Movies Winning Most Awards in 2024
I'm betting you don't know most of them, which means you've adventure ahead.
Anora (USA): “Anora, a young Brooklyn prostitute, gets the chance to live out a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. When the news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened, as the parents leave for New York to try to get the marriage annulled.”
The Room Next Door (Spain): “Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter. Eventually, they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.”
Dahomey (Senegal documentary): “November 2021. 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin. Along with thousands of others, these artefacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what attitude to adopt to these ancestors’ homecoming in a country that had to forge ahead in their absence? The debate rages among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi.”
Afternoons of Solitude (Spain documentary): “Portrait of an active bullfighting star, Andrés Roca Rey, which allows us to reflect on the intimate experience of the bullfighter who assumes the risk of facing the bull as a personal duty out of respect for tradition and as an aesthetic challenge. This challenge creates a form of ephemeral beauty through the material and violent confrontation between human rationality and the brutality of the wild animal.”
The Life of Chuck (USA): “Based on the short story from King’s 2020 anthology If It Bleeds, The Life of Chuck is three separate stories linked to tell the biography of Charles Krantz in reverse, beginning with his death from a brain tumor at 39 and ending with his childhood in a supposedly haunted house.”
In the Summers (USA): “Latin sisters, Violeta and Eva, visit every summer their loving but reckless father Vicente. He creates a world of wonder but under the fun facade, he battles addiction which gradually erodes the magic, culminating in a devastating accident. Vicente tries to make up for the past. But wounds aren't easily healed.”
At the Edge of the World (Belgium): “Alexia, 25, strong-willed and idealistic, arrives as a trainee nurse in the closed ward of a psychiatric hospital, and meets Joëlle, the head nurse, who teaches her the job. Alexia is touched by the anger of Beline, a 20-year-old patient, who thinks she doesn’t belong there. Despite Joëlle’s warnings about keeping her distance from patients, Alexia gets close to Beline and puts all her energy into trying to get her out.”
The Devil's Bath (Austria): “Austria, 18th century. Villages surrounded by deep forests. On top of a hill, a woman has been executed and exposed for all to see after killing a baby. As a test. As a warning. As an omen?.”
Misericordia (France): “Jérémie returns to his hometown to attend the funeral of Jean-Pierre, his former boss. He has decided to stay a few days at the home of Martine, his widow. But a mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a strange priest will make Jérémie's brief and peaceful stay take an unexpected turn.”
These are not the final results of 2024 because the awards season will continue in the first half of 2025.
My goals are to show you that there are more movies in the world than in the Hollywood box office, and to get you to bookmark the handy website that Film Affinity is (English language, but its home is Spain).
I’m delighted that I have only seen the charismatic ‘Anora’ and psychologically chilling ‘The Devil’s Bath’ - I’ve lots to look forward to.
Happy, happy viewing!