We’re turning the page on another year and, as is tradition, we asked Curzon staff (from our cinemas and head office) to vote for their favourite film of the past 12 months. Many movies were represented, from Conclave to Civil War, Monster to My Old Ass, but only 10 could make it to the top. Here they are: our favourite films of 2024.
10 Megalopolis
‘A genuine piece of contemporary experimental filmmaking. I believe something so polarising should be rewarded for its mere existence.’ – Lara Wood, Curzon Soho Cinema Staff
It was certainly divisive, but those who loved it, loved it. There is something admirably hubristic about Francis Ford Coppola, a veteran filmmaker, spending $120 million of his own money to make this movie – which had been gestating for four decades – on his own terms. The result is a sprawling epic starring Adam Driver in a role that appears to be a stand-in for the director himself. He’s the visionary architect, and misunderstood genius, Cesar Catilina, whose plans to build a self-sustaining city are thwarted by the scandal-plagued mayor (Giancarlo Esposito). Megalopolis does not abide by the logic of a typical film, and includes direct quotes of Shakespeare, dialogue in Latin and even a built-in moment where someone in the audience is supposed to interact with Driver on screen. Folly or not? You decide, but that’s undeniably auteur cinema.
9 I Saw the TV Glow
‘Electrifying, confrontational and relevant.’ – Eoin Marron, Relief Duty Manager
A film that premiered to acclaim at Sundance and kept building momentum to become a word-of-mouth hit. Identity, fandom and obsession intertwine in Jane Schoenbrun’s remarkable trans allegory, which finds 12-year-old Owen (Ian Foreman) transfixed by a teen-fantasy show, and forming an awkward friendship with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) that entirely revolves around their shared passion for it. When the series is cancelled, the pair, now in their twenties, are forced to confront the very nature of their reality. I Saw the TV Glow is a trippy, haunting puzzle box of a movie that announces Schoenbrun as a major talent.
8 The Holdovers
‘A real throwback to filmmaking from the 1970s. I couldn't have loved it more if it came up to me and presented me with a giant Toblerone.’ – Lydia Penke, Cinemas Programme Manager
Since it’s a Christmas movie, Alexander Payne’s hard-edged, soft-centred dramedy should’ve been released in December, but it didn’t reach UK shores until January. No matter. The Holdovers has already been declared a modern festive classic. A fish-smelling, glass-eyed Paul Giamatti is Classics teacher Mr Hunham, who has been saddled with the unenviable task of looking after the boarding-school boys whose parents have left them behind over the holidays. Soon, Hunham has just one charge, the troublemaking Angus (Dominic Sessa, a revelation), and much of the film’s odd-couple comedy is derived from their needling of one another. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the heart of the movie. She won an Oscar for her tender portrayal of Mary the cook, still grieving her son who died in Vietnam.
7 The Substance
‘All hail body horror!’ – Wayne Naylor, Theatrical Sales and Programming Assistant
Arguably the most conversation-starting movie of 2024, The Substance inspired all manner of think pieces, Halloween costumes and memes. It can be boiled down to a simple, razor-sharp premise: would you, if given the chance, risk everything to be young again? That’s the gamble over-the-hill aerobics instructor Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is willing to take when she hits 50 and is unceremoniously fired from her long-running workout show. After injecting a mysterious neon-green liquid – procured from a dodgy LA warehouse – Sue (Margaret Qualley) is gruesomely birthed from her spine, and begins living the charmed life Elisabeth enjoyed in her twenties. Coralie Fargeat’s film gleefully, grotesquely takes aim at the entertainment industry’s vanity, self-obsession and ill treatment of mature women.
6 La Chimera
‘A feast for all of the senses that I cannot wait to revisit.’ – Sophie Wardman, Curzon Mayfair General Manager
Josh O’Connor is dirty and dishevelled, wandering around Tuscany in a white linen suit, in Alice Rohrwacher’s fantastical drama. He plays Arthur, a bereaved, Italian-speaking Englishman pining over his lost love Beniamina. A renegade archaeologist, he has a gift for discovering buried Etruscan antiquities, armed only with a dowsing rod and his strong intuition, and works with a band of graverobbers to steal treasures and sell them to the rich. Tinged with melancholy, La Chimera is a folkloric wonder that feels impressively tactile.
5 Challengers
‘Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are gods.’ – Kennedy Abubakar, Curzon Victoria General Assistant
It was the three-way kiss heard round the world. A trio of tennis players sit in a line on a sagging hotel-room mattress, lapping hungrily at one another. They are Tashi (Zendaya), the tennis prodigy felled by an injury and forced into early retirement, and childhood friends-turned-doubles partners Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist), both desperate to be the one she starts a relationship with. Luca Guadagnino’s sexy love-triangle movie whizzes between timelines, showing the characters’ various (un)couplings as their stock rises and falls. Reznor and Ross’ pounding techno score further ups the stakes, particularly during the kinetically shot tennis sequences, where, in Patrick and Art’s final showdown, the camera jumps around from the point of view of the ball.
4 Perfect Days
‘Perfect Days, perfect film.’ – Laura Ferguson, COO
Tokyo Toilet cleaner Hirayama (Cannes’ Best Actor winner Kōji Yakusho) is a creature of habit. Every day, he awakens in his barely furnished apartment, steps into his overalls and walks out the door. There, he stops and looks up at the sky, a smile playing on his lips, before buying a coffee from the vending machine outside his house and getting into his ramshackle van to go to work. Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated drama is a moving celebration of the simple pleasures in life, and takes care to capture the wind rustling in the trees, the swooning rhythms of a Nina Simone cassette tape. Watching Hirayama navigate the city is a gentle, peaceful experience: his existence may appear solitary, but he’s filled it to bursting with meaning.
3 Dune: Part Two
‘Phenomenal’ – Max Da Costa Cator, Relief Duty Manager
The second instalment in Denis Villeneuve’s staggering sci-fi trilogy put paid to claims that Frank Herbert’s cult novel was unadaptable. Indeed, he expands on his vision with this epic-scale sequel, in which Timothée Chalamet’s messianic Paul is leading the charge on behalf of the oppressed Fremen – who are being sublimated by the corrupt, powerful Harkonnens – as the romance between him and Chani (Zendaya) blossoms. Added to the already stellar cast are Austin Butler’s threatening, Stellan Skarsgård-accented villain, who has a memorable gladiatorial-combat scene; and Florence Pugh as a quietly calculating princess. Dune: Part Two’s sandworm sequences are extraordinary, as are those on the monochromatic planet Giedi Prime. Bring on Dune: Messiah!
2 Anora
‘Anora is that girl.’ – Laura Casey, Curzon Camden Duty Manager
‘A fraud marriage?!’ screeches an outraged, half-dressed Mikey Madison, whose character’s marital bliss has been rudely interrupted by a pair of bumbling goons intent on annulling her quickie Vegas wedding to Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of the Russian oligarch who employs them. The actress – until now best known for being burned alive in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019) and Scream (2022) – has her star-is-born moment in Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning character study. Madison is brilliant as the titular Brighton Beach sex worker, equal parts caustic and vulnerable. The film, too, expertly balances tones, going from a dreamy fairy tale to an urban nightmare before landing on an absolute gut punch of an ending.
1 The Zone of Interest
‘A descent into hell that couldn’t arrive at a more perfect time.’ – Gino Oneto, Marketing Executive
Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ eponymous novel might be set in 1943, but its present-day resonance is keenly felt. It’s a World War II movie with an experimental streak – as evidenced by its night-vision scenes and nauseously impactful sound design – that centres on a Nazi family whose property directly backs onto the concentration camp at Auschwitz. The German family, particularly its matriarch (Sandra Hüller), appear oblivious to the horrors being enacted mere metres from their front door. Ignoring the camp’s muffled screams and billowing smoke, they tend to their luscious garden, enjoy decadent meals, swim in the river. The Zone of Interest is a cautionary tale about complicity in genocide and the value of human life. It’s a haunting, devastating masterpiece.
