These are the movies we’ve gotten excited about this year – and where you can watch them.
Can’t decide what to watch? Well, look no further—there’s bound to be something on this list of our fave movies so far this year, whether you’re watching for the first time, or revisiting a recent highlight.
This post will be updated each month with new recommendations for viewing both in cinemas and at home. And, for the avoidance of any confusion, these are titles we covered in 2024—as opposed to what a formal release year might say. Look, we just want you to watch some good stuff, OK?
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Wes Ball takes the reins for a new run Apes pic, taking place hundreds of years after War for the Planet of the Apes, in an era more reminiscent of the 1968 original. Kingdom is a worthy, if overlong, successor to one of the finest trilogies in modern blockbuster storytelling, says David Michael Brown’s review: “Huge of heart with enough bravura action set-pieces to sate the biggest Apes aficionado”. That’s echoed in Luke Buckmaster’s review: “Works spectacularly well, even if the cultural moment around these movies has changed, and the sheer number of them has diminished their wow factor.”
The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy
A stuntman returns to the biz (and an ex) in action-rom-com The Fall Guy. A genuinely touching sense of affection for the stunt double profession is evident, according to Katie Parker’s review—and while it may not challenge stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt (or the audience) too much “it is still a pleasure to see them flex their skills with ease, effortlessly riffing and bringing out each other’s A-game.”
Out of Darkness
Out of Darkness
A small group in the Scottish Highlands of 43,000BCE fight for survival in Out of Darkness, a wildly ambitious feature debut that punches well above its weight, says Liam Maguren’s review: “Punching well above its weight to hit a humble target, [director Andrew Cumming] has kicked off his career with one of the most unconventional conventional horror films to come out of Britain.”
Challengers
Jumpy chronological pacing and hard-to-like characters would be an issue in most films. Not Luca Guadagnino’s entertaining tennis love triangle Challengers (starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist), though… Luke Buckmaster’s review appreciates the gameplay on and off the court: “This is a charming, feisty film, that goes down easy and has some kick to it, like a spritzy summer cocktail.”
La Chimera
La Chimera
Speaking of O’Connor, La Chimera follows him through a woozy 1980s Tuscany. Blessed(?) with a preternatural ability to uncover 2000-year-old Etruscan artefacts, he’s haunted by his own past, even while pillaging the histories of others to earn a living via the black market. As Sarah Thomson wrote after seeing La Chimera at NZ International Film Festival: “Beautiful and broken, our band of ‘tombaroli’ (gravediggers) led by a magnetic Josh O’Connor, raid the countryside’s past to provide for their present—both as the many-headed beast and the impossible liminal dream of the film’s title. Stunning.”
Robot Dreams
Robot Dreams
Another film fest fave from last year that returned for wider release, a dog and a robot form a precious bond—one that gets tested—in Oscar-nominated animated film Robot Dreams. Liam Maguren’s impressed review draws a direct line between this cartoon and Celine Song’s Past Lives: “Both films are set in New York, they look back at a bygone era, rely on nuanced performances, examine a relationship tested by time, and find something profound to say about the nature of love.”
The First Omen
The First Omen
The Antichrist Damien is but a twinkle in a Catholic conspiracy’s eye, in unexpected horror prequel The First Omen. As Eliza Janssen’s review details, no one prophesied the film’s imagery, lead performance, and gutsy ideas to take us to church quite so much: “With the help of fearless lead performer Nell Tiger Free, The First Omen is a nasty yet welcome surprise, reminding us of the religious horror genre’s greatest hits while introducing us to bold new talents.”
Origin
Origin (2023)
Featuring a powerful lead performance from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Origin is much more than a mere book adaptation, skipping through time to weave its author’s contention. As Luke Buckmaster’s review says, for all its flaws, Ava DuVernay’s film is utterly singular: “It’s part biopic, part ruminative cine-essay, part adaptation of Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, which was described by The New York Times as a seminal text exploring “how brutal misperceptions about race have disfigured the American experiment.” The Guardian called it “an American reckoning.””
Monkey Man
A man named Kid is out to avenge his mother in action flick Monkey Man—along the way, kicking butt and standing up for everyone pushed to the margins by India’s elite. First-time feature director Dev Patel also leads the film, and as Katie Smith-Wong’s review praises, he’s helmed a cathartic stunner of a debut: “Behind the camera, his visuals feel unrefined but intimate, daring to bare the soul of Monkey Man’s sordid settings and its protagonist to show a raw directing skill that compensates for the film’s inconsistencies in pacing and tone.”
Io Capitano
Two Senegalese teens attempt a border-crossing journey—and quickly find themselves out of their depths—in Io Capitano. This Oscar-nominated odyssey goes to some intense places, Liam Maguren’s review notes, constantly upping the stakes even when there appears to be no more stakes to up: “If you’re familiar with writer-director Matteo Garrone’s previous work, like 2008’s Gomorrah or 2018’s Dogman, you’ll know the pair’s in for an increasingly painful journey through the Sahara Desert and across the Mediterranean Sea.”
The Mountain
The Mountain (2024)
New Zealand screen legend Rachel House makes her directorial feature debut with The Mountain, following three kids on a mission to find healing under the watchful eye of Taranaki Maunga. Liam Maguren’s review expresses why it’s an incredibly rare kind of film: “A distinctly New Zealand film centred on kids that young audiences can latch onto while also telling a story with enough substance to affect anyone of any age.”
Love Lies Bleeding
Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian star in this superb sophomore pic from Saint Maud director Rose Glass, an off the rails love story serving a slice of queer noir with plenty of extras—not least of all, an impressive collection of muscles. “This movie is a good goddamned time,” declares Eliza Janssen’s review: “Especially for the gals who’ve been waiting for a full-blown, gratuitous lesbian K.Stew role like this.”
Late Night With the Devil
Late Night with the Devil
A lost 1970s talk show broadcast provides the premise of this found footage horror (and 2023 film festival highlight). Alongside its wonderfully realised talk show setting and a great lead performance by star David Dastmalchian, Tony Stamp’s review praises both Late Night with the Devil‘s journey and destination: “Suffice to say this is a slow burn, but things get pretty gnarly by the end, and genre fans will leave satisfied”.
Immaculate
Immaculate
Sydney Sweeney stars in (and produces) this religious horror in which a devout young nun finds her own body being treated as a means to an end by controlling forces. As Steve Newall’s review notes, while Immaculate may be in the tradition of many other great horrors, it is no pastiche, and “offers plenty of gore, surprises, and gonzo plotting, wrapped up in a classical (yet not throwback) aesthetic.”
Road House
Road House (2024)
Jake Gyllenhaal and Doug Liman go back to first principles with this redux of the classic Patrick Swayze vehicle in a new version of Road House. It’s a movie where everyone understands the assignment, says Travis Johnson’s review: “Road House is a sledgehammer. It’s made for big swings. It makes an impact.”
Goodbye Julia
Goodbye Julia
Two women from different parts of Sudan form an uneasy friendship against a backdrop of tragedy and racism in Goodbye Julia. As Liam Maguren’s review says: “This class act of a drama relishes in small details, concocting a compelling clash of classes that echoes loudly to the wider state of the country.”
Wicked Little Letters
Wicked Little Letters
Oscar winner Olivia Colman and Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley star in Wicked Little Letters, a comedic war-of-the-words British feature based on real events. As Fatima Sheriff’s review notes: “This small island seems to have a bottomless supply of fascinating tales to tell, with prestige casts lining up to play these icons uncovered from history”.
The Convert
The Convert
A lay preacher finds himself caught in the crossfire of two warring tribes in 1830s New Zealand in Lee Tamahori’s The Convert. In some measures, arguably the most important measures, Liam Maguren’s review says the film hits its marks: “When The Convert reaches its inevitable musket-fuelled climax, it weaves a strong net of spectacle and sorrow”.
How to Have Sex
Winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes Film Festival, How to Have Sex follows three British teenage girls on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up. An impressed Rory Doherty reviewed the film at Cannes in 2023: “The chemistry between the cast, both friends and romantic interests alike, crackles with adolescent excitement—but is also charged with constant anxiety knowing where the story is heading.”
Dune: Part Two
Director Denis Villeneuve returns to finish the sci-fi spectacle he started, reuniting with a stacked cast led by Timothée Chalamet—and with new faces including Christopher Walken, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler and Léa Seydoux. As Matt Glasby says in a spoiler-lite review, the movie’s “a staggering achievement; a stirring piece of grown-up sci-fi delivering more spectacle than you’d see in several ordinary blockbusters stitched together.”
American Fiction
American Fiction
Playing an embittered literature professor, Jeffrey Wright makes American Fiction a troubling character study that rings true to boardrooms and classrooms everywhere. Luke Buckmaster’s review marks it as the peak of the actor’s career: ” I dare say that Wright, who received an Oscar nomination for the role, has never been better: he’s brilliant as this sharp, eviscerating character, blessed with a silver tongue and cursed with a foot stuck in his mouth.”
The Great Escaper
Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson star in The Great Escaper, based on the true story of a World War II veteran who snuck out of his care home to attend the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings. As Liam Maguren’s review says, the film is a strong entry in a popular genre that has no name: “Senior moviegoers will know what I’m talking about. Trailers and marketing materials for these films aggressively trumpet the same notion: you’re never too old to [blank].”
Spaceman
Spaceman (2024)
Without a silly voice or Kevin James in sight, Adam Sandler stars as a lonely astronaut in Johan Renck’s melancholic Spaceman. It’s a genuine and psychologically stirring voyage, says Luke Buckmaster’s review: “The heart of the film felt totally genuine, once the initial wackiness wears off and the experience finds its gentle introspective rhythms”.
This Is Me…Now: A Love Story
This Is Me...Now: A Love Story
This narratively-driven, musically-slanted album movie depicting Jennifer Lopez’s path of self-healing and unwavering faith in fairytale endings is both very heartfelt and complete madness, according to Liam Maguren’s review: “We’re barely past a minute when biker Lopez appears riding with a nameless fella in a shiny CGI landscape while a remarkably unhinged news anchor played by Ben Affleck in a set of false teeth declares Love Is Dead!”
“This is not planet Earth. This is the J-Lo dimension.”
The Zone of Interest
Multiple Oscar nominee The Zone of Interest sees director Jonathan Glazer explore life over the wall from the mass exterminations of a Holocaust concentration camp. Everything the characters do, however mundane, doubles and redoubles in significance because of where and when they are doing it, says Matt Glasby’s review: “While Höss worries away at the business of mass extermination with his colleagues, Heddie tends her garden, perhaps the ultimate act of barbarism, especially as its soil is sown with ash from the furnaces.”
Orion and the Dark
Orion and the Dark
Surreal screenwriter Charlie Kaufman may seem an odd fit to adapt a children’s book about being afraid of the dark into an animated film—though you’d be right to feel there’s somewhat of a “but” coming… As Luke Buckmaster’s review notes, “this delightfully playful family film fits his oeuvre like a glove, sitting comfortably alongside the squirrely scribe’s other idiosyncratic scripts, with their cascading realities and meta-textual angstiness—from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to Synecdoche, New York and Being John Malkovich.”
The Iron Claw
The wrestling world’s tragic “Von Erich Curse” gets retold in subtle, melancholic detail by director Sean Durkin (The Nest), who assembles a great cast including Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson and Stanley Simons to bring the true story to life. “Visually the film is modest, with a spongey timeworn veneer, although it has one head-turning special effect: Efron,” says Luke Buckmaster’s review: “Here he’s something else: a human beefcake, strapping and sturdy as all get-out, with a body like Schwarzenegger circa Pumping Iron, and a lantern-jawed face banged up like an old catcher’s mitt”.
Priscilla
Based on Priscilla Beaulieu’s own memoir detailing her life with Elvis, Sofia Coppola’s latest sees Cailee Spaeny as the teen Priscilla, whose life changes unimaginably when she’s romanced by Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi). Describing the film as her finest work in over fifteen years, Rory Doherty’s review observes: “Sofia Coppola sensitively reapproaches girlhood without sacrificing the emotional rawness behind a tremendously famous love story. Priscilla is intimate, revealing, and devastates with the lightest touch.”
Mean Girls
Mean Girls (2024)
It’s Mean Girls but not as you know it. The new movie take on a 20-year-old classic is a musical—based on a Broadway musical, which is based on the 2004 film, which was itself based on a parenting book. The musical element proves essential in breathing new life into a familiar screenplay, says Rory Doherty’s review: “It’s why the song numbers, hyper-poppy and earworm-y as they may be, are the true highlights—it’s a fundamentally novel way of engaging with this story that doesn’t invoke comparisons with the original.”
The Beekeeper
A Jason Statham revenge-fueled action pic may not be what you expect to find on this list, but thankfully we have Luke Buckmaster’s review that highlights: “This is the kind of B̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶i̶e̶ bee movie for which the terms “guilty pleasure” and “so bad it’s good” were coined. I found The Beekeeper almost breathtakingly funny, laughing out loud heartily at least a dozen times, even if comedy gold wasn’t director David Ayer’s intention.”
Society of the Snow
Society of the Snow
The remarkable true survival story of a rugby team whose flight crashed on a glacier in the Andes (originally depicted three decades prior with 1993’s Alive) is retold by director J.A. Bayona (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). The plot doesn’t pussyfoot around issues of death and cannibalism, according to Luke Buckmaster’s review: “Do the dead have a right to not be eaten? Do the living have a right to survive? Bayona understands his job is to raise these questions inside a credible dramatic space rather than propose any answers.”
