My Favorite New-To-Me Discoveries of 2024
Older Films I Watched For The First Time This Year
NB: This newsletter is too long for email, so it’s probably best to read on the web or the app.
As always I watched way too many movies in 2024 and as always it was difficult to limit my favorites to a digestible list. This year I decided to highlight fifty-five of my favorite older films that I watched for the first time last year, why I liked them, and where you can watch them. You can also see all my selections as a Letterboxd list.
Yi Yi, 2000 (dir. Edward Yang)
Just a perfect film about the imperfections of family and the joy of childlike curiosity.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel
Mysterious Object at Noon, 2000(dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
A playful use of cinema to explore the nature of storytelling itself.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel
Around Is Around, 1951 (dir. Evelyn Lambart & Norman McLaren)
I’m just a really big fan of this color palette. So calming!
You can watch the film on YouTube
Mr. Frog Went A-Courting, 1974 (dir. Evelyn Lambart)
I normally limit this list to one film per director, but both of these films are very different and this one in particular went places I was truly not expecting.
You can watch the film on YouTube
Your Father Was Born 100 Years Old, and So Was the Nakba, 2018 (dir. Razan AlSalah)
I’ve written about this one a lot this year, but I just think it’s a stunning use of technology to create a truly haunting examination of the human cost of settler colonialism.
You can watch the film on Vimeo
Bread, 1918 (dir. Ida May Park)
Mary MacLaren is such a wonderful actress with a face made for close-ups, something both Lois Weber and Ida May Park used to extreme advantage in their films. I am grateful for the reels of this that are extant, but also I hope someday the full film will be discovered in a basement somewhere. Read more about Ida May Park at the Women Film Pioneer's Project and Kate Saccone's wonderful essay in BWDR.
You can watch the film as part of Kino’s Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers Blu-ray set
Kamikaze Hearts, 1986 (dir. Juliet Bashore)
A fascinating blurring of narrative and documentary filmmaking that is also stylish as fuck.
You can watch the film on Kanopy and Kino Film Collection
The Murder of Fred Hampton, 1971 (dir. Howard Alk)
This vital film not only traces assassination of the Chicago Black Panther Party leader and CPD’s attempted cover-up, but it also brings into sharp focus the philosophy of communal power and liberation that Hampton lived and died by. His words remain a clarion call to resist fascism, resist capitalism, and to live for each other, to live for your community, to live — and if need be to die — for what you know is right.
You can watch the film on Max
A Place of Rage, 1991 (dir. Pratibha Parmar)
The film features poetry readings by and candid converstation with and between Angela Davis, June Jordan and Alice Walker as they reassess the history of Black women through the lens of the civil rights, Black power, and feminist movements during the midcentury.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel
Palestinian Women, 1974 (dir. Jocelyne Saab)
The stories these women share are harrowing and paint an incredibly disturbing portrait of degradation and perseverance.
You can watch the film here
Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman, 1974 (dir. Jill Godmilow & Judy Collins)
A portrait of symphony conductor Antonia Brico as she struggles against gender bias in her profession. Documentaries like this make it crystal clear that the many leaps and bounds that were made in the 1960s and 1970s have in the half-century since mainly stalled, and what has been gained as been in favor of the rich of any race, gender, etc. over the well-being and upward mobility of the whole of society.
You can rent the film on Amazon
Vegas in Space, 1991 (dir. Phillip R. Ford)
The planet in peril is described as “an oasis of glamour in a sea of mediocrity,” and that’s an apt descriptor for this campy drag queen classic as well.
You can watch the film on Prime
Measures of Distance, 1988 (dir. Mona Hatoum)
A beautiful, haunting, and heartbreaking work that combines the poetic with the personal to craft something deeply political.
You can watch the film on YouTube
Occidente, 2015 (dir. Ana Vaz)
This film uses evocative images to trace the circular history of colonialism as it repeats itself through everything from recreational sports to food tourism.
You can watch the film on DAFilms
When Night Is Falling, 1995 (dir. Patricia Rozema)
So much to love about this one. Ruminations on myths and Christianity, human nature vs “moral law,” openness vs closeted behavior, fear vs safety, city vs nature, performing vs observing. Also, I just loved all the 90s new agey velvet and golden stars and mesh tops of it all. I spoke to Rozema about this one and the rest of her filmography for Autostraddle.
You can watch the film on Kino Film Collection
The Sun and the Looking Glass – for one easily forgets but the tree remembers, 2020 (dir. Milena Desse)
Really unique use of text and natural elements to tell the story of the isolated Palestinian village of Ein Qiniya, the slow erasure of Palestinian culture, and the work that’s being done to reclaim its history.
You can watch the film on Vimeo
Prey, 2022 (dir. Dan Trachtenberg)
One of several films I watched with my dad while I was home helping him after knee surgery. This film just rips. Period.
You can watch the film on Hulu
Interstellar, 2014 (dir. Christopher Nolan)
I also watched this movie with my dad and it made me incredibly emotional about my cat, Lady Brett Ashley, who I left behind with my parents thirteen years ago, but who still loves me like I never left her.
You can watch the film on Netflix
The Girls from Cafe Maxim, 1911 (dir. Unknown)
I always love seeing films this old where the women are just out there being chaotic and living their lives.
You can watch the film on stumfilm.dk
The Mechanical Monsters, 1941 (dir. Dave Fleischer)
As a big fan of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, seeing the film that was the inspiration for it on the big screen at the Music Box Theatre during the Chicago Critics Film Festival was a real highlight of my year.
You can watch the film on Plex
The Place that is Ours, 2021 (dir. Zena Agha & Dorothy Allen-Pickard)
This powerful film addresses the violent colonial root cause that created the Palestinian diaspora in the first place. In the film the director visits her father’s village, which was destroyed in 1948 during the first Nakba. In one haunting sequence she zeroes in on two maps — one made in 1938 and one made in 1948 — and slowly realizes just how many dots have disappeared from the map. Each of these “lost dots” represents the villages and families that were wiped out by the ethnic cleansing. She counts at least 600 of these lost dots. How many more have joined them in the last year?
You can watch the film on Vimeo
Hideout in the Sun, 1960 (dir. Larry Wolk & Doris Wishman)
I just love that this is basically a nudist film noir. Nobody made bad taste look as stylish as Wishman.
You can watch the film on Tubi
Children of the Great Buddha, 1952 (dir. Hiroshi Shimizu)
I wrote a lot about Shimizu as part of the MoMi and Japan Society retrosprective and this one was my favorite. This film explores the plight of war orphans with empathy, the strength that can be found in makeshift families, and the transformative power of loving and being loved.
Unfortunately this film is not available to stream or on physical media.
The White Balloon, 1995 (dir. Jafar Panahi)
When Robert and I tried Criterion24/7 just as this film was starting and it’s such a wonderful, gentle, and utterly heartbreaking film.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel
The Beaches of Agnès, 2008 (dir. Agnès Varda)
At the beginning of her idiosyncratic self-portrait Varda proclaims, “If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes. If we opened me up, we’d find beaches.” She then tells her life story, partially through the autobiographical elements found in some of her films, with her singular cinematic style.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and DAFilms
The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon, 1907 (dir. Georges Méliès)
Cinema peaked.
You can watch the film on YouTube
Hollywood 90028, 1973 (dir. Christina Hornisher)
Hornisher uses the exploitation plotting and the cameraman's job shooting porno loops as a way to turn the camera right back on Hollywood itself.
You can watch the film on Blu-ray from Grindhouse Releasing
The Little Girl and Her Cat, 1899 (dir. Louis Lumière)
Purrfection.
You can watch the film on YouTube
What About Me, 1993 (dir. Rachel Amodeo)
This is a deeply empathetic look at how anyone can end up on the path towards homelessness and a startling examination of both the kindness and cruelty of strangers.
I watched this on Criterion Channel, but it is no longer on the service and is unfortunately out of print on DVD. There is a version on Tubi, but it has an audio commentary layered over the whole film, which is super weird if you’re watching for the first time.
Lust, Caution, 2007 (dir. Ang Lee)
I saw this on 35mm in a packed house at the Music Box Theatre with Ang Lee in attendance for a great intro and emotional post-screening Q&A (he also sat through and watched the whole film) and that was probably the best scenario ever in which to finally watch it.
You can rent the film from most digital services
Let’s Get Lost, 1988 (dir. Bruce Weber)
This was so raw and dreamy and savage. Somehow both hagiographic and a brutal portrait of a man who was a big piece of shit to a lot of people in his life. One of the few docs that is actually as interesting as its subject.
The new 4K restoration of this film will be released from Kino Lorber on Blu-ray next week.
Slingshot Hip Hop, 2008 (dir. Jackie Reem Salloum)
Like the Irish-language film Kneecap, Salloum’s film similarly shows how the art of rap music helped a generation of musicians in Palestine express their own emotions and preserve their own culture. It’s a powerful thing.
I watched this on Le Cinema Club, but unfortunately it is no longer available streaming
Regrouping, 1976 (dir. Lizzie Borden)
The first film in what has been dubbed Borden’s “Feminisms trilogy,” the experimental doc places Borden at the center of a women’s group in New York City on the edge of implosion. All three of Borden’s films (this, Born In Flames, and Working Girls), are essential cinema because they are willing to not just explore the importance of feminism, but also critique its inevitable shortcomings. The films are a clarion call to keep striving, keep listening, keep discussing, keep working towards a better world for us all.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel
Moving, 2019 (dir. Adinah Dancyger)
As someone who has moved alone several times, this was too real.
I watched this film on Criterion Channel but unfortunately it is no longer available streaming
The Roof Needs Mowing, 1971 (dir. Gillian Armstrong)
A surreal peek into the macabre lurking under the banality of suburban life. Like David Lynch before David Lynch.
You can watch the film on YouTube
Pleasant Moments, 2006 (dir. Věra Chytilová)
It was absolutely fascinating to watch this back to back with her debut film Something Different (as part of the Gene Siskel Film Center's Entrances and Exits series). Lots of similar themes and concerns, but now brought to life with filmmaking thoroughly rooted in the digital age (sometimes felt very Dogme 95). Her use of the early digital camera technology is as innovative as anything she ever did playing with traditional celluloid.
I saw this at the Gene Siskel Film Center but unfortunately it is not available to stream or on home video in the U.S.
PlayTime, 1967 (dir. Jacques Tati)
Somehow Tati’s film is both the most joyous film ever and the absolute saddest. Cities are both a wonderland and a garbage heap. Really glad I waited to see this on the big screen (on 70mm at the Music Box Theatre!)
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel and Kanopy
Alma punk, 1991 (dir. Sarah Minter)
Feels like a film Sarah Jacobson would have LOVED. There's a lot of Seidelman’s Smithereens in this, but also dashes of Akerman’s News From Home, and then it becomes something totally, transcendentally its own.
I watched this on Criterion Channel but unfortunately it is not available to stream or on home video in the U.S.
Until When, 2004 (dir. Dahna Abourahme)
Annemarie Jacir is the producer and co-cinematographer so you know it will be a great film, and it is really a beautiful film, filled with hope despite all the destruction of property and culture alike.
You can watch the film on Vimeo
The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1969 (dir. Bryan Forbes)
I watched this during the Katharine Hepburn day of TCM’s Summer Under The Stars thinking it wasn’t going to be very good because most of my mutuals on Letterboxd had rated it poorly. But what I found was a film that is a staunchly Anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-extremism, pro-environment and radically humanist satire. A film that lays with the filmic form, using sound and visual editing in a way that forces you to know you are watching a film (a la Godard). I can see why if you were expecting a frothy comedy you wouldn't like this film, but once you know that's not what it's doing and accept its rhythms and themes, it's quite something. Danny Kaye is particularly stellar in his final monologue, which basically takes down the logic of trickle down economics decades before Reaganomics. This is an angry film and its righteous fury still burns today.
You can rent the film from most digital services
A Question of Silence, 1982 (dir. Marleen Gorris)
One of those movies that gets you fired up and makes you want to burn everything down.
You can watch the film on Hoopla and Tubi
Kwaidan, 1964 (dir. Masaki Kobayashi)
This movie RIPS. I wrote about it for IndieWire as part of their 100 Greatest Horror Films of All Time list.
You can watch the film Criterion Channel and Max
La Ciénaga, 2001 (dir. Lucrecia Martel)
Seeing this on a hot and sticky 95 degree Chicago evening and then coming out to hot, torrential rain was absolutely perfect. Glad I waited all these years to see it for the first time on the big screen. Such a striking, singular vision whose impact is felt so acutely; as I watched I thought back to a dozen or so films I've seen that are so clearly influenced by what Martel achieved here. Brutal, funny, uncomfortable, stunning.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel and Max
I’m Hungry, I’m Cold, 1984 (dir. Chantal Akerman)
Hilarious short film that satirizes the romanticization of runaways, heterosexual adolescence, and Parisian culture.
I saw this film as part of the New York Film Festival but as far as I can tell it’s not available streaming or on home video
Messiah of Evil, 1974 (dir. Gloria Katz & Willard Huyck)
This movie just looks so cool. I feel vibrant art direction is a lost art. What doesn't make sense plot-wise is made up for with the film's intense sense of dread. I wanted to vomit the whole time.
You can watch the film Shudder, Hoopla, and Tubi
Tully, 2018 (dir. Jason Reitman)
This was a movie that snuck up on me like one of those peppers you eat that is fine at first and then five minutes later you want to die. A few hours after I watched this film it hit me like a ton of bricks (and I wrote a lot about it on Letterboxd).
You can watch the film on Netflix
The Spook Who Sat by the Door, 1973 (dir. Ivan Dixon)
Astonishing piece of political filmmaking and filmmaking as a community effort. This restoration is a marvel and a gift. Definitely give Robert’s excellent oral history a read.
A new 4K restoration of this film is making the festival rounds and I’m sure it will be coming to home video soon
Two English Girls, 1971 (dir. François Truffaut)
I watched this for the Screen Drafts Truffaut super draft and I’m so glad I finally did. It has shades of Bright Star, shades of Maurice, and shades of the Brontë sisters, so obviously I loved it.
You can watch the film on Criterion Channel and Max
Dream Land, 2004 (dir. Laila Pakalnina)
Beautiful and hypnotic hymn to the animals who have unfortunately had to learn to adapt to human waste. Twenty years on, I wonder if life is still so vibrant in this dumpsite, or if the toxicity has won out over the wildlife.
You can watch the film on DAFilms
The Way Steel Was Tempered, 1988 (dir. Želimir Žilnik)
This was a hoot. I love the absurd humor. It's hard to pick a favorite episode, but it's either when the workers stopped working because of the chickens and then Leo threw roasted chicken to all the students from the window of his car, or the sequence with the wild boar.
I saw this on 35mm at the Harvard Film Archive as part of a Yugoslav cinema series but unfortunately it’s not available on streaming or home video in the U.S.
Cop Land, 1997 (dir. James Mangold)
This rips so hard. I love a filmmaker who takes his influences (a bit of Prince of the City, a bit Rio Bravo) and takes it somewhere wholly new. Aside from the Rocky series, this is Stallone's best performance by a mile.
You can watch the film on Hoopla
The Annihilation of Fish, 1999 (dir. Charles Burnett)
What an absolute GEM of a film. It's so funny and so decidedly weird and deeply romantic. It almost felt like a lost Flannery O'Connor story. I'm so glad I got to see this with an audience (closing night of Black Harvest Film Festival at the Gene Siskel) that ended with a one-of-a-kind Q&A with Burnett afterwards.
The new 4K restoration of this film will be making the theatrical rounds this year followed by a Blu-ray release from Milestone Films and Kino Lorber
For Cultural Purposes Only, 2009 (dir. Sarah Wood)
A brief, but powerful film about the importance of cinema as a form of archive, specifically of culture and human existence. But what happens when the archive of this cinema is destroyed? Memories of those films become their own archive. This film is in conversation with two other docs I saw this year: A Fidai Film and My Stolen Planet. I recommend all three.
You can watch the film on Vimeo
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers, 1972 (dir. Robert J. Kaplan)
I just want to be Tally Brown when I grow up.
I saw this at the Music Box Theatre with a great discussion afterwards by Corpses, Fools, & Monsters co-author Caden Mark Gardner. The new restoration by the Academy Film Archives has been playing art house theaters and festivals for the last few years so I’m sure a home video release will be coming at some point.
A Biltmore Christmas, 2023 (dir. John Putch)
The best Holiday movie Hallmark has ever produced by several miles. Catnip for Old Hollywood fans.
You can rent the film from most digital services or stream it on Hallmark+
Follow me over on Letterboxd for all my cinematic adventures in 2025 and pre-order my book Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors In Their Own Words, out March 4th!
P.S. - Don’t forget every week on Friday afternoons paid subscribers get my Directed By Women Viewing Guide, with picks for new releases and streaming hidden gems.
Oooh! So many to add to my To-Watch list. Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Kwaidan and La Ciénega are great! Happy New Year! Always appreciate your recs.