2024 First-Time Watches

Another year over, a new one just begun. I’ll have another post coming soon with what I watched from 2024; I’m spending the early part of awards season trying to cram some final watches, prep for having a baby, and keeping up with the Philadelphia Eagles. This post is a roundup of the “best of the rest”, the movies that are old to the world and new to me – my favorite first-time watches of the year. Streaming may not have been a good thing for the theatrical film industry, but it’s a heck of a miracle to have the entirety of film history more or less at my fingertips. Letterboxd was once again a critical part of my movie watching – it’s great to see what my friends are watching, track what I’ve seen, build a watchlist, and even discover new titles to chase down. If you’re looking to expand your own watchlist, especially if you intentionally want to travel backwards in film history, it can feel overwhelming to get started; in truth, it still is. I also know I’ll never finish, but I’ve got a lot of time to make peace with that. What’s been very helpful to me is relying on other people’s work! Here are a few places to start:

• The IMDb Top 250 is a constantly shifting list of films with the highest average user rating on IMDb.com, meaning that people like you and me have a hand in creating it.

• The Sight and Sound Top 100 Critics and Filmmakers lists are the result of polls conducted every 10 years by the BFI (British Film Institute) – this is a functional “canon” of the greatest films of all time, from across the world. For a more American-oriented list, you could always check out the AFI’s Top 100 list.

• Critics and film scholars over the years have published their own canons – I own “1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die” by Steven Jay Schneider as well as part 1 of Roger Ebert’s “The Great Movies”.

• Reflect your own taste! An easy place for me to start was tackling the filmographies of my favorite filmmakers/actors. Or, if you like a particular genre, start Googling lists of the best. Crime movies have always been some of my favorites, but as I travel back in time, I’ve developed a real affinity for film noir.

• Look for notable movies celebrating an anniversary – I’ve done “30 movies at 50 years” for 1973 and 1974 in separate articles; it’s been a great way to take in a wide range of film.

I won’t be going too deep on any of these movies; they appear in this article because I really liked all of them. So, this is a chance for me to recommend!

Big Screen Rewatches. I know this is cheating, but I had the opportunity to watch three of my all-time favorites on a big screen this year. The experience was something new even though I knew the beats of the stories – big screens, big sounds, and a willing crowd is THE way to experience film.

• Lawrence of Arabia (1963) remains the king of all epic films, and seeing a restored version on a big screen breathed new life into the classic adventure story.

• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is my favorite of the classic blockbusters (with a lot of love to Jaws and Star Wars) and seeing it with a crowd reacting to every laugh line and caught up in the perfectly constructed action was truly refreshing.

• The Sting (1973) is one of my favorite films that my dad ever introduced to me, and it’s impossible not to be charmed by the duo of Redford and Newman on a big screen together.

Mainstream Hollywood. Not everything I watch is all that old, nor all that obscure!

• The Verdict (1982) blew me away with its performances (Paul Newman most notably and famously), its sharp writing, and focus on the grubby process of lawyering rather than stagey courtroom sequences.

• Sorcerer (1977), a remake of the excellent Wages of Fear (1953), is a physical and grimy depiction of desperate men pushed beyond their breaking points transporting unstable explosives through a South American jungle.

• Jerry Maguire (1996) was a very enjoyable blend of rom-com and sports movie – Tom Cruise’s star power is immortal.

• Sideways (2004) is about as made for me as mainstream Hollywood will allow. I enjoy wine, possibly because of this movie’s tangible effect on American wine consumption, but I enjoy sharp writing, complicated characters, and excellent performances even more.

Favorite Filmmakers. Every year, I make it a mission to keep tackling the filmographies of my favorite directors. A few on the shortlist I consider the very best of all time are Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, and Alfred Hitchcock because of their impact on the filmmakers who followed them, the staggering amount of output they generated, number of genuine masterpieces, and consistency of quality. It wasn’t a super productive year on this front, but I liked everything I saw:

• The King of Comedy (1982) and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) were my Scorsese entries, and I was impressed by how off-putting King remains; it’s not as powerful as Taxi Driver or Raging Bull but is a very successful slice of black comedy.

• The Hidden Fortress (1958), similarly, isn’t as essential a Kurosawa samurai film as Seven Samurai, Rashomon, or Ran but was very worth my time. It was extremely influential on Star Wars and is a rousing and interesting journey/adventure film with memorable characters and performances.

• Comparatively, I had a pretty good year with Hitchcock! I started the year off with The Birds (1963) in January, and was impressed by how propulsive, thrilling and chilling it got once the avians that surround us started attacking with no provocation (unless, of course, it’s a manifestation of and punishment for Tippi Hedren’s desires). Later in the year, I knocked a long-gestating item off my list in Strangers on a Train (1951), which takes a baffling premise and makes it utterly gripping through an all-timer villain performance from Robert Walker. Finally, I closed out my year with Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock’s penultimate film that sees him return to Britain and put British society’s quirks firmly on the chopping block. It’s also the film where the sexuality, violence, and psychological issues that were just under the surface of all his best-known works are presented and discussed frankly.

Right Up Crime Alley. As I mentioned, crime films are my favorite genre, and I managed to find a slew of new favorite entries:

• Sexy Beast (2001) by Jonathan Glazer is a brilliant twist on the heist film, where most of the runtime is dedicated to the attempted recruitment of a team member. It’s a deeply stylish, psychologically unnerving and complicated film that is a must for any fans of the genre.

• White Heat (1949) is quite the “swan song” for James Cagney, the 1930’s gangster film staple, in a story featuring undercover police, a prison break, betrayal, and most importantly it lets Cagney cook.

• In a Lonely Place (1950) is Humphrey Bogart at his most psychologically complex in a movie that’s as much about people’s obsessions with noir films as it IS a noir film.

• Charade (1963) is about as successful a 50’s-Hollywood-Hitchcock rip-off as one could dream for and is as charming as classic Hollywood can get.

• Elevator to the Gallows (1958) is a French noir that plays as something like a tragicomedy – once the “perfect crime” goes awry, the ripple effects spread unpredictably, and the collateral damage piles up.

• The Long Good Friday (1980) is an engaging and bare-knuckled British crime thriller centered around Bob Hoskins’ Harold Shand, a gangster bloke who’s attempting to use all his underworld and “above world” connections to go legitimate, only to be drawn back into the muck by a mix of his old criminal life, the police, and the IRA.

• Prince of the City (1981), Lumet’s return to the world of dirty cops and informants following Serpico, is a restrained and heady film. There are no heists, but there is a heavy sense of paranoia and soul searching as Treat Williams’ Detective Ciello goes from informing on dirty cops and criminals to having to inform on the cops and criminals who raised him.

• Sweet Smell of Success (1957) might be my new favorite of the whole bunch. Featuring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster at their weaselly and amoral peaks as a publicist and gossip columnist, it is THE article of New York sleaze, sexual undercurrents and blackmail.

International Musts. Lists like the Sight and Sound poll often lead me away from my current place and time, and it’s hard not to appreciate the international cinema I took in this year:

• Paris, Texas (1984) maybe doesn’t count because it’s in English, but it’s a staple on all the lists of internationally regarded films, and by a German filmmaker, so then again maybe it does. It tells the story of Travis who re-emerges from the desert after four years and attempts to reconnect with his estranged son and wife. It’s a beautifully shot and aching film about the idea of, necessity for, and difficulty of reconciliation and forgiveness.

• Rome, Open City (1945) is a part of the post-war Italian Neorealist movement, meaning that it’s set in Italy, filmed in Italy, and essentially about Italian life during/after the war and features a cast of nonprofessional actors; the presence of a script is essentially the only thing separating it from pure documentary. This movie is a tale of German occupation, resistance, collaboration, and courage and is beautifully rendered.

• Walkabout (1971) is the story of a young Australian woman and her brother attempting to survive when they’re abandoned in the outback with the help of a young Aborigine man completing his coming-of-age ritual. It is a beautifully wrenching watch that tackles themes of colonialism, ecology, and survival.

• Belle de Jour (1967), by the great surrealist Luis Bunuel, tells the story of a bored and sexually frustrated housewife who becomes a high-end prostitute during the day to explore her fantasies. It’s a remarkable feminist portrait of sexual jealousy, with the key thesis being that men are simply unable to understand all the complexities of female desire, and that sex can exist separate from love. Progressive stuff now, highly controversial then.

• Ashes and Diamonds (1958) was recommended by both Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola on their Sight and Sound ballots, and I’m very happy I checked it out. It’s a Polish film about a young revolutionary assassin who had served in the resistance against the Nazis facing a crisis of conscience when asked to kill an incoming Soviet political leader after he meets the man by chance.

• The Red Shoes (1948) might just be THE masterpiece of all these masterpieces, which is really saying something. Powell and Pressburger’s tale of a ballerina pushed to the brink by a domineering director and a budding romance with a composer is just astounding. They explore evergreen themes of the collision between art and life, and self-destruction in pursuit of perfection in a film that is simply stunning.

I took in a lot of awesome cinema this year, and can’t wait to find some new favorites next year!