With 2024 over, it’s time to unveil the Ninth Annual Sticky List!
If you’re unfamiliar with the Sticky List, these are the films which made me want to watch, rewatch, discuss, and share. While several films on my favorites list meet this criteria (also with a bit of crossover into my recommendations of films to look for in 2025), chances are you’ve heard about those ad nauseam from the countless other “Best of” lists that have dropped starting at the beginning of December. What this list focuses on are films that either you’ve never heard of or may have overlooked amid all the other releases.
Click here to check out Sticky Lists from previous years.
If you’re interested in checking out my full list of favorite films from this year, it’s available on my Letterboxd. Here are my Top Ten for 2024.
- No Other Land
- Orion and the Dark
- Hundreds of Beavers
- The Fall Guy
- Things Will Be Different
- Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
- Group Therapy
- The People’s Joker
- Conclave
Reviews for most of the films included on the Top Ten and beyond on this list are available on EoM.
Honorable mentions:
Nickel Boys, His Three Daughters, Ghostlight, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, Brave Citizen, Missing from Fire Trail Road, All That We Love, Sew Torn, Mayhem!
The Draft!
Directed By: Yusron Fuadi
Written By: Yusron Fuadi, Anindita Suryarasmi, B.W. Purbanegara, Richard James Halstead
Cast: Adhin Abdul Hakim, Winner Wijaya, Ibrahim Alhami
Summary:
Five students decide to spend their weekend away at a remote villa. What starts as a fun trip soon turns into a holiday from hell when they find themselves in a battle against a powerful dark force. The film flips familiar horror tropes on their heads to create a new and original take on the cabin-in-the woods horror.
The Draft! is a film you know in a package you don’t. It’s got the location, the gathering of friends, each of whom fits into a specific archetype, and so much murder. What it doesn’t have is a clear idea of what the hell it’s doing and that’s entirely by design. Locked room mysteries only work if a way in and out secretly exists; deaths only mean something if they do to the characters and, by extension, us; and contrivances are only ignorable if everything else fits neatly together — all of which The Draft! writers Fuadi, Anindita Suryarasmi, B.W. Purbanegara (Tales of the Otherwords), and Richard James Halstead (Marapu, Fire & Ritual) understand. This, dear reader, is where the comedy comes from. Not in the characters doing something silly, but in their awareness of how little sense certain things make as they scramble for safety. As in most meta-horror stories, there’s always a Randy (Scream’s Jamie Kennedy) or a Bernie (It’s a Wonderful Knife’s Jess McLeod) who serves as the audience surrogate, and Wijaya’s Amir fits that role doling out recommendations, advice, and generally trying to guide his friends through one murderous attempt after another. This is the smartest thing that the story does as it becomes the lynch pin for everything else that the film seeks to do, intentionally or otherwise. The use of Amir not only helps wink (metaphorically) at the audience, but it enables The Draft! to stay absolutely hilarious in the face of certain demise. A demise is certain to the point of forgone; the question then shifts to how do you take back the power?
Blue Finch Films releasing TBA.
The Fall Guy
Directed By: David Leitch
Written By: Drew Pearce
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Teresa Palmer, Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke
Summary:
He’s a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?
In the conversation with Gail when she tells Colt of the situation, she refers to him as someone no one will miss as a stunt person, a phrase that hurts him having been personally called to come to the set, but it also speaks to a wider perspective on stunt people and how audiences love their work, but rarely, if ever, attribute or connect that affection to the stunt person in favor of the actor. That Leitch, a former stuntperson himself, makes a point to incorporate every one of Gosling’s doubles — Logan Holladay (Need for Speed), Ben Jenkin (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), Troy Lindsay Brown (Sky High; Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire), Justin Eaton (The Killer) — and even The Fall Guy stunt designer Chris O’Hara (Baby Driver), makes the action core of The Fall Guy walk the walk that the narrative talks. All of the above is just a smattering of what will tickle cinephiles and cause them to want to rewatch the film as soon as its over. Thankfully, as a home release, you can do exactly that.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, digital, VOD, and Peacock.
Joker: Folie À Deux
Directed By: Todd Phillips
Written By: Scott Silver, Todd Phillips
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey
Summary:
Joker: Folie À Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.
Why You Should See It:
It’s no secret that I wasn’t a fan of the 2019 Joker. I covered it twice, theatrically and on home video, with both reviews not speaking so positively about it due to a lack of clarity on intention. Given that Phillips on the commentary for Joker states a few times that things in the film happen out of improvisation, a certain sense of making things up seeps into the film itself, so much so that any notion of the film declaring the failures of mental health systems toward its patients being the central conceit of what creates The Joker out of Arthur Fleck, well, just seems misguided. With Joker: Folie À Deux, however, Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver have put together a two-part film in which Joker is the setup with Folie À Deux as the payoff/conclusion, setting forth an inevitability wherein the central figure is beloved neither as Joker or Fleck because he himself hasn’t done the work to get himself right where he can even love himself. This isn’t a situation in which “a little kindness” would assist Fleck any more than a properly working system would be because it didn’t matter where Fleck went, the world rejected him. He needed to find his own strength, which he does eventually find before the false-version of love/adoration takes his life. It’s a fitting end, dark though it is, for a figure who merely wanted to be loved, to be supported, to be adored, yet lacked the capability to process that in a healthy way. The world is a joke and the sooner Fleck realized that, the easier it should’ve become for him to navigate his way through. Instead, rejection abounds which means there’s only way for the film to end, and it does.
Kill
Directed By: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Written By: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, Ayesha Syed
Cast: Raghav Juyal, Lakshya, Tanya Maniktala, Hars Chhaya, Ashish Vidyarthi, Abhishek Chauhan, Parth Tiwari
Summary:
When army commando Amrit (Lakshya) finds out his true love Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is engaged against her will, he boards a New Delhi-bound train in a daring quest to derail the arranged marriage. But when a gang of knife-wielding thieves led by the ruthless Fani (Raghav Juyal) begin to terrorize innocent passengers on his train, Amrit takes them on himself in a death-defying kill-spree to save those around him — turning what should have been a typical commute into an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride.
Written by Bhat and Ayesha Syed (The Gone Game) from a story by Bhat, Kill delivers on its title as it’s Amrit and Viresh against 40 bandits whose version of justice and righteousness is different than those riding on the train. Having introduced both soldiers after coming off a 10-day military operation (unclear if training or not), Bhat and Syed quickly establish their bonafides and their close relationship so that when things kick off, we are already primed for chaos. But we’re not given chaos; rather, the two take their time engaging and, when they do, they seek to use non-lethal force, preferring to subdue the bandits rather than remove them from this plane of existence. In contrast to the fodder that the bandits become, our introduction to them is that they are methodical in their planning, but unnecessarily violent in the implementation of the plan, hurting passengers with zeal when met with any resistance. This juxtaposition immediately establishes the starting points for the soldiers and the bandits, making the escalation to come all the more vicious, because where does someone go when they are already injuring, maiming, and killing from the start versus the possibilities of individuals with the training to be cautious unless all other options are exhausted?
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, digital, and VOD.
The Motherload
Directed By: Van Tran Nguyen, Alex Derwick
Written By: Van Tran Nguyen, Alex Derwick
Cast: Van Tran Nguyen, Sang “Sandy” Tran
Summary:
Conflict among the mother-daughter duo arises when Jessca embarks on a quest to find a home that once belonged to her mother’s family during pre-war Vietnam. Kim (Jessca’s mother), happy in her new but precarious position in America, fights to stay stateside. As their desires cause them to grow apart they are faced with old myths about the motherland, depicted in a public-broadcasting television show. With a cast consisting only of two Vietnamese-American women re-enacting and satirizing scenes from celebrated Vietnam War films while depicting a diasporic reality, this movie takes a closer look at what has been lost in war, what we find in the rubble, and how to hold on to what remains.
Through this workplace experience, Nguyen and Derwick unload on American audiences who’ve, for too long, either failed to examine the films initially or given them any new thought in the modern era. Each of them are worthy of praise, aspects which Gordon is quick to champion, but are also worthy of reexamination, which Sang is even faster to explain. Sure, it’s hilarious to see Nguyen and Tran reenact each of the film clips using cardboard and minimal details, an element which pushes the audience to use their imagination and better connect with the concepts being explored (the metaphorical teeth drawing blood as the scenework continues). This is the aforementioned “sexy bacon,” as Tran and Nguyen trade places and genders from one clip to another, or, even more hilariously, when Nguyen plays two people whom have a child together. But through the laughter, the words of Sang ring out, reminding us that the words of these beloved films and the directors behind them are not of Vietnamese decent and do not have the specific perspective of the people, so whether the intention is meant well or not, there’s always a missed opportunity or failed element of authentic representation that does little more than put down the Vietnamese people and uplift the American perspective.
Theatrical release in 2025.
My Hero Academia: You’re Next
Directed By: Tensai Okamura
Written By: Yosuke Kuroda
Cast: Daiki Yamashita, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Yuki Kaji, Ayane Sakura, Kaito Ishikawa, Tetsu Inada, Yuichi Nakamura, Mamoru Miyano, Meru Nukumi, Kenta Miyake
Summary:
“Next, it’s your turn!”
Those were the words All Might, Symbol of Peace, let out after defeating All For One, Symbol of Evil. All Might may no longer be the No. 1 hero of a society where most of the population has a superpowered Quirk, but Deku and his Hero Course classmates at U.A. High School are determined to carry on his will and ideals as heroes.
It was spring of Deku’s second year at U.A. when an all-out battle between heroes and villains broke out. Deku faced an overwhelmingly powerful Tomura Shigaraki and the two clashed violently, with both the heroes and the villains suffering heavy damages. The battle has since come to a temporary halt with Shigaraki’s retreat, but the time for their next confrontation draws closer with every second.
Japan is devastated by the all-out battle when a mysterious man suddenly appears. He presents himself as the one to replace All Might, becoming the new Symbol. He proclaims “Next, it’s my turn!” but turns out to be Dark Might! Despite resembling All Might in appearance, Dark Might’s ideals couldn’t be more different. He unleashes his Quirk for his own desires, creating a massive fort that begins to absorb the population one after another. Among the group accompanying Dark Might is Anna, a young woman with an unknown Quirk who is being targeted by a stoic individual in butler attire. Even though this person, Giulio, calls her “Miss Anna,” he seems to be after her life. Just what could their connection be to Dark Might? Will Deku, Bakugo, Todoroki and the rest of U.A. High Class 1-A be able to protect the world by putting an end to Dark Might–the new Symbol and his desires? They must face off against Dark Might and the obscure crime organization under his control, the Gollini Family.
“Next, it’s our turn!”
When it’s all said and done, You’re Next may be the best of the four films second only to Heroes Rising, depending on the day. Both include compelling villains whose viewpoints challenge Class 1-A, though Dark Might specifically accosts their mentor and his ideology, making Deku and company far more driven to stop Dark Might from achieving his goal. Both expand the roster from the central three, allowing audiences a chance to see their favorite(s) in-action and serving the story in the process. There’s a sequence that is likely to break long-time fans’ hearts thanks to a villain’s quirk, but it’s also a little like a reward for having been a fan so long. More than this, watching the pros serve as backup to Class 1-A not only makes sense from the perspective of the narrative (they are the key characters), but from the larger concept of the story regarding legacy and who carries the mantle once All Might retires. Putting the pros in the backseat, something that couldn’t have happened naturally in the early seasons of the series or other films, only helps secure Class 1-A and this generation of heroes as the true successors. While that statement may, on some level, seem like a spoiler, if you’ve been watching the series and we’ve confirmed that this takes place between seasons six and seven, then it’s already something you know. Truly, this film is like watching Class 1-A grown up, working together past graduation.
No Other Land
Directed By: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Written By: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Cast: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Farisa Abu Aram, Nasser Adra, Harun Abu Aram, Kifah Adara
Summary:
Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community’s mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families – the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist who joins his struggle, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, living under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval, unrestricted and free. This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.
Why You Should See It:
It’s very easy for everything to slide into a binary of good and evil and miss the shades of grey, especially when lives are lost. It’s far easier to hold on to old wounds and hurt others than do the necessary work to create peace. Though it’s been more than a year since the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7th, 2023 in which innocent lives were lost and hostages taken (many of whom are still missing), one cannot deny the actions by the Israeli military in Gaza goes beyond simple retrieval and military retribution. In particular, if one does any exploration into Israel’s actions as a military power in the Middle East, questions do form as to whether or not they themselves have slipped into the comfort of colonization under the trappings of advanced protection from perceived enemies. What No Other Land does is show a few years in the life of Basel Adra, a young man living in a village that’s been slowly overtaken by the Israeli military using the power of Israeli courts to steal what’s not theirs and the perseverance of the villagers to try to stand against military and vigilantes who would forcibly remove them. In my education as a Reform Jew, I learned the stories of persecution from nearly every place the Hebrew people resettled, but rarely do we learn that, perhaps, the victimization complex has become a weaponized tool to grant permission for the state of Israel to harm others. This is why No Other Land matters — “Never Again” applies to all people, even and especially those not Hebrew.
Rebel Ridge
Directed By: Jeremy Saulnier
Written By: Jeremy Saulnier
Cast: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, Emory Cohen, Steve Zissis, Zsané Jhé, Dana Lee, James Cromwell
Summary:
Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) enters the town of Shelby Springs on a simple but urgent mission– post bail for his cousin and save him from imminent danger. But when Terry’s life’s savings is unjustly seized by law-enforcement, he’s forced to go head to head with local police chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson) and his combat-ready officers. Terry finds an unlikely ally in court clerk Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb) and the two become ensnared in a deep-rooted conspiracy within the remote township. As the stakes turn deadly, Terry must call upon his mysterious background to break the department’s hold on the community, bring justice to his own family– and protect Summer in the process.
Why You Should See It:
While hitting every single box on the action list (former military, one against many, personal stakes, and several action set pieces that’ll drop your jaw), the entirety of Rebel Ridge from the perspective of protagonist Terry is about reducing violence and de-escalation. Sure, the “PACE” scene between Terry and Chief Burnne looks, from the outside, like two individuals sizing each other up before Terry drops a proverbial hammer, the positioning of the actors, the verbal delivery from Pierre, and the reaction by Johnson creating so much delicious tension that the audience just can’t wait for the fisticuffs to begin, but taking a step back from the film enables one to realize that in every single engagement between Terry and the Chief’s people, Terry seeks to remove weapons, subdue opponents, and ensure that there’s as little collateral damage as possible. Stories like Prime Video’s Reacher series demonstrate that intelligence and brutality can go hand-in-hand with a hero, but Rebel Ridge show that victory can also come from breaking down one’s opponent through de-escalation techniques and still be a badass. There’s a racial component to consider, of course, as Terry is a Black man in a small town with corrupt law enforcement who are using their power to take advantage of people. This is why there still remains quite a bit of tension when the film ends on what some see as a cliff-hanger, Terry alone in a hospital clinging to the digital records which may just exonerate him and incarcerate Burnne. There’s no big final face-off in which Terry destroys Burnne, the corrupt officer left for dead (if not completely dead) as a typical actioner would do; rather, Rebel Ridge has Terry working as much within the system as he can, utilizing allies and weaponizing enemies without trying to drop bodies in the process. That final shot of Terry in the hospital is a mixture of relief and anxiety because, while the battle we see is over, there’s still more to come, but we still have hope and all because Terry fights smart and de-escalates where he can.
Thelma
Directed By: Josh Margolin
Written By: Josh Margolin
Cast: June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Nicole Byer, Malcolm McDowell
Summary:
Thelma Post isn’t your average 93-year-old grandmother – she’s tenacious, determined, and on a mission. After getting conned by a scammer pretending to be her grandson, she teams up with a friend (and his motorized scooter) on a wild adventure to take back what’s hers.
Why You Should See It:
There are many kinds of shit-bag people in the world and those who prey on the elderly are among them. With technology at a point where auditory and visual deepfakes are possible, unless you’re in-person, you almost can’t trust anything you see or hear from someone. That’s where the catalyst of Thelma sets off in a narrative that’s already hot with familial discord as Thelma’s daughter isn’t sure she, Thelma, is good to live on her own anymore while her grandson is going through a bit of a semi-crisis himself. Margolin could’ve made a rote family drama in which Thelma learns to accept help and new systems are introduced that enable her to maintain independence while fostering healthy changes for herself and her family, but that’s not what Margolin does — not entirely. Instead, Margolin draws inspiration from Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series (both for the choices of Thelma, the character, and the technical execution of the film), creating moments that would be generally low-stakes, like sliding across a bed as one sneaks across a friend’s house, a making them feel on-par with breaking into the CIA’s vault. Rather than taking away from the drama of the story, these cinematography and action beats infuse Thelma with charm and grace. Powered by a remarkable performance by Squibb and co-star Richard Roundtree in his final performance, Thelma reminds that just because one’s gotten older doesn’t mean that one stops living.
Things Will Be Different
Directed By: Michael Felker
Written By: Michael Felker
Cast: Adam David Thompson, Riley Dandy, Chloe Skoczen, Justin Benson, Sarah Bolger, Jori Lynn Felker
Summary:
When estranged siblings, Joseph and Sidney, rendezvous at a local diner after a close-call robbery, they hightail it to an abandoned farmhouse that transports them to a different time in order to escape the local cops. But when they try to return to their present after the coast is clear, an unknown metaphysical force cuts them off and maroons them on the land unless they do exactly what they’re told. What comes from this not only bends the forces of spacetime but also bends Joe and Sid’s familial bonds beyond the point of trust and forgiveness.
There’s the world we know — the one we can see, hear, smell, and touch — and there is the world in between. It exists around us, within the spaces within spaces. Overlapping and overlapping, like a Venn diagram wherein who we are is defined by what takes up space from the cross-sections. If we were to identify these spaces, could we then somehow take control of ourselves? Of the world we engage with? In his feature length directorial debut, filmmaker Michael Felker (Would You Like to Try Again?) explores what happens we when try to take control of the chaos within these spaces in his supernatural thriller Things Will Be Different, having its world premiere at SXSW 2024. Not only does its apparent simplicity belie a more complex and philosophical nature, it’s a most audacious and edge-of-your-seat thriller that lingers.
Available on digital and VOD.
Zero
Directed By: Jean Luc Herbulot
Written By: Jean Luc Herbulot, Hus Miller
Cast: Moran Rosenblatt, Hus Miller, Annabelle Lengronne, Cameron McHarg, Roger Felmont Sallah, Angelique Mendes, Willem Dafoe
Summary:
From the director of the acclaimed TIFF Midnight Madness selected Saloum, comes a bold, visceral feature film. Two Americans searching for a sense of purpose wake up in Senegal with bombs strapped to their chests and ten hours to find out why. With their fates in the hands of an ominous voice on the end of a phone (Willem Dafoe), the two strangers complete a series of seemingly random missions, unwillingly terrorizing the city of Dakar in the process. With widespread protest against Western influence growing, the reluctant partners must work together in a mutual race for survival, and ultimately redemption.
Even more wonderful, Herbulot and Miller devised a script that absolutely smashes its audience by the end. So caught up in the will-they-won’t-they of the bombs, so lost amid the figurative tree, audiences forget the “forest” in which One and Two forcibly wander until the climax of Zero reveals its full form. Those who have seen Saloum understand how well Herbulot can play with tone and genre, transforming a reclamation/transport mission into a battle against spirits. He does the same here, except trading locals with a penchant for violence for two outsiders thrust into an absurd situation, thus transforming a small interpersonal quest for survival into a precise declaration against global manipulation and a call to stand up.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Recommendation
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