater 28 times this past year. I also saw 18 different screenings at the Wisconsin Film Festival, which tested me both physically and spiritually. I’m off the hard stuff (caffeine), which will prevent me from seeing that many movies at WFF in the future, and I am honestly relieved. I don’t think our little human brains are programmed to take in that many different films in a short period of time and be able to formulate coherent thoughts. In the future, I will prioritize quality over quantity, which is good advice in general. (As a Virgo, it is decidedly in my nature to give advice that I do not implement myself, but that is neither here nor there.)

Here are my favorite films that came out in 2024:

1. Challengers (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
2. Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (dir. Rose Glass)
4. Babygirl (dir. Halina Reijn)
5. Trap (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
6. Twisters (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)
7. The Bikeriders (dir. Jeff Nichols)
8. The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargaet)
9. In A Violent Nature (dir. Chris Nash)
10. Nosferatu (dir. Robert Eggers)

In addition to these films, I was really intrigued and excited by the first films of Dev Patel (Monkey Man) and Zelda Williams (Lisa Frankenstein), and I am looking forward to what they do next! *I also have to mention the freaky nuns in 2024! Immaculate and The First Omen did not have enough freaky nuns nor were they horny enough to be considered true “nunsploitation,” but I appreciate these films being in the zeitgeist.

Here are movies I was disappointed by in 2024!!!!! (a.k.a. my “Hater Hole”):

1. Drive Away Dolls

Very bizarre and does not have the juice, much like Margaret Qualley’s face after performing cunnilingus. SORRY!!!!!

2. Nosferatu

Yes, I put this on my favorites and films that I was disappointed by; both can be true!! I contain multitudes!!!! Lily-Rose Depp also does not have the juice.

3. Maxxxine

Imagine making a trilogy of movies about porn and none of them are horny…

4. Longlegs (FLOP)
5. I Saw The TV Glow

I saw this at 11 a.m. by myself, and it ruined the rest of my day.

6. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (backstory industrial complex strikes again)
7. Alien: Romulus (mostly just weird CGI Ian Holm)

Here are my favorite new-to-me movies:

1. Supersonic (2016, dir. Mat Whitecross)

For those who don’t know, I came down with an acute case of OASIS-ITIS in March, and it has been terribly debilitating (a.k.a. listening to Oasis almost exclusively ever since and loving every minute of it). They rereleased this for ONE DAY ONLY on July 17th in IMAX, and it ROCKED (even if the movie theater in Fitchburg has rats and smells like pee).

2. Strange Days (1995, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)
3. Wild At Heart (1990, dir. David Lynch)

Last January, I tried to have a CAPRICORN KING NICOLAS CAGE JANUARY, but I only managed to watch five of his films, including this one, which rocked my entire world.

4. Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972, dir. Lucio Fulci) 
5. All That Jazz (1979, dir. Bob Fosse)
6. God’s Own Country (2017, dir. Francis Lee)
7. Sorcerer (1977, dir. William Friedkin)
8. The Hidden (1987, dir. Jack Sholder)
9. Point Break (1991, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)
10. A Room With A View (1986, dir. James Ivory)