1. The Zone of Interest
Released in the UK in February
It might seem odd to award the number one slot in the best films of 2024 list to a picture I first saw in May 2023, but Jonathan Glazer’s piercing portrait of the family of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss has lost none of its devastating potency, formal daring and weighty significance with distance. A masterpiece.
2. La Chimera
May
A tale of grief and graverobbing, set in 1980s Tuscany and starring a sublime, wounded Josh O’Connor as the leader of a disreputable band of renegade archaeologists, director and co-writer Alice Rohrwacher’s beguiling caper has an untamed pagan spirit and a story infused with earth magic.
