Mansel Stimpson Looks Back at the Year of 2024
Image courtesy of Day for Night
As though to provide a measure of solace in a year when the world news could hardly have been more depressing, 2024 has provided far more cinema of quality than has been seen for a very long time. I can come up with no less than twenty-five titles that count as exceptional works, at least half of which are close to perfection. Even so, that does not mean that 2024 has been a year without worries about where cinema is going. The great films are there but how readily can they be seen? This is a time when the range of what is on offer at mainstream cinemas fails to satisfy as many tastes as one would wish, when many films play mainly or exclusively on platforms too numerous for subscribers to embrace all of them and when the number of releases is so high that, with reduced press coverage adding to the problem, many worthwhile titles pass by almost unnoticed. Furthermore, as one squeamish enough to avoid horror films, I am uneasy that this genre has become such a central feature of late (this may reflect a weakness on my part but the review of Terrifier 3 by my more courageous colleague James Cameron-Wilson did nothing to allay my fears).
The positive side of things extends beyond the films themselves to the number of exceptional performances in them, many by newcomers. The latter category includes one of the greatest by a child that I have ever seen (six-year-old Louise Mauroy-Panzani in Àma Gloria) but is also notable for the work of players no longer young but not previously known to me. They include Lily Farhadpour (My Favourite Cake) and Eka Chavleishvili (Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry). Younger players to note were Preeti Panigrahi (Girls Will Be Girls), Kim Si-eun (Next Sohee) and Bayan Layla (Elaha) and, moving on to male actors, I was very taken by the work of Franz Ayub (Sky Peals), Nabhaan Rizwan (In Camera), Jamie Flatters and Keenan Munn-Francis (both in the British film Black Dog) and the two stars of Unicorns, Ben Hardy and Jason Patel. As for familiar names, Tilda Swinton, Emily Watson, Isabella Rossellini and Kristin Scott Thomas were all on top form for their work in The Room Next Door, Small Things Like These, Conclave and Two Tickets to Greece respectively, the latter piece illustrating how an outstanding actress can bring distinction to a decidedly minor movie. Among the men, 2024 was notable for finding three well established actors showing ever greater depth and skill as they enter into mature age: I am thinking of Daniel Craig (Queer), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) and Jude Law (The Order). There were new directors to remember too, none more so than Rich Peppiatt for the utter assurance he brought to Kneecap.
With so many outstanding films on my list I feel bound to supplement my top ten with no less than fifteen runners up while also pointing out that two of the top ten were films that went even higher in my estimation when I saw them for a second time and in a cinema (one was Copa 71 and the other Next Sohee which has on reflection become my favourite film of the year). Here then ahead of my chosen ten are the runners up:
11. Àma Gloria
12. Perfect Days
13. The Teachers’ Lounge
14. The Holdovers
15. One Life
16. Unicorns
17. Strike: An Uncivil War
18. My Favourite Cake
19. Close Your Eyes
20. Merchant Ivory
21. Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World
22. Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story
23. A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things
24. Every Little Thing
25. Here (that being the Belgian film by Bas Devos and not to be confused with an upcoming film of the same title starring Tom Hanks).
Mansel Stimpson’s Favourites
