2024: The Year of 3 1/2 Stars
Of the new releases I’ve seen this year, I’ve rated nearly half of them 3 1/2 stars. “Slightly above average” feels like a pretty good summary of the 2024 movie year.
Admittedly, my interests and lifestyle has shifted quite a bit over the past twelve months. I’m traveling more, pursuing new career interests, preparing for big transitions in 2025 and generally have less space in my life for watching movies these days. With less time, I’ve shown more discernment around which movies I give my time to.
My recent movie viewing habits are inching closer to the average consumer. Instead of racing to see every new release, I often wait for a movie to pop up on VOD or streaming. And with theatrical windows shortening anyway, I often miss the opportunity to see a movie in the theater.
While it’s fair to attribute the average quality of this year’s crop of movies in part to the SAG and WGA strikes last year, my Letterbox’d list and the online chatter has been dominated by middling reactions to 2024 movies. The sea of sequels, Disney property and existing IP fatigue, and continued deterioration of the movie-going experience is ushering in a new era.
For my part, my movie-watching habits are becoming increasingly polarized. I’m either turning to international films to enjoy something fresh and unique or I’m choosing to reserve my theater-going experiences to big budget spectacles like Furiosa or Twisters when I know I’m not going to have the same experience from the comfort of my couch.
And when it comes to actually making the time and spending the energy to go out to see a movie, I’m choosing to invest in luxury or age-restricted movie theater experiences which limits the amount of times I’ll go out to see a movie in a given month.
Change is often uncomfortable, but usually brings helpful perspective and growth and that’s what this year in movie watching has been for me. It’s not uncommon for each movie year to have natural ebbs and flows in terms of quality, but there’s clearly been a shift and for the time being, I’m ok with the ‘quality over quantity’ experience.
As mentioned, I’m still playing catch up on new releases this year. Most notably, I have yet to see a few Oscar winning hopefuls like Anora, The Brutalist, and September 5 which all have a decent shot at making my top films of the year. In the meantime, here is a smattering of trailers from quality movies (rated higher than 3 1/2 stars) from 2024, I’d recommend.
