Film writers’ picks for the best movies of 2024.

Jake Coyle

‘All We Imagine As Light’: Payal Kapadia’s sublime tale of three women in modern Mumbai is a grittily real movie graced, in equally parts, by keen-eyed documentary and dreamy poetry. Beguilingly, the film grows more profound as it cleaves further from reality.

‘Nickel Boys’: RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer- winning novel, about two Black teenagers at an abusive reform school in the Jim Crow South, is shot mostly from the two boys’ first-person perspective. The result is one of the most visually inventive American films of the decade and one of the richest in empathy.

‘Anora’: So many of the reasons to go to the movies — to laugh at a clattering comic set piece, to witness the breakthrough of a young performer, to be devastated by something tragic — are contained within the thrillingly kitchen- sink “Anora” from Sean Baker.

‘I Saw the TV Glow’: Jane Schoenbrun’s sophomore feature — a transfixing trans parable — is a chilling 1990s coming-of-age in which a series called “The Pink Opaque” offers a possible portal out of drab suburban life and other suffocations. It feels chillingly, beautifully ripped out of Schoenbrun’s soul — and it’s got a killer soundtrack.

‘Green Border’: The fury of Agnieszka Holland’s searing migrant drama is suitably calibrated to the crisis. Along the Poland- Belarus border, a small band of migrants from Syria and Afghanistan are sent back and forth across a wooded borderland in a grim game of “not in my backyard.” It’s not an easy movie to watch, nor should it be.

‘The Fall Guy’: David Leitch’s affectionate ode to stunt performers manages to celebrate behind-the-scenes crew members while simultaneously being completely carried by two movie stars in Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’: The way Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who was forced into exile while editing this, condenses real-life social upheaval into a family drama makes this a uniquely disquieting film. Rasoulof’s movie centers on a lost handgun. The subsequent search reveals just how deeply the Iranian government’s policies have seeped into the most intimate relationships.

‘Ghostlight’ and ‘Sing Sing’: Two movies this year capture the therapeutic properties of theater, deftly eluding tipping into cliche thanks to abiding compassion and authenticity in the performances. Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s “Ghostlight” is about a grieving father, a construction worker, who reluctantly joins a local production of “Romeo and Juliet.” “Sing Sing” dramatizes a real rehabilitation prison program.

‘His Three Daughters’: In Azazel Jacobs’ funny, tender and raw family drama, a flawless cast of Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne play three sisters caring for their dying father. In close quarters and with death looming, it all comes out.

‘Made in England’: Martin Scorsese narrates for director David Hinton his lifetime journey with the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the great filmmakers of “The Red Shoes” and “Black Narcissus.” As an expression of movie love, “Made in England” could hardly be more effusive.

Honorable mention: “Grand Tour,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” “Rebel Ridge,” “The Brutalist,” “Between the Temples,” “Evil Does Not Exist,” “Universal Language,” “Daughters.”

Lindsey Bahr

‘Blitz’: Steve McQueen tells a different kind of World War II story, a powerful and clear-eyed odyssey through London during the German bombing raid. Structured around a 9-year-old boy (Elliott Heffernan) trying to make his way back to his mother (Saoirse Ronan), it is a sneakily revolutionary glimpse into and poignant elegy for worlds unexplored and stories untold.

‘All We Imagine as Light’: Poetic and transportive, Kapadia’s Mumbai-set film explores the vibrations of a thrilling but brutally impersonal metropolis, the lives of three women in different stages and predicaments (forbidden love, loneliness, eviction) and delicacy of female friendships.

‘Thelma’: Josh Margolin’s debut feature about a 90-something (June Squibb ) on a mission to get $10,000 back from a scammer is so modest in scope and effortlessly enjoyable that it’s easy to undervalue. This independent film feels as sharp and put-together as a yesteryear studio comedy.

‘Anora’: A classic in waiting, Baker and his star Mikey Madison, who lifts the streetwise stripper trope, take audiences on an unforgettable ride in this fairy tale that falls apart in spectacular fashion.

‘Nickel Boys’: Ross transforms the novel about the abuses and generational trauma of a reform school for the screen by employing first-person point-of-view. It’s a bold choice that pays off, transporting you into the heartbreaking reality of Elwood and Turner, two characters you won’t soon forget.

‘Dune: Part Two’: Denis Villeneuve was able to translate his passion for Frank Herbert’s opus into pure cinematic spectacle — and doom — about the rise of a leader. It’s a grand and thrilling adventure.

‘A Real Pain’: Jesse Eisenberg grapples with modern and historical trauma in this disarmingly entertaining road trip film, which he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Kieran Culkin as cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland.

‘The Outrun’: Ronan stars as an alcoholic who goes further and further into seclusion in the Orkney Islands in an attempt to start life anew. Nora Fingscheidt captures the wild highs, lows and in- betweens of the human condition with unapologetic honesty.

‘Evil Does Not Exist’: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi takes us to a small mountain village in Japan, where residents are hesitant to welcome a big city company with plans to set up a glamping site. It’s a slow- burn kind of experience, with community debates about mountain streams and septic tanks that might not sound terribly exciting, and yet it’s one of the year’s most haunting and effective.

‘Good One’: India Donaldson’s quietly brilliant character study of a teen girl on a camping trip with her dad and his friend resonates months after its release.

Honorable mention: “The Taste of Things,” “Green Border,” “Challengers,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “La Cocina,” “Will & Harper,” “Conclave,” “Maria,” “Young Woman and the Sea,” “Tuesday,” “Lee.”