What if the best movie year in recent memory was one most people spent complaining about? That was the strange shape of 2024. Ticket sales were soft for much of the calendar, studios leaned hard on sequels, and yet the actual films released between January and December formed one of the richest lineups in years. There was a Palme d’Or winner that went on to dominate the Oscars. There was a three-and-a-half-hour American epic about a Hungarian architect. There was a body-horror satire that made audiences squirm and argue. And there was a animated sequel that quietly became the highest-grossing animated film ever at the time.
This guide sorts through the noise. It explains which films earned the loudest praise, which ones won the biggest prizes, which ones made the most money, and why “best” depends entirely on which measuring stick you pick up.
Why “Best Movies 2024” Has No Single Answer
Here is the first thing worth understanding: nobody owns the phrase “best movies of 2024.” The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has one opinion. The Cannes jury had another. Critics’ groups, box-office trackers, and streaming algorithms each produce their own list. A film can top one ranking and barely register on another.
There is also a sneaky release-year problem. Some 2024 festival films reached wide theatrical or streaming audiences in 2025. Awards bodies use their own eligibility windows, which means a movie can be a “2024 film” for Cannes and a “2025 film” for Oscar voters. When a list calls something a 2024 movie, it is usually referring to the year of its first major festival premiere or its awards-eligibility year, not necessarily the year it showed up at your local theater. (2024 ford explorer last pre refresh model year explained)
The practical takeaway: treat any “best of 2024” list as an argument, not a verdict. The strongest lists tell you what standard they used and when they compiled it.
The Awards Picture: What Actually Won
Awards are an imperfect proxy for quality, but they are a useful map of consensus. Here is how the major prizes shook out for 2024 films.
| Award | Winner | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Best Picture, 97th Academy Awards | Anora | Ceremony held March 2, 2025 |
| Best Director, Academy Awards | Sean Baker, Anora | Also won Original Screenplay and Film Editing |
| Best Actress, Academy Awards | Mikey Madison, Anora | Breakout leading role |
| Palme d’Or, Cannes 2024 | Anora | Awarded May 25, 2024 |
| Best Motion Picture, Drama (Golden Globes) | The Brutalist | Ceremony January 5, 2025 |
| Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy (Golden Globes) | Emilia Pérez | Ceremony January 5, 2025 |
| Grand Prix, Cannes 2024 | All We Imagine as Light | Directed by Payal Kapadia |
| Jury Prize, Cannes 2024 | Emilia Pérez | Directed by Jacques Audiard |
The headline story is Anora. Sean Baker’s film about a Brooklyn sex worker who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch took the Palme d’Or in May and then Best Picture in March. That double is rare enough that film historians keep a short list of films that pulled it off. It also swept up Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing on Oscar night, which is the kind of haul that signals genuine across-the-board passion rather than a compromise vote.
The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s drama about a Holocaust survivor and architect chasing his vision in postwar America, took the drama Globe. Emilia Pérez, Audiard’s genre-bending musical crime story, took the comedy Globe and the Cannes Jury Prize. Those three films, plus Conclave, Nickel Boys, and The Substance, appeared again and again on year-end critics’ lists.
The Art-House Contenders Worth Knowing
If the awards races tell you what the industry rewarded, the festival circuit tells you what critics were excited about first. Three international films stood out in 2024.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, drew major attention for both its craft and the circumstances of its making. All We Imagine as Light, Payal Kapadia’s quiet, luminous drama, won the Grand Prix at Cannes, a strong result for a film that many expected to go even further. And Emilia Pérez arrived with the kind of polarizing reception that guarantees it will be argued about for years. Some viewers found it thrilling; others found it baffling. Both reactions are part of its legacy.
For readers who like to see how film culture ripples outward into other media, the same year produced plenty of tie-in books and style spin-offs, including a Barbie world tour book that delivered the fashion the movie only hinted at, a reminder that a film’s afterlife often runs through publishing and fashion as much as through cinemas.
The Box Office Champions: What Audiences Actually Chose
Critics and awards voters are one audience. Paying moviegoers are another, and in 2024 they made their preferences very clear.
Inside Out 2 was the highest-grossing film released in 2024, reportedly passing $1.6 billion worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing animated film ever at the time. That is a remarkable result for a sequel to a 2015 film about emotions living inside a teenager’s head, and it confirmed that Pixar’s brand still carries enormous weight with families.
Deadpool & Wolverine and Moana 2 rounded out the year’s top grossers. The first proved that a foul-mouthed, meta superhero comedy could still fill theaters when the marketing clicked. The second showed that a Disney animated sequel released at the right moment can dominate the holiday season almost by default.
One caution on numbers: exact grosses shift depending on the reporting date, currency conversion, and whether a tracker counts re-releases. If you cite a figure, name the tracker and the date you pulled it. Treat any dollar total as approximate.
Why the Box Office and the Critics Rarely Agree
This is one of the most useful things to understand about the movie year. The films that win awards are usually not the films that sell the most tickets, and that gap is not a flaw. It is a feature of how the industry is structured.
Big-budget sequels are engineered for opening weekends, merchandising, and global reach. Awards contenders are engineered for prestige, festival buzz, and long-tail cultural relevance. Occasionally a film bridges both worlds, but most do not. When someone tells you 2024 was a weak year for movies, they usually mean weak for the kind of movies that dominate multiplexes. When someone tells you it was a great year, they usually mean the art-house and mid-budget space. (Katy obrian movies from marines marvel beyond)
How to Build Your Own Best of 2024 List
The most reliable way to find your own favorites is to stop treating “best” as a single ranking and start treating it as a set of categories. Here is a practical approach that works better than scrolling a single list.
- Pick your standard first. Decide whether you care about critical consensus, awards, box-office success, or personal taste. Each produces a different shortlist.
- Cross-reference at least two sources. If a film appears on critics’ lists and also won a major festival prize, that is a strong signal. If it only appears on one outlet’s list, it may be an outlier.
- Check the release year carefully. Confirm whether a film premiered in 2024 or simply became widely available in 2025.
- Watch the festival winners before the awards season ends. Films like All We Imagine as Light and The Seed of the Sacred Fig are easier to find during awards season than after it.
- Give polarizing films a fair shot. Emilia Pérez and The Substance both divided audiences. That division is often a sign of ambition rather than failure.
Common Mistakes People Make
The biggest mistake is assuming that a film’s Oscar win means it is universally loved. Best Picture is decided by a preferential ballot among thousands of Academy members, which rewards broad acceptability as much as passion. A film can win without being anyone’s favorite.
The second mistake is skipping international films because of subtitles. In 2024, some of the most acclaimed work came from Iran, India, France, and Mexico. If you only watch English-language studio releases, you will miss a large share of the year’s best-reviewed titles.
The third mistake is judging a film by its marketing. Trailers for awards contenders often sell a mood rather than a plot. The Brutalist is a good example: its marketing emphasized grandeur and ambition, but the film itself is a slow, immersive character study. Going in with the right expectations matters.
The Year’s Defining Themes
Look across the strongest 2024 films and patterns emerge. Several of the year’s best movies are about people trying to build something lasting in a system that does not want them to succeed. The Brutalist is literally about an architect fighting for his vision. Anora is about a woman trying to hold onto a life that was never really hers. Conclave is about institutional power and the compromises required to hold it.
Another theme is the body and its limits. The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s satirical body-horror film, took that idea to extremes and became one of the year’s most talked-about releases. It is not for every viewer, but it is one of the clearest examples of a mid-budget original film breaking through on sheer audacity.
And then there is the sheer range of tone. A year that includes a Pixar sequel about anxiety, a Hungarian immigrant epic, a French musical about a cartel boss, and a body-horror satire is not a year with a single identity. It is a year with many.
Conclusion
The best movies of 2024 depend on what you are looking for. If you want the film that won the most prestigious prizes, that is Anora, which took both the Palme d’Or and Best Picture. If you want the year’s biggest crowd-pleaser, that is Inside Out 2, which became the highest-grossing animated film ever at the time. If you want the most ambitious swing, that is The Brutalist. If you want the film most likely to start an argument at dinner, that is Emilia Pérez or The Substance.
What makes 2024 worth revisiting is not any single title. It is the density of interesting work across genres, budgets, and countries. The year rewarded curiosity. The readers who get the most out of it will be the ones who treat “best” as a starting question rather than a final answer, and who are willing to follow a critic, a festival jury, or a friend’s recommendation into a film they would never have picked on their own.
FAQ
What movie won Best Picture for 2024?
Anora won Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards, held on March 2, 2025. Sean Baker also won Best Director, and Mikey Madison won Best Actress. The film additionally took Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
Did any 2024 movie win both the Palme d’Or and the Best Picture Oscar?
Yes. Anora won the Palme d’Or at Cannes on May 25, 2024, and then won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. That combination is rare and puts the film in a small group of titles that have swept both honors.
What was the highest-grossing movie of 2024?
Inside Out 2 was the highest-grossing film released in 2024, reportedly surpassing $1.6 billion worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing animated film ever at the time. Deadpool & Wolverine and Moana 2 were also among the year’s top grossers.
Why do critics’ lists and box-office rankings disagree so much?
They measure different things. Critics’ lists reward craft, originality, and festival buzz. Box-office rankings reward mass appeal, marketing reach, and franchise recognition. A film can excel at one and fail at the other, and most do.
What counts as a 2024 movie if it came out in 2025?
It depends on the standard. Festival premieres, awards-eligibility windows, and wide theatrical or streaming releases can all fall in different years. A film that premiered at a 2024 festival may have reached most audiences in 2025, so check the specific year a list is using.
Which 2024 international films are worth seeking out?
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, All We Imagine as Light, and Emilia Pérez all drew major festival attention in 2024. All We Imagine as Light won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and Emilia Pérez won the Jury Prize. These are strong starting points for anyone who wants to look beyond English-language studio releases.
