Founded in 1962, Film Comment magazine features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world.

The results are now in for our 2024 poll of Film Comment ’s contributors! On this page, you’ll find our list of the 20 best films that were released either theatrically or virtually in 2024 in the United States, with original appreciations from our critics, as well as links to features, reviews, and interviews about these films and directors from throughout the year.

Jan 14, 2025 · A new film from Mike Leigh is always a cause for celebration. Starting with his first feature Bleak Moments in 1971, Leigh has carved out a singular place in British and global cinema for his beautifully sensitive and detailed portraits of the lives of primarily working-class characters. His latest, Hard Truths, arrives six years after his previous release, the 2018 historical drama Peterloo.

Oct 7, 2024 · This article appeared in the October 4, 2024 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke, 2024). Caught by the Tides, Jia Zhangke’s first fiction feature in six years, is among the 54-year-old Chinese director’s most radical and comprehensively conceived works to ...

Jan 29, 2025 · It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast.

Jan 6, 2025 · Based on the Tony-winning musical of the same name, which premiered in 2015, Dear Evan Hansen stars Ben Platt as Evan, a depressed 17-year-old who reluctantly lies about having been friends with Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), a classmate who recently took his own life.The main theme of the movie is so heavy that it could be considered uncomfortable, but the infusion of music into the plot is ...

In the hands of a different director, Showing Up might have played like yet another Sundance-style indie: a film packed with quirky characters (including an injured pigeon) and snappy, self-lacerating one-liners about the bougie artists of Portland, Oregon. But, as expected, Kelly Reichardt finds a way to complicate and enrich this premise, crafting …

Feb 3, 2025 · This article appeared in a special January 31, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. The Stringer (Bao Nguyen, 2025). As I was writing this report from Sundance 2025, the festival announced the winner of its Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition: Hailey Gates’s Atropia, a ...

Dec 20, 2024 · Speaking in Tongues: Take One (Christopher Harris, U.S.). Ishmael Reed’s novel Mumbo Jumbo serves as the jumping-off point for a rhythmic collision of dance, riot, and 20th-century American cultural detritus, marking the first iteration of an evolving project from one of the most vital voices in contemporary film. (Listen to a Film Comment Podcast conversation with Christopher Harris here.)

Dec 13, 2024 · Our Best Undistributed Films list, voted on by Film Comment contributors worldwide, recognizes the new films that were viewed—at festivals, or elsewhere—in 2024 but did not have U.S. distribution at press time. (Of course, that could change at any moment; keep an eye on FC for future coverage!). For the best films that received a theatrical or streaming release in the U.S. this year, here ...