10. Thelma
Thelma certainly offers the best high-concept of any film this year- what if your gran decided to play Tom Cruise for the day? This OAP caper follows the titular Thelma (June Squibb) as she embarks on a Mission: Impossible style journey to retrieve $10,000 defrauded from her by scammers posing as her grandson. What results is a surprisingly thrilling action-comedy with some genuinely tense set pieces. Writer-director Josh Margolin completely understands the cadences and style of the action movie and transposes them so perfectly onto Thelma’s small-scale acrobatics- including some very taught scenes in an antique shop. There is also a rich sentimental vein running through the film, and Margolin’s deep affection for his own grandmother, who inspired it, really shines through. It’s like Bond but swapping Aston Martins with mobility scooters, martinis with cuppas, and a Tom Ford suit with a snug knitted cardigan.
9. A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore directorial effort is technically only coming to the UK cinemas this January- as so many awards contenders do. However, A Real Pain is such a real treat I felt compelled to include it on my year-end list. It follows cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) on a holocaust remembrance tour around Poland that their late grandmother paid for in her will. The film is an absolute blast, despite its sombre setting, thanks to the perfect comedic pairing of Eisenberg and Culkin. They share a similar manic energy that makes them completely believable as cousins and manifests into an odd-couple dynamic between the introverted David and extroverted Benji.
Culkin especially demonstrates one of the finest acting ears for comedy and revels in his character’s unfiltered behaviour. However, beneath all the laughs is a meditative piece of cinema about pain in all its incarnations, from the smallest sorrows right up to the greatest human tragedies. Eisenberg’s script handles the topic elegantly as it interrogates the human tendency to deny, ignore, or pretend our pain is somehow unimportant in the grand scheme of things. This is matched by his equally deft direction which doesn’t feel the need to fill every moment with laughs or revelations, and gives his film space to breathe and resonate.
8. The Iron Claw
While we’re on pain, The Iron Claw has it in buckets. Another film which straddled the awards corridor, in this case between 2023 and 2024, it was criminally snubbed by pretty much everyone. It follows the true story of the Von Erich brothers, a family of wrestlers mentored by their father and the epitome of toxic masculinity, Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany). The film is physically and emotionally brutal as the Von Erichs are dealt blow after blow both in and out of the ring. The wrestling scenes are wince-inducing, while the personal tragedies they face are almost beyond comprehension, and true-to-life plot threads were even removed to make the film more bearable. It is a bruising film to watch but compellingly told by its writer and director, Sean Durkin. Zac Efron also excels as the eldest brother, Kevin, who bears the burden of his family’s grief. Efron gives a career-best performance, combining sheer macho spectacle with Kevin’s downtrodden yet tender soul to provide the beating heart within The Iron Claw’s muscle-clad bravura.
7. A Different Man
A Different Man is best enjoyed knowing as little as possible beforehand, and in all honesty, it is very hard to explain anyway. But hey-ho, I will try to give a quick rundown. It stars Sebastian Stan as Edward, a failed actor with neurofibromatosis, leaving his face covered in large tumours. He lives an awkward and reclusive life until an experimental procedure removes the tumours, prompting him to fake Edward’s death and begin a new life as a handsome real-estate agent Guy. However, he one day meets Oswald (Adam Pearson), who has the same facial tumours but lives a confident and gregarious life enthralling all those around him. Seeing Oswald living a life he thought impossible due to his condition sends Edward spiralling into obsession and an existential crisis. Pearson has neurofibromatosis in real life, and director Aaron Schimberg created the film for him. Both he and Stan offer phenomenal performances in this twisty and enigmatic black comedy which develops in the most unexpected, revealing, and deeply satisfying ways.
6. Sing Sing
Set within the real-life Sing Sing Correctional facility, this is an understated yet utterly transfixing film. It is directed and co-written by Greg Kwedar, who was inspired by an Esquire article on Sing Sing’s groundbreaking theatre rehabilitation programme. One which significantly dropped its re-offender rate. He made the film in just eighteen days and brings a subtle but deeply effective direction which captures both the close confinement and the limitless potential of its inmates. However, the film’s highlight is its cast, made up almost entirely of real-life graduates from the programme. They bring a rawness and authenticity as well as ease to the film which helps make it as powerful as it is. They are also led by a professional actor in Colman Domingo, who is fantastic as another real-life member of the programme Davine G. Domingo’s performance feels almost swan-like as he simultaneously presents us with the buoyant hepcat Davine G presents on his surface, and the wearied man frantically kicking his legs just to stay afloat. It is an outstanding performance, in an outstanding cast, in an outstanding film.
5. Unicorns
An absolute joy to watch and sadly underseen, this film challenged my preconceptions in a way no other film could this year. A modern, mythical, and magical romcom starring Ben Hardy as Luke, a mechanic and single father who one night absent-mindedly wanders into a “gaysian” nightclub. There, he spots and instantly falls for Aisha (Jason Patel). However, things become complicated when he notices Aisha’s Adam\’s-apple and realises she is a drag queen who goes by Ashkar in their daily life. What one might expect then is a film about navigating the tricky questions of identity, gender, and sexuality. However, Unicorns instead blows past such fussiness to tell an uplifting story about love’s power to transcend artificial social binaries. The film feels revolutionary in its choice not to rationalise characters within our cultural norms and shows audiences how little labels need to matter. It is zippy, funny, and colourful, and Hardy and Patel are a pleasure to watch on screen.
4. Anora
The radiant, raucous, and fantastically sweary Anora marks Sean Baker’s finest film to date and a powerful arrow in his mission to destigmatise sex work. It follows Ani (Mikey Madison), a stripper and sex worker in Brooklyn, who is hired by and then marries the spoilt son of a Russian oligarch, Ivan (Mark Eidelshtein). Their marriage begins as an aspirational Hollywood fairytale before moving into an outrageous comedy of errors and then becoming a sobering look at inequality and transactional love.
Baker pulls off a true high-wire act, bringing colour, hope and agency to subject matter so often denigrated, or worse fetishised, as seedy and helpless. Mikey Madison is an unrelenting force of nature as she always keeps Ani on a level with the audience and makes it possible to laugh through the film’s darker comedy. Yura Borisov also deserves plaudits for paying the Russian henchman Igor. He makes the perfect comedic foil for Madison and adds a critical tenderness to the film. The pair also feature in the film’s difficult and enigmatic final frames, which they execute with absolute grace.
3. Grand Theft Hamlet
This experimental documentary was born out of the January 2021 UK lockdown and follows out-of-work actors Same Crane and Mark Oosterveen as they decide to stage a production of Hamlet within Grand Theft Auto Online. This proves a monumental undertaking involving a casting call, auditions, location scouting and countless rehearsals, all of which take place within GTA’s open world. It is also documented using its in-game camera tools by Sam’s documentarian wife, Pinny Grylls.
The resulting film is unbelievably good fun to watch as Sam, Mark and their coterie of Thespians are forced to fight off gangs, swat teams, and lone agents of chaos. This leads to some surreal moments as the Bard’s words are recited against a backdrop of incoming fire and interspersed with shouts of ‘You can’t stop art mother****ers’. The film also understands the enduring legacy of both Shakespeare and GTA and melds the two together seamlessly. It does not feel like a simple gimmick as both work to draw out the meaning of the other. It is also a deeply moving look at the pandemic and captures the emotional, psychological and financial toil that COVID-19 wrought on so many people.
2. Dune: Part Two
The term epic gets bandied about a lot nowadays, not least when being used to promote whatever quasi-historical silliness Ridley Scott is working on. However, it certainly applies to the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, converting an esoteric sci-fi novel into a blockbuster behemoth. It is both spectacular and intelligent as Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaiths do a stronger job articulating the book’s themes of imperialism and religious fundamentalism than author Frank Herbert even could. Their film highlights the pernicious effect of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother’s (Rebecca Ferguson) manipulations far more clearly while also giving greater agency to Chani (Zendaya) as a voice of dissent.
However, Dune: Part Two’s finest moments come in its succession of staggering set pieces. These include an attack on a spice mining vessel, Paul riding a sandworm, and a gladiatorial battle- take notes Ridley- set against a breathtaking monochromatic world. The latter also features Austin Butler in his brilliant turn as the disgustingly alluring psychopath Feyd-Rautha. Dune: Part Two offers some of the most palpable cinema of the 21st century and indeed the entire history of film.
1. Blink Twice
Zoe Kravitz kicked the door down and then some with her directorial debut in Blink Twice. It is a jaw-dropping thriller which manages to be slick, sinewy and searing all at once. Naomi Ackie stars as Frida, who is invited with her friend Jess (Ali Shawkat) to the private island of charming tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum). The film is best left, like A Different Man, to unfurl on its own terms. Therefore, I won’t say much more than things take a turn for the sinister, and I mean deeply sinister. Blink Twice does not hold back and confronts its audience with some truly horrifying imagery, but it remains utterly compelling thanks to Kravitz’s assured and stylish direction.
It combines the exuberance and bravado of Tarantino with the meticulous craftsmanship of Kubrick to create some edge-of-your-seat stuff. The film possesses a compulsive staccato rhythm to its pacing and is awash with rich contrasting colours, which take us through the looking glass into the heightened unreality of the billionaire. Tatum is terrifying and magnetic as Slater King as he simultaneously leans into and subverts his loveable himbo stereotype. Meanwhile, Ackie simply powers across the screen and demonstrates a remarkable muscularity in her face, which she contorts into the rawest of emotions. It will leave your head spinning, your heart pounding, and your nerves reeling- so be prepared to have a lie down afterwards if needed.