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A clunky movie. Denzel Washington was neither believable nor interesting as a record company executive (think Berry Gordy), and we had to watch him the entire movie. A rare misfire by Spike Lee, based on a Kurosawa film that wasn’t that great to begin with.

Year after year I say it wasn’t a great year for movies, and the fact that I can’t find ten titles for this list reinforce that view for 2024. On the other hand, the industry’s policy of withholding prestige films until December makes it hard to catch up with everything, and there are two possible nominees, The Brutalist and The Seed and the Sacred Fig, that are still on our to-watch list.
1. Green Border. This documentary-like story of refugees trying to reach Europe made you feel and made you think like no other movie this year. The characters were vivid and compelling, their plight all too realistic, the plot unceasingly gripping.
2. A Complete Unknown. Great music, Timothee Chalamet’s Dylan, supporting work by Monica Barbara and Elle Fanning all combined to make this the most enjoyable film of the year.
3. The Apprentice. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong’s Oscar-worthy performances unfortunately captured the Donald Trump we now know too well and a New York of ’70s we still remember.
4. Emilia Perez. An inventively audacious film that is gentle, sweet, violent and thought-provoking, all at once, with top performances by four leading ladies. And music.
5. The Bikeriders. A portrait of a time and place  and subset of people, redneck South, with the great Jodi Comer setting the tone.
6. Sing Sing. A feel-good play within a play by Colman Domingo and actual prisoners.
7. Evil Does Not Exist. A moody, ambiguous, elegiac look at Japanese culture and man’s relationship with nature by the auteur Hamaguchi.
8. A Real Pain. Jesse Eisenberg, not Kieran Culkin, is the standout in this very personal story.
9. Anora. The first half hour aside, Sean Baker’s film was funny, sad and original, amazingly acted and deftly directed. Why not in the top five? That first half hour.

As with her (much better) plays, Annie Baker’s film debut consists of people talking, and figuring themselves out. Unfortunately, all they talk about is their relationships, none of which are that interesting. This is sort of an Inside Out 2 but with sort of grownups.

A lovely, gentle romance between a charming and gorgeous Icelandic man and a lovely and demure Japanese woman, told through flashbacks to 1969 London from a 2020 present. Besides whetting my appetite for Japanese cuisine, the film almost made me nostalgic for the days of Covid lockdown.