Yearly First Viewing Top Tens

__________________
HEI guys.

My favourite first time watches of 2024:
(excluding 2024 releases)

20,000 Species of Bees
Grummy
Girls at 12
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Gabi, Between Ages 8 and 13
Not A Pretty Picture
What Is a Woman?
Woodstock
Tommy
A Week Away

Thanks for sharing this.
I don't always have the same tastes and interests as you, but there are some very interesting films here.

I will try to find the following at some point:
母情 [A Mother's Love] (1950)
Les dernières fiançailles [The Last Betrothal] (1973)
Les Perses (1961)
破戒 [The Outcast] (1962)
Himmel und Erde [Heaven and Earth] (1982)
牧野物語 養蚕編 映画のための映画 [Magino Story: Raising Silkworms] (1977)

I was wondering where this thread went.

https://www.listchallenges.com/favor...024-plus-short

1. Our Century (1983)
2. Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
3. Night and the City (1950)
4. Jean de Florette (1986)
5. All Night Long (1962)
6. A Short Film About Love (1988)
7. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
8. Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)
9. Sonatine (1993)
10. Seduced and Abandoned (1964)

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

Top 20 favourite first time watches of 2024:
(in random order, excluding documentaries, animation, short films and 2024 releases)

Ready or Not 2019


Purple Noon 1960


Sound of Metal 2019


Walkabout 1971


The Passenger 1975


Chopping Mall 1986


Someone to Watch Over Me 1987
The Rover 2014
Bang the Drum Slowly 1973
That Thing You Do! 1996
Jagged Edge 1985
Sling Blade 1996
Sharky’s Machine 1981
The Bad News Bears 1976
To Die For 1995
The Shallows 2016
La La Land 2016
I Saw the Devil 2010
Owning Mahowny 2003
The Naked Island 1960

Honorable mentions:
Mr. Majestyk 1974
A Dirty Carnival 2006

Favourite documentary first time watches of 2024:

Diego Maradona 2019
Tim’s Vermeer 2013
The Greatest Night in Pop 2024
Music by John Williams 2024
Thriller 40 2023
STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie 2023

__________________
Letterboxd
Entertainment log

2024:


All of Us Strangers
The Zone of Interest
Indochine
Godzilla Minus One
Fiddler on the Roof
Poor Things
The Holdovers
After Life
Pennies From Heaven
Anora


I did not watch enough movies last year.

I only watched 47 movies in 2024

In no particular order my favorite 1st time watches were Strange Darling, Saltburn, Aftersun, Departures, Stingray Sam, and Once.

1. The Last Metro
2. I Am Cuba
3. The Naked Island
4. This Happy Breed
5. Le Havre
6. State And Main
7. Journey To Italy
8. The Trial
9. The Host
10. Lured

Happy New Year Mofo! Happy watching in 2025

__________________
Letterboxd

top 10 would probably be:

1. K-CoreaINC. K (section a)
2. The People's Joker
3. Super 8½
4. Nowhere
5. Castration Movie pt. 1
6. Roller Junkies!
7. Paris Is Burning
8. The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
9. Totally F*cked Up
10. The Boy Friend

Life got in the way of my movie watching. I am so glad 2024 is over, the worst year of my life by a long shot. The best of what I watched:


Poor Things
Lilya 4 Ever
Aftersun
Infernal Affairs
Grave of the Fireflies
Society of the Snow
A Man for All Seasons
The Substance

And then there's this, the worst:

Murder Set Pieces
Caged Fury
Robowar
Carrie (2013)
The Human Centipede 3: The Final Sequence

Happy New Year Movie Forum peeps! How did your 2024 Film Challenge go? These were my 'top 10' (16) first viewing films for 2024, I couldn't narrow it down any further! Yes, that's a well-deserved 10/10 rating in first place; with films I gave the same rating to, they're listed in the order I viewed them.

1. Kaos (1984) - Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani: 10/10
2. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) - Lewis Milestone: 9/10
3. Train de vie (1998) - Radu Mihăileanu: 9/10
4. The Time Machine (1960) - George Pal: 9/10
5. Dersu Uzala (1975) - Akira Kurosawa: 9/10
6. Apocalypse Now (1979) - Francis Ford Coppola: 8.5/10
7. Poor Things (2023) - Yorgos Lanthimos: 8.5/10
8. Wuthering Heights (1939) - William Wyler: 8/10
9. Che ora è? (1989) - Ettore Scola: 8/10
10. Gadjo dilo (1997) - Tony Gatlif: 8/10
11. Latcho Drom (1993) - Tony Gatlif: 8/10
12. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) - Martin Scorsese: 8/10
13. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - Francis Ford Coppola: 8/10
14. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) - John Frankenheimer: 8/10
15. Spotlight (2015) - Tom McCarthy: 8/10
16. Conclave (2024) - Edward Berger: 8/10


GIF from 'Kaos' by the Taviani brothers

Don’t want you to think my rep is for 2024 being the worst year of your life. Wishing you a much better 2025.

Big thumbs up for Man For All Seasons. One of my all time faves.

1. Wild Robot
2. Begin Again
3. Sing Street
4. The Holdovers
5. Oppenheimer
6. A Fistful of Dollars
7. The Breaking ice
8. A Matter of Life and Death
9. Madeline
10. Alien Romulus

Descending order:

1. A Star is Born (1954)
2. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
4. Point Blank (1967)
5. Wild Robot, The (2024)
6. Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
7. Moonrise (1948)
8. Godzilla Minus One (2023)
9. Loop Track (2023)
10. Pickup on South Street (1953)

I only managed 34 first-timers here. Seven of them stand out to me:

H-8… (1958)
Raw (2016)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Aftersun (2022)
House of Tolerance (2011)
God’s Little Acre (1958)
A Separation (2011)

Nice. That's probably my favorite Kitano and that's saying something.

I hit the classics hard last year. The ones with asterisks are ones this forum inspired me to watch, whether due to recommendations or countdowns, so thanks!

1. Modern Times
2. Sing Street *
3. The Right Stuff
4. The Cremator
5. High Noon
6. Elevator to the Gallows *
7. Broadcast News
8. The Holdovers
9. Le Havre *
10. Black Girl *

1 Whitney Houston: A Concert for a New South Africa 2024 USA
2 The Naked Island 1960 Japan
3 Late Spring 1949 Japan
4 La Jetee 1962 France
5 Limite 1931 Brazil
6 Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France
7 Landscape in the Mist 1988 Greece
8 La La Land 2016 USA
9 McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 USA
10 Notorious 1946 USA
11 The Passenger 1975 Italy
12 Stranger Than Paradise 1984 USA
13 Stray Dog 1949 Japan
14 The Lodger 1927 UK
15 Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 Soviet Union
16 Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union
17 Strike 1925 Soviet Union
18 Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 UK
19 Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA
20 Stranger Than Paradise 1984 USA
21 Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939 USA
22 L'Eclisse 1962 Italy
23 Le Bonheur 1965 France
24 The Master 2012 USA
25 Seven Chances 1925 USA
26 Panique 1946 France
27 Il Grido 1957 Italy
28 Vampyr 1932 Germany
29 Blackmail 1929 UK
30 At First Sight 1983 France
31 The Runner 1984 Iran
32 Au revoir les enfants 1987 France
33 Blow-up 1966 UK
34 A Moment of Innocence 1996 Iran
35 Stolen Kisses 1968 France
36 La Belle et La Bete 1946 France
37 Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan
38 Bob the Gambler 1956 France
39 Rio Bravo 1959 USA
40 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 France
41 The Great White Silence 1924 UK
42 Story of the Last Chrysanthemum 1939 Japan
43 Leave Her to Heaven 1945 USA
44 Pather Panchali 1955 India
45 Frances Ha 2012 USA
46 Ornamental Hairpin 1941 Japan
47 Body Heat 1981 USA
48 Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Taiwan
49 Cleo from 5 to 7 1962 France
50 Bay of Angels 1963 France
51 A Touch of Zen 1971 Taiwan
52 Mirror 1975 Soviet Union
53 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 USA
54 Two Lane Blacktop 1971 USA
55 The Travelling Players 1975 Greece
56 Killer of Sheep 1977 USA
57 Voices Through Time 1996 Italy
58 There Was a Father 1942 Japan
59 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France
60 Sweet Smell of Success 1957 USA
61 Dragon Inn 1968 Taiwan
62 In a Lonely Place 1950 USA
63 The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951 USA
64 Floating Weeds 1959 Japan
65 Persona 1966 Sweden
66 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Germany
67 The Scent of Green Papaya 1993 Vietnam
68 Aftersun 2020 UK
69 Palm Springs 2020 USA
70 The Killing of a Sacred Deer USA 2017
71 Goodbye Dragon Inn 1968
72 Spring in a Small Town 1969 China
73 (that guillermo del torres one with the water creature)

1. Stingray Sam
2. Memoir of a Snail
3. The Fall Guy
4. Dancer in the Dark
5. Killers of the Flower Moon
6. Inside Out 2
7. Sing Street
8. Guilty As Sin
9. Begin Again
10. The American Astronaut

__________________

Time to post in my favorite thread of the forums yet again!

Throughout a large part of the year I was barely able to watch any films at all. Work got in the way. Luckily I recovered a bit near the end of the year. I definitely didn't see as many films as I used to when I was a student. But all in all, I'm still glad with the new discoveries I made this year. There are definitely some new favorites among them! As usual, I'm not including new releases in my list below.

My Top Ten Favorite First Viewings of 2024:



1) Payday (1973)

This obscure New Hollywood picture is freaking wild! Rip Torn gives one of the greatest cinematic performances I've ever seen as he portrays a country music star on the road who obviously has been on a path of (self-)destruction for quite some time. It's directed by Daryl Duke, who doesn't have a particularly large or famous filmography. Yet he also directed an amazing heist film called The Silent Partner, which happened to be one of my favorite first watches back in 2019. I enjoyed this deeply dark character study just as much, if not more. I'm curious: have any of you ever seen Payday? If not: find it and watch it if you're a sucker for wild New Hollywood films. You will not be disappointed!

2) Dogville (2003)

I'd already seen six Lars Von Trier films before this year, but I only got around to this masterpiece in February of this year. It instantly became my favorite of his. What an insanely twisted tour the force this film is! It's a slowly building piece of extremely cruel drama that constantly keeps up a disturbing tension which ultimately explodes into a batsh*t crazy final act. A deeply satisfying yet troubling piece of cinema. I loved it!

3) L'Avventura (1960)

This one has been on my watchlist for God knows how many years... I'm glad I finally got around to it. Before this year, I'd only seen Antonioni's Blow-up and The Passenger. This year I finally watched some of his earlier work with L'Avventura and La Notte (which also easily could've made this list, but one has to make choices). Monica Vitti is indescribably magnetic in this picture filled with forbidden emotions and gorgeous scenery. I hope to find L'Eclisse and Red Desert on my path in 2025. If they give me only a fraction of the enjoyment I got from L'Avventura, I'll be a happy man!

4) Lola Montès (1955)

The only color film Max Öphuls was ever able to make. And man did he make it count! This must be one of the best looking films ever made. I didn't know beforehand that the film's main character was actually a real life woman. It makes this wonderful film even more fascinating. Highly recommended if you're in the mood for something grand!

5) The Red Shoes (1948)

Speaking of gorgeous looking films... Wow! The Red Shoes is just sublime cinema all the way through, especially the grand ballet scene! Glad I finally saw this masterpiece.

6) China 9 Liberty 37 (1978)

This is a great acid western, starring Fabio Testi, Warren Oates and Jenny Agutter in an intense and violent love triangle. I love Agutter in every film she's in, especially in Walkabout, which is one of my favorite films of all time. This film uses her innocent attraction in the same effective manner. Just like Payday, this fantastic film is massively underseen. Search for it!

7) Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Another huge classic I hadn't seen yet. I'd put this higher on the list if it weren't such a deeply saddening film. Needless to say, this is yet another masterpiece by Mizoguchi.

8) Flesh + Blood (1985)

Paul Verhoeven going medieval on your ass, no holds barred! Yes, it's as good as it sounds. If you aren't convinced yet: it stars Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, facing off in a totally f*cked up erotic power struggle. And just like the director, they give it their all!

9) The Virgin Spring (1960)

Another film set in the Middle Ages. It had been a while since I last watched a new Bergman film. This is a hypnotic piece of cinema. I really love it when Bergman tells a straightforward (and in this case very disturbing) story, while adding some magical realism to make the film more colorful and profound at the same time. In this film he succeeds marvelously.

10) Zardoz (1974)

I like ending these lists with a new guilty pleasure. At face value, Zardoz will come across to most modern audiences as absurd and laughably over the top. But I couldn't help finding Boorman's vision here truly fascinating. To think of it, Boorman's films are always interesting to me. He dares going "out there" and cinematically his pictures all look beautiful to me. So I couldn't help falling in love with this highly ambitious and weird pyschedelic sci-fi cult flick of his, starring none other than Sean Connery in the most 70s sci-fi outfit one could imagine!


Almost all of the films I watch are high quality films, so there were many other films that could've easily qualified for this list as well. Some honorable mentions:

Giants and Toys (1958)
The Housemaid (1960)
La Notte (1961)
The Mercenary (1968)
Deliverance (1972)
The Getaway (1972)
Keoma (1976)
Sorcerer (1977)
Bound (1996)
A Simple Plan (1998)
Oslo, August 31st (2011)


My three favorite films released in 2024 (from what I've seen so far) were:

Dune: Part Two
Anora
Kinds of Kindness

There were many more films I really liked. Considering the circumstances, it's been a fun year of film watching yet again. Feel free to follow me on Letterboxd if you want to see which other great films I've seen and am seeing this year (I'll gladly follow back): https://letterboxd.com/PhilKerck/.

__________________
Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

all first time views for me. mostly foreign

the woman in the dunes
grand illusion
modern times
pickpocket
high and low
the cranes are flying
cargo 200
kanal
ivan's childhood
the face of another