Upcoming 2024 Movies That May Not Be On Your Watchlist
Written by Jake Mueller
Here at the Cinebums, we “pride” ourselves in doing very extensive year-end lists that account for the year's best movies, and in doing-so, it’s hard not to get excited when those release calendars and film festivals are right around the corner. Granted, not EVERYONE is as obsessive as me. Quick side-tangent: I treat the Cannes film festival like some treat the NFL Draft: a complete onslaught of fresh new cinema and auteur filmmakers bursting at the seams! Few pop-culture headlines make my stomach drop more than “The Palme D’Or Winner is…” or “David Cronenberg has a highly anticipated movie straight out of Cannes that had people walking out of the theater!” That’s my long-winded way of saying that I obsess over new releases like Angust Tully did over Miller High Lifes: I can’t quite get them off my mind.
And to make things more esoteric, I’ve decided to write about a few films that aren't your Dune 2’s or Furioasa’s of the world. I’m looking forward to a new George Miller movie just as much as the next guy is, but let me guide you to the local indie cinema. You know, the ones with butt-numbing seats and the guy behind the counter with the Basket Case graphic tee?
Love Lies Bleeding
Full disclosure: I have yet to see the director’s breakout hit Saint Maude which had made colossal waves in the world of indie horror cinema. While I catch up on Rose’s work, do yourself a favor and watch the trailer for Love Lies Bleeding if you haven’t already. Part queer romance, part revenge story - all through the lens of pure testosterone and bold filmmaking decisions. Mark you calendars for March 8th: Kirsten Stewart and Katy O’Brian may in fact be the next Thelma and Louise over their generation and we’re all here for it!
Sasquatch Sunset
We truly haven’t evolved as a species until we all see Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg butt-fucking in full-on sasquatch costumes on the big screen. Directed by the idiosyncratic Zellner brothers, Sasquatch Sunset looks nothing short of enigmatic. The Zellners are no strangers to striking a very hyper-specific tone in their films, and even more recently in television if you’ve seen demented but always transfixing The Curse. I’m always a sucker for a low-budget, subversive adventure story with a little bit of zany heart injected in for good measure. Sasquatch Sunset is set to release April 12th.
Nosferatu
Look, I don’t have to sell you on seeing a new Robert Eggers movie, especially when he’s tackling a gothic horror icon as famous as the genre itself, but I just couldn’t resist. Eggers has been on a very specific mission to inject his unequivocal visions around every cinephile’s veins. Both The VVitch and The Lighthouse have become two of the most discussed and celebrated movies in my circle and beyond, but for good reason: Eggers doesn’t fuck around behind the camera and I don’t see that every halting as long as he continues to find funding. I can certainly see Eggers having German Expressionist horror movies playing on loop while he munches on some lobster that he’s not very fond of…Christmas can’t come soon enough!
Anora
While we don’t know much about the specifics, the one thing we do know for certain is the reason why this is being so hotly anticipated: Sean Baker. Sean has often been described as “America’s Neorealist” for the current crop of independent filmmakers and everytime he has a movie in the pipeline, people take notice because they want the authentically visceral experience he so often provides. Take-Out, Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project - all portraying very particular and underrepresented sub-sections of the American landscape. And in my humble opinion, Sean is red-hot coming off of his most accomplished work ever with the propulsive American fable known as Red Rocket (2021), so we may be seeing him enter his peak as a filmmaker. Anora is set to premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Bird
American Honey was my favorite movie of the 2010’s decade, so needless to say I am beyond anticipating Andrea Arnold’s follow-up film. Similarly, we do not know much about a synopsis or a release date, but we do have a filmmaker who is hungry. American Honey was snubbed for much-needed praise coming out of Cannes, and don’t even get me started on the travesties that occurred on the set of Big Little Lies season 2. I can only speculate here but If I were Andrea Arnold, I would be eager to show people why she is perhaps the most slept-on filmmaker of her generation. It also doesn’t hurt to have tatted-up Barry Keogan and indie darling Franz Rogowski (coming off of Passages) in your cast list.
Honorable Mentions:
Blitz (Dir Steve Mcqueen)
Hard Truths (Dir Mike Leigh)
Janet Planet (Dir Annie Baker)
Welp, that just about does it! I hope my ramblings have inspired you all out there to add these to your ever-growing Letterboxd lists. And more importantly, try to go to your local Indie/Art-house theaters to see movies like this. It goes without saying that we should be supporting them financially in opposition to larger theater companies, streaming etc, but even beyond that - it’s just plainly more special to see these movies in a crowd of film nerds who were anticipating the new Wim Wenders or Sean Price Williams movies just as much as you were. But I digress, thanks a lot and I hope to do more blogs in this vein very soon. Keep watching movies!
Signing out,
Producer Jake