The 20 best films of 2024

The 20 best films of 2024
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Director: Denis Villeneuve

If there’s one word to sum up Dune: Part Two, it’s “jaw-dropping”. Denis Villeneuve and his crew orchestrated some of the most mesmerising, awe-inducing shots and sequences ever put together in the history of the movies. Big talk? Sure. But you saw the film, yeah? “Jaw-dropping” is the word to use, all right.

Dune: Part Two, an epic of epic-ness, is truly heroic movie-making; landing in our eyeballs as a triumph of cinematic art and craft, with the production design again brilliantly mingling familiar sci-fi elements (spaceships, weapons, costumes) with a true sense of the alien (scale, colour, architecture). Add to this an all-star cast acting their socks off, storytelling with the dramatic depth of a Shakespeare play and we should be thankful in this increasingly depressing world of endless multiverse gubbins, blockbusters inspired by toys and emojis, that Dune: Part Two exists, quite frankly. Sci-fi for grownups – what a concept!

Did you know? Feyd-Rautha’s arena fight, where he kills three House Atreides prisoners, was shot on a modified ALEXA camera made to capture infrared. It gave the scene its otherworldly, eerie quality.

Like this? Try this! Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017). MC

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