by Eternality Tan

My Favourite Films of 2024

As per tradition, I will give out imaginary awards to the films that I love most or hold in high regard from the preceding year.

Golden Snoopy – Johan Grimonprez for SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT

My favourite film of the year and one of my proudest moments as a programmer when I screened it as part of the Singapore Film Society Showcase in August 2024. This rapturous, stunningly-edited Sundance award-winning documentary sets the GOATs of American jazz against the tumultuous political history of Congo’s struggle for independence during the decolonisation phase of the Cold War. 

Silver Snoopy – Alonso Ruizpalacios for LA COCINA

With virtuoso filmmaking on display, Alonso Ruizpalacios’ mesmerising fourth feature creates explosive drama out of the inner workings of a busy F&B kitchen in Times Square. I’m convinced that the director is one of world cinema’s finest generational talents working today.

Bronze Snoopy – Coralie Fargeat for THE SUBSTANCE

Possibly one of the finest ‘body horror’ films of the post-2000s era, Fargeat’s sophomore film takes on sexism and ageism in the entertainment industry with a middle finger so pointed that the violence and gore become saliently and nihilistically rewarding. 

Bronze Snoopy (Special Mention) – NO OTHER LAND

A documentary project by both Palestinians and Israelis that provides the necessary context for the eradication of several Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank by the IDF and armed settlers—it’s hard-hitting but a testament to courageous and responsible filmmaking in torrid circumstances.  

  • Best Director: Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias for PEPE. An unconventional ‘myth-telling’ film for adventurous cinephiles, helmed by a filmmaker whose work is invigorating, inspiring and endlessly creative.
  • Best Lead Actor: Daniel Craig in QUEER. The one that got away during awards season. Might just be Craig’s career-best performance in a role that is difficult to pull off. Sensual, vulnerable and even existential.
  • Best Lead Actress: Karla Sofia Gascon & Zoe Saldana in EMILIA PEREZ. Two outstanding lead performances that were full of grit and vitality in an unjustly hated film.
  • Best Supporting Actor: Guy Pearce in THE BRUTALIST. An underappreciated actor who has done great work as he loses himself in the role of a wealthy man with questionable morals.
  • Best Supporting Actress: Monica Barbaro in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. While I was suitably impressed by Timothee Chalamet and Edward Norton, somehow Barbaro’s role as Joan Baez stole the show for me. A true underdog supporting performance.
  • Best Ensemble Cast: AN UNFINISHED FILM. An empathetic pandemic meta-film that relies on the collective strength and perserverance of its human beings, be they actors or real-life people, and be it in front or behind the film camera or mobile phone.
  • Best Original Screenplay: ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT. A film that expertly blends realism and poeticism as Payal Kapadia’s filmmaking of sincerity and subtlety brings us into three Indian women’s perspectives and feelings as they contemplate their lives’ paths, which are uncertain yet paradoxically preordained. 
  • Best Adapted Screenplay: LA COCINA. An extraordinary effort in adapting a play (by Arnold Wesker) for the big screen, replete with dazzling filmmaking that explodes into chaotic life, and quiet, powerful moments of existential reflection.
  • Best Cinematography: GRAND TOUR. I fell in love with its dreamy, evocative look, yet the film is more than just dreamy or evocative.
  • Best Film Editing: SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT. Some of the finest and most innovative editing work you’ll see, as it juxtaposes music, history and politics with effortless ease.
  • Best Production Design: MEGALOPOLIS. So much hate for Coppola’s work but this was ‘The Brutalist’ on steroids and part of the reason I enjoyed the film was its acute sense of scale and ambition. Truly visionary.
  • Best Costume Design: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. I liked how the ’60s costumes felt ‘invisible’ and allowed the actors to shine.
  • Best Makeup & Hairstyling: THE SUBSTANCE. No other 2024 film came close, or at least this viscerally.
  • Best Original Score: QUEER. Heartachingly, intoxicatingly good. Almost spiritual like from the fertile minds of Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross.
  • Best Original Song: ‘El Camino’ from EMILIA PEREZ. It’s so much better musically than ‘El Mal’, which may have worked in the film but hardly outside it.
  • Best Sound: LA COCINA. The cacophony of angsty shouts, relentless chatter, steaks sizzling, water gushing, receipt machine spitting out one food order after another, and so much more, in a tense and chaotic New York F&B kitchen.
  • Best Sound Design: PEPE & DAHOMEY. For their use of haunting disembodied voices in the narrativisation of non-human objects, be it a dead hippo or an inanimate Beninese artefact respectively.
  • Best Visual Effects: It has to go to DUNE: PART TWO. No other 2024 film came close.
  • Discovery Award (Filmmaking): Rich Peppiatt (KNEECAP) for directing the real-life musicians-turned-actors of the Belfast-based hip-hop group as they seek to reclaim the Irish language from the oppressive British authorities, rapturously blending concert scenes, comedy and thriller modes in his intense, high-energy work.
  • Discovery Award (Acting): Preeti Panigrahi (GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS) for her performance in the Sundance award-winning drama as her character breaks taboos in quietly restrained ways, about an Indian girl in a Himalayan boarding school who discovers love and sex amid a repressive patriarchal order.

Top 10 Films of 2024:

  1. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat – Johan Grimonprez (Belgium)
  2. La cocina – Alonso Ruizpalacios (Mexico)
  3. The Substance – Coralie Fargeat (USA)
  4. No Other Land – Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor (Palestine)
  5. Pepe – Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias (Dominican Republic)
  6. An Unfinished Film – Lou Ye (China)
  7. Dune: Part Two – Denis Villeneuve (USA)
  8. All We Imagine as Light – Payal Kapadia (India)
  9. Queer – Luca Guadagnino (USA)
  10. Emilia Perez – Jacques Audiard (France)

Special Mention:

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