- 50 best films of 2024: No 50 to No 31
- 50 best films of 2024: No 20 to No 11
- 50 best films of 2024: No 10 to No 1
30
Io Capitano
Directed by Matteo Garrone. The most swashbuckling of the current wave of dramas depicting the global migrant crisis features two spirited teenage cousins who leave their Senegalese village to set out on a perilous voyage for Italy. Read the full review.
29
Kneecap
Directed by Rich Peppiatt. Summer Holiday. A Hard Day’s Night. Catch Them If You Can. Slade in Flame. The Belfast rap outfit’s fictionalised biopic is a welcome addition to the rock-flick canon. A possible Oscar nominee. Read the full review.
28
Green Border
Directed by Agnieszka Holland. This muscular, urgent dramatisation of the recent refugee crisis follows a Syrian couple and their three children as they wander between Poland and Belarus in the ill-defined zone of the title. Read the full review.
27
Occupied City
Directed by Steve McQueen. Never mind the film-maker’s disappointing Blitz. His study of Amsterdam during the second World War is an austere marvel. Worth girding loins for all four hours. Read the full review.
26
Orlando: My Political Biography
Directed by Paul B Preciado The film-maker, writer and philosopher invites a diverse group of more than 20 nonbinary and trans people to audition and play Orlando. Each performer grafts their experiences on to Virginia Woolf’s story of courtly romance and unrequited love, making for an astonishingly rich seam of ideas. Read the full review.
25
The Order
Directed by Justin Kurzel. Arriving on St Stephen’s Day, the Australian film-maker’s latest stars Jude Law as an FBI agent investigating a real-life white supremacist in 1980s Washington state. Tough thriller of the old school.
24
Sugarcane
Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie. This gripping documentary account of the abuse of First Nations children at Catholic residential schools in Canada is an early Oscar favourite. Read the full review.
23
The Wild Robot
Directed by Chris Sanders. Properly moving, endlessly funny animation about a robot raising a goose on a remote island after stamping its mum dead. Best mainstream studio cartoon in an age. Read the full review.
22
Starve Acre
Directed by Daniel Kokotajlo. A couple living in the Yorkshire Dales lose their young, troubled son. The grief curdles into something more sinister. With a hare. Read the full review.
21
Heretic
Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Give Hugh Grant all the prizes. His fecund late period continues with this turn as a sinister recluse entertaining two initially unsuspecting Mormon missionaries. Read the full review.
