The best movies of 2024 so far

Movies released during the first few months of any year have it pretty rough. They’re competing with all the prestige movies still in theaters after the end-of-year rush for awards qualifications, and they’re coming out in a season where a lot of people are still exhausted from holiday season, financially strained by it, or both. It’s easy to overlook new releases at the beginning of the year — but fortunately, it’s also easier than ever to catch up, given how many movies debut on streaming services these days and how quickly theatrical releases move to streaming.

Here at Polygon, we keep a running list of the year’s best movies, starting early and updating often, making a case for the films we think are worth your time. It’s still quite early in the year, but we’ve already seen a variety of 2024 movies that we heartily recommend. And we’ll keep this list going throughout the year, so you can see what we’re watching and recommending and catch up on anything you’ve missed as new movies continue to roll out.

The movies will be listed in reverse chronological order, so the newest releases will always show up first. And we have a short section at the end devoted to late 2023 releases we didn’t have the time to consider for our 2023 best movies list. Our latest update added I Saw the TV Glow, Baby Assassins 2, The Fall Guy, Challengers, The Beast, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, The First Omen, Civil War, and Late Night with the Devil.

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The best movies of 2024 so far

I Saw the TV Glow

Where to watch: Theaters

I Saw the TV Glow might be one of the scariest movies ever made about the suburbs. The manicured lawns and beautiful houses of American towns have long been one of the greatest settings for horror movies, but few have ever succeeded at making them feel as alienating and empty as Jane Schoenbrun’s latest film.

The movie follows Owen (Justice Smith), a teenager who feels like a self-conscious outsider in every situation, both socially and to himself, who meets Maddy (Bridgette Lundy-Paine) who introduces him to her favorite TV show: The Pink Opaque. The two bond over the show as their lives change around it, and the show slowly starts to seep more and more into their actual reality.

I Saw the TV Glow is a movie about the ways that art changes and shapes us. The way a special TV show can come along at just the right moment to suddenly turn your life in a different direction. It’s about the times that art can show us ourselves more clearly than any mirror, and how hard it can be to understand the gaps between the two. —Austen Goslin

The Fall Guy

Where to watch: Theaters

Few movies in 2024 are going to be as much fun as The Fall Guy.

Somewhere between a rom-com and an action movie, The Fall Guy is about a stuntman (Ryan Gosling) coming back from an injury, and his ex-girlfriend (Emily Blunt) who’s finally getting the chance to direct her first big feature film. But when production of the movie is threatened by the erratic movie star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) going missing, the stunt guy has to become a real hero to save the day.

The movie is big, silly, ridiculous, and very funny, but its best attribute is the gravity shifting charisma of its two stars. Gosling and Blunt are both tremendously charming in the movie, a winning couple that the movie makes it impossible not to root for, and who you can’t help but want to be friends with.

On top of that, the entire production is a love-letter to movies, and the stunt teams who make them possible. The movie is full of excellent car chases, ridiculous falls, and hilarious fights that all bring the kind of levity we don’t get enough from blockbusters anymore. —AG

Challengers

Where to watch: Theaters

Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All) and writer Justin Kuritzkes (yes, the “Potion Seller” guy) bring a lot of intense energy to the sports drama / threesome drama Challengers, whether Guadagnino is shooting a tennis match from the ball’s point of view or Kuritzkes is leaping back and forth in time, filling in gaps in the romantic and professional history of three former friends and tennis rivals, played by Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor. Billed as a steamy, sexy movie about three-ways, it’s something much better — a movie that packs its sexual energy into a variety of different forms of rivalry and emotion, expertly woven together for maximum impact. It’s designed to keep audiences guessing right up to the final shot, and to get deeply invested in the outcome, whether or not they care about tennis, or even about sports in general. —Tasha Robinson

Civil War

Where to watch: Theaters

Alex Garland’s portrait of two war photographers in crisis, framed with a story about a country in crisis, has been one of the biggest conversation movies of 2024 — love it or hate it, critics and moviegoers want to talk about it. Civil War was expressly intended to get people talking about American politics and especially the importance of journalism, but on top of its sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant messages, it’s a mesmerizing character piece, anchored by a weary, emotional performance from Kirsten Dunst, and built around subtle character moments as much as immersive, intense combat sequences. It’s also one of the year’s crispest films, with a visual brightness and visual beauty that flies straight in the face of all the current conventional wisdom about dark cinematography. The movie is an experience, and the post-movie conversations are, too. —TR

Baby Assassins 2

Where to watch: Digital rental/purchase on Amazon, YouTube

The first Baby Assassins was one of my very favorite movies of 2022, so it’s no surprise I loved the sequel. A fantastic mash-up of two unlikely genres – assassin thriller and teen girl slice-of-life – the Baby Assassins movies rely heavily on the outstanding star power of its leads (Saori Izawa and Akari Takaishi) and best-in-class fight choreography from Kensuke Sonomura.

This time, the baby assassins are struggling to pay off some surprising debts incurred through their work while also being hunted by two up-and-coming assassins who want their jobs. That leads, of course, to some classic teenage hijinks and some banger fights, including the girls brawling in mascot costumes and a banger finale that rivals the first movie’s excellent ending. I would be perfectly content with 20 more of these movies. —Pete Volk

The Beast

Where to watch: Theaters

Nocturama director Bertrand Bonello essentially makes three short films in three styles with The Beast, a heady, thrilling science fiction movie that follows two people (played by Léa Seydoux and George MacKay) through three incarnations, where they grapple with their emotions and their tentative connection in radically different ways. Loosely inspired by Henry James’ 1903 short story “The Beast in the Jungle,” Bonello turns the idea of a character living in dread, anticipating some great disaster, into his own Cloud Atlas. Pulling a gorgeous period drama, a tense Brian De Palma-style stalker-thriller, and a post-apocalyptic-future story into conversation with each other, Bonello offers up a pure science fiction experience that’s both technically impressive and emotionally absorbing. —TR

The First Omen

Where to watch: Theaters

It’s rare that any calendar year has a movie that’s as scary, viscerally upsetting, and exceptionally well made as The First Omen. It’s even more rare when that movie is technically a prequel to a five-decades old franchise, but here we are.

This prequel to The Omen follows a young nun, Margaret, who gets transferred to a beautiful and seemingly peaceful convent, until she notices some strange behavior and an orphaned girl who everyone thinks is disturbed. But as she looks into what’s wrong with the girl, Margaret finds a dark and sinister plot lurking just out of sight.

While the movie is technically a prequel to The Omen, what’s most interesting about director and co-writer Arkasha Steveson’s approach is that she seems more inspired by the tone and moody style of 70s horror movies and thrillers than she does to The Omen’s universe itself. Stevenson takes this suitably creepy set-up and folds in both supernatural horror and mystery in equal measure, twisting the whole plot into one big conspiracy where each reveal is more horrifying than the last.

The First Omen seems like a classic Hollywood misfire on paper. After all, why would we possibly need a prequel to The Omen? Who cares what Damien’s mom was up to? But if it means a movie this good and this scary, I’ll happily take a dozen more Omen prequels. —AG

Late Night with the Devil

Where to watch: Shudder, AMC Plus, digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

Late Night with the Devil is a mockumentary centered on the final broadcast of a fictional late night show from the 1970s. The show once trailed only Johnny Carson, but after personal tragedy struck host Jack Delroy, played perfectly by David Dastmalchian, his ratings started to plummet and he got more and more desperate. Finally, in a last ditch effort to regain his fans, Jack goes live on Halloween night with a daring plan: to use a supposedly possessed girl to commune with the devil, live on air.

The set up is tremendously fun, but the movie’s execution is even more impressive. Late Night with the Devil is a masterpiece of spooky moods and 70s vibes. Everything from the fictional late night set, to the dialog, to the performances, feels impeccably crafted to feel like a not-quite-right version of a show from 1977. The movie expertly rides the line between campy and creepy, pulling in just the right number of jokes to make its horrifying moments even scarier. —AG

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

Where to watch: Mubi, digital purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

Radu Jude’s first full feature since 2021’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn will certainly try some viewers’ patience: It’s 163 minutes of watching a harried, foul-mouthed production assistant, Angela (Ilinca Manolache) drive around Bucharest, alternating interviews for a factory’s safety PSA with making sexist, sneering Andrew Tate-inspired TikToks. Jude alternates her story with scenes from the 1982 Romanian film Angela Goes On, about a cab driver also making the rounds in Bucharest for work. The connection between the two Angelas and modern-Angela’s online alter ego “Bobita” takes some time to surface, as the film approaches its point elliptically from several directions at once, including through cameos from the original stars of Angela Goes On.

But it all comes together in a long-take finale that plays out as what seems likely to be the year’s funniest, most brutal takedown of corporate malfeasance, the gig economy, and capitalism as a whole. The contrast between a film made at a corporation’s behest, to serve its criminal agenda, and Angela’s freeform parodies of an influencer she hates is vivid and sly. And there’s a rebellious, subversive joy in the way she and the PSA’s subjects both try to tell their own truths in an oppressive environment where moneyed interests hold most of the cards. It’s a difficult film compared to the slick corporate IP that dominates multiplexes, but that just makes it endlessly unpackable and discussable — and more memorable than you’d expect for such a slow-burn story. —TR

The Animal Kingdom

Where to watch: Digital rental/purchase on Amazon/Apple TV

As a mutation that turns people into human-animal hybrids starts to spread, a father and son search for the missing mother of the family, who has begun to transform herself.

Featuring realistic creature designs that blend practical and digital effects, a rich father-son relationship anchored by strong leading performances, and a compelling overarching narrative metaphor welcoming all sorts of interpretations, The Animal Kingdom stands out in modern sci-fi. It fires on all cylinders to create one of the more powerful movies of the year, evoking a rich world populated by fascinating people.

Part of the brilliance of The Animal Kingdom is the continued mundanity of human existence. Yes, everything we thought we knew about our species is being thrown into chaos, but there’s still work to do and school to attend and new love and enduring love and all the other shades of the human (or human-animal hybrid) experience. It’s in those moments that the true heart of the movie lies. —PV

Dune: Part Two

Where to watch: Theaters, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon/Apple TV

In 2021, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune felt like a promise. Whether you liked the movie or not, it came with an assurance that it was all in service of something better, more profound, and more epic to come. That kind of hype is hard to live up to, but with Dune: Part Two, Villeneuve exceeded even the wildest expectations.

While the movie is an astoundingly beautiful action blockbuster in the vein of epics like The Lord of the Rings, its most important feature might be how adeptly it handles its source material’s most complicated themes. Far from just being the standard chosen-one hero, the Paul Atreides of Dune: Part Two is tortured by the burden of prophecy and both dead-set on revenge and terrified of what it might cost to achieve it.

It’s a difficult line for a blockbuster to walk, but one Dune: Part Two pulls off with the perfect alchemy of terrific performances from movie stars and delicate direction by one of the best filmmakers working right now. —Austen Goslin

How to Have Sex

Where to watch: Mubi, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon/Apple TV

The title sounds raucous, but How to Have Sex is in fact a tender, heartfelt, and searchingly honest coming-of-age tale about Tara, a brassy, secretly self-conscious 16-year-old virgin on a wild party holiday with her friends. It’s a quietly devastating movie about bad formative experiences, but also beautiful in its empathy and kindness, and funny, too.

If you liked Aftersun, this is a must-see — director Molly Manning Walker is part of an emerging, hugely talented generation of female British filmmakers that also includes Aftersun’s Charlotte Wells. —Oli Welsh

The Promised Land

Where to watch: Digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple, Vudu

The Promised Land is a sturdy historical drama anchored by a powerful performance by the ever reliable Mads Mikkelsen.

Mikkelsen plays the determined Ludvig Kahlen, a retired officer of the German army who has taken his pension to try and establish a homestead on a barren moor. When Kahlen starts to set up shop, he draws the attention of a powerful local landlord and magistrate, who sets out to ruin Kahlen’s efforts at any cost.

When two hardheaded men clash, sparks fly and people die. And that makes for some stellar Scandinavian cinema. —PV

The Greatest Night in Pop

Where to watch: Netflix

The Greatest Night in Pop is, to some extent, a documentary that’s great just by existing. The doc chronicles the one-night recording of “We Are the World,” a benefit song whose proceeds went to fight famine in Africa.

The whole premise of the song is that it gathered some of the most famous singers in America to all record the same song, so it’s a given that the documentary does the same. The Greatest Night in Pop’s most admirable feature is its willingness to stand aside and simply let us be a fly on the wall to see the brief, awkward, kind, hilarious, and heartwarming moments between stars like Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Loggins, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Steve Perry, Quincy Jones, and Cyndi Lauper, just to name a few. —AG

Hundreds of Beavers

Where to watch: Fandor, free with a library card on Hoopla, or digital rental/purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

I can sell a film nerd on Hundreds of Beavers with a seven-word elevator pitch: Looney Tunes by way of Guy Maddin.

However, if you’re a film viewer who doesn’t traffic in Canadian arthouse obscurities, the pitch will take a bit more effort. Hundreds of Beavers garnered attention for reviving the slapstick silent film, if only for its 108 minute run time. But the black-and-white action comedy has gradually earned its reputation as a budding midnight movie thanks to its more modern flourishes.

The story — a trapper must collect enough pelts to survive, build, and eventually win love — parodies video game quests. Its small cast would float comfortably in Adult Swim’s pool of lovable oddballs. And what writer/director Mike Cheslik does with a comparably cheap camera, some trashy beaver costumes, and a true talent with homespun special effects would make even the most ambitious YouTube editor’s jaw hit the floor.

Unlike its modern cult contemporaries, like The Room and the films of Neil Breen, there’s no irony here. Cheslik has made something genuinely special, an excellent film that reminds us just how funny early cinema could be — and proves slapstick can still feel fresh a century later with a few timely tweaks. —Chris Plante

Mayhem!

Where to watch: Digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple, Vudu

The hardest-hitting action movie of the year saw Gangs of London veterans Xavier Gens and Jude Poyer combine forces for the explosive revenge thriller Mayhem! (also known by its original title, Farang).

Some people were mixed on this version of the revenge story (I loved it quite a bit), but everyone I’ve talked to agrees the brutal and gory action is among the best of any movie this year, with motivated camera movements to punctuate the blows and fluid choreography executed terrifically by former national champion kickboxer Nassim Lyes. And it all culminates in one of the best elevator fight scenes in action movie history. —PV

The best December 2023 movie we couldn’t consider last year

All of Us Strangers

Where to watch: Hulu

You can’t really call it a good, old-fashioned weepie — it’s far too dreamlike and strange for that — but Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers has unlocked the communal release of crying your eyes out in a movie theater like no other film in years (as well as that other communal activity of discussing a controversial ending).

A modern ghost story about a writer “visiting” his mother and father, who died when he was a boy, it will touch a deep nerve with anybody who has ever had parents, which is to say absolutely everyone. Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are both superb, but Jamie Bell is the standout as an astonishingly convincing ’80s dad. —OW