Film selection of the year 2024 by four of our film critics – Filmauswahl des Jahres 2024 von vier unserer Filmkritiker*innen – Sélection de films de l’année 2024 par quatre de nos critiques de cinéma

While j:mag offers a wide range of sections, our faithful readers have undoubtedly noticed that cinema holds a special place. We asked three of our film critics, along with the editor-in-chief, to share their favorite films of the past year. Here is Agnieszka Pilacińska’s selection.
The selection of Firouz E. Pillet (in French), Harald Ringel (in German), and Malik Berkati (in French) can be found here.

The Editorial Team

In 2024 film creators mostly stayed in their comfort zones. Those more daring were scratching the surface of human nature, confronting us with our expectations and needs, laughing at myths, asking philosophical questions, and giving us an unforgettable audiovisual feast.

Jeste nejsem, kým chci být (I’m Not Everything I Want to Be)
dir. Klára Tasovská
World premiere: Berlinale 2024
Polish premiere: Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2024

How to capture the life of an artist, who outrun her times? Klára Tasovská surely knows the answer to this question. By using static photographs taken by Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, she tells a universal story about the process of searching for artistic and personal freedom. Her film seduces with freshness and boldness. From monochromatic matter emerges an honest and intimate portrait of a woman who broke paradigms, defied social expectations, and discovered truth in everyday reality.

The Brutalist
dir. Brady Corbet
World premiere: Venice Film Festival 2024
Polish premiere: American Film Festival 2024

Corbet made a movie that is monumental and minimalistic at the same time. The story about dreams too big to be held exposes the bitterness of the American dream and the structure of power, dependence and money. With mind-blowing cinematography by Lol Crawley, the director painted a portrait of the inner journey and exposed the fragileness of human nature: a man who lost before he started to compete, as we all do.

Anora
dir. Sean Baker
World premiere: Cannes Film Festival 2024
Polish premiere: American Film Festival 2024

Baker created the best social cinema I’ve ever seen: without flaunting drama and searching for pity for his characters, laughing at the American myths. In this bittersweet story, commonly called the Pretty Woman of our times, he feeds us with a whole bunch of emotions, needs, and desires. Just imagine what American cinematography would look like if all directors displayed such boldness. A fully deserved Palme d’Or !
[The review in French by Malik Berkati]

Reostat (Traffic)
dir. Teodora Ana Mihai
World premiere: Warsaw Film Festival 2024

With a screenplay written by the icon of the Romanian new wave, Cristian Mungiu, Teodora Ana Mihai created unpretentious and provocative narration, an attention-grabbing combination of a heist movie and social cinema that exposes universal truths about the modern world, its values, ​​and needs. While observing people trapped by reality, often dictated by factors beyond their control, the director doesn’t look for guilty or saints, looking critically at every character of the story.

A Different Man
dir. Aaron Schimberg
World premiere: Berlinale 2024
Polish premiere: New Horizons 2024

Aaron Schimberg tries to answer a question about what really defines our identity: our physical appearance, our personality, or maybe something else? He gives us a contemplative, philosophical, multi-layered narration, full of delicious absurdities and surprising plot twists. Dressing his story in a retro atmosphere and smuggling in elements of Cronenberg’s body horror, he makes a very stylish, grotesque flirtation between genres, where drama is regularly spiced with comedy.

La Bête (The Beast)
dir. Bertrand Bonello
World premiere: Cannes 2023
Polish premiere: New Horizons 2024

Benollo mixes genres and styles to give us a hypnotic vision of a world ruled by artificial intelligence that helps people get rid of their emotions and memories: a weakness that can interfere with their perception of the present and efficiency as workers. Traveling between time and epochs, playing with the characters, he tells a unique story about how we sabotage our own happiness, letting our fears lead our lives.

Nu aștepta prea mult de la sfârșitul lumii (Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World)
dir. Radu Jude
World premiere: Locarno Film Festival 2023
Polish premiere: New Horizons 2024

Are you ready for the apocalypse? Or maybe it’s already happened  (or happened a long time ago) but is far from our imaginations created by American blockbuster movies? Radu Jude exposes late capitalism and lets the past created by Lucian Bratu’s 1981 movie Angela merge mai departe meet with the present: his main character, an overworked woman, just to show that nothing really changes, especially in the country that tries to be something else that really is.
[Review by Malik Berkati and interview of Radu Jude, in French]

Magyarázat mindenre (Explanation for Everything)
dir. Gábor Reisz
world premiere: Venice Film Festival 2023
polish premiere: New Horizons 2024

A Hungarian director made a movie that could easily talk about all eastern European countries. What starts as an innocent event, escalates quickly, powered by unresolved national trauma. Avoiding didacticism Gábor Reisz confronts the needs of the old and young generation, but he is far away from searching for panacea or who is right.

Joker: Folie à Deux
dir. Todd Phillips
World premiere: Venice Film Festival 2024

Todd Phillips is definitely not a crowd-pleaser. After winning the Gold Lion in Venice for Joker (2019), he brought us the second part of the story, and it was nothing we could expect. But creative risk always pays off. Society gets a slap on the cheek for its addiction to illusions, powder and glitter, and rejection of what is hidden underneath the mask and what is not so socially desirable. No one cares for Joker who doesn’t fulfill our expectations, how cruel is this?
[Review of Joker by Firouz E. Pillet and Joker:Folie à Deux by Malik Berkati, in French]

Las (Forest)
dir. Lidia Duda
World premiere: Thessaloniki Film Festival 2024
Polish premiere: Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2024

The migration crisis on the Polish border is one of the hottest topics in Polish cinematography. But Lidia Duda avoids making her movie a political statement. Instead, with a lot of tenderness of cinematography language, she observes her characters: a family of five (well, six including the dog) living in the forest and their meeting with refugees. She creates a philosophical tractate, free from judgment and moralizing, asking questions and not trying to provide answers by force. In the peculiar portrait of the “other”, the director allows us to see ourselves and the randomness that has determined our place on earth.

Agnieszka Pilacińska

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