The movie year, jumbled a bit by 2023's strikes, might feel like it's only just getting going. The box office is, finally, booming thanks to "Inside Out 2." But as we round the year's midway point, a lot of terrific movies have already come out — more, maybe, than you might realize.
2024 has accumulated a wide range of standout movies big and small, with and without sandworms. Here are our favorites: ' Dune: Part Two' Its box office supremacy may have been eclipsed by some animated feelings, but "Dune: Part Two" is still the most dazzling cinematic spectacle to have graced theaters in 2024. "Dune" was always going to be a hard act to follow, but Denis Villeneuve's continuation of Paul Atreides' rise manages to be both thrilling and deeply unsettling — a cautionary tale about a would-be messiah who you can't help but root for.
— Bahr 'I Saw the TV Glow' Jane Schoenbrun's sophomore feature — a dramatic leap forward for the filmmaker and a transfixing trans parable — is one of the most exciting movie events of the year. The film, available for digital rental, is a chilling 1990s coming of age in which a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"-like series called "The Pink Opaque" offers a possible portal out of drab suburban life and other suffocations. It feels chillingly, beautifully ripped out of Schoenbrun's soul — and it's got a killer soundtrack.
— Coyle 'Thelma' I have a tendency to overuse the word delightful. But I'd take them all back to give it to "Thelma," in which J.