the best movies i watched in 2024

love letters to movies i fell in love with

Moving to Bangkok has given me access to independent cinemas that allow me to watch a diverse selection of movies with so much convenience — both newly released, and classics. Better yet, I got the opportunity to rewatch plenty of my favorite movies of all time this year on the big screen, which, as you would understand, is extra special.

This essay is basically just me gushing over these movies, both first-time watches, and old-time favorites.

Let’s get to it.

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Honorable mentions

There are only two first-time watches this 2024 that I consider to be perfect. Instead, here are the movies that came oh-so close, ones I highly enjoyed seeing.

1. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Lahn Ma) (2024, Thailand)

I don’t remember the last time I cried watching a movie— whether it be in the cinema or at home.

I was tearing up halfway through and bawling by the end of it. (Out of all the scenes, the one that turned my quiet sniffling into a full on sob is similar to the photo above — a moment of tenderness shared between grandma and grandson).

Lahn Ma, as it’s called in the original Thai, is about a grandson from a chinese-thai family taking care of his terminally ill grandmother in the hopes of gaining inheritance. It might seem like an obvious formula for a tear-jerker — though those don’t often work on me, always finding them a forced attempt to elicit a reaction out of its viewer. I am a grandma’s boy, though, and grew up very close to both of my grandparents. Although the whole cinema was audibly crying for the duration of the movie as well, so i’m definitely not an isolated case.

2. Challengers (2024, US)

Best friends turned something more complicated, more queer, from the presence of a strong female lead.

Y Tu Mama Tambien walked so Challengers can run. (The formers eat the latter up though).

Jokes aside, Challengers was great fun. Three wonderful actors delivering on the complexity of their characters — from Art’s passivity to Patrick’s honesty that underscore insecurity. But despite all the attention the two male leads get, I find that Tashi, and the power she holds over the two boys, really completed this film— a hunger for power and control.

3. The Substance (2024, US)

Who hasn’t seen this movie this year? It’s been everywhere, and for the right reasons.

An ageing celebrity, starting to feel society’s ageism, uses a black market drug that creates a duplicate, younger version of her. Obviously, it’s a body horror film — of course it' isn’t so simple.

What we have is an unflinching critique on the ageism and the role media plays in influencing beauty standards, and it’s done in a very exhilarating effect, with the movie’s gore going beyond simple gimmick.

If some movies are subtle with the message they are trying to convey — The Substance is the exact opposite. Every second of its runtime, every frame of ever scene, is used to clarity. It’s a whole lot of fun.

Perfect rewatches:

4. Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996, Hong Kong)

Favorite Quote:

"We were two lonely people keeping each other warm”

Xiaojun and Qiao on the back of a bicycle singing along to Teresa Teng’s “甜蜜蜜” amidst the difficulty of navigating life in the city is something so important to me.

In the attempt to capitalize on Hong Kong’s fast developing economy at the time — two Chinese Mainlanders move in the hopes of making enough money to send back home. Comrades, as the english title implies, is the lie they tell themselves as they slowly fall into each other as they navigate the not-so-straightforward way of making it in the big city.

There’s an innocence to the movie that I can’t help but fall in love with — a sweet tenderness to their relationship, the naivety of their dreams, the not-so-innocent lies they tell themselves.

What seems like a simple intimate movie between two people figuring out their emotions is amplified by a just as intriguing political and social context of Hong Kong, the growing importance of English as a language, and the role of time and place in our relationships.

The combination of Maggie Cheung at her absolute best, Leon Lai's innocent smiles, and the Teresa Teng soundtrack just makes for an absolutely stunning love story.

3. Like Father, Like Son (2013, Japan)

Wake me up when you find a Hirokazu Kore-eda movie that isn’t an easy 5 star watch. If there is one director that I wholeheartedly believe deserves to be side by side with my favorite director, Edward Yang (albeit second place), it would be Kore-eda.

Kore-eda has perfected the craft of depicting complex family dynamics, and the inner workings of a child’s life — Monster, Nobody Knows, Like Father Like Son, Our Little Sister, etc.

Like Father, Like Son starts off with a very melodramatic, soap opera-like premise — two families find out years after giving birth that their children were switched at birth. Our main protagonist, Ryota, motivated by success and money, has always found himself disconnected with his son. Do they switch the children back — keep the child they have raised? or the ones they are related to by blood? We see an exploration of bloodline and upbringing, contrast of social classes (poor dad / rich dad scenario), and an added layer of how you expect your child to be.

But more than this larger plot, there are specific sequences, mundane moments in the film that just tugs one’s heartstrings, of sons attempting to build bonds with their fathers — both biological, and the ones that raised them. What risks being melodramatic is handled with such care that you accept it as fact.

As with all of Kore-eda’s movies, there is a gentleness to his approach — that even at their worst, they are human beings trying to navigate what is an incredibly unique and difficult life.

2. Drive My Car (2021, Japan)

Favorite Quote:

"It didn't sound like he was lying. I don't know if it's the truth, but he was telling you what was true to him."

There is a fascinating context to Drive My Car that have long intrigued me since the announces its adaptation, that David Ehrlich (film critic) was able to perfectly put into words. On the one end, we have Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who is a director that explores the lives of his female protagonists with a lot of care and intention. On the other, our ever-so controversial Haruki Murakami, that has had his fair share of flack from his callous depiction of women.

The collaboration of the two is a masterpiece I was not expecting.

There are layers and layers and layers to unpack in this three hour movie. To look up the premise of the movie is to spoil what is a masterful 40 minute prologue before the title card even drops (iconic, really).

Instead, we look at the diversity of themes that Hamaguchi attempts (and successfully executes).

Haruki Murakami writes in the short story that inspired this masterpiece of a movie: "Can any of us ever perfectly understand another person? However much we may love them?” — we see this line exploded into multiple fronts, from grief and loss, the role of language in communication, the difficulty of vulnerability, and the performance of theater allowing for an honest release.

Few weeks ago, I wrote an article “the answer must be in the attempt” that touches on our limits of knowing:

There is a layer in Drive My Car that always leaves me in awe — the performance of Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, one that mimics and mirrors parts of our characters inner lives — a multilingual theatrical performance. But more importantly, the communication between actors using their own languages, trying to communicate in their native tongue despite not really understanding each other’s language. They talk, and they talk, and they talk — and yet there is only so much they understand. They falter from the very language they use. Alas, they attempt.

The use of their own native tongue to communicate with each other underscores the attempt to understand one another. That despite the difficulty of fully understanding, we come close. It is through this that we see the weight of the grief and loss that oversees the whole movie, handled so beautifully and painfully, from bonds shared and formed through the insufficiency of language.

Drive My Car is an incredibly dense movie that packs a lot in its runtime that a mere “best movies” roundup will be able to capture. Here, instead, is a passage that rounds it up perfectly:

“The proposition that we can look into another person’s heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool’s game. I don’t care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we can love them. All it can do is cause us pain. Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it’s possible to see what’s in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.”

1. Happy Together (1997, Hong Kong)

Favorite Quote: everything.

Dear god, how many more times will I mention my love for this movie on Substack before I finish my “turns out all lonely people are the same” essay that is an actual love letter, and dissection on my favorite queer movie of all time.

By my count — this is the third time i’ve mentioned it on a Substack essay.

Let’s all hope I’ve published it by the next time it comes up.

5-star, perfect movies

2. All About Lily Chou Chou (2001, Japan)

Favorite Quote:

"Maybe I am writing this because I want to scream 'i'm here.' "

A fever dream that doubles as an anxiety attack. All About Lily Chou-Chou leaves a bloody, metallic taste in my mouth.

This is coming-of-age dialed up to resemble a kind of horror— of vignettes that unflinchingly depict teenage angst, and just teenagers at their most violent, of ignorant parents who seem to forget the horrors of growing up.

We see our protagonist subjected to an environment of unending cruelty with a desperate attempt to cling onto living, to a source of hope — which they find, for a time. Ethereal solace in the form of Lily Chou-Chou’s music, accompanied by an online fan community where they get to escape the horrors of their everyday life and share their deepest and most vulnerable thoughts through the safety of anonymity. This very internet chat room used incredibly well to the movies effect, with an ending that ties everything together.

It is horrible and violent and beautiful all at the same time which feels wrong to describe a movie of such horror, and yet it is a beauty that comes from an intimate depiction of the human experience, rather than a toxic romanticization.

All About Lily Chou-Chou is not for the faint of heart, a long list of triggers await — and would rather not carelessly recommend.

Also, absolute banger of a soundtrack.

1. Perfect Days (2023, Japan)

   

Favorite Quote:

“Next time is next time. Now is now.”

Perfect Days, as the title oh-so accurately predicts, is a perfect little film. The thought of putting my thoughts into words feels criminal, as anything I attempt to write down will be insufficient in capturing the intimacy of its scope, the grandness of its impact.

It tells a simple story, one that feels counterintuitive placing any focus on, but let me paint you a picture — it is the simple life of a toilet cleaner and his daily routine. One that he looks at, and experiences with so much intention and contentment. There is a quiet calm that comes with this movie that just silences the background noise of what is an overwhelming life that seemingly has never-ending expectations and responsibilities.

The closing part so emotionally rich despite its minimal dialogue that cemented it as an all-timer for me.

It is the movie equivalent of: “Here. That’s all I wanted to be. I promise.” from Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

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There you have it — the best movies I’ve watched this 2024. Any movies here that intrigue you? what about your favorite movies from 2024? I’d love to hear from you (and steal some recommendations).

Next up — my favorite books of 2024!

from our usual spot,

esje

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