The 30 Best Movies of 2024, Halfway Through (2024)

2024 has been an excellent year for smaller, weirder, more original films than usual. While there have been some very fun blockbusters (The Fall Guy, Twisters, Inside Out 2, Furiosa, Dune: Part Two), the best movies of 2024 have tended to be small indies, mid-budget films like Longlegs or Love Lies Bleeding, or excellent imports from around the world that don't need a Hollywood budget to excel. Perhaps most surprising is the surfeit of wonderful Westerns this year (and one giant multi-part disappointment). There have also been numerous unique horror films that have made 2024 one of the best years for horror recently.

Now that we're past the halfway mark of 2024, take a look at the 30 best films of 2024. Of course, the list leaves out some very good movies (which may or may not be included in the next iteration of this list, depending on what the rest of the year brings us). But for now, these are the most memorable, interesting, entertaining, powerful, and technically masterful movies of the year, ranked.

30 Boy Kills World

3.5/5

Boy Kills World

R

Action

Thriller

Boy Kills World is an action thriller film by director Moritz Mohr, released in 2024. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, a young man simply known as "Boy" lives through terrible trauma after his family is killed by a woman named Hilda Van Der Koy, who currently rules the land. Now older and more bloodthirsty than ever, Boy heads into the fray to claim revenge while liberating the world from her tyrannical grasp.

Release Date

April 26, 2024

Director

Moritz Mohr

Cast

Bill Skarsgard , Famke Janssen , Jessica Rothe , Michelle Dockery , Brett Gelman , Isaiah Mustafa , Yayan Ruhian , Nicholas Crovetti

Runtime

115 Minutes

Read Our Review

An energetic combination of slapstick comedy, sci-fi dystopia, and bone-crunching action, Boy Kills World is a unique, unpredictable rollercoaster that often feels like a first-person shooter. Bill Skarsgård is a force to be reckoned with as the titular deaf-mute Boy, whose internal monologue is voiced by the hilarious H. Jon Benjamin. Boy's quest for vengeance takes him to the very heights of this twisted world's power structure, as he eliminates members of a nasty family one by one like boss battles.

Watch Our Interview with Boy Kills World Stars Below:

29 New Life

4/5

New Life

Horror

Thriller

Mystery

Sci-Fi

A mysterious woman on the run, and the resourceful fixer assigned to bring her in. Their two unique stories inextricably link, as the stakes of the pursuit rise to apocalyptic proportions.

Release Date

May 3, 2024

Director

John Rosman

Cast

Sonya Walger , Tony Amendola , Hayley Erin , Nick George , Ayanna Berkshire , Blaine Palmer , Betty Moyer , Cyndi Rhoads

Runtime

85 Minutes

Writers

John Rosman

Read Our Review

Filmmaker John Rosman's genre-defying cat and mouse thriller takes its time becoming a truly unnerving horror film that's best seen blind, so avoid the trailers for this one. New Life follows a woman on the run hunted by a government operative who herself has just received an ALS diagnosis. Their lives are on an irrevocable collision course in this surprising, sneaky little film.

28 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

4/5

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Action

Sci-Fi

Set several years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the next installment in the Apes saga. Ape clans have taken up residence in the oasis that Caesar sought to colonize, but humans have reverted to their animalistic nature in their absence. Now battling between enslavement and freedom, outliers in the Ape clans will take sides in a newly burgeoning society.

Release Date

May 10, 2024

Director

Wes Ball

Cast

Freya Allan , Dichen Lachman , Kevin Durand , Owen Teague , William H. Macy , Peter Macon

Read Our Review

One of the most surprisingly good big-budget franchises of the past two decades has been the Planet of the Apes movies, thanks to both incredible special effects and the intelligent questions the films pose about humanity, society, technology, and animals. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes continues this trend, and while it might not reach the same heights as the original trilogy, it succeeds in telling a thoughtful story about how societies (or kingdoms) are built using impressive CGI. Introducing very different apes (and ape cultures) with a few interesting humans, the film surely sets up a great sequel.

Watch Our Interview with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Stars Below:

27 Aisha

3.5/5

Aisha

Drama

Aisha is a drama film directed and written by Frank Berry. Letitia Wright stars as Aisha Osagie, a Nigerian woman living in Ireland who is facing the threat of deportation. During her journey, Aisha becomes friends with a former prisoner named Conor Healy (Josh O'Connor).

Release Date

May 10, 2024

Director

Frank Berry

Cast

Letitia Wright , Josh O’Connor

Runtime

1h 34m

Read Our Review

A beautiful, quiet study of two very different but equally lonely people, Aisha has two major stars and yet slipped under the radar of most audiences. In the film, a Nigerian refugee tries to navigate the bureaucratic intricacies of seeking asylum in Ireland and befriends a young ex-convict in the process, with each of them brightening the other's life. Letitia Wright (Black Panther) and Josh O'Connor (Challengers) are fantastic in this moving indie drama.

26 I Saw the TV Glow

4/5

I Saw the TV Glow

PG-13

Drama

Horror

Release Date

May 3, 2024

Director

Jane Schoenbrun

Cast

Justice Smith , Brigette Lundy-Paine , Danielle Deadwyler , Fred Durst , Helena Howard , Ian Foreman

Runtime

1h 40m

Read Our Review

Jane Schoenbrun followed up their critically acclaimed film We're All Going to the World's Fair with a much more ambitious and stylistic horror drama that nonetheless captured a similar vibe. I Saw the TV Glow is a Lynchian exploration of nostalgia and, in many ways, a trans allegory that follows two fans of the fictional TV show The Pink Opaque and how the show connects them throughout life. Dark, sad, and bizarre in equal measure, the film is yet another heartbreaking exploration of teenage ennui and the fragility of identity in a post-digital age for Schoenbrun.

Watch Our Interview with Jane Schoenbrun and Justice Smith Below:

25 Molli and Max in the Future

4/5

Molli and Max in the Future

Comedy

Sci-Fi

Romance

Molli and Max in the Future is a romantic sci-fi comedy by writer-director Michael Lukk Litwak. Set a billion years in the future, Molli and Max are two hybrid beings whose paths intersect over twelve years via strange, ever-escalating incidents.

Release Date

February 9, 2024

Director

Michael Lukk Litwak

Cast

Zosia Mamet , Aristotle Athari , Erin Darke , Okieriete Onaodowan , Arturo Castro , Paloma Garcia-Lee , Matteo Lane , Michael Chernus

Runtime

1h 33m

It's a bold move to make an intergalactic sci-fi rom-com set a billion years in the future with a tiny budget and no CGI, but Michael Lukk Litwak pulls it off with quirky finesse. That's thanks in no small part to the charming performances from Zosia Mamet (Girls) and Aristotle Athari (an underrated SNL performer), who play to regular human hybrids in the future who first meet in a car accident and then keep meeting over the course of many years. Molli and Max in the Future cleverly balances the chaos of the surrounding universe with smaller relatable things, like anxieties over their careers.

24 I Used to Be Funny

4/5

I Used to Be Funny

Comedy

Drama

Sam, a stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD, weighs whether or not to join the search for a missing teenage girl she used to nanny.

Release Date

June 7, 2024

Director

Ally Pankiw

Cast

Rachel Sennott , Olga Petsa , Jason Jones , Sabrina Jalees , Caleb Hearon

Runtime

105 Minutes

Read Our Review

Rachel Sennott has been on a stratospheric rise thanks to her performances in films like Shiva Baby, Tahara, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Bottoms, but she gives her greatest performance yet in the melancholic dramedy I Used to Be Funny. Sennott plays a stand-up comedian with PTSD who enters an existential crisis after a girl she used to babysit goes missing. It's one of the year's best performances, and the film is a dark character study of the highest order.

23 We Grown Now

3.5/5

We Grown Now

PG

Drama

We Grown Now is a 2023 drama film by writer-director Minhal Baig. The film centers on best friends Malik and Eric, who are growing up in the contemporary design of the Cabrini-Green housing complex built in 1992. Despite his family having lived there for generations, the dangerous shift in the community and a new job opportunity for his mother may move them out of Cabrini-Green, driving the two friends apart.

Release Date

April 19, 2024

Director

Minhal Baig

Cast

Blake Cameron James , Gian Knight Ramirez , S. Epatha Merkerson , Avery Holliday , Ora Jones , Lil Rel Howery , Jurnee Smollett

Runtime

93 Minutes

Read Our Review

Tender and naturalistic, We Grown Now is a moving film about a family living in the Cabrini-Green housing projects in 1992 Chicago. Mixing magical realism with gritty urban drama, Minhal Baig's film follows two 10-year-old boys as they create different fantasies as a distraction from the poverty and depression of their environment. Jurnee Smollett is excellent as their mother, but the most impressive thing here is what Baig pulls off with the young actors Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez, who deliver hypnotically organic performances that capture all the feelings of a childhood on the margins.

Watch Our Interview with Jurnee Smollet and Minhal Baig Below:

22 About Dry Grasses

4/5

About Dry Grasses

Drama

A young art teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after completing his mandatory duty in a remote village school in Anatolia. After accusations of inappropriate contact with a student surface, his hopes of escape fade and he descends further into an existential crisis.

Release Date

May 21, 2024

Director

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Cast

Deniz Celiloglu , Merve Dizdar , Musab Ekici , Ece Bagci , Erdem Senocak , Yüksel Aksu , Münir Can Cindoruk , Onur Berk Arslanoglu

Read Our Review

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the finest directors working today, and even one of his lesser films is still top-tier and a must-watch. While it's not on the level of Distant, Winter Sleep, or Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, About Dry Grasses is still a fantastic film and one of Ceylan's most topical. The movie follows two teachers who have been accused of inappropriate behavior by two students. While commiserating, they slowly form a romantic triangle with a woman wounded by a terrorist attack (the phenomenal Merve Dizdar). A patient, dialogue-heavy delight, About Dry Grasses will make you think.

21 Hundreds of Beavers

4.5/5

See Also

The 10 Best Movies of 2024 (So Far)

Hundreds of Beavers

Action

Adventure

Comedy

Release Date

February 9, 2024

Director

Mike Cheslik

Cast

Ryland Brickson Cole Tews , Olivia Graves , Wes Tank , Doug Mancheski , Luis Rico

Runtime

108 Minutes

Read Our Review

A lo-fi passion project that took five years to finally reach the masses, Hundreds of Beavers is wackier than almost any other film you can think of. It's an absurdist slapstick comedy that feels like a live-action version of some weird black-and-white cartoon from the 1930s, following the Sisyphean efforts of a man's conflict with nature. From fights with wolves and beavers to raccoons and fish, the silly and surreal film is a fever dream of 19th century rural living, a portrait of survival in the funniest way.

20 Evil Does Not Exist

4/5

Evil Does Not Exist

Drama

International

Release Date

May 3, 2024

Director

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Cast

Hitoshi Omika , Ryô Nishikawa , Ryûji Kosaka , Ayaka Shibutani , Hazuki Kikuchi , Hiroyuki Miura

Runtime

1h 46m

Read Our Review

A meticulously complex and intelligent film about the environment, nationalism, business, and basic ethics, this new film from Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) is subtly profound without ever being didactic. Evil Does Not Exist follows the consequences in a small village after a Tokyo-based company buys up forest land to turn into private campgrounds, and how it specifically impacts an overworked father and his young daughter. A visually meditative and technically majestic production, the film is a sad but integral study of the conflicts that drive today's discourse — urban vs. rural, individual vs. collective, profit vs. people.

Related: Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi on Following His Instincts

19 Tótem

4/5

Tōtem

Seven-year-old Sol spends the day at her grandfather's home, helping with the preparations for a surprise party for her father. Throughout the day, chaos slowly takes over, fracturing the family's foundations.

Release Date

January 26, 2024

Director

Lila Avilés

Cast

Naíma Sentíes , Marisol Gasé , Saori Gurza , Mateo Garcia , Montserrat Marañon

Runtime

1hr 35min

Main Genre

Drama

Read Our Review

A small stunner of a film that announces Lila Avilés as a major filmmaker five years after her great debut, The Chambermaid, Tótem is a gorgeous and deceptively laid-back movie. Following seven-year-old Sol and her family throughout the course of one day as they prepare a surprise party for her father, the film brings various family members into contact with Sol to provide different perspectives and experiences. A film full of life and the range of human emotions, Tótem is a tear-jerker that genuinely earns its emotions.

18 Love Lies Bleeding

3.5/5

Love Lies Bleeding

R

Action

Thriller

Crime

Release Date

March 8, 2024

Director

Rose Glass

Cast

Kristen Stewart , Jena Malone , Ed Harris , Katy M. O'Brian , Dave Franco , Anna Baryshnikov

Runtime

1hr 44min

Read Our Review

Rose Glass finally follows up her masterful debut film, Saint Maud, with a bonkers, stylish, queer thriller starring Kristen Stewart, Love Lies Bleeding. A pulpy blend of hair metal anger and sweaty romance, the film follows a body-builder who falls in love with a woman who can provide her with steroids to win a competition. Their graphic romance intersects with dangerous family drama (and great performances from Ed Harris and Jenna Malone), and the film becomes more stylistically unhinged as paths collide. The sound design, Clint Mansell's score, and the soundtrack work together with funky cinematography to create a twisted and fascinating experience.

17 The First Omen

3.5/5

The First Omen

R

The First Omen is a horror film from directorArkasha Stevenson that acts as a prequel to the 1976 film The Omen.The film follows a young woman who goes to Rome to become a nun but begins to question her faith after encountering a terrifying darkness that aims to spawn an evil incarnate.

Release Date

April 5, 2024

Director

Arkasha Stevenson

Cast

Bill Nighy , Ralph Ineson , Nell Tiger Free , Sonia Braga , Tawfeek Barhom , Charles Dance

Runtime

2h

Main Genre

Horror

Read Our Review

A wonderful example of how smart artists with new perspectives can transform existing intellectual property into something great and even original, The First Omen is one of the better prequels we've ever seen. Up-and-coming horror maestro Arkasha Stevenson takes the mythos of The Omen and develops a brilliant way to set up the franchise, using an earth-shattering performance from Nell Tiger Free to do so. Free goes to extremely vulnerable places in this story of a nun in a theological crisis, while Stevenson takes the imagery and themes of sexual assault to near-NC-17 levels in this intense film.

16 Kinds of Kindness

4.5/5

Kinds of Kindness (2024)

R

Comedy

Drama

Kinds of Kindness is a 2024 comedy-drama film by writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos. Split across segments, Kinds of Kindness tells the stories of a man trying to reclaim his destiny, a police officer whose wife returns after being lost at sea only to seem like a different person, and a woman tasked with finding a future spiritual leader.

Release Date

June 21, 2024

Director

Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast

Emma Stone , Jesse Plemons , Willem Dafoe , Margaret Qualley , Hong Chau , Joe Alwyn , Mamoudou Athie , Hunter Schafer

Runtime

164 Minutes

Read Our Review

Yorgos Lanthimos immediately followed up the success of Poor Things with this big, messy anthology dramedy featuring many of that film's stars. Aesthetically fluid and artistically jarring, the film recycles its excellent cast (Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau) throughout three surreal stories loosely connected by the mysterious "R.M.F." Jesse Plemons is the incredible standout here, but everyone is mesmerizing in this darkly funny, nihilistic epic about people trapped by their own desires.

Watch Our Interview with Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe Below:

15 Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

4/5

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

After his sister-in-law dies in a freak motorcycle accident in Saigon, Thien is bestowed the task of delivering her body back to their countryside hometown. It is a journey in which he also takes his nephew Dao, who miraculously survived the crash. Amidst the mystical landscapes of rural Vietnam, Thien begins a search for his older brother who vanished years ago to hand Dao over to him - a journey which deeply questions his faith.

Release Date

January 19, 2024

Director

Thien An Pham

Cast

Le Phong Vu , Nguyen Thi Truc Quynh , Nguyen Thinh , Vu Ngoc Manh

Runtime

2hr 59min

Main Genre

Drama

Read Our Review

A soul-searching, meditative journey through loneliness and loss, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is certainly not for everyone, but anyone with patience for slow cinema will find much to savor here. The film follows the wandering journey of a Vietnamese man in search of his brother, who had disappeared many years ago, leaving behind a wife and son. When that wife dies in an accident, the lonely man bonds with his nephew and then eventually seeks out his brother to take care of the boy. The long and visually stunning film is in many ways an indictment of the modern world and the reduction of life into monotony and consumption.

14 In a Violent Nature

4/5

In a Violent Nature

R

Drama

Horror

Thriller

In a Violent Nature is a 2024 horror-slasher film written and directed by Chris Nash that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. A group of campers in the middle of the wilderness stumble across a fire watchtower and discover a locket buried beneath its charred ruins. However, by unearthing the locket, they've invited the wrath of its prior owner and now must survive the rampage of a supernatural killer looking to retrieve his possession.

Release Date

May 31, 2024

Director

Chris Nash

Cast

Lauren-Marie Taylor , Andrea Pavlovic , Ry Barrett , Reece Presley

Runtime

1h 34m

Read Our Review

A strikingly original horror film from filmmaker Chris Nash, In a Violent Nature deconstructs the typical slasher film by instead following the wordless antagonist as he stalks his victims. We mean "following" quite literally — the film utilizes the long, over-the-shoulder tracking shots of Alan Clarke and Gus Van Sant to stay directly behind the supernatural killer as he trudges through the forest for 24 hours or so. The ambient dread is interrupted by some truly memorable and disgusting gore, and a bizarre, allegorical ending that leaves you thinking for days.

13 Orion and the Dark

4/5

Orion and the Dark

Animation

Adventure

Comedy

The thing Orion fears the most is the dark. When the embodiment of his worst fear pays a visit, Dark whisks Orion away on a roller-coaster ride around the world to prove there is nothing to be afraid of at night.

Release Date

February 2, 2024

Director

Sean Charmatz

Cast

Jacob Tremblay , Paul Walter Hauser , Werner Herzog

Runtime

1h 30m

Read Our Review

Orion and the Dark should've been one of the more discussed films of the year thanks to the brilliant script by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), but it seems to have been overlooked by most cinephiles. That's a shame, because the animated Netflix film is endlessly creative. Like an alt-rock version of Inside Out, the film finds a neurotically scared young boy having to confront anthropomorphized concepts like darkness, quiet, and insomnia in a journey to face his fears.

Watch Our Interview with the Voice Actors of Orion and the Dark Below:

12 Green Border

4/5

Green Border

Drama

International

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called 'green border' between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are caught in a geopolitical crisis triggered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian refugee family intertwine.

Release Date

June 21, 2024

Director

Agnieszka Holland

Cast

Jalal Altawil , Maja Ostaszewska , Tomasz Włosok , Behi Djanati Atai , Mohamad Al Rashi , Dalia Naous , Maciej Stuhr , Agata Kulesza

Runtime

152 Minutes

Read Our Review

The great Agnieszka Holland (In Darkness, Europa Europa) returns with the powerful new film told with documentary-like realism and urgency, Green Border. While specifically about the European immigration crisis and, even more specifically, the provocations of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, Green Border nonetheless paints a universal portrait of what it's like to be a desperate but unwanted refugee in a world where borders are increasingly becoming blurred. Criss-crossing between a variety of characters, the film examines multiple facets of the crisis from both ends and with suspense, humor, and deep emotion.

11 The Animal Kingdom

4/5

The Animal Kingdom

Adventure

Drama

Fantasy

The Animal Kingdom is a visionary new thriller that drops viewers into an extraordinary world where mutations in human genetics cause people to transform into hybrid creatures, François (Roman Duris) does everything he can to save his wife, who is affected by this mysterious condition. As some of the creatures disappear into a nearby forest, François embarks with Emile (Paul Kircher), their 16-year-old son, on a quest to find her with help from a local police officer (Adèle Exarchopoulos).

Release Date

March 15, 2024

Director

Thomas Cailley

Cast

Romain Duris , Paul Kircher , Adèle Exarchopoulos , Tom Mercier , Billie Blain

Runtime

2h 8m

Read Our Review

A truly magical film, The Animal Kingdom is fantastic in every meaning of the word. A dreamlike (and sometimes nightmarish) fantasy about family and the future, the film follows a father and son trying to survive a world in which people are mutating into animal hybrids, including the father's wife. While he tries to find a cure, the film explores the fairytale-like apocalypse around them, which eventually forces them into hiding. Gorgeous visuals and imaginative practical and digital effects alike build an unforgettable world that speaks to our increasingly unstable and frequently changing environments and societies.