The Guardian list of the best 2024 movies

The middle ground of decent budget and decent exposure but not dumb movies is ever-shrinking alright. I think as soon as money is getting pumped into something at the moment, there's a drive to make it as broad appeal as possible, often at the cost of whatever made it an interesting idea in the first place. Looking back at many of the classics from the 70s in particular, if they were being made today there's not a hope they'd have been allowed to be as nuanced and brilliant as they were. For that level of introspection and character study you kinda need to look at smaller movies now.

Speaking of which, it's worth mentioning that when people are calling things artsy now, it's not like they're all some experimental weird yolks - most of them are actually the more grounded movies that tell smaller stories to make you think a bit and feel something. Feels a bit dismissive for a lot of them to just be labelled artsy or pretentious, rather than just trying to do something beyond the bare minimum of basic entertainment.

Anyway, was thinking another one missing from the list is Sing Sing, a reasonably likely top 3 candidate though.

Yeah, sure especially when it comes to wars with huge PR elements, it's as much (if not more) important that people SEE things happening. Like that famous Sadam photo in the moments he was captured (not that there was a journo there, the photo is uncredited, but the impact of the image was huge. So it's understandable why there actually is a specific special accreditation for some war correspondents to accompany armed forces on missions).

another one I really enjoyed… there was no shortage of tension there for me anyway. Thought it was a great classic neo-noir setup, taking some mad visceral detours along the way (a bit requiem for a dream at times, a bit Cronenberg at others).

Ya. I thought it dragged for the first half hour or so. Then it picked up a bit of pace and got interesting. But then just got too weird with the giant thing. If it just maintained a normal trajectory, I think I would have enjoyed it. But that particular piece of the film just threw me and was a bit silly.

The way I look at it - just because a film is strange, doesn't make it interesting or good.

I cannot take any post seriously that uses the phrase "woke culture war fodder". The reason is that "woke" is a term that is now so broad that it has lost all real meaning. Ask 10 people who criticize a movie for being "woke" and you'd get back 10 totally different definitions. For some people, the mere presence of a minority demographic in a prominent role means the movie is "woke".

Take No Time To Die - I've heard it being described as woke because a black woman is a MI6 agent (I guess that also makes The Day of The Jackal TV show woke by that definition), Bond has a child, and Bond dies at the end. I can appreciate why people may not feel the last two plot points belong in an escapist franchise with an established formula like Bond, but that just proves my point - "woke" is now used as a catch all term for whatever the writer dislikes.

I've watched a fair few from the list. But honestly, expecting it to be the exact same as every other list is a weird thing thing to be disappointed by. A list that isn't generic that exposes us to movies we wouldn't ordinarily seek out is great. If this one doesn't suit you, I'm sure you'll find hundreds of sites that provide entirely generic movies.

Oh believe me, there's plenty of that going on in The Day of the Jackal thread too. A large contingent of posters seem to be watching it specifically so they can complain about the fact that Lashanna Lynch is in it.

Longlegs was great alright.

Late night with devil is in my top 5