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If this past year has proven anything, it’s that, scoff as the cynics might, the world of film is actually quite happy and healthy, despite certain studios’ best efforts to drag it down. The fruits of many an artists’ labors are still coming to a front as the awards season gets underway, but Letterboxd has a few verdicts of its own to toss into the mix.
Per the social media site’s Year in Review 2024 page, fan sentiment from all over the world was aggregated in hopes of pinpointing the most beloved titles that this past year had to offer, with categories like Women Directors, Highest Rated by Genre, Most Popular By Month, and more shouting out a wide array of features, documentaries and shorts. That is, a wide array of films to bow down to Dune: Part Two.
Indeed, standing atop the throne of Highest Rated Overall is Denis Villeneuve’s bombastic follow-up to his 2021 Oscar nominee. Sporting an average rating of 4.4/5 stars and just edging out a second-place I’m Still Here and a third-place How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Dune: Part Two has officially established itself as the most beloved film of the year. Naturally, it also ended 2024 as the highest-rated action/adventure film, the highest-rated sci-fi film, the most popular film (i.e. the film with the most Letterboxd activity), and the highest-rated film to come out of North America.
But it wasn’t just the Dune: Part Two show, of course. In the Women Directors category, Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies — a film about the shenanigans faced by two newlywed women who somehow exchange husbands — ended the year as the highest-rated narrative film of 2024. Meanwhile, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light — about two Mumbai-based nurses and roommates who find themselves tangled in emotional predicaments — was the highest-rated directorial debut from a woman.
World cinema got its fair share of shouts, as well. Flight 404 (an Egyptian drama thriller about a woman who must acquire an emergency sum of money to save her mother’s life) ended the year as the highest-rated African film, while the aforementioned How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (a Thai film about a boy who quits his job to care for his dying grandmother in hopes of getting in her good graces for her lucrative will) emerged as the highest-rated Asian film. Elsewhere, the 2024 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo was the highest-rated film out of Europe, the animated heavyweight Memoir of a Snail edged out Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga as the highest-rated Oceanic film, and the highest-overall runner-up I’m Still Here — which earned Fernanda Torres her Best Actress Golden Globe last weekend — stood out as South America’s highest-rated film.
As for the more familiar faces of the round-up, those included Hundreds of Beavers (highest-rated comedy film), Nosferatu (highest-rated horror film), Anora (highest-rated romance film), and Challengers (highest-rated sports film).
Folks, cinema is doing just fine. Studios and box offices may favor a few too many inconsequential nothing-burgers, but the filmgoers of the world have shown us firsthand that great films are still making a wide, meaningful impact on audiences with their artistic depth, razor-sharp wit, and consummate emotion. This one’s for you, Ebert.