What’s going on with movies these days? Every time you hear the old “people don’t want to go to movie theaters anymore” line, it seems a Moana 2 shows up to knock those naysayers back down in their seats (reclining theater seats, probably), as that Disney sequel has already crossed the $700 million mark in just its third week of release. No, people are still going to the movies…
That said, the types of movies that are being made – and released theatrically at least, as opposed to going straight to streaming or digital – have definitely changed. It’s nothing new to say that the more mid-budgeted films like straight dramas or comedies have a harder time getting screen time in the current theatrical landscape, since, well, Moana 2 is probably taking up all of those screens. And showtimes.
So when it comes to the IGN Award for Best Movie, we like to shine a light on a bunch of different types of films not just because we, the staff, enjoy a variety of genres and types of movies, but also because we know you, the IGN audience, feel the same way. So for every huge Denis Villeneuve sci-fi saga that we’re into, there’s a smallish horror movie where a simple injection can change your life for the better (or it it the worse?). For every Sean Baker “indie” that’s wowed us, there’s a hugely stylish remake of, say, a silent horror classic that has also wowed us in a completely different way.
And so it goes. The IGN Award for Best Movie is typically not going to match up with what the Oscars or, yuck, the Golden Globes pick. But we don’t want it to. And you don’t want it to. And man, Count Orlok definitely doesn’t want it to. So all that said, let’s dive in our faves of the year 2024!
Honorable Mentions
Of course, there are always those movies that just almost made our top group, but got edged out in the final voting among our staff. That includes writer-director Alex Garland’s Civil War, a gut-punch of a film starring Kirsten Dunst as a photojournalist documenting the bloodshed resulting from a modern American Civil War. Even as she takes the young photographer Cailee Spaeny under her wing, Dunst’s character finds herself at the center of a consequential moment for this fake but also all-too-real United States.
Also starring Spaeny and also among our honorable mentions is Alien: Romulus, a surprisingly strong return to the roots of the Alien franchise after the side journeys of OG director Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. With Romulus, director Fede Álvarez manages to mainline everything we loved about the good Alien movies, as well as some of the bad ones, and mostly gets away without the film feeling like a fan-service retread. Another familiar IP – because yes, that’s what these things are – that was near the top of our picks was Wicked, or Wicked: Part 1, really. The Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande-starring adaptation managed to convincingly channel the beloved stage musical but also the book on which its based.
And then there were the straight-up horror films like Longlegs, filmmaker Osgood Perkins’ creepy riff on Silence of the Lambs featuring a Teddy Perkins-esque Nicolas Cage that you won’t soon forget, and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) remakes the 102-year-old German Expressionist classic with Bill Skarsgård now playing the dreaded Count Orlok. The film probably would’ve ranked higher on this list if not for the fact that it’s not out until Dec. 25 and not enough of our staff had seen it by the time voting had closed.
Runner-Up: Anora
Writer-director Sean Baker has made a name for himself with films like Red Rocket and The Florida Project, and Anora continues the trend with the story of the title character (played by Mikey Madison in a career-rocketing performance). Anora is a stripper and sex worker living in Brooklyn who is hired by Mark Eydelshteyn's Vanya, the rich son of a Russian oligarch. Despite the transactional nature of their initial meeting, the young couple get married – much to the chagrin of Vanya’s parents, and leading to an attempt to get the marriage anulled. Anora is alternately funny and emotional, with Baker once again exploring the world of the downtrodden with a keen eye that is only amplified by terrific peformances across the board. As Lex Briscuso put it in her review for IGN, the film “serves up its lead character’s purity of heart on a silver platter, showing us what it means to be let down just when the world seems so full of possibility.”
Runner-Up: The Substance
Filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is the kind of movie that takes you by your lapels (you do wear lapels, don’t you?) and shakes you up and down saying LOOK AT WHAT WE’RE DOING HERE ISN’T IT GROSS AND ALSO AMAZING!? And the thing is, it kind of is most of the time. Gross and amazing, that is. Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading Hollywood star who despite being, well, Demi Moore, is fired from her fitness show because she’s aging like all human beings tend to do. Enter the Substance of the title, which once injected into Elisabeth results in an erupting Margaret Qualley – literally – a younger, more TV-ready version of Elisabeth (because, obviously, young). Sue, as the younger woman calls herself, slowly but surely winds up in a battle for skin time with Elisabeth, since only one can remain functional at a time while the other’s body must go dormant. As the situation becomes untenable for both, the Cronenbergian body horror really kicks in, and you gotta see where it all goes in the end before you realize that maybe we’re part of the problem here. Our original IGN review put it this way: “The Substance indicts celebrity culture’s obsession with youth and beauty in a sick, twisted, and squirm-inducing parable.”
Runner-Up: Challengers
Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria) actually had two films out this year, with the Daniel-Craig starring Queer also of note. But Challengers, with its intense tennis tale of passion on and off the court, is the one to rank high among our staff. Zendaya stars as a former tennis star who, years earlier, was injured and forced to become the coach to the man who eventually becomes her husband (Mike Faist). But when a former friend/lover (Josh O'Connor) re-enters their lives, a tennis match between the two men becomes much, much more than that. Guadagnino tells his film’s story over a 13-year time period, weaving in and out of not just its own chronology but also the complicated motivations and interpersonal dynamics of the three lead characters. The performances are as impressive as the tennis play (and the “you are a tennis ball” shots that Guadagnino eventually stages!), all culminating in a “what just happened? I think I love what just happened” ending. As Siddhant Adlakha said in his IGN review, “Challengers builds the relationships between its leading tennis trio in exciting and exacting ways. Enhanced by layered physical performances … the result is one of the sexiest and most electric dramas of 2024.”
Winner: Dune: Part Two
Did someone call for a sandworm? Well, it has arrived.
Denis Villeneuve has managed to do what many filmmakers before him tried and failed, and that of course is to take Frank Herbert’s dense science-fiction classic and turn it into a movie series that people are actually into. Nay, not just a movie series, Dune is now a legit franchise, with the prequel TV series Dune: Prophecy currently airing on HBO Max and a third film guaranteed. Certainly, casting hugely popular and charismatic young actors like Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya (she’s on our list again!) was one of the keys to Dune and then Dune: Part Two’s success, but Villeneuve’s particular skill at wrangling outsized sci-fi concepts – not to mention a huge scope from setting to cast to visuals and more – has to be, and do forgive me for this, compared to Paul Atreides managing to climb that sandworm and just get down to business. The guy just has it. That Villeneuve has also recontextualized aspects of Herbert’s story, particularly in how this chapter ends and where it leaves Chalamet’s Paul and Zendaya’s Chani, only makes it all the more intriguing of a series. Like Tom Jorgensen said in his IGN review of the film, “featuring absolutely staggering visuals, Dune: Part Two is an arresting, transportive middle entry in Denis Villeneuve’s tricky sci-fi saga.”
So those are our best movies of 2024, but what are your picks? Let’s discuss in the comments!
