The Best Non 2024 Films I Saw in 2024

12. First Love (1978), directed by Dino Risi - I've seen a few Dino Risi films this year (mostly for the captivatingly beautiful Ornella Muti) and all I can say is that Italian sex fare has no business looking this good. Through a succession of accomplished cinematographers, including Tonino Delli Colli on this film), Risi's films take queasy romantics about the possession of a young Muti (usually) to new heights, matching the actress's uncompromising gaze with set design and exterior shots that gleam with fluidity and clarity. The film, a tale of a retiree (Ugo Tognazzi) falling in love with an 18-year-old server (Ornella Muti), could have gone wrong in so many ways. But it holds together beautifully. Sexy without being overly titillating or puerile (it's far from the usual Italian sex comedy), slyly funny without exaggeration (a line reading about someone not being a communist anymore because a molotov cocktail exploded in their house), and ultimately humane in the way the characters gently slide back into themselves after a short time of having fun together.... the film says so much about the trappings of lust with minor brushstrokes. And as already noted, the film looks incredible. Colli often frames Tognazzi and the ethereal beauty of Muti colliding in perfect stature with the Italian landscape behind them or settling within a hushed winter snowfall that feels like a purification of the rolling temperatures of Tognazzi as he strives to keep the young Muti entertained. Risi's output is varied, but "First Love" is a hidden gem.

11. Blood of My Blood (2015), directed by Marco Bellocchio

Marco Bellocchio's "Blood of My Blood" probably reveals more on repeat viewings. Maybe not. Either way, his film takes a mélange of Catholic themes (ones he's put to a more serious test in films like "Kidnapped" from this year) and tosses them into a complex two-hander comment on temptation. The first half, taking place in medieval Italy where cinema's most famous naughty nun, Benedetta, meets her tribunal fate for causing the suicide of a priest is good, but the second half abruptly shifts into modern times where the same convent is the home of an elderly vampire (literally) who finds himself tempted by the nubile charms of youth.... but not to devour (again literally) but to embrace and hold dear. It's a time shift that would make the likes of Bertrand Bonello salivate, and the eighty-year-old plus Bellocchio crafts a beguiling film where either half probably doesn't mean very much (and often starring the same actors in different roles), but feels masterful and heavy nonetheless. And that shot of an old man sitting in the back of a car as darkness and light bounces of his eyes is just brilliant. "Blood of My Blood" wants to link the past and present in bewitching ways, and Bellocchio understands that sometimes cinema is an ethereal thing that grows in beauty the less it makes sense.

10. Conquest (1983), directed by Lucio Fulci - Lucio Fulci's detour into the sword and sandal (or bow and cloth covered num-chuk) fantasy is an endlessly entertaining jaunt through a foggy wasteland of two warriors (Andrea Occhipinti and Jorge Rivero) that maintains many of the filmmaker's most beloved gore tropes. Infused with a comic book madness of treachery, this is the type of fantasy where hands pull people into the bowels of hell, gold masked witches conjure ancient warriors to do their bidding, and rock creatures blend into their surroundings until it's time to pounce. And despite those curious imaginations, there's also an adult sense of nightmare about "Conquest" that rings true for Fulci's fans, including vibrating pores of puss, snakes, ants, and a wonderfully jarring unmasking towards the end that recalls any number of the walking undead in his long oeuvre. Obviously bankrolled off the tremendous popularity for the Conan franchise in an era where international filmmaking was informed mostly by rinse-and-repeat cinematic 'bandwagonning', Fulci's "Conquest" is one of the better exploits in the genre that at least reveals the filmmaker obviously cared enough to put his own perverse spin on the capitalist attempt.

9. Between Friends (1973), directed by Donald Shebib - "Between Friends" is a low-key Canadian heist film that deals with the unsettling emotional contours of three people (2 men and a woman) waiting to commit the crime. It's refreshing to uncover a small gem like this.... a film where the action is internal and the character's act like criminals on a budget. This crime-film narrative departure is evident in the opening scenes when Toby (Michael Parks) meets up with the crew he's driven for after a robbery to split the shares. When he states his role was a one-time effort, the film doesn't devolve into false machismo or theatrics. Instead, the group's leader simply says, "okay, man. buh bye". From there, the California setting is traded for the blustery, snow-covered Toronto where Toby re-connects with old surfer friend Chino (Chuck Shamata) and his girlfriend Ellie (Bonnie Bedelia). Unbeknownst to him, Toby has already been sequestered to be the driver for a plan hatched by Chino and Ellie's father (Henry Beckman) arriving fresh from a prison stint. The mechanics of a hard-boiled thriller are firmly in place, but "Between Friends" is much more interested in the complex dynamics that emerge when Toby and Ellie fall in love. The chemistry between the two is impressive and, for most of the film, filmmaker Shebib and writer Claude Harz are content to craft a film of hang-out lethargy whose biggest mystery is will-they-or-won't-they reveal their secret affair. But the crime must go on, and when it does, the eruptions of jealousy and turmoil become a foreboding shadow. Shebib is considered a fixture in the Canadian film industry, and this film proves his merit while bemoaning the fact he didn't get to make more like it.

8. The Velvet Vampire (1971), directed by Stephanie Rothman 

Filmmaker Stephanie Rothman knows exactly what she's doing here. Like other directors given some leverage within Roger Corman's independent New World Pictures, Rothman takes a well-tread genre piece and crumbles it into a sardonic, progressive tale of female authority and softcore ribbing. A vampire tale whose setting is a desert! A lead couple who exhibits nothing but carnal beauty and lopsided dialogue. Dune buggies. Death by pitchfork. And Celeste Yarnall as the titular vampire whose nonchalance and 70's shag carpet feels like the template for all the recent postmodern attempts to capture the vibe of said era. Add some dream sequences with a fixation on wonderfully timed dissolves and an ending that sees people chasing one another in a crowded bus station with the onlookers unsure of what's happening around them, "The Velvet Vampire" is the closest thing American film has to the gauzy triumphs of Jean Rollin films.

7. Gun Crazy (1951), directed by Joseph H. Lewis - Come for the perverse allusions of gunfire equaling sex, but be bowled over by the way Joseph H. Lewis handles the carnality between John Dall and Peggy Cummings. There's a scene towards the end of "Gun Crazy" where Cummings buries her face so close to that of Dall's as they lay together in a dirty marsh that's just transfixing. Yes, Joseph H. Lewis' film is a pretty simple noir of a cross-country robbing couple (handled in some pretty impressive back seat long takes), but at its core, the film is also a lurid ode to the fantasies and steel fetishes that bring a man and woman together (penned by blacklisted Dalton Trumbo). It's been done before by masters like Nicholas Ray ("They Live by Night") and Fritz Lang ("You Only Live Once"), and "Gun Crazy" is just as good if not better than those. And coming at the tail end of the 40's noir bonanza, Lewis' film reveals that not all of the fatalism had been spent just yet. He wouldn't make another film quite like this and I'm just sorry it's taken me this long to catch up with such a stone cold great work of film noir. See it the next time it airs on Turner Classic Movies.

6. Escape From East Berlin (1962), directed by Robert Siodmak - The second film from him on this list, I've enjoyed exploring the films of Robert Siodmak.... a filmmaker who deserves more credit for navigating the shift from early European success to Hollywood compromise due to World War II like fellow compatriots Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch. And politics (or the desire to flee its oppressive atmosphere) never seems far from his touch, as "Escape From East Berlin" deftly reveals. Released in 1962 (just a year after the construction of the Berlin Wall), Siodmak's film is a brilliant, taut examination of the obsessive desire to escape a country that brutally divided itself seemingly in the middle of the night. Starring Don Murphy as Karl and the luminously beautiful Christine Kaufmann as Erika, they're the young couple thrust together after Erika's brother is killed trying to literally bust through the Wall in the film's opening moments. Luckily situated in a house on the very threshold of the wall, Karl and Erika embark on a tunnel-building exercise that has to avoid all manner of East German sentries and neighborly suspicion. The atmosphere is tense, the black and white cinematography is transcendent (just watch how Erika's face is lit as she lies back on a couch in a darkened room), and "Escape From East Berlin" is especially touching for the way it handles then current events not as the prototypical espionage film that would later envelope the European escape film genre, but instead focuses on the personal stakes of a family who just want their deserved freedom.

5. Not a Pretty Picture (1976), directed by Martha Coolidge

The layers in Martha Coolidge's hybrid documentary "Not a Pretty Picture" are potent. The film deals with rape, and not only that of the filmmaker herself in 1962, but the actress portraying her (a wonderful Michele Manenti) at the same age years later..... creating a mirror of trauma abuse. We watch as the film intercuts between Coolidge's fictionalized re-telling of the event as well as the deconstruction of the emotions swirling around the actors as they rehearse. Add to the fact that this film was made and released in the mid 1970's and one soon recognizes the vibrant and raw intention of a female filmmaker examining the culture of sexual abuse as a necessary addition to the New School of American filmmaking and one that belongs in the conversation alongside so many of her male counterparts whose visions of male corrosion are widely regarded as the best of the decade. "Not a Pretty Picture" is a masterful example that expulsion of the old guard was not exclusive to Coppola, Scorsese and Cimino. While I settled for an AVI version of the film, it's wonderful to hear of its New York presentations in a remastered edition this fall.

 4. Goodbye Paradise (1983), directed by Carl Schultz - If I were sculpting a Mount Rushmore of neo-noir sleuths, the first would be Elliot Gould's Marlowe in "The Long Goodbye". The second would be Jeff Lebowski. Obviously, I love my "detectives" to be reluctantly oblivious, slightly impaired, and wholly suited for solving the case by allowing the devious world to open up its secrets in time without doing much except sulking around. Now add Michael Stacey (Ray Barrett) and "Goodbye Paradise" to the mountain. My first exposure to this niche of film noir called 'Gold Coast noir' (and I welcome more suggestions!), "Goodbye Paradise" is a lazy beast of a film. As the alcoholic, tie-askew ex-policeman asked to find the missing daughter (Janet Scrivener) of a politician, "Goodbye Paradise" devolves into a shaggy-dog tale of new age religious cults, assassins, bully cops, and old military friends with terrifying new ideals about the social economics of New South Wales. And through it all, Barrett inhabits Stacey as a man who'd much rather be bouncing amongst karaoke bars and drinking himself silly with the prospects of being a hardboiled writer. And if his inner monologue is anything like his scrapped novel, we've all missed out on Queensland's answer to Raymond Chandler. But solve the mystery he eventually does, bedding beautiful women and being the desire of young ones along the way, while witnessing the country come apart at the seams. More than a film noir (although its allusion to other great Goodbye films and pulp novels), "Goodbye Paradise" feels like the template for so many Coen Brothers movies, that I searched long and hard for any mention of this film out of the Brothers' mouths. Alas, there are none. But despite that, filmmaker Carl Schultz (whose biggest title is the Demi Moore psychological horror film "The Seventh Sign" several years later) has crafted a film so full of dazzling energy and subtle humor, that when things do go crazy in the finale, we believe the shenanigans because Stacey the cop has fumbled through the mystery right alongside us.... and seems to be the only one keeping his sanity. Marlowe and Jeff Lebowski would be proud. The world changed, he didn't, which seems like an integral part of the sleuth in way over his head. 

3. Lux Aeterna (2019), directed by Gaspar Noe - The run of films Noe has been on during this two year period is quite astounding. As a companion piece to both "Vortex" (in its visual duality) and "Climax", "Lux Aeterna" is a brilliant chamber piece freak-out. Made with financing as a short film by the fashion house of Saint Laurent (interesting), "Lux Aeterna" runs a compact 50 minutes, but it's energy and mania feels like something akin to an epic horror movie. Starring Beatrice Dalle as a filmmaker on the set of her film about witches burned at the stake (starring Charlotte Gainsbourg), the film alternates between long takes and a nifty split-screen compression of action as the shoot rapidly dissolves into in-fighting, confusion, and ultimately a strobe light cacophony of terror and confusion. Always one to push the boundaries of narrative storytelling since flashing an intertitle that warns the viewer they have 30 seconds to leave the theater before continuing on in his late 90's masterwork "I Stand Alone", Noe doesn't give us that luxury in "Lux Aeterna" before a punishing sequence to wrap up the film. Some dismiss his work as petulant. Others are indifferent. I love what he routinely does and "Lux Aeterna" is more proof of his distinct power to disturb.

2. The Spiral Staircase (1942), directed by Robert Siodmak - Coming midway through Siodmak's extremely proficient 1940's output that saw him draft some of the most influential noirs and thrillers of its period, "The Spiral Staircase" continues to reveal his mastery of camera angle, lighting, and inherent joy of withholding. Siodmak is a filmmaker obviously indebted to the off-screen menace, whether it's the hands of a killer in "Phantom Lady" (1944) or the gaze of a killer who only sees the infallibility of a person in their staircase mirror reflection in this film. For the mid-40's this is heady terror, matched only by the atmospheric, metaphoric underpinnings of someone like Jacques Tourneur. And when we do find out who the killer is, "The Spiral Staircase" swings at some metaphoric allusions of its own.... putting to bed notions of generational toxicity and giving voices back to those who seem to deserve it most. A gothic murder mystery. An old house whodunit. But best of all, the film is a masterwork of frame composition and atmosphere, full of red herrings and a shifting stable of wonderful acting that leaves the mystery wide open until the very end. I look forward to continuing my journey through the films of Robert Siodmak.

1. Handgun (aka Deep in the Heart), directed by Tony Garnett - British filmmaker Tony Garnett aspires (and succeeds) for far greater results than the usual revenge/exploitation genre most people think this film falls into. Yes, there are elements, but the film is also a highly evolved experiment about the tenuous lines of savage demarcation that, unfortunately, Texas still finds itself mired in today. From the "secede" t-shirts that some characters sport.... to the very disturbing preamble given by one knife wielding salesman in a diner (credited to a Bob Rankin- who was this creepy guy with skeletal white hands???)... and especially the large run time given to conversations about the nature of guns and colonialism involved in the founding of the South, "Handgun" is essentially a western overlayed on the bare framework of a 1981 revenge thriller.  And it's marvelous. Karen Young (later of "Sopranos" fame) is terrific as a young teacher whose personality is split after being sexually assaulted. I doubt there's a more allegorical scene of someone's inner transition from innocent to scarred than the unbroken scene of a pair of scissors methodically clumping off a head of hair. And while the film simmers towards its violent conclusion, it's most angry about the inactivity of anyone in power (the police or even the church) to help her. I gasped several times as the patience of "Handgun" creates such an enveloping atmosphere around Young's angry descent, never forgetting she's a real person and not an exploitation film caricature. Simply one of the best films of the 1980's.