Here’s a passage from Jon Fosse’s Septology:

“…there is spirit that connects the body and the soul, the same connection, the same undifferentiating connection, between what we like to call form and what we like to call content that makes a painting good, or makes a good poem good, and that makes good music good, yes, that exists when one thing can’t be separated from the other, when form can’t be separated from content, it’s precisely when they meet that the spirit in a work of art becomes something particular, that at the same time is totally universal…”

Green Border, directed by Agnieszka Holland, is a narrative film about refugees caught between Poland and Belarus. It caused political controversy in Poland, with the Minister of Justice comparing it to Nazi propaganda without having seen the film. Its story reveals the failings of European policy that would prefer to push away refugees from the Middle East and Africa. Yet the film is made conventionally, dampening the impact and overriding its revolutionary intentions. 

In contrast, the best films of 2024, like many other years, reflect the beauty possible when form and content merge:

1. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

What a title! Directed by Radu Jude, this film expertly uses montage to create a chaotic but stimulating effect. We follow Angela, a struggling worker whose creative life is stifled by the pressures of maintaining a living, although she finds an outlet in an extremely crude online alter ego. 

(Streaming on Mubi)

2. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

This documentary about the assassination of the Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, surpasses being an informational dump with its clever use of famous jazz artists and their work and moves with astounding energy.

(Available on VOD)

3. The Beast

The Beast is a disturbing science fiction drama starring Lea Seydoux and George Mackay. It jumps through time to show how developing technology impacts behavior and love.

(Streaming on Criterion Channel)

4. No Other Land

There are four directors for this film, some Israeli and some Palestinian. This documentary takes place in the West Bank where we see houses and a school torn down. It is shortlisted for Best Documentary at the Oscars.  

5. Blitz

Steve McQueen is one of our greatest living auteurs and Blitz has been wrongly ignored this awards season. It’s a World War II drama that resists typical depictions by focusing on the characters’ inner lives and does not comfort us by lying that the violence is only coming from abroad.

(Streaming on Apple TV+)

6. Oh, Canada

Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada is a profound exploration of an artist named Leonard Fife, played by Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi, attempting to come to terms with his past while approaching his final breaths. Leonard recounts his life for his wife (played by Uma Thurman) and a documentary being made about him, and we become as lost as him in strands of memories and experiences as senility creeps in and out. A young version of himself complains of a writer, saying “That’s not writing, that’s typing.” Later, it is mentioned offhand that an artistic inspiration for Leonard was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, who Truman Capote famously described as “They’re not writers. They’re typists.” The unreliability of his recollections is a combination of true experiences mixed with other lives and art as life slowly fades away. 

7. Evil Does Not Exist

Ryusuke Hamaguchi quickly became a world-renowned director for his recent success with Drive My Car and has continued his momentum with his latest, Evil Does Not Exist. In this film, a company wishes to build a glamping site in a mountain village which creates controversy among the residents. Through this, viewers confront their own relationship to nature and the implications of our environmental ignorance. It has the best soundtrack of the year by Eiko Ishibashi, but its greatest setback is that it was not an hour longer.

(Streaming on Criterion Channel)

8. Dahomey

At only 68 minutes, this documentary shows the return to Benin of 26 treasures stolen by the French from the Kingdom of Dahomey. Residents debate the merits of displaying the treasures in a museum and the lasting presence of colonialism. 

(Streaming on Mubi) 

9. Megalopolis

One of the most disputed films of the year, Megalopolis was at least impossible to ignore (by the few who saw it). It is also one of the most exciting American films in years, contrasting a country’s film industry that wishes to make everything as digestible as possible for as much money as possible. Its artistic risks can only be denied by sophistry, frightening because it is a film not made for audiences of the past or present if it can be said to have been made for anyone at all besides the director. 

10. Taste of Things

A terrible title! Starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel, a gourmet and his cook fall in love. It features some of the most appetizing shots put to film.

(Streaming on Hulu)