There is an early moment in writer-director Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow that permanently burned itself into my psyche. Questioning seventh-grader Owen (Ian Foreman) is participating in one of those gym exercises where the entire class whips a parachute into the air and they all sit down in awe underneath the concave enclosure they've created. The colors are a series of pinks, blues, purples, and whites, and as Owen wanders with aimless indifference - or so it erroneously appears -it's clear he's on the verge of an emotionally discombobulating epiphany.

This scene is one of many from 2024 that's stuck with me: A young girl has the image of her mother's fiery death burned into her irises in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. A retired military hand-to-hand combat instructor and grizzled small-town police chief stare one another down in dual showcases of committed force in Rebel Ridge. A fiftysomething former movie star turned aerobics instructor applies and reapplies her makeup before succumbing to suffocating, internalized self-loathing born from rigid societal beauty standards she believes she can no longer achieve in The Substance. A high-ranking cardinal in the Catholic Church cradles an escaping turtle as he ponders who should be the next pope in Conclave. The list goes on and on.

I needed all of these films. For a multitude of reasons, this has little to do with the theaters themselves. Escaping the pressures of a fractured and disorienting social and political climate wasn't just beneficial, it was critical to maintaining my personal sanity. Social media was a cesspool of vitriol and misinformation. Mainstream news sanewashed reprehensible behaviors and statements that went out of fashion in the 1940s, all in the pursuit of ratings and subscriber numbers that are no longer achievable. All of this and more helped make the theater a personal sanctuary.

The strange part? This was a cinematic year in which LGBTQ+ representation (whether fictional narrative or feature-length documentary) was stronger, more complex, and more intellectually compelling than at any point in years, maybe ever. This was especially true when it came to Trans-related endeavors. Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow, Vera Drew's The People's Joker, Dev Patel's Monkey Man, Josh Greenbaum's Will & Harper, Levan Akin's Crossing, and Alice Maio Mackay's Carnage for Christmas were just a few of the Trans-fueled stories that made a lasting impression.

But there's more. Edward Berger's Conclave made homosexuality and the Catholic Church a central facet of its theological discussion, throwing in choice bon mots about gender and intersexuality for good measure. Acclaimed filmmaker Luca Guadagnino began 2024 with the exhilarating Challengers and concluded it with the phantasmagoric Queer. Other notable titles include the broadly mainstream (Wicked, Mean Girls, Miller's Girl, and Carry-On), international spellbinders (Handling the Undead and Sebastian), and rambunctious indie darlings (Drive-Away Dolls, Love Lies Bleeding, Ponyboi, Bird, and My Old Ass).

Then there is Netflix's buzzy Emilia Pérez. Acclaimed director Jacques Audiard's audacious musical-thriller of gender identity and moral rehabilitation recently racked up ten Golden Globe nominations- including Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) and a groundbreaking nod for Karla Sofía Gascón for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) - to go along with its five awards at the Cannes Film Festival, which included the coveted Palme d'Or.

While I'm thrilled for the multitalented Gascón, Emilia Pérez still was not for me. I found its early sections (including a spectacularly awful musical number set in a Thai surgical center catering to Transgender patients) to be deeply offensive, its central plot to be nothing more than one-dimensional drivel, and its handling of complex issues relating to political corruption, international drug policies, and racial inequities to be shockingly tone-deaf.

Even though I'm certain the filmmakers and actors took on this project with the best of intentions, as positive Queer - especially Trans- representation is concerned, this isn't it. I felt that Audiard inadvertently supported the most heinous of rightwing stereotypes instead of subverting them, and it infuriated me seeing so many straight, cisgender critics patting themselves on the back for celebrating this messy monstrosity and misconstruing its messaging as progressive when it's anything but.

But we're here to celebrate the best of what I saw in 2024, not the titles that drove me up the proverbial wall (I stopped doing worst-of lists a decade ago). Thankfully, there was plenty to love. From the gorily flexible wonders of In a Violent Nature and the cleverly retro romantic sparks of Fly Me to the Moon, to the DIY rambunctiousness of Hundreds of Beavers and the wide-open Western vistas of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1. I could talk all day about titles as varied as Strange Darling, The Beast, Inside Out 2, Thelma, Daddio, A Complete Unknown, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Heck, even the better-late-than-never legacy sequel Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F tickled my funny bone. While I adore the original 1984 Eddie Murphy classic as much as anyone, I can't say that's a turn of events I saw coming. Without further ado, here are my ten favorite films of 2024, along with a few additional titles I felt were almost equally outstanding, coupled with five superior documentaries. Check each and every one of them out!

Top 10 films of 2024

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
I came out of the theater shell-shocked, inspired, devastated, hopeful. But most of all seen. Schoenbrun's brilliant treatise on storytelling, nostalgia, fantasy, friendship, and identity is an all-time stunner.

2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Miller does it again, fearlessly driving into the sand-drenched wilderness of a dystopian wasteland that's not nearly as far removed from our current reality as we'd all like to believe. The gonzo Aussie auteur delivers an action-packed opera of self-determination that precious few could have dreamt up, and even fewer could have crystalized into such a breathlessly kinetic reality.

3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)
Love makes monsters out of saints and saints out of sinners in Glass's monumental achievement of neo-noir body-building excess. Ed Harris terrifies, Kristin Stewart steals hearts, and rising newcomer Katy O'Brian triumphantly mesmerizes in a role of such herculean majesty that her performance will be dissected, discussed, studied, and fawned over for generations to come.

4. Ghostlight (Alex Thompson, Kelly O'Sullivan)
It's a literal family affair for stars Keith Kupferer, Tara Mallen, and Katherine Mallen Kupferer, a trio that digs deep to make this Shakespearean melodrama of grief, loss, togetherness, and artistic catharsis spring to life with such triumphantly heart-rending authenticity. Patient ears should attend, as they're certain to hear something magnificent.

5. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
Tennis anyone? How about a threesome? Or maybe just a vicious game of obsession with a side helping of crushed dreams and unapparelled determination for good measure? Love triangles have rarely been this sexy, with stars Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist melting the screen with their collective intensity.

6. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)
Saulnier (Green Room and Blue Ruin) returns to form with a breathtaking story of a former military man (Aaron Pierre, in a star-making performance) pushed to the edge by a corrupt police force (led by an amoral Don Johnson) that uses ethically dubious - if still legal - methods to shore up dwindling budgetary resources. While not the First Blood clone it initially appears to be, this thriller crackles with a disquieting urgency that's impossible to resist.

7. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
This is an essential post-WWII immigrant saga that could not be coming out at a more appropriate time. Corbet's epic of a Jewish Polish architect (a never-better Adrien Brody) building a new life for himself and his family in a rapidly changing America is a propulsive tour de force of orgiastic cinematic excess that's somehow still grounded in naked emotional truths so razor-sharp that they leave a purifying scar.

8. Conclave (Edward Berger)
Who knew an airplane fiction-style backroom melodrama of Catholic cardinals voting to elect a new pope would be one of the more vital pieces of LGBTQ+ storytelling to see the light of day in all of 2024? Witness the giddy fun of Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini going tête-à-tête over the pros and cons of each potential pontiff, then stay for the amazingly thoughtful discussion of sexuality, gender, race, faith, and identity that makes it all resonate with profoundly haunting grandeur.

9. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Fargeat's primordial body-horror knockout goes right for the jugular as it drips spinal fluid, wears skintight pastel spandex, and showcases the never-ending internal battles between the selfishly giddy excesses of youth and the depressed, mournful longings of middle age. Demi Moore rages against the movie star machine with expressively carnal ferocity. Margaret Qualley is equally superb as her petulantly narcissistic doppelgänger who refuses to accept that their two is one, and that neither can live a full, healthy life without the selfless assistance of the other.

10. The People's Joker (Vera Drew)
In one of the best pieces of DIY filmmaking ever made - a journey of self-expression and identity like no other, inspired by the world of DC Comics - Drew's incisive and original voice magnetically sparkles with intelligently sidesplitting vitality. Moments of uproarious hilarity are ingeniously coupled with scenes of intense introspection that unexpectedly brought tears to my eyes. In ten years' time (maybe even less), don't be surprised if this homemade comedy is heralded as a bona fide masterpiece.

25 more (because I can)

Crossing (Levan Akin), Evil Does Not Exist (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi), Flow (Gints Zilbalodis), Handling the Undead (Thea Hvistendahl), Hard Truths (Mike Leigh), Hit Man (Richard Linklater), Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik), Immaculate (Michael Mohan), Infested (Sébastien Vaniček), Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood), Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball), The Last Showgirl (Gia Coppola), Longlegs (Osgood Perkins), Lovely, Dark, and Deep (Teresa Sutherland), My Old Ass (Megan Park), The Piano Lesson (Malcolm Washington), A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski), A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg), Red Rooms (Pascal Plante), The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar), Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar), Tuesday (Daina Oniunas-Pusić), Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Merlin Crossingham, Nick Park), The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders), Young Woman and the Sea (Joachim Rønning)

Top 5 documentaries of 2024

1. Will & Harper (Josh Greenbaum)
I'm not sure this is actually the best documentary of 2024, but without question, it is the one that meant the most to me personally. This tale of friendship and understanding is one everyone, everywhere needs to see and hopefully learn something from.

2. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton)
I could listen to Martin Scorsese wax poetic on filmmaking titans Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger for days on end. Until that happens, I'm more than happy to watch (and rewatch) this documentary instead.

3. Music by John Williams (Laurent Bouzereau)
This feature had me in the palm of its hand from the very first musical queue. From Jaws to Sugarland Express, Superman to Star Wars, Fiddler on the Roof to the Boston Pops, it's all here. Every note. Every motif. And it's glorious.

4. Sugarcane (Emily Kassie, Julian Brave NoiseCat)
Not for the faint of heart, this searing exploration of an Indian residential school's systemic abuse of children and how that affects the nearby community is a journalistic triumph of the first degree. Unforgettable.

5. Rainier: A Beer Odyssey (Isaac Olsen)
I acknowledge that my adoration for this jubilant documentary is partially fueled by childhood nostalgia for all of those crazy Rainier Beer commercials of the 1980s. But there's more to director Isaac Olsen's sublime time capsule than meets the eye, and that helps make the picture one of 2024's most energetically vibrant joys.

An honorable mention goes to Elisa Levine and the late Gabriel Miller's engrossing Seattle-set documentary Sweetheart Deal, which debuted at the 2022 Seattle International Film Festival and picked up the inaugural Best PNW Film award from the Seattle Film Critics Society that same year. This outstanding picture finally went into general domestic release in September, picking up additional critical raves in the process. Make no mistake, this is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.