The Big Picture - The Top Five Movies of 2024

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Sean is joined by Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman to discuss the ascendance of ‘Wicked’ in the awards race and the release of a handful of movies, including ‘Queer,’ ‘Kneecap,’ and ‘The Order’ (1:00). Then, the three each share their top five movies of 2024, a mix of widely seen blockbusters, smaller art-house movies, big swings from emergent auteurs, and more (43:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J-Lo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s.

Wow. That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now just trust me that's 60 songs that explain the 90s colon the 2000s preferably on spotify what's in this mcdonald's bag the mcvalue meal for 579 plus tax you can get your choice of junior chicken mcdouble or chicken snack wrap plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best movies of 2024.

Chris Ryan and Adam Naiman are here. Amanda Dobbins, of course, is not here. She's usually here with the three of us to share her best films, but she has contributed a voice note and she will be giving us her favorite films of the year at the end of this episode. So please stick around after we've had a chance to talk through everything here and you can hear Amanda's wonderful voice and her extremely strong opinions about the year in movies. Before we get into the year in movies, we have to talk about the year in awards for the movies of the year they've started. We had the Gothams last week, this week the New York Film Critics Circle, as well as the National Board of Review gave us an early glimpse into what's going on in the minds of the cinema lovers.

How are you feeling, Chris, about some of these results? First of all, I just want to say, you know how Russolo, when he does life advice or when he gives out picks, it's the alliance. You know, that's their crew.

Could we be the Atlantic division? Knicks, Raptors, Sixers, right? That's true. That's true. That's what the Adam, Sean, and Chris pie can be. Who are we missing? Who else is,

are the Orlando Magic in that division? Who else is in that division? It's the Brooklyn Nets, so we'd need a Brooklyn 8. And, you know, if we can find a Boston Celtics fan, that would be great. Of course, the Celtics.

How could I forget? Yeah. Sorry, what was your question? Yeah, we can be the Atlantic division. The New York Film Critics Circle is also in the Atlantic division. Oh, that's right. They gave out some prizes.

Adam, they gave the best film of the year to The Brutalist. We'll come back to that film at some point in this discussion, I'm sure. Rommel Ross, the director of Nickel Boys, won Best Director.

Screenplay went to Sean Baker for Nora. Best Actor went to Adrian Brody for The Brutalist. Best Actress went to Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths. And then in Supporting Actor

categories, Carol Kane for Between the Temples, a movie I liked quite a bit. And Kieran Culkin won for Real Pain, probably the least surprising of all these awards. Adam, what do you make of the New York Film Critics Circle choices? They would seem to be, you know,

they're usually Bellwethers, you know, Harbingers, pretty good predictors. I think that any year where you could look at, you know, an actress from a Mike Lee movie getting nominated or, you know, an actress like Carol Kane for Between the between the temples shout out to the film's co-writer chris wells one of the one of the one of the great good guys um yeah i mean that's that's a good thing i think that the new york film critics as a predictor of the oscars has gotten a little you know you know sometimes a little bit overstated i think that their choices tend to be

you know a little higher end a little more chin strokey I think that their choices tend to be, you know, a little higher end, a little more chin, chin strokey. And then, you know, certainly more high end than something like the golden globes. But this is not, there's nothing there that's terribly unexpected. There's the, there's the whispers of category fraud around here in Culkin.

It's a good performance, but it's like, he's essentially a co-lead, uh, you know, co co co-lead within the film. Um, the question of the brutalist winning awards will be interesting to talk about

since it has awardee aspirations kind of cooked into its storyline. But no, nothing out of left field. Can I ask you a question? Please. Starting to get these, was Gotham Awards already happened too as well? Is there any rising and falling going on

that you are surprised by in terms of a film films uh futures well you've set up i think the national board of review conversation by asking that question because that was the other big body that handed out their awards the national board of review is kind of a a strange uh collection agglomeration of figures sort of film enthusiasts is how they're defined it's you've got some some critics some, some people who are just really into movies. I'm not quite sure how you get selected to be a member of the National Board of Review.

There's not a ton of crossover in terms of when. Oh, you don't know? I honestly do not know. Don't tell them, Adam. Do you guys vote? So you guys are responsible for the best film selection of Wicked as Picture of the Year.icked as picture of the year. Their top films of the year,

they always provide a top 10, are Onora, Baby Girl, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Furiosa, Gladiator 2, Juror No. 2, Queer, A Real Pain, and Sing Sing.

You know. That's a good, solid, like, I get up every day eat breakfast you know read the Wall Street Journal and these are the 10 best movies of the year list

yes I don't know what you mean by that like it's normie it's like a double the left like there's no chances taken really Baby Girl I haven't seen that but like for the most part like Furious is pretty high

I guess for this on your list on their list, yeah. But I think it's a safe and good list. Yeah, this is a list that does not feature Dune Part 2

or The Brutalist, which is pretty notable. I don't think Emilia Perez was eligible for this list because it's an international production. But I would say

the inclusion of Juror No. 2 is fun. Obviously, Adam, you and I really liked that movie. We had a chance to talk about it on the show. The inclusion of Gladiator 2 is straight up weird. And The Wicked Wind sucks, like in my opinion. I think that's super corny to make a part one of a musical fanfic the best film of the year.

How far out on the ice flow do you want fantasy to go with this wicked can't win best picture thing adam do you do you think it's healthy i mean how much power do we think sean has in this situation he's more more power than some but probably still close to zero right like like it's just you know if it happens on the national board of review my my my my prediction uh is that they will give it to part two in a Return of the King type scenario. That it will be premature to reward the magnificent artistry of the first Wicked movie, which is eight hours long. So give it to part two, which as someone who knows the musical, is going to feature zero good songs. Whatever good songs are in that show

are all in the first half. I have no idea what they're going to do. I totally didn't even think of that. Is that true? That's what they say. They say part two is significantly less. The flip side of that soundtrack? Yeah.

Oh no. Yeah, they're going to be like Defying Gravity part two will be written for Wicked 2. The speculation is that they're going to add songs and moments in theory to the second half of that story. As I said, I'm not an expert on the Wicked 2. The speculation is that they're going to add songs and moments in theory to the second half of that story. As I said, I'm not an expert

on the Wicked story. The Wicked movie is fine. I think making a list that features I don't know, a Nora and choosing Wicked is pretty lame to me. Sean, on that point, who did they give Best Director? Best Director went to John

M. Chu for Wicked. Yeah, there you go. Definitely a storm is brewing. Yeah, NBR is not terribly predictive historically of Best Picture winners, but Wicked is clearly rising. It's been rising steadily since, I would say, roughly two weeks before it was released, when people started to get a chance to see it,

and especially fans of the musical, I think feel really, really excited about this movie's big box office hit, at least here in the United States, not international. That is notable that the Wizard of Oz and this related story does not have as much purchase internationally because the Academy is so international these days. Like how is a movie like this going to do it? The BAFTAs? I'm not totally sure. Maybe not as well. Who's the future David Lynch whose movies are all going to be coded remakes of Wicked?

You know? There's that thesis that every David Lynch movie is a kind of, you know, submerged remake of The Wizard of Oz. I'm like, who's the sicko David? Who's the sicko David Lynch

in 25 years? You'd be like, actually, I just am trying to recapture the feeling of filming wicked on my phone while singing along to it. And that's how I made wild. It's probably somebody who's shooting a get ready with me. Tick tock right now.

Like I was going to say lights, camera Jackson, maybe he'll, he'll be making wicked inspired films 25 years from now. It's a really good question. Is his top 10 list out? Cause it is always good. I haven't seen it.

Is that to see you with the movies guy? No, that's a nice camera. Jackson is the OG underage. Is his top 10 list out? Because it is always good. I haven't seen it. Is that to see you with the movies guy? No. Lice Cameron Jackson is the OG underage child movie recommender. Oh, I'm a huge fan. His legacy is extraordinary.

Honestly. Yeah, I know it is. And he's also one of those guys who credit to him does not blink. He's like, what bit? I'm not doing that. There are no bits.

I'm a man who enjoys films. And frankly, I admire it. I admire the approach. You see yourself in it. I'm not doing a bit. There are no bits. I'm a man who enjoys films. And frankly, I admire it. I admire the approach. You see yourself in it. I do. We are brothers. Me and lights, camera, Jackson. Yeah, so this is kind of a funky list.

And there were some good prizes. Mike Lee won for hard truths for original screenplay. Clint Bentley and Greg Cuidar for Sing Sing. Won for adapted. Nicole Kidman won actress for Baby Girl. Choice that Adapted. Nicole Kidman won Actress for Baby Girl, a choice that I like. Daniel Craig won for Best Actor for Queer, which we'll talk about momentarily.

Kieran Culkin also won here. And then by far the weirdest choice at non-Wicked Division is Elle Fanning winning for A Complete Unknown. Yeah. Not because Elle Fanning is a bad actress or because she's bad in A Complete Unknown, but there is another female performer in the film,

Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, who's just significantly more a standout. Would you agree? You just saw the movie. Yeah, I think they both gaze at Bob Dylan a lot. They do. But I would definitely think that the Joan Baez part is meatier. But I thought they were both quite good at what they had to do there, which is essentially be like, God damn, that's Bob Dylan. Yeah, Bob Dylanylan i would like to have sex with that guy um which

you know who among us i can't say i don't relate uh any other thoughts on the nbr pics adam no i'd just like to repeat that wicked one best director this is just i just want to repeat it you know that so that so that no one is unclear that it was the best directed film that came out this year. That's all I have to add. It's actually not adding anything. It's just repeating a fact a couple times. You're just underlining it. What is the last time a film won Best Director or Best Picture that you also are on record as describing large swaths of it as unwatchable?

I honestly don't know. I mean, it's got to go back to, it's probably Crash, right? I mean, Crash, like Green Book is an example of a movie where I think it is now over-criticized

because of its win. Like, Green Book is a perfectly fine Farrelly brother movie that's, you know, certainly has some, I would say, issues culturally. Maybe not the most sensitive portrayal

of race relations. Maybe a bit of a fantasy. But like, is it a horrendous movie? No. There are parts of Wicked that I did find hard to watch. But not all of them. Some of them were fine.

Some good performances. I enjoyed Ariana Grande. As the leader of the Ariana Grande fan club, this must be hard for you to have mixed feelings on Wicked, Adam. It's very hard for me. It's kept me up for a few days now, but, uh, you know, I'm, I'm dealing with it. Are you guys frozen? Uh, I believe you're freezing a bit here and there. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is because of the incredible geographic distance between America and Canada. It's also the,

the divide between people who love wicked and don't love Wicked. It is. When do we do the tariffs podcast? When do we do the America, Canada tariffs podcast? When we fucking did take you over as the 52nd state, man. Yeah, I know. I hope. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that means we might be closer together after we're invaded.

I think you were asking me how I feel about Wicked. Again, best directed film of the year, apparently. Thanks for weighing in. Chris, I did want to speak with you about an irish film that was released earlier this year but not very many people got a chance to see it it's now available on netflix i first saw it out of sundance adam i'm not sure if you've had a chance to see this one i i haven't and i couldn't scramble in time i am sorry uh the movie is called kneecap probably the movie i have gotten the most requests to discuss on the show i think i think i talked about it for 90 seconds on a pod 11 months ago

um it's written and directed by rich pepiet it's uh the story of two young lads two young men and a teacher who together form a rap trio that becomes a kind of activist group in favor of returning Ireland to its native Irish language. And it's also a family drama, a crime drama, a number of other things, a romance, a musical,

incredibly energetic, alive movie that people are now discovering, you know, a series of Irish actors in the film, Liam O'Hannell, most notably probably Michael Fassbender is in this film. What did you think of Kneecap? I loved it, man. Just an absolute blast from start to finish. I hate to sound like Gene Shalit, but it was honestly one of the most fun experiences of watching a movie this year.

The music's incredible. The performances across the board are great. I'll also just shout out Adam Best, who plays the Republicans against drug dealers guy in the movie. He's shown up now in Black Doves, This, and Say Nothing and is excellent in everything. But just like basically like a satellite beaming in from like some world that you obviously most of us don't get a chance to experience. The music we don't get a chance to experience. The language certainly we don't get a chance to experience. But feels entirely familiar because of the beats of the story and the kind of almost sports movie nature of it.

So I just thought it was awesome. Yeah, I really liked it too it reminded me um a lot of a period of time in movies in a lot of british films that i was thinking about because you and yasi did an episode about blur on bandsplain yeah and he talked a lot about train spotting and i was thinking about movies like backbeat that felt i think sometimes when there's like a focus on a like a musical act that is not famous it's a little bit easier to get sold on the quality of the music you know as opposed to like i'm humming along to like i know you were crying singing blowing in the wind last night when you saw complete unknown which is totally admirable but um in this case like it felt like

i was discovering something for the first time yeah like a a brand of music and frankly like what what incredible representation for um belfast white boys yes boys to spin a yarn. I thought it was really fun and people should definitely check it out if they are interested. Adam, will you be watching Kneecap? I'm going to see it soon.

It sounds good. I've heard nothing but good things about it, including and especially from you. So I'm there. I got to get through, you know, Nosferatu

and other awards season essentials first. When you say get through, what do you mean by that? Well, I mean, he has the Criterion edition of Wicked part one that he's doing. Have you written that essay yet? No, no one's letting me write about Wicked. It was funny.

I was watching the movie. We've got a screener to watch it at home legally. And my wonderful wife, Tanya, was like, no comments during the movie. And then an hour in, she's like, this is very long. I'm like, hey, that's it. The dam an hour in, she's like, this is very long. I'm like, Hey, that's it. The dam is broken.

I've not said anything. You, you said something. So now it's open, open. Are you a big at home when the movie's on? Do you, do you have like a running commentary going or are you respectful of the

process? Uh, depends on who's asking. I think, you know, people have known me a long time, say only sometimes semi respectful. Sometimes movies, uh, you know, are, are actually good.

So you don't talk during them. Right. Uh, I'm, I'm pretty good when I watch movies with my kids, I tell them to stop asking questions and say, and say, we're going to find out, we're going to find out what happens soon. The minions are going to break into the whatever next, you know, I'm trying to keep them from asking too many questions. That's what they should do is add Minions to Wicked Part 2. That would improve it, I think.

That would be... Then it would break globally. It's very, very true. You, Chris, you don't really talk during movies, but you will furiously masturbate from time to time. No, but I do turn to you

and I emotionally, intellectually masturbate where like when something cool is happening, like we saw, I saw Complete Unknown last night, Adam, and when Boyd holbrook

appears as johnny cash i looked to my left and sean wasn't there but i wanted to shake him and say it happens like we did it like we did it joe the first the first message i sent after i saw a complete unknown was directly to chris and i said big winner of a complete unknown colon boyd holbrook he has risen again if people made the joke that why didn't they just port Johnny Joaquin Phoenix in from the James Mangold cinematic universe has that been done

but he quit the day they started shooting like force ghost Johnny Cash that would have been an interesting choice as a force ghost Johnny Cash Adam you've seen Queer? I have you haven't seen it so we can we can trade thoughts briefly I'm trying to hit a couple of titles that I don't know when I'm going to get a chance to talk about them again because this month is so packed but Queer was

released and limited um over the holidays and as I just mentioned Daniel Craig just won the NBR prize for best actor I think there's speculation that he's's strongly being considered for best actor in the Academy race. This is Luca Guadagnino's second movie of the year. It's his second movie with a Justin Kuritsky script. It's adapted from the William Burroughs novel. Kind of a,

not considered like a major Burroughs novel, right? Not to my knowledge, no. No, it's kind of considered leftover from other material. It's like parallel to other stuff he was writing around the time. It doesn't tell love, right? Like it's pretty, pretty thin.

It's short. Yeah. It's very short. Um, and set in Mexico city in the 1950s, it follows a man named Lee who has fled new Orleans after a drug bust. And it's kind of like bumming around Mexico city and having, um,

affairs with men throughout the city. And he stumbles upon one man in particular named Allerton, a former Navy serviceman who has been discharged, who he falls into this sort of deep and passionate lust, love,

kind of romantic obsession with. And it follows their story closely. Drew Starkey plays Allerton. And I was a bit stumped by this movie, Adam. I'm curious what your reaction to it was. I was stumped by it too. You know, like I wasn't stumped by Challengers. You know, I mean, whatever you say about Challengers,

you know, strengths, weaknesses. It's a movie that sort of, I think, knows what it wants to be. And this is a film by a director who I think is taking this material very seriously. He's not bowing to it. I definitely think he's trying to complicate it a little bit. I think he's trying to complicate some of his own movie making too, because a lot of the discourse around Call Me By Your Name was that it was kind of prudish about depicting queer sexuality, gay sex scenes. This movie is not squeamish about that. It's not recessive about that. Those scenes are quite good.

The question of him as a sensual kind of filmmaker, I think, has been answered. By the standards of now, he's pretty pervy. But there's still something kind of yassified about this movie as a Burroughs adaptation. It's a little too clean and a little too crisp. Burroughs is a really nasty writer and that nastiness kind of doesn't come through, I think.

And I think Craig's performance is sort of extraordinary, but I don't like him more than like Peter Weller in naked lunch. I mean that, you know i mean that you know it he doesn't have the same depth of kind of mystery he's a little bit it's kind of a goofy performance he's very good i'm not not saying he's not he's a good actor daniel craig yeah i mean it is um it's extremely mannered and a little bit silly in the characterization, which is sort of a path that he's been on. Obviously, in the Knives Out films, he's doing something. It's extremely different tonally,

but the performance style is actually not that different. There's something kind of like Tex Avery cartoon character about him throughout the movie when he's looking at Drew Starkey. The movie also is shot, I believe, in Chinachita, and so it has this kind of like artificial feeling in Mexico City. I read about this, yeah.

Which is an interesting choice, but maybe not an effective choice. And then it becomes kind of a road movie where they go on this quest looking for things, and, you know, their various addictions play out in complicated ways. There's a wild third act featuring a very funny performance

by Leslie Manville that features him really diving into some explorations of consciousness and what certain kinds of drugs can do to your body and to your idea of romance

and connectivity to people. I find it to be a very sincere movie, but not a successful one. What do you think of his prolific nature? This is obviously his second film in this year. but not a successful one. Do you, like, what do you think of his prolific nature? Like, this is obviously his second film in this year. I mean, awesome. It's great.

He's got a bunch dialed up. He does TV. He's like, he's really, I'm curious whether or not you look at that and you're like, this is how it should be done or if you think some of his stuff is a little undercooked. I think it's always deeply considered. He was on WCF this week,

and he's just such a great talker about theme and ideas and what he's trying to accomplish in his films. And he takes chances. You know, he's got a movie coming out with Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield and Ayo Adebri, like, I think in the middle of next year. So he is on a hot streak right now. I think it's okay if some movies don't work.

This was just one, to me me that ultimately didn't work. Yeah, I thought you're talking about the set shooting, you know, that what I always thought was interesting about A Bigger Splash is how much it kind of became a movie about insularity within this larger reality, right? Like it's not just that it's a beach house vacation movie, but like it's a beach house vacation movie surrounded by a real population.

And I thought that this was an aspect of Burroughs writing that he seemed to be trying to contend with a little bit, that Burroughs really not interested in like the reality of life in Mexico, just more in Mexico city, just the interest in like his experience of being there and drinking and, and, you know, fucking and all of that stuff.

I thought that this movie was a little bit accusatory of that, or at least making it a bit of a point, showing that distinction, showing that insularity and the idea of a larger, you know, even if it's a small one, kind of a society around it. But also by the end, when it's going into the trip stuff and the ayahuasca stuff,

I just missed friendship, you know? That was the better ayahuasca type scene of two movies that played it at tip this year i find that when when when guadaguino gets really stylized and really kind of surrealistic like when it's around the edges it's fine when he kind of commits to it i don't know like adam mckay is better at it you know uh i thought it was uh maybe the last time we hear that sentence uttered this year no i i i thought i thought that the drug trippy stuff in it was like frankly kind of weak that's interesting i i think i enjoyed it just as a change of pace from being on this kind of deathless deathless journey of obsession anyway we can kind of leave it at that chris let us know when you see queer

definitely gonna see it yeah uh let's talk about Order, which is one film that all three of us have seen. Definitely saw this. Not as much ayahuasca in The Order, although it is probably how Chris feels inside when he gets to see grown men do what they do in this Justin Kurzweil movie. Australian filmmaker who's had an interesting career. Maybe we can talk about it a little bit. This movie is set in 1983.

It's about an FBI agent who is essentially tracking a series of bank robberies and trying to figure out who is committing them and it turns out that it is a slightly more politically motivated uh militarized militarized group yeah um rather than your typical heat style bandits and all takes place in the pac Northwest. And this is like a really classical, tightly gripping, men grinding their teeth, doing hard-bitten things kind of serial drama. Yeah.

That I think is very, like deeply solid. You know what I mean? Like nothing is spectacular, but incredibly watchable. And I thought two terrific performances from jude law and nicholas holt as the kind of rival figures in the film so uh worth mentioning that adam arkapaw shot this uh he shot a bunch of early carrie fukunaga stuff and it looks extraordinary and it's worth the price of admission alone is just to see these two guys shoot Idaho and eastern Washington and the Pacific Northwest.

I love this movie, despite the fact that within four minutes, I could tell the entire plot to you. You know what I mean? This is what's going to happen. This guy's introducing his family and talking about what a loving father he is. It's probably not going to go great for him.

But man, just as a bare-knuckle B-movie that looks way better than it has any business looking, and Cursel's really good at set pieces and is really good at landscapes. I thought Jude Law was really good. Your mileage, I've been kind of noting with interest the British invasion and how American actors don't get parts

after they turn 30 anymore. What do you mean? Mark Maron is in this film. Okay. But like Holt and Jude being like a hard bitten New York FBI agent and a Aryan nation offshoot bank robber. It's pretty interesting, but it's like, I thought it, I thought it was, I thought it was just like really, really, really solid.

What'd you think, Adam? I thought it was very good. I think this guy is a good director. And it's interesting the similarities to the last one, to Nitram, which Caleb Landry-Jones won an acting prize at Cannes for and got very little traction when it came out. But the two performances in that movie, which is about a spree shooter, it's a kind of a recreation of a a really really horrific sort of gunman

attack in uh in is it australia or new zealand it's on it's in australia it's australia yeah which ended up getting gun laws changed but you know that movie uh caleb and andrew jones and judy davis as the the character's mother were amazing and this movie reminded me of it or one half of it did because it's about radicalization you know nicholas holt's character is a really interesting character for a particular moment you know i mean for one thing it's the second performance he gives this year about a guy who thinks he's doing right by his family you know it's obviously a very different kind of character than the character in juror number two but that whole idea of you know the tension between looking after his household and

what he's willing to sort of do to preserve that. But I don't know the idea of like a populist Aryan, you know, system smashing kind of ideologue, fault getting people to follow him and complaining about the media and essentially, you know, advocating for the overthrow of the government. It's not untimely and the historical narrative about the turner diaries and about you know the incredible impact that that had on various acts of domestic terrorism that's the part of the stuff that's really interesting to me jude law being gene hackman with his jowls and all the you know like cop on the edge stuff that's fine it's very solid everything chris said about how it shot is great he's a really good location shooter kurtz so like he's great with mountains and lakes and and roads but i thought the nicholas whole half of it was very good and the climax which we won't spoil although you can

spoil it by like going on wikipedia i guess but you know what it's fictionalized but you know the the climax is fantastic it's a really good set piece at the end i thought it's a it's fictionalized, but you know, the climax is fantastic. It's a really good set piece at the end, I thought. It's a very effective semi-slow reveal of Holt's character's power throughout the movie, too. It's really funny. The archetype you're describing is also one that is somewhat similar to his character in Nosferatu as well, trying to do right by his family. And it doesn't go as well for him in that respect. And then he's going to play Lex Luthor next year in Superman.

So we're in kind of a fascinating Nick Holt period right now. I've always been a fan of his. I don't think I... He's really got cucked out a couple times on screen this year. By Tony Collette, you mean? Yeah. I mean, in theory. It depends on how you read that movie. Superman, we'll see.

We'll see if Lex Luthor can triumph. What do you think? I think I like him when he's doing The Favorite or The Great, rather. Or Mad Max.

Mad Max, yeah. More than straight, narrow. Like, my jaw is like iron set. This was sort of the perfect split the middle performance for me. So, enjoyed him in that. Sometimes when he's just playing straightforward

leading man parts, I'm a little less enamored with him. Okay, so those are three films that are out in the world right now that people can check out. Let's talk about the year in movies. Yeah, we gave Nicholas Holt something to think about there. Yeah, that's right. Straighten up. Adam, was this a good movie year? This is what everybody

says, and it doesn't mean that it's not i mean it all it's all the politics of release dates and what are you going to sort of count and uh where are you publishing your lists you know i get to publish the the top 10 list in the ringer next week and trying to be fair about what people have seen or haven't seen but it always you're having the national border view i like how chris described as like a list for like a normal person who sees movies right and then there are different levels of exposure or accessibility i've written about this a few times which is the whole way recency bias works for top 10 lists and awards it's it's just very annoying it's amazing people haven't cottoned on to this yet that just because something opens in

december does not mean it's good any more than things opening in january february kind of means that it's bad but you know the fact that i had like a long list of 18 19 movies that could have gone on a top 10 i think is pretty good you know and and a couple things i came out this that came out this year i think are extraordinary so not a not a bad year at all thought it was a pretty good year and to piggyback off what adam's saying uh i do think that movies could learn a little bit from the way television has been honestly shattered where there isn't this kind of like gold rush at the end of a year that i think mixes everybody's signals about what's good and what's bad i think a healthier movie industry would promote all types of different movie-going experiences throughout the year.

That being said, I've just had an extraordinary last six weeks going to the theater and seeing stuff at home that winds up on streaming. And I actually really wound up, like Adam, I think I have a 15 to 20 movie long list that I was like, this is really good. It's weird. Cause like, I feel like we go through months. If, when I appear on the show, like bemoaning things or talking about like, I think it was a really dry summer. Um, and I think that maybe has like an outsized impact on the way I saw the

year. Um, and maybe it wasn't the dump you wary that we crave every year, but man, if I didn't have like a, a pretty cool list and up until like last night was still like moving things in and out of my top five

just to try and figure out what was what. Yeah, I was doing the same thing. I think for me, it was not a great year by any means. And I think part of that is maybe the sense that there were not as many genuinely breathtaking forever movies for me personally. And that's an odd, that's just my own personal metric. Your mileage may vary. I think also, I think one of the reasons why there is this real pile up this year in particular is because just a

lot of movies could not be finished because of the strikes. And so this was an odd release year, and it was odd honestly doing the show this year because there would be two and three-week stretches with no significant release, wide release. And I'm not sure that that has ever really happened since movies became so massively commercialized in the 1930s. So having, you know, November 8th, for example, being like a dead release weekend,

or having something like a movie like sing sing only reaching a very small number of people or a movie like juror number two only reaching a small number of people over time i think it created a sense of dissonance that has already been growing over the years with the amount of streaming only movies that we get and the clear i do feel like that has really shaken out i do feel like there is now clarity on streaming movies are lesser than theatrically released films. The studios have the data they need to realize that and that for the most

part, the quote unquote real movies are going theatrical. And then there is the hot frosties of the world and they're like, this is great for people at home who want to hang out and watch movies like this and hopefully we're not seeing any more movies. I guess with obviously with the notable exception of the way that netflix still does business so in that way can i make a point based on the title of this podcast though and it is particular to

viewership and listener here listenership here because i was thinking the other day i mean i freelance for a lot of places and i have tremendous editorial freedom here considering that there's you know the site with a really wide reach, never told what to put on my 10 best list. I'm allowed to write about foreign language cinema, experimental cinema, older film. I'm very grateful for this. You know, the title of the podcast, big picture, it's a big playing field of movies. So at the end of the year, when lists come out and people, not necessarily listeners or readers of the ringer, but social media introduces you to all kinds of people, people say, I haven't haven't heard of that well because things aren't all equally widely distributed but

they exist or i haven't heard of that well but aren't you curious to now watch it but i can see where the where the polarization comes from because people feel that if it's movies that they haven't heard of they must not be worth seeing or not be worth promoting or people are making them up which is why whenever people describe what they think arthouse or foreign language films are, they're very far from the mark. You know, people are like, oh, a seven-hour Belgian documentary

from the point of view of a pigeon. I'm like, I'd love to see that. That's not a thing. What it probably is is a boring coming-of-age movie set on an island somewhere, you know? I mean, it's all perceptual. So I think at the end of the year, if critics aren't calling attention

to films that aren't as widely seen they're not doing their job otherwise what's the point of their job so something like the national board of review has a very populist mandate so of course it looks like a list of 10 kind of normie movies those are all pretty wide release movies don't they also do lists of foreign and independent like they silo these things apart that's their mandate to me a good critic is someone who doesn't silo those things apart but sort of tries to bring them together you don't exclude populist movies if they're good but you also don't privilege them it's like gladiator 2 they suck and you also don't look too askance or too suspiciously at like good movies made in other countries or in other styles. Most people who are skeptical of that would never consider themselves to be like discriminatory or

xenophobic, but it's like, if you haven't heard of something, watch it. If they can't see it, that's the problem, right? So the podcast being called The Big Picture is a good thing for me. Let me ask you a question that I don't mean to narrowcast your personal experience influencing how you feel about a year, but I'm genuinely interested in your answer. You've done a lot of, whether it's Hall of Fames, you know, like top fives or whatever, like we wind up looking backwards a lot.

We live in a city that's got an ascendant repertory theater scene. Those repertory theaters seem to be hotbeds of young people going to the movies and discovering film history. The best movie-going experiences I've had this year were going to see Thief at Vidiot's and going to see Sorcerer at the Vista, both of which were completely packed out with people having their minds blown by that experience. I also was at a fully full Lawrence of Arabia screening at the Arrow. I had Apocalypse Now. Do you think that the introduction of Letterboxd as a really viable social media platform and film sharing platform and And this obvious groundswell of interest, at least in major metropolises,

of young people going 10, 20, 30, 50 years into film history, but reacting with the passion that you would kind of expect because they're not being given this thing necessarily routinely on a week-to-week basis by Hollywood now. Does it change

how you feel about going to AMC and seeing a movie that was just like kind of meh? It's a good point, but the question doesn't really resonate

because the mission of the show is still ultimately like the contemporary cinema. So it's like what movies are out now and then how do they relate to that history

and how can we kind of contextually discuss them? Do I wish that rather than going to see Despicable Me 4, I could just go to a 70mm festival? Of course. was given equal kind of shelf space, whether or not this sort of emergence of like a very active social culture and interest in older films has like maybe kind of like taken new movies down a peg or two in terms of like the pecking order. I think as someone who teaches undergrads, right? I teach undergrad regularly at U of T. Toronto is a film going metropolis.

We have a big film festival, you know, and a big film community, big Cinematek in the lightbox. I think what Chris is asking is exactly right, actually. And that some of my, not all of them, it's students are all different people, but I think people are very sometimes hesitant to go see new stuff when there's the ability to catch up to older things. And if you go to repertory screenings in Toronto, where I spend a fair amount of time when I'm not like parenting or, or writing me in reviews, it's a lot of young people and they're much, much more interested in seeing things that are rare or seeing things that

have been historically contextualized or things that have some kind of conceptual connection to now or thematic connection to now than just turning up for whatever is new like when i taught the film criticism seminar at uft earlier this year my students seemed much more interested in trying to write about and analyze and unpack old movies than the assignment where i go see a new release they're like really now that also meant i got two separate papers on the beekeeper with jason stath, which were very good reviews of that. You're about to get your third when I do my top five list.

Absolutely. Of that movie. One of the most politically complicated movies of the year. It is. It'd be a great double bill with The Order. You know, it'd be a great double bill with a lot of things. But I do think that Chris is kind of on to something. And I also know from knowing Sean that you know your film history

and know your like larger currents of film history and connections. Those are often brought to bear on this podcast, even though it is about new stuff. Yeah, I think that you were right. I think I'm a little bit, I used to caution against this when I was a music critic.

I really didn't like what has happened to me, which is when someone was an active critic for a long time, was engaging with music that could be defined as youth culture, and they got too old and they fell out of step with the modes of current creativity. And then a lot of their writing and criticism and experience with culture just seemed very angry about a kind of loss of their own youth. Yeah. And I'm very suspicious of that. And it's one of the reasons why I try to give a lot of time

to very mainstream successful things like Marvel movies, like Hot Frosty. I think it's worthwhile to understand why those things resonate with certain groups of people. And by the same token, I think there's always going to be very few genuinely great, awe-inspiring movies. But it's important when they happen to put a big red circle around them and say like, you know, like Enora is not on my top five list, for example. But I think Enora is a great movie. And I think it's really exciting to be able to say, Sean Baker's been doing this for almost 20 years. There's a lot to discover about what he does

and what he means to the American cinema. And if you pay attention on a regular basis, the experience of Enora will actually be that much deeper. You just have to keep paying attention.

So if you backslide into I only watch Sorcerer now, and like I watch Sorcerer as my personality, as a thing that has happened to like thousands of men in Los Angeles in the last 10 years.

Literally thousands. And look, I fucking love Sorcerer. I'm in many ways one of those guys. Yeah. But you can't be just that guy and be like,

I love movies. You actually have to make the effort to see the kinds of films that Adam is describing and to also, at least for my purposes, you know,

see the wild robot and take it seriously. Yeah. You know, and make an effort to understand it and figure out where it fits

in the constellation of movie making and movie creativity. So, I don't know. What I'm trying to do is not fall out of step with movies

the way I did with music. And when I started to feel it, I stepped away from music. Yeah. No, I think I was really more asking whether or not this is a bubble conversation

or not. I was just curious whether or not the time is a flat circle experience has come for cinema. And I think that there are elements of Letterboxd that are amazing. And the way that people can organize lists and share and for people to be like, oh, okay, now I can go back through. I just have a list of 200 spaghetti Westerns I can watch. And like, that's just awesome. That was like hard work 30 years ago.

It was. And now it's like, I have 14 lists that I can cross check and make sure like. Well, just to circle back to that band splint conversation that you had with Yossi, Adam, they were pointing out that once upon a time, if you really wanted to hear a British band that didn't have a US release strategy, you had to pay $12 for a two song single or CD single and have it imported to you. And how that rarity, that feeling of rarity created a sense of anticipation and excitement around things that is much harder now because

of what you're describing. And look, nobody advocates harder for Letterboxd than I do. I think it's an amazing platform. But one of the things that I think it does now that is super cool is when you open the app, The Substance has been among the top three logged movies on that app for like two months. The Substance being a successful film, period, is like an incredible long shot. You know, a non-American filmmaker, a star who has not led a major production in like 20 years, a movie starring almost entirely women about women's experience in the world, and it's body horror. And that app, because of the fervor that it sometimes drives around a certain kind of a movie, can help grow and sustain the success of certain kinds of films. And that is ultimately,

Universal was behind that movie and then punted it, but it's like that movie distributed that movie. So I still think it has an incredible power in that respect too, not just for the, here is my spaghetti Westerns list. We could pontificate all day about what this year in movies means. Maybe it's better to just talk about the movies and talk about our lists. So we'll share five films. We've got some honorable mentions. And then, like I said, Amanda will share hers at the very end of the episode. Chris, why don't we start with you? Okay.

Number five. Strange Darling. JT Molnar's cat and mouse serial killer movie told in nonlinear fashion. Featured, I think, my favorite performance of the year is Willa Fitzgerald. In case people haven't seen Strange Darling.

As a young woman. As a young woman. And also features Kyle Gallner and Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley. This was

a film that kind of hit me out of nowhere, has stuck with me, has some bones of like the 90s indie cinema

that I kind of grew up with. So it's obviously... I'm already speaking the language, but I thought that it looked incredible. It felt incredible. It was challenging in really interesting ways. I think that a bunch of the films that I have here felt very contemporary and felt very of the moment in a variety of different ways.

And it's just a little bit difficult to talk about Strange Darling without spoiling it for people. So I will just implore them to see it if they haven't already. And it was one of the most thrilling experiences of the movies that I had this year. One thing I wanted to point out about this is that at the New Beverly tonight, Strange Darling is playing on a double feature with a film called Madame Wazelle,

which I was not familiar with. Adam, if you were familiar with it, please let me know. I haven't seen it, but I've heard of it. So it's Tony Richardson's follow-up to The Loved One

and Tom Jones. Made in 66 in France, starring Jean Moreau. And here's the logline. Jean Moreau delivers a sultry and powerful portrayal of a frustrated school teacher whose suppressed sexual desire leads her to commit devilish acts of destruction

in this erotic tale of eccentric human behavior. This is the movie that the director J.Tulliner and giovanni rubisi have said has most directly influenced the film strange darling uh i watched it and i thought it was very interesting and very un tony richardson and kind of a fascinating pure art house movie anyhow i like strange darling uh adam what's your number five well keeping in mind that when the list gets published Tuesday, I reserve the right to move it around. I'm trying to give I think the most honest

top ten in terms of where it's at. So I'm going to say that my number five is Nickel Boys, a movie that may or may not pop up for you guys on your list. Yeah, this is the only one that I didn't see that I wish I had seen. By the aforementioned Rommel Ross, you know, there's a lot I want to say about it, but I'm going to write about it. And also, I don't want to step on any future episodes about it.

But just, it's a really unique approach to literary adaptation. It is a completely cinematic translation of a literary medium. It has a use of point of view that i think is genuinely original and a couple of moments that stand out when that point of view between let's say two characters converges it's just extraordinary you know this is a director who's just thinking through how do i do this material in a way that honors it but also changes that i happen to see ramel ross in conversation in toronto where we talked about uh you know being a point guard as well as being a filmmaker. He's a really nice guy.

And his approach to this, to adapting the Colson Whitehead novel, I think it's ingenious. I think it's a movie that you don't want to risk saying too much about, not just because of narrative spoilers, but because the experience of watching it is very surprising.

Usually prestige season literary adaptations, even good ones, are not formally surprising. In fact, the whole point is they want to be formally accessible. So just for the way he plays with language without completely obscuring the history and the cultural relevance of the material, I think he did an amazing job. And I think that the best directing I think he did an amazing job. And I think that the best directing prize that he won from the New York Film Critics Circle is one of the most heartening prizes

I've seen in a long time. I love this movie. It will come up later in our conversation. And I think you'll find a lot to admire. But you've been talking about it longer than anybody I know, actually. Had you read the novel? Is that why?

Yeah. Okay. I would say it is faithful, but wildly different. That's cool. I can't wait to see it. My number five is a movie called Evil Does Not Exist. This is Hamaguchi's follow-up to Drive My Car, a movie that has stuck with me pretty profoundly. I was thinking about this movie, Adam, when you were talking about how sometimes we get a little stuck on the December releases as the good movies, I have some December releases on my lineup.

You know, Nickel Boys is a December release, but Evil Does Not Exist premiered some time ago earlier this year, and it's been haunting me. And I was reminded of it because it feels not in conversation, but connected to another movie that I really liked this year that I was a little bit on an island with, which is Robert Zemeckis is here and i'm thinking about those two movies together because they're very much about place pride of place and what you can have and what other people think they deserve from a place and evil does not exist is about a small fishing village in japan that a kind of industrialized glamping company comes to and intends to build a campsite which will

then have a meaningful ecological impact on the community that lives in this Japanese village. All non-professional actors in this film. Hamaguchi, incredibly patient filmmaker, someone who's unafraid of mystery and interpretation. This movie has one of the most unusual

and kind of confounding endings to a movie that I've seen in recent times. As with all of his movies, it has incredible music by Aiko Ishibashi. And I have only watched this movie once and a lot of times when I make these lists

I feel it is imperative to see the movie a second time to make sure that the feeling I had the first time is right or not right it's like watertight yeah yeah and this is the rare case where I'm sort of like I had a very special experience watching this movie and the way that it made me feel and I almost don't want to sully that but I also want to continue to understand what he was going for because it is quite complex um so I don't know when I'm going to see it again but uh I'll probably buy it and when I buy it and have a physical don't know when I'm going to see it again, but I'll probably buy it.

And when I buy it and have a physical copy, that's when I'll do it. But I adore this movie. I adore here too, for somewhat similar reasons. Those are, but they're, they're both in my top 10,

though, not in my top five. And just a second with Sean saying, well, does not exist as exactly the sort of movie that people who might look for more mainstream titles on this list would be well advised to check out not least of all because it has major horror movie vibes while not being a horror movie the score the sense of atmosphere is quite frightening and if anyone is

fans of kiyoshi kurosawa who is one of the world's great directors and who actually made three great movies this year none of which are eligible for my list for different reasons, but three great movies by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Hamaguchi was his student, you know, he, he was, he was a Hamaguchi's film instructor and there's a Kurosawa-ness in,

in this movie for sure. Great movie. Okay, Chris, number four. Uh, do you want to, when we have overlap,

do you want to just address them separately? Yeah. Number four for me is The Brutalist, which I got to see with you last week and lived up to all my expectations. Amazing cinematic experience. Like when people talk about four quadrants, this one hit the quadrants that like

are actually what you care about with movies, which is like sound, image, performance, and writing. And I was mesmerized by it. It felt like an event. It felt like someone reaching for greatness in a way that you don't see directors do that often anymore. And really, the story itself is actually a little bit of a surprise to me.

You could say that it's a guy trying to cram Godfather 1 and 2 into one movie. And that sometimes has loose ends or uncomfortable moments. But I was completely blown away by the story of this guy who comes to America as a refugee and rises, but not too far in the world of architecture in Pennsylvania in the post-war era. I'm very fond of The Brutalist. It'll come up again. Adam is a little bit less fond of this movie. I think we're going to, hopefully we'll have a spirited conversation about The Brutalist

sometime soon on the pod. Let's talk about it in time. I'm writing about it for the site. Let's leave it for now. Okay. Adam, number four uh number four is a movie called the beast by bertrand banello this is another movie that is very worth seeking out if the title is not immediately recognizable to you this for me is i mean everything chris said about the ambition and and craft of the brutalist is

true by the way i mean that's a movie that is going for a lot. This is a movie that's going for a lot in a different way. Brutalist is chasing Coppola. I think Bonello is kind of chasing Lynch. He's chasing a lot of really kind of conceptual, melancholy sci-fi. It's a movie that has three timelines, past, present, future,

three performances each by Lea Seydoux and George Mackay. They may or may not be the same characters in each timeline. They may be reincarnations. They may be astral projections. I think Bonello's the real deal. Every movie of his is interesting. It's often genre-adjacent and horror-adjacent. Not everything he does works.

I'm tired of movies where everything works. I like movies where things kind of don't work, so the stuff that works is extraordinary. I like that parts of this movie feel like Titanic. I like that parts of this movie feel like Minority Report. I like that parts of this movie feel like Mulholland Drive. I like everything

about it, and I think that it's the movie I saw at TIFF last year that I've wanted to re-watch at least other than one other movie on my list, the movie that I felt wanted to re-watch at least other than one other movie on my list the movie that I felt inclined to re-watch the most and yet I haven't because I don't want to spoil that first

experience. A little bit like what Sean was saying about Evil Does Not Exist. I loved my first experience of The Beast and I even wrote about it for Film Comment and they were like, do you want a screen or do you want to look at it again? And I'm like, no. I remember seeing it at TIFF and some guy like no let's let's let's i would just i remember seeing it at tiff and some guy walked out there were a lot of walkouts at this movie

which is often a very good sign you know and there's this scene where like leah say do is like floating naked in a tub of black goo and a robot it's like you need to go to a nightclub and it's going to be the year 1982 and a guy walked out i'm like what are you doing where are you going what possible better thing do you have to do right now than see where this is going? So shout out to Bertram Bonello. He's a real one. He's a really good director, I think.

Where are you at on David Lynch? I don't know if we've ever had that conversation. Massive Twin Peaks fan. Massive Mulholland Drive fan. And then kind of up and down with other stuff. Okay. Yeah. I would be curious to know what you think of this movie.

I'm of the camp that what works is remarkable and what doesn't work holds me back from loving it the same way that Adam does. But I get exactly what he's saying. We're sort of forgiving of our favorites a lot of times too, you know, and the messiness sometimes is an adventure that a tightly constructed movie maybe doesn't give you. So I get it.

I fully relate to what you're saying. My number four is a tightly constructed adventure. It's called Dune Part 2. Yeah. Which I don't know that I would have thought for sure would have ended up on my list when I first saw it because I was like, it's going to be a great movie. It's March and Dune Part 2 hit.

And as I look back I'm always fond of trying to find one event style film to place into my list because it is one of my favorite types of movie experiences to have is to be amongst a big crowd

of common moviegoers and to love a movie together there's a Deadpool and Wolverine's number one for you so like it is let's not spoil things please keep them you know with some bated breath there but Dune part two I think is as movie together. Because Deadpool and Wolverine's number one for you. Let's not spoil things, please. Keep them with some bated breath there.

But Dune Part 2, I think, is as close as we got to that this year. It is the second, but perhaps not conclusive, installment in the Denis Villeneuve adaptation of the Herbert novel. I thought this was like

movie synchronicity at its finest like a person with a very strong point of view on a piece of literature who knows how to make wow moments with arguably the most stacked young movie star cast in recent memory i i actually could not think of a comp where we're kind of getting into like dazed and confused territory here where they you know link, Linklater had foresight about people who are going to be famous. But this movie brings together what feels like a next generation in a lot of ways to tell a very old kind of story with a very messianic kind of structure. But the moment very early on in the film where you see the sort of rival Harkonnen soldiers gliding through the sky to get to the top of a mountain. I was like, I have not seen that, and I don't know what this is. I feel like I'm in safe hands with a genuinely creative artisan.

And, you know, visionary is a strong phrase, and I'm not sure if I necessarily believe that Villeneuve is a visionary, but I think he's an amazing movie maker. And this is an amazing feeling movie. So, number four. Also also just really awesome to see a blockbuster that ends on a a tough note you know complicated we don't get tons of those anymore um so it's it's nice it's there's no like michael cain being like you did it paul atreides you know like it ends and you're just like fuck man like that was a real choice he made yeah yeah i really like it um okay number three

cr okay uh anora uh sean baker's phone we've referenced a couple times in this podcast i haven't really gotten a chance to talk about it here um i just really cared about what happened to this person i really really did it's basically three movies in one it's you know a cinderella story in the beginning there's a middle section that's brilliant It's basically three movies in one. It's, you know, a Cinderella story in the beginning. There's a middle section that's brilliant. That's basically after hours. And then there's this sort of complicated relationship dramedy that happens at the end. But throughout it, I was just like, I don't feel like I've ever seen. It's not that I've never seen a character like this, but I just was like, I really, really care what happens to this woman. And that's, I'll do credit to Mikey Madison for that.

I think it's a really, really, really special performance. This from the opening music cue in the beginning, as you glide through the strip club on a pan, like you're just like, I mean, this guy knows exactly how he wants this movie to sound, exactly how this wants this movie to sound exactly how this movie should look should feel to go from that nightclub to her small like apartment where she forgets to bring home the milk you're just so enmeshed in the highs and lows of this

character's life and then that just roller coaster continues throughout the film um i thought i i left it like with a gut punch thinking a lot about what the end of the film meant. I love that people are arguing about that. That's kind of a theme of some of the films I picked as films I think are going to be very divisive and people are going to have a lot of different opinions about. But I was just mesmerized by this whole thing. Is it Nora on your list Adam? No No it's not There's a lot of things about it that are very good I think Sean Baker is a really good filmmaker There's also things about this film

That don't land for me I will say to Chris's point Because I always love everything Chris Has to say and where everyone comes from No I mean it, it is a movie to talk about Because probably at TIFF last year Some of those interesting chats i had with other critics and with friends working backwards you know was about the upshot of that last scene or about the depiction of sex work or about the culture clash within or the idea of extreme wealth i will say that sean baker tends to make very

similar plots it's just interesting to see as he's gotten more successful, it's leveled up in terms of the kind of wealth and privilege that's kind of put on the screen. It's not, it's not a bad thing. The movie, it reminds me of, I don't like it as much, but it saying that it reminds me of it as a compliment.

It reminds me of uncut gems, both in the sense that it is like a mad cap, realistic screwball thriller movie. And also that it is by far the biggest movie that the person associated with it is made so with the safty is the question like where do they go from here is still open i don't know where else sean baker goes because he just won the palm door and is making a lot of money and oscar nominations for this movie it's not a criticism it's just like what do we do because he's a real indie hero filmmaker for me i think yeah when we did our

episode about it i it's not on my list but i said i think that's a real indie hero filmmaker for me, I think. Yeah. When we did our episode about it, it's not on my list, but I said I think that's a culmination of all of his themes. And maybe that elevation of wealth that you're talking about is a part of that. And I think that is absolutely a neat pairing with Uncut Gems

because these are both movies about people who have incredible desire that is unexamined. And I think that we're meant to think about ourselves in that respect and why we want these things. They're both movies also that use time in a really wise way. Time seems to last forever in the first act of Nora. It seems to go by in the blink of an

eye in the second and then in the third it's kind of this ellipsis of where are we going next. Dragged out. Yeah, very purposefully. The fall is always a little bit more painful. Okay, Adam number three. My number three is very similar to Nora where are we going next? Dragged out. Yeah. Yeah. Very purposefully. The fall is always a little bit more painful. Um, okay. Adam,

number three, my number three is very similar to a Nora in that it is a gig economy, a scrupal comedy, the female protagonist sort of in the ruins of a European communism, which is do not expect too much from the end of the world, which I would also hugely recommend to anyone who's listening to this or watch it since saying, I don't know what that is.

Go find out what it is. It is fucking hilarious movie. It is about a woman driving through Bucharest. She basically is working for a company that makes work safety PSAs, but from the point of view of like, don't get hurt. It's like looking for people who will sort of give testimonials, but how it's not really their fault. There is a cameo from Nina Haas as the, I think, the great-granddaughter of Goethe. There's a cameo by

Uwe Boll as himself. There's probably the worst language of any movie ever since Goodfellas. The slur per moment ratio or the expletive per moment ratio is off the charts. And it's hilarious. It's a movie about social collapse and late capitalism and just the absolute hostility that vibrates from this character who half the time is pretending to be Andrew Tate using a face filter. The female protagonist has this kind of alter ego she posts to Instagram with where she just has Andrew Tate's face and just vents her spleen about the world. And then it culminates. I'm going to write about this too. When we do shots of the year, it has the greatest long take I've seen in years, a 40 minute long take,

which is not about camera movement. It is just about pure duration. It's a shot that you could have taken in 1895. And it is also a better Bob Dylan movie than a complete unknown. The end of, of a, do not expect you went to the end of Do Not Expect You Went to the End of the World is a parody of the Subterranean Homesick Blues video, except the idea is you add the words in post.

It's green screen cards. It's the best comedy of the year. And a movie that even though it's long, it feels like it's about two seconds long to me. I like this movie. It's a good pick. Okay, my number three is Challengers. Challengers and Dune coming out so close together again

was a sensation of like, we are truly back. We are in incredible hands. And Guadagnino, I think, resisting the impulse to make something so commercial for so long, I found fascinating because you could always sense right underneath the surface. It was a very kinetic filmmaker and somebody who, if he picked up the pace,

had a chance to do something extremely cool. This is a very simple seeming soap operatic story, a love triangle on the surface, a sports movie on the surface, that I think is also about incredible, unquenchable passion for victory that exists inside some people and in this case it is in the character portrayed by Zendaya and she is using everyone around her to supplement her desire and her ambition because her body won't cooperate yes and her willingness to use other people and to sublimate you know certain feelings

in order to get where she wants to go and it's also just like a hilarious and relentlessly propulsive story about um what happens to everyone who gets in her way um also just features one of my five favorite performances of the year which is josh O'Connor as this sort of weaselly bastard who won't ever get out of her way and continues to place himself right in front of her. I really, really loved this movie. I think that this is

it is more of a divisive movie than I think I imagined when I first saw it. And I first saw it in 2023. And when I saw it I was like god damn the score alone the Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor

score and the inspired decision to basically put a four on the floor dance beat behind tennis yeah yeah and 70% of the movie yeah just a relentless um use of music as well it's just so so inspired to me and I've seen this movie three times now I really really love it um it's a good meeting point I think for me and Amanda and our interest on the show. As I look down the list, there's a lot of stuff I did like. There were some movies that maybe could have been swapped into here,

but I'm not sure if I ever had quite so much fun at the movies as I had at Challengers, so that's my number three. Okay, number two, Chris. I'm going to go with Rebel Ridge, Jeremy Saulnier's film about a martial arts instructor who comes to a small southern town to bail his cousin out of jail.

And everything that goes wrong from there, it's about the corrosive forces of local law enforcement forced to, not forced to, but engaging in this thing called civil asset forfeiture, taking people's property, their money, their time, their freedom for essentially financial benefit.

But it also is just like a movie that could have come out in 1983 and starred Chuck Norris. It is made, though, with such care and such excellence in scenes that you're just like, this is just a transition scene to get him from one part of a riverbed to a bridge. You're like, how the hell do they do that? Why did he take so much time to do it that way? But it pays off. It's just watching someone who really still cares about making really good

genre films. And that's excellent. It's kind of a triumph that this film is as good as it is given how the reshoots and the delays they went under. And then on top of all of that, aside from really cool performances from Don Johnson, who's reliably awesome anyway,

and Emery Cohen, and Anna-Sophia Robb, Aaron Pierre just becomes a movie star in this movie. And so if you didn't know that already from watching Underground Railroad, you will know it from watching Rebel Ridge.

It was just one of the most satisfying films I've seen all year watched it like two or three times great movie on my honorable mentions for sure it's a terrific movie aaron pierre's fantastic and it's really good adam number two uh we probably can we probably don't have to talk about it we did a whole pod on it uh juror number two look at at you. Hey. Yeah. You know, people may have heard us. You saw that forerunner yet, brother? You saw the forerunner, Benny? No, I mean, I really love talking about it with Sean. That was a fun chat.

I do think there is a little urgency around this movie and critics rallying around it. There is a sort of like white knighting of Clint Eastwood who can take care of himself, but still. And it is a movie. Remember we talked about that idea of distracted viewing? like white knighting of Clint Eastwood who can take care of himself, but still, and, uh, uh, it is a movie. Remember when you talked about that idea of distracted viewing, you know what? The common thing people have been texting about this movie with me is

they're like, I didn't look at my phone. It is a, it is a great, you can't look at your phone movie because it is told in such a precise measured classical pressurized way. And again, what an amazing ending that last scene, which I wrote about, so I won't go on about it here. And again, what an amazing ending. That last scene, which I wrote about,

so I won't go on about it here. That's an extraordinary ending in every way. The way it's written, the way it's shot, the way it's acted. We haven't talked about it. We haven't. What'd you think? It's quite good.

Yeah. It was quite good. Some flaws? I wish I could do the Pepsi Coke taste test of not knowing who directed that film and know how I would have felt about it. Really? Yeah, because I think I could do the Pepsi Coke taste test of not knowing who directed that film and know how I would have felt about it. Really? Yeah, because I think I went into it with a lot of, like, God Clint, late style, like, you guys need to understand the mastery at work here.

And so I went in with, like, kind of, like, looking for that when I was watching it. I think it's fair to say that it's also a very procedural kind of, for as much mysticism as might be attached to it, it's kind of a bare-bones, like Showtime movie of the week kind of movie in some ways. Yeah, I think the kinds of movies that I thought about when I was watching it, and I think we talked about this a little bit, Adam,

when we did the episode, but that period where he makes Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and True Crime and Bloodwork, and he's like working through genre adaptation that is a very comfy period of movies for me personally.

You know, that sort of like 96 through 2003 era, where he's like semi-mailing it in, but him semi-mailing it in is so much better than everybody. And for me, jury number two distinguishes itself because it is like a big moral gray cloak over his questioning of institutions

for the last 15, 20 years in his films. And I love that about it. And I echo Adam's sentiments about the ending, which I just think is like, I was, I don't know. Afford is the wrong word because it's sort of inconclusive in some ways, but just like is like, I was, I don't know, floored is the wrong word because it's sort of inconclusive in some ways, but just like knocked out,

just like took my breath away. So, great pick, Adam. I like it. My number two is a movie that Adam also has on his list, which is Nickel Boys, which I think both formally,

intellectually, and emotionally, and spiritually is just like wildly deep and new and exciting. And is the kind of movie, this is why, to go back to your question earlier about like the Sorcerer Boys, you know, like this is why I'm doing the show. Is to discover a movie like this at a film festival and to tell people to watch it. And the Beekeeper too.

Well, I do like promoting movies like the Beekeeper as well um those two films have a lot to say to each other politically nickel boys and the beekeeper uh you know nickel boys is because of its decision to remove perspective and amplify perspective at the same time, I think really confronts the viewer about what they're willing to tolerate in a narrative style film. In addition to that, it has something in common with my number one movie in terms of the use of archival footage

that I find to be fascinating and in the wrong hands could go very badly. But in both cases, I think is an amazing choice. And I think the film gets into, this is so pretentious, but like legitimately abstract poetry an amazing choice and i think the film gets into this is so pretentious but like legitimately abstract poetry in the final 20 minutes of the film where you are like levitating you are being lifted off of your feet or off of your ass while you're watching the movie because it's so deep now i saw it with a bunch of friends a telluride who i see a

lot of movies with and half of them were just like what the fuck was that and i think a lot of people will watch nickel boys and have the same feeling. And frankly, if you watch it in your house, like on Amazon, it's probably going to seem even more strange. But it just knocked me out. And I'm very excited about Romel Ross as a filmmaker. So that's my number two. Okay, Chris, number one.

I love what you're doing here. My number one is Civil War. So Alex Garland's movie from earlier in this year featuring kirsten dunst and kaylee spainy and uh wagner mora as journalists who are covering the fall of a um i suppose fascistic or at least third term president um i say suppose because a lot of people took a lot of issues with the lack of clarity and lack of world building that went into this very straightforward uh heart of darkness style up the river but just down the pennsylvania turnpike type movie i found that the imagery from this movie

stuck with me uh yes the ideas from this movie stuck with me, even though I know it's been criticized for having no ideas whatsoever, Amanda. But I keep thinking about it, and it's a fucking heavyweight title contender of a piece of filmmaking. And I'm not actually always like Alex Garland can do no wrong. I definitely have issues with some of his films. I think they get really sloppy in places. I think sometimes he gets enamored with the things that I'm not particularly interested in. This movie was not that. I was absolutely gripping my armrests for the entirety of this film. It was sonically and visually overwhelming.

And I don't know. It's an interesting conversation to have to ask people whether or not their feelings about this movie have changed since the election. I probably can't squeeze it in here, but I did think about it in different ways. You're saving it for JMO. I'm saving it for JMO.

I'm saving it for my Letterboxd livestream. But yeah, that's my number one. Did you hate this movie? No, I wrote about it. I didn't hate it. I didn't like it very much. The last thing that you said about I wonder if people's feelings about the movie have changed

is partially what I resisted about it, which is among other things, it felt opportunistic. Sure. But I suppose it is a very thin line because I always, again, respect what Chris says. It's a thin line between opportunism and like prescience,

right? He's not making a movie about the wrong thing. So my issue is kind of with the filmmaking itself, but that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's subjective. And I'm not really a Garland fan.

Uh, there's some good scenes in it. And the one scene performance by, um, what's his, by, by Jesse Plemons, obviously very memorable and not just cause it's been memed a lot.

You know, that's a, that's a memorable little performance. He's very good. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I really love this movie and I had a very similar experience that you did. That's a memorable little performance. He's very good. Yeah, I mean, I really love this movie and I had a very similar experience that you did and I rewatched it right before the election.

And I think I liked it a little bit less but felt like it was better. You know what I mean? Like I am actually in the Church of Garland and I love his movies and I love the way that he thinks and I like his novels quite a bit. And I'm so excited that he is doing another 28 movie with zombie movie with

Danny Boyle and some other movie Warfare he's making this movie Warfare with Ray Mendoza who is the consultant on some of the military action in Civil War and it's a friend of mine who works in the business was like this is going to be the best movie of the year next year I'm fully in the in the cult um and i think it's prescience and my sense that it will be very warmly understood

long term yeah part of is part kind of like undid me a little bit um but i you know i i really like it it's kind of like right it's literally i think a number six for me right now so uh it's a good pick okay adam you've got a number one slot. I wanted it to be a surprise when I published the list, but I've also got to be consistent, right? I can't not mention it and have it be number one. I went with Pascal Plante's film Red Rooms. Thought about putting this on as well.

Amazing movie. Which is a French-Canadian film. And what I'm going to say about it as a mea culpa is I didn't think it worked the first time and letterbox, which we've talked about for this entire podcast, you can find it there. Someone shared it the other day. We're like,

Oh, there's some really good thoughts on red room by, by Adam. I'm like, no, I, I, I disagree with myself.

And I wrote about the film, wrote about the film for a movie later and said, I think it's really good. And I think it's better than really good. I think it's an amazing film. And I'm really loathe for spoilers. I think spoilers are essential to written serious

criticism, but when you're trying to introduce people to a movie, you don't want to say too much. Interesting companion piece to Jura No. 2 in that it is a courtroom drama that is not really a courtroom drama at all. It has extraordinary courtroom sequence for about 10 minutes and then it's not about that it's about a woman who i'm hesitant how much to say

a vested interest in the trial of a of an accused serial killer and the ways that she pursues this interest which is kind of like investigative journalism and kind of uh like obsessive fandom and maybe something else uh constantly surprised me i have not seen a movie as we see movies for a living to greater lesser degrees all of us right we try not to be cynical i think sean does a great job of not being cynical i don't i do a less good job of not being cynical i had no idea what this character was capable of. That's rare. I don't just mean that a movie is unpredictable. Movies can be twisted.

That's easy to do. But I'm like, who is this person? What the hell is she thinking and doing? And why is she doing this? And the performance by this French Canadian actress, Juliette Gariappi, I think it's an all-timer. I mean, I don't know if the movie's an all-timer. I like it a lot, obviously, because I'm putting it at number one she's unbelievable and it's a movie that i think for for fans of the pod who like a very obscure director none of us have ever talked

about named david fincher uh might want to watch because it has the fincher juice that was my that was my in for it was like this is this is really good Fincher methadone. A movie in its own right, obviously. Really good Fincher methadone. And this performance, a lot of it is in close-up. The close-ups are often nightmare fuel. A few critics have described this movie as being as scary as something that is not a horror movie can be. And it all comes back to this idea of what this character is capable of and why she is doing these things.

And I love the idea of a movie, but a character who knows exactly what she's doing and maybe not why, or has no idea what she's doing, you know, but is super competent in a kind of Stieg Larsson girl with the dragon tattoo way. Great movie. Number one.

We've talked about how quite a bit over the last couple of years, many great filmmakers are resistant to making contemporary set stories because of the way that they resolve some of the natural plotting that comes from telling a story in the past because of cell phones and technology and what have

you. This is an incredibly contemporary movie, Red Rooms. And there's a sequence in a bedroom near the end of the movie that is the most like stunning portrait of a modern mentality that i've ever seen uh yeah i won't say anything more about it but uh i know i i relate deeply to the way that you're describing the like what she's what what is she she's now she's doing what like and and to reiterate it's not like sick fucks you know this is like a trio of guys who are into some gnarly shit it's it's and to reiterate for anyone who's now curious about

seeing the movie this is not incoherence it's sort of a movie about a completely self-divided moment because everything that sean said about the way i usually when movies are like we're about the way we live now it usually means they're bad you know but this is a movie about screens and prisms and about self-curation and like how people present themselves in private versus public and absolutely about just like interacting with and interfacing with ai and it does it all within a genre framework because fincher, when he's really good, colors inside the lines of genre. He just colors vividly. Pascal Plant is not a household name like that,

but the way that this movie is directed, I hope it does good things for him in a good way. I hope it means he gets to make more movies that are as uncompromised as this as opposed to leveling up to making some horror remake in the States or something, but, uh,

you know, really good film. That's a good segue to my number one, which is the brutalist. Um, and I will, I will, I will echo Chris's feelings about the film.

I've seen it twice. And now that I know more about the movie, I think that that is probably infiltrated even more of my appreciation. And what you're saying about Pascal plant and and the way that he made Red Rooms, Adam, I think resonates to this conversation too, because this is someone who I hope gets to make more movies and gets more and more freedom. There's something fascinating about The Brutalist being made for such a small sum because it is such a big movie and it is such an extraordinary accomplishment and a sweeping movie. And it's not just its length, but its scope that is so thrilling. The performances, I would rather have that than settling for mediocrity,

settling for something small, settling for something that is cheap or cynical. And this is like, to me, I see no cynicism in this movie. I see no cynicism in the ambition to make something big and great. And it's evident to me like what some of the inspirations are and i think that godfather is there and i think the american productions the moral fables of george stevens are there and i think visconti movies are there and bergman and i think all

yeah 1900 is there like sequence sequences from paul thomas anderson movies with the master is vividly on the surface of vividly on the surface of this movie. Vividly on the surface of this movie. Yes. No question about it. You know what? All of those movies I just mentioned are phenomenal. They are among the best pieces of art that have been made in the last hundred years. And trying to conjure

that feeling that those movies give us is why I'm doing this. It is exactly why I'm doing this. So, you know, we'll talk about a lot more about the movie and most people have not had the chance to see it yet and I am excited I'm looking forward to the debate I am looking forward to the uh the division you know to to to quote your list um because I just was so knocked out and seeing it again with you was fun too because not only did we get a chance to talk about it, but I got a chance

to kind of like wrap my arms around my expectations versus my, the actualization. Yeah, of course. You know? Of course.

And we made a lot of jokes about this movie before it came out. And I had been desperate for a big, important-seeming film all year. And then you come

to see the movie and it's just like, just deathly serious story about alienation and assimilation and capitalism and pain and art physical deterioration and how you and you know patrons versus artists and so many big ideas some are going to say too many ideas that's fine um but i i love this movie and uh i I hope a lot of people go to see it and I hope Brady Corbett

gets to make a lot more movies honorable mentions I'll just rattle some off go ahead we don't have to spend a ton of time on them but the one movie that I was like

this was like still last night trying to figure out whether it was going on is I Saw the TV Glow I just rewatched it last night it's just an extraordinary film

a couple others, a snack shack, a real pain, and then, uh, a complete unknown conclave and in a violent nature. Okay. Adam,

you want to cite some? Yeah. I want to give a shout out someone whose movie I probably can't write about because she's a friend, but Brett stories documentary union, which is about the unionization of an amazon factory uh this is courageous political filmmaking you know that because people are hesitant to distribute it um it's a really good film it made the new york times top 10 list and uh got a big feature written about it in the

new yorker uh big contrast with nomadland and that they did not want to film inside amazon you know it's a really interesting companion piece to Nomadland. Brett Stray kept her cameras outside and used cell phone footage that was snuck into the union meetings. So that's great to me. It's a co-authored film. I mean, the movie that I can't put on the list because it's not a feature is Chime by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is, I mentioned before, best horror movie of the year and it's 45 minutes long. And I don't want to steal Sean's thunder, but I want to

tee it up for him. I'm going to throw Sean a lob here and I'm going to say, much to the consternation of my actual editor here at Ringer and with a couple of my friends looking at me like I'm a psycho, I put here on my top 10 list. In the end, I kicked

off two or three other movies that I'm more certain are actually good. For something like here, which I wrote about for a different publication, I was very happy with that piece. That movie is bananas. That movie is bananas. And thinking about it and deconstructing it is necessary, I think. Here is my The Beast, in that I know that there are things about it that do not work and I do not care because what does work about it is so powerful to me.

And the thing, I'll just pitch this to you guys. I'm putting you on the spot by asking you this. I've asked a few friends this before. Can you name me, what's the last movie made by a movie star like Tom Hanks that is about the erosion of the middle class and the impossibility of the American dream? Deadpool and Wolverine. I mean, that's the thing is that that is what movie stars do in 2024. Movie stars don't make movies like here. And Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis, and is he absolutely boomer-fied and obsessed with the past

and obsessed with the own impossibility of the life that came before him and his parents' world? Yes. All that stuff is true. All the criticisms are true. I am willing to let them go. But the actual act of getting Sony Pictures

to adapt this graphic novel about the arc of time and what is lost in that time and how it affects individuals is fucking deep, man. That's really deep. And it's easy to make fun of the movie because they de-aged Tom Hanks or whatever. But I think if you really make an effort to approach it sincerely, it's a meaningful movie. So thank you for putting it on your list, Adam. I appreciate it. It's the great double bill this year with Megalopolis. Because with Megalopolis, there's no tension he

just financed it himself so the movie is whatever it is on coppola's own terms for zemeckis to make that movie when a studio is footing the bill and for it still to be on his terms like that that's what makes it an interesting double bill with the brutalist right like they're they're they're they're very much both movies but how much control can you exert while you're being patronized? I don't mean made fun of patronized. I mean literally being subsidized to make this thing. And I'm sure people who work for the studio wouldn't want to hear this. It's great that here's going to lose so much money because that's what cult reclamation is made of.

I wrote a book about showgirls, man. This is how it happens. You need to have the nuclear blast site of, of, of negative consensus for people to go look at something else. So when they see a movie that is about like American self-interest and colonization and the arc of the universe bending towards McDonald's with the, and I'm not going to spoil it, but anyone who watches that movie please think about where the last shot ends up not just where it finally goes when the camera moves like whose position we're looking at the frame now from at the end with the stupid benjamin button hummingbird

winking at everybody like that movie is kind of evil and kind of great and in 15 or 20 years people are going to say how did everybody miss thinking this was interesting? At least. Yes. Here we'll be heard from again. And I think it's also an amazing pairing with Forrest Gump. Robert Zemeckis' less embittered version of a piece about the arc of time passing in America. Okay.

Honorable mentions for me. You guys mentioned a bunch of movies that would be on mine. Civil War, Nora. I wanted to give a shout out to a movie that I'll spend maybe a little bit more time on in a couple of weeks that I just saw called Soundtrack to a Coup d'etat, which is an unbelievable documentary that unlike one I've ever seen before.

Chris, are you familiar with this movie at all? I'm not. It is essentially told entirely through archival footage, jazz music, and text on cards. It's about the relationship between American black music and Lumumba and the Congo in 1960. And the sort of radicalized politics of a new Africa in the middle of the 20th century and the way that the CIA may or may not have used some of the musicians who traveled to Africa during that time to implement force and power. Two and a half hour movie, so dense as to be overwhelming. You have

to be fully engaged because there is a lot of reading involved but because of the way that it is scored by max roach and ella fitzgerald and dizzy gillespie and on it charles mingus on and on and on coltrane makes an appearance in the film miles davis makes an appearance it's like um it's like going down the big slope on a roller coaster and never stopping um so a fascinating movie um that i hope more people get a chance to see I think it's only in theaters now and not available on VOD but that's soundtrack to Okudetou I had Red Rooms on my list

I had the first Omen on my list which is of course a horror movie that I liked quite a bit that I've talked about quite a bit on the show already I had Rebel Ridge

you know I think I should give a shout out to Furiosa which you know we've been tough on this year but when I look at my list it still is like 13 or 14 it's not like

it's that far down I Have you gone back to it? I've only seen it, I've seen it twice, in theaters twice. I have not watched it at home, but I will do that. And then the last one I wanted to mention

is A Different Man, which had a surprise win at the Gothams last week for Best Picture. This is Aaron Schimberg's movie starring Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson. And I did talk to Sebastian Stan

at length about the movie on the show, but I never really devoted any time to discussing the movie, which is about a man who's born with a condition that disfigures his face and that he has a remarkable surgery

that makes his face look like Sebastian Stan's face. And he seeks out an opportunity to become an actor and play a man who has the condition. That play is written by a woman that he has fallen in love with who lives in his apartment building.

Very convoluted, dark comedy, very, very black satire of self-worth and self-image that features Adam Pearson's like bright, jovial, exuberant spirit in the center of it. Really enjoying Sebastian Stan's somewhat post-MCU moment. Just very cool. I know he's still in it. Yeah, Sebastian Stan's somewhat post-MCU moment. Just very cool. I know he's still in it.

Yeah. I was very mixed on The Apprentice but not at all mixed on him and Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice and people should check out a different man

that's on VOD right now. I think that's it. Should we throw to a man? Any guesses on what's on a man's list? Civil War. No. Adam, you have any guesses?

No. I just look forward to hearing it I know challengers will be there I do know that Amanda has seen Wicked do we think Wicked will be on Amanda's list uh huh yeah I think you're right but maybe not

no Wicked I only saw the Instagram story that was like okay like so Adam what do you think will Amanda select select wicked for her top five uh no no amanda will not select wicked for her top five but she will have amanda amanda will have amanda will have something to say about you saying she would select wicked i know i i'm almost certain she will not uh all right let's go to Amanda now.

Hi, everyone. It's me, Movie Mom, a.k.a. Amanda Dobbins. That's my legal name. It is Wednesday night. Everyone else in my home is asleep. I'm in my pajamas. And I'm here to tell you briefly about my favorite movies of the year. And I say favorite and not best because I haven't seen everything. As you know, I have been on leave since October, which is kind of the prestige season, definitely the fancy movie season of the year. And so I haven't seen a lot of what I suspect will be at the top of at least Sean's lists, respectfully. I haven't seen The Brutalist, okay? I've seen your memes, but I haven't seen The Brutalist. I haven't seen the Brutalist, okay? I've seen your memes, but I haven't seen the Brutalist. I haven't seen A Complete Unknown. I haven't seen Nickel Boys.

I haven't seen The Piano Lesson. I haven't seen September 5. I haven't seen Baby Girl, though I am going next week and I'm very excited. So this can't be authoritative. I have great respect for list making and I'm not going to be out here proclaiming the best when I haven't seen everything. But I have seen a lot and I do have some favorites. So I made a very, very quirky top five. And it's really a top seven because there are no rules when it's just me alone talking into my phone. But here they are. Number five is it's two movies. It is The Beekeeper, the Jason Statham, David Ayer movie that came out in January, 2024, and Lonely Planet, the Netflix film written and directed by Susanna Grant, starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth. If you can't tell by the pairing, this is the junk category, the transcendent garbage. I haven't revisited The Beekeeper since the

election and I don't plan to, but I remember enjoying it at the time. And Lowly Planet really got me through a dark three days in early October because it took me three days to watch it. If you have seen it, I'll just say to you, swing route. And if not, check it out. It's on Netflix. What else are you doing? Okay. Number four, The Bike Riders. The Jeff Nichols film starring Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, and yes, Austin Butler, Mike Shannon, Boyd Holbrook. Hi, Chris, how are you? We podcasted about this over the summer and I remember, I believe it was Sean, but maybe it was Chris saying, I really like this movie, but I don't think it's going to be on my top five list at the end of the year. Guess what?

It's on mine. Okay. Number three. The Glenn Powell special. Twisters and Hitman. Dune 2 is not on my list because I figure that Chris and Sean at least have it covered. Adam, I know how you feel about Denis Villeneuve. So Twisters is my blockbuster of the year, aside from Dune II, which is very, very good and should be nominated for a lot of Oscars. Get off my back. But Twisters had the fun

summer and actually released in the summer. We used to build things in this country sort of vibe. Hitman, which is the best movie that I saw on Netflix this year, probably. Delightful Richard Linklater movie, co-written with Glenn Powell. And it occurs to me now that this would have been a really great adult Halloween costume. I wasn't really around for that. Did people go around as all the hitmen? I hope someone did. I hope that you guys had a great group costume and a great Halloween night. I don't really do adult Halloween even when I'm dialed into the world, but that would have been funny. And to Glenn Powell, wherever you are, happy holidays. Congratulations. I'm back in january please come draft with us okay number two i might be betraying myself here by putting challengers at number two but i'm going

with my heart this is like the most amanda movie of the year and we covered it a lot please go back and listen to those if you haven't um It is everything that I want in a movie. Luca Guadagnino, Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Feist, just absolutely bumping soundtrack. Tennis, which I'm thinking about pursuing as a player in 2025. Stay tuned. Fancy hand creams, incredible product placement up and down the line I I loved this movie I loved also just the vibe of this movie which was let's just put a bunch of cool things together and and let it and and let it rock um Luca I really feel sees me so listen I love this movie really cool I'm really bummed that it's not

an Oscar conversation, but I do think that my number one has to be Anora. I'm just, when Sean texted me, asked me to do this, Anora was my number one. We did a whole podcast about it before I left, but what an amazing movie that makes you feel so many things at the same time. I've been thinking a lot about that last scene and what I felt when I first saw it. And then how Sean and I talked about it on the podcast and kind of our different interpretations. And then the different interpretations that every person I've talked to about the movie since it came out has had. And it just, everyone takes something like slightly different from it while also you know

being completely entertained and amused and like you know a little repelled by the perform by the not repelled by but the performances but some of the the characters and it anyway it's a completely engrossing like movie ass movie and also something just really like intellectual and provocative that stays with you so i'm i just i love it if if anora wins best picture we're in a great spot um gotta be honest with you guys i saw wicked today and if wicked wins best picture um you all have some splinting to do well Well, we're going to do that in January 2025. I love you all. And I remain confused.

And I will continue to seek to understand what the hell is going on. But I love doing this podcast. And I love listening to all of you guys while I'm gone so thank you for letting me talk about movies and thank you for all your kind wishes and I will be back to yell at you very very soon thank you to Amanda good to hear her voice thank you to Amanda. Good to hear her voice. Thank you to Chris. Thank you to Adam. Thank you to Jack Sanders.

Thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Speaking of the best movies of the year or not, next week, the Golden Globe nominations come out Monday morning. I will be here with Joanna Robinson covering the first truly big domino of award season. We'll see you then.