The Interested Bystander's Top Films of 2024 (and 2023!)

Touch (c) Focus Feature

Two Years in Films: Best of 2023 & 2024 

After the foregone conclusion of Oppenheimer at last year’s Oscars, the films of 2024 do not have a slam dunk favorite for Best Picture or in my own personal list with really good films that I admired seemingly now destined to be on my best films of 2024 “Best of” list. 

Like last year, I will only list my favorite twenty films of 2024, in alphabetical order and not actually list them in order of my top ten favorites until the end of 2025, after a year of reflection and catching up on films I may have missed. In fact, at the time of this article, I have not seen Babygirl or All We Imagine as Light yet. 

Which means, after a year of reflection, my final Top Ten of films of 2023 is below. I am also pointing out some 2024 performances that haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve from award groups so far. So, enjoy my wrap up of 2024 and, as always, I hope you have a safe and cinematically rich 2025. 

Theater Reviews: “Eureka Day” Hysterically Explores the Small Intersection of Cultural Inclusivity and Anti-Vax; Two Lonely Souls Try to Connect in “A Guide for the Homesick”; “Pen Pals” Explores the Gentle Friendship of Two Women Who Have Never Met

Eureka Day (c) Jeremy Daniel

Broadway: Eureka Day 
Presented by Manhattan Theatre Club at the Friedman Theatre

Herd immunity is the only concept both sides of the growing war brewing at Eureka Day School, a private, inclusive elementary school in Berkeley California, can agree on. It’s 2018 and a small group of children have come down with the mumps, and at a school that doesn’t require disclosure of vaccination, it soon becomes obvious which families have partaken and which haven’t. Herd immunity is the goal, but the argument is by which means: Will immunization be achieved by vaccinations as Carina (Amber Grey), the newest member of the Eureka Day School board, is advocating in the name of well-documented science or will it be through natural infection as Suzanne (Jessica Hecht), the elder statesman, argues, bypassing the CDC and Big Pharma altogether. In Jonathan Spektor’s hysterical and balanced(-ish) play, wonderfully realized by Anna D. Shapiro, the lines are not drawn clearly in the sand as the theme of inclusion is always on the top of mind of the board, including the school’s head, Don (Bill Irwin, using his natural clown flexibility to fun effect here) and two other parents, Meiko and Eli, each of whom have children with mumps. The acting ensemble is exceptional, with the always reliable Hecht particularly impressive playing the most understanding person ever until her values are challenged. But the funniest sequence does not involve the actors at all: In a virtual meeting held by the school board about the outbreak and quarantine (sound familiar), the scene is overshadowed by a vicious and too-on-the-nose group chat by the parents, projected on the stage. Bravo to the actors who have to continue to hold a serious discussion as the audience guffaws over the farce in the chat. It is amazing that Spektor’s play is so enjoyable as it is essentially that excruciating family dinner we all try to avoid where politics is inevitably brought up. Eureka Day is the latest of these plays about the America divide, after The Minutes (showing the MAGA extreme) and The Thanksgiving Play (showing the “woke” one). Spektor’s offering is more clever, giving voice to the dichotomy found in its audience (Broadway = rich, white; New York = diverse, liberal) with an ending that may seem like a band-aid over a hole in a leaky dam, but welcome to the U.S.A. 

The Interested Bystander’s Oscar Predictions: December 2024

The Brutalist (c) A24

We are almost at the finish line for Oscar nominations, which will be announced on January 17, and I will have my final predictions a couple of days before that date. But as of today, we already have hints, with a lot of critic’s groups winners and the nominations for the Golden Globes as well as the best indicator far, the Oscars shortlist in seven categories (although I don’t believe Alien: Romulus, which has been mentioned in two categories, will probably not make it for Best Picture). Below are my penultimate nomination predictions for the Oscars. 

But, before I do that, here some potential nominees that in any other year would be in the Oscar race but for some reason have not had the traction this year.   I hope one of these make it through to the final Oacar nominations.

Hope everyone is having a Happy Holiday Season and a wonderful 2025. 

Film Review: Timothée Chalamet Brings Life to Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” a Film That Focuses on the Music More Than the Man

A Complete Unknown (c) Searchlight Pictures

Film: A Complete Unknown 
In Cinemas on Christmas Day 

Premise: A young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) hitchhikes his way from Minnesota to New York City in 1961 with a backpack and a guitar to visit his ailing hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), but he overshoots and has to backtrack to a New Jersey hospital, where he strikes up a friendship with Guthrie’s pal and folk icon Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). Seeger takes Dylan in after hearing him play his songs, housing him for a bit and taking him to amateur nights around Jersey and Manhattan, where he meets his girlfriend, the political activist Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning). They move in together as Dylan is starting his career at Columbia Records (the woman Russo is based on is on the cover of Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan with Dylan) and he starts to write more political songs about inequality and social issues like breakthrough song Blowin’ in the Wind and A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which according to this film, while everyone else was panicking that Manhattan was about to be bombed, Dylan went to a gig in the Village and hooked up with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), who was just on the cover of Time magazine. From there, his career takes off with his song The Times They Are a-Changing particularly striking a nerve with the younger generation. But by the time of his recording his fifth album, Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, Dylan was not happy with the “voice of a generation” pigeonhole he has found himself in and had begun experimenting with an electric sound, which leads to the film to its finale: Dylan’s controversial performance at the Newport Folk Festival, run by Alan Lomax (Norbert Leo Butz) with one rule: only acoustic instruments. 

Film Review: Pedro Almodóvar’s First English Language Feature, “The Room Next Door,” Includes Great Performances Slightly Out of Reach

The Room Next Door (c) Sony Pictures Classics

Film: The Room Next Door 
In Cinemas on December 20 

Premise: Ingrid (Julianne Moore), a successful arts writer, is promoting her new book in New York when she finds out a close friend she hasn’t kept in touch with is in the hospital, being treated for cervical cancer. She rushes to see Martha (Tilda Swinton), a former war reporter, who is told that her latest treatment was not successful. After her body has recovered, she is to begin another aggressive regimen, which Martha agrees to. But when she is alone with Ingrid, Martha tells her that she is going to die on her own terms and plans to take her own life soon and wants Ingrid to be in the room next door when she does it so she won’t die alone. Ingrid is shocked by this request, but Martha assures her that she has everything planned out: They will go to her cottage in Woodstock for a restful winter holiday and, one day, she’ll just do it. After many conversations with their mutual ex-lover and radical pessimist Damian (John Turturro) about any legal implications, and with each other, mostly involving contacting Martha’s estranged daughter and after much soul searching, Ingrid agrees.