Fantastic Fest 2024 had a lot of heavy hitters. With big-name actors, returning franchises, and even some animation, the diversity of film at the United States’ largest genre festival had much to gawk at. From dramas to thrillers and comedic take on dark subjects, the best of Fantastic Fest 2024 spanned country, genre, and creative team. With some New Wave hits to established directors’ continued weird outings, here are the best of the fest.
The Creep Tapes
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The final Fantastic Fest 2024 Secret Screening, the first three episodes of AMC+/Shudder’s new series, was a highlight. Homespun horror is alive and well in Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice’s The Creep Tapes. We may not be getting a Creep 3, but we are getting snapshots of the Creep’s life, Peachfuzz, and some insight into exactly how many times he’s taken that ax to the head of someone who showed up to make some quick cash recording him.
It’s hard to balance the transition from film to television, but it’s clear that the film series’ existing format worked perfectly for sub-30-minute episodes. From a cult classic film to a sure-to-be favorite TV series, The Creep Tapes is weird, awkward, thrilling, and exactly what found footage is about. – Kate Sánchez
Sister Midnight – Best Picture: New Wave
Vampirism is a way out of your cage while also smashing everything else around you, not just the bars. Throughout the fest, I described Sister Midnight as a punk awakening through vampirism that feels like Wes Anderson and Ana Lily Amirpour came together in Mumbai. Sister Midnight begins as a quirky drama about a woman stuck with an awkward husband and losing a battle with boredom.
Then, it shifts to a journey of self-exploration that crescendos in a genre cinema love letter to breaking your cage, eating animals, and resiliency… oh, and being a vampire completely exhausted by stupid people. It’s hard to encapsulate the full journey throughout the film, but Sister Midnight is the witchy vibe that grows with each subsequent act before our lead decides to live her best punk life. – Kate Sánchez
Cloud
In traditional Kiyoshi Kurosawa fashion, Cloud is weird. All about the need for more and more money, Ryosuke is constantly trying to capitalize on reselling. Whether that means buying things cheap from desperate people for cheap or buying collector’s items for double the price to resell for ten times the price, he’s going to make a buck. But with upward mobility constantly on his mind, the people he interacts with may just hold a grudge for being exploited or mistreated, or they may just not like how boring he is.
With the help of his new assistant, Ryosuke has to do what he can to survive an increasingly weird string of events that put him directly on a forum’s hit list. Sure, they could have just left a bad Yelp review, but that’s too easy, isn’t it? Cloud has interesting gun fights, smart dialogue, and a penchant for using genre tropes in different ways to throw the audience off its narrative tracks before the stunning finale. – Kate Sánchez
Anora
Anora is another low-key masterpiece from writer-director Sean Baker, who displays in spades his ability to tell rich stories about real characters that society turns a blind eye to.
Mikey Madison gives a tour-de-force performance as a sex worker who ends up in her own Cinderella story, carrying the film’s screwball humor with extreme grace. Anora’s real power lies in its totality; by the end the wacky journey reveals itself to be something quietly devastating. It’s major work that should be at the forefront of awards conversation. – James Preston Poole
Escape From the 21st Century
An astonishing blend of sci-fi, comedy, coming-of-age, romance, and action, Yang Li’s Escape from the 21st Century is a maximalist whirlwind of emotion with a gamer heart. It follows three teenage friends in 1999 who gain the ability to transport their consciousness to their 2019 bodies. They soon discover that their future selves are nothing like they expected, and the world around them is quite bleak.
The movie has a frantic pace, a wacky tone, and a juicy array of humor that often appears out of nowhere. This is matched by a dazzling aesthetic that flawlessly incorporates animation into live action (think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World but 100 times more intense), either for comedic purposes or to accentuate impact during the out-of-this-world set pieces. It’s a spectacular odyssey wrapped in an existential package that smartly captures the anxieties of an entire generation. – Ricardo Gallegos
Heretic
I used to teach the history of religion to students in Texas. No, it wasn’t theology; it was about how religions formed, the historical figures who morphed religious texts and values, and the theories surrounding why people rely on religion as a moral pillar in their lives. Even without pushing confrontation with my student, it wasn’t rare to listen to a student confronting history as reality and seeing their worldview as something impacted by time and culture and not the word of god. So, the foundation-smashing Heretic hit hard.
In this A24 thriller turned horror film, Hugh Grant’s Mr. Reed attempts to take a jackhammer to two Mormon missionaries’ foundational worldview, and the fallout is what makes for a thrilling narrative. Relying on dialogue for two acts, the third pivoted into visual horror tropes and exploitive shock that thrilled the Secret Screening #2 audience at Fantastic Fest 2024. Hugh Grant is absolutely menacing while Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East hold their own and make a lasting horror impression for the year. – Kate Sánchez
The Wild Robot
Not the traditional pick for Fantastic Fest, The Wild Robot isn’t just beautiful animation; it’s also a salient story about love, family, and the importance of the people who step into your life regardless of their biological connections. With tears streaming down my face for about half the film, The Wild Robot hit me like a truck. A robust coming-of-age story for both mother and child, this film understands what it means to create entertainment for all ages.
It’s not about making something for everyone but focusing on the parts of a story’s depth that can speak to people in the audience who land on both sides. The film never rests on its animation laurels and doesn’t look to add exposition with pointless musical numbers. In recent years, it has stood head and shoulders above big-budget Western animation. And it does this by showcasing how thoughtful and emotional science fiction can be. – Kate Sánchez
Better Man
I rolled my eyes when Better Man was announced as Secret Screening #4. I don’t know who Robbie Willimas is, and I don’t want to watch ANOTHER biopic (after The Apprentice played in the second secret spot). But as I kept watching the film, the inspired choice to have a monkey play you as you voice him in an intimate look at your past insecurities, regrets, and trauma blew me away. With gorgeous CGI work, Better Man embodied everything that makes Fantastic Fest, well, Fantastic.
It pushes you to think about what you know about the medium of biography and allows you to see a universal story by turning its subject into a monkey. You don’t have to know who Williams is to respect the film, nor do you need to have already a connection to him to be moved by the film’s emotive choices. To put it simply, Better Man rules. – Kate Sánchez
Baby Assassins: Nice Day
Baby Assassins: Nice Day showed the Fantastic Fest 2024 audience exactly how much Yugo Sakamoto has honed his action-comedy franchise into perfection. With a ramped-up seriousness and stakes from the first film and the camp and humor of the second, the third outing for the babies Mahiro and Chisato is a perfect balance.
Redefining women in action, Baby Assassins: Nice Day is still rocking high-octane fights that vary between one-vs-many, two-on-one, one-on-one, close quarters, shootouts, and rapid-paced hand-to-hand in order to show the depth of what this duo is capable of. A stellar stunt woman fresh off of John Wick 4, Saori Izawa is an absolute legend as the film focuses on Mahiro’s backstory. Not to be outdone, Akari Takaishi continues her action reign, with more than one actioner on the Fantastic Fest line-up. – Kate Sánchez
Ghost Killer
From the jump, Kensuke Sonomura’s Ghost Killer finds an even-handed balance between laughs and action. A beautifully choreographed opening knife fight between Masanori Mimoto’s hitman Kudo and his would-be assassins is followed by Akari Takaishi’s Fumika on a historically awful meet-up for drinks. Kudo wants revenge, and Fumika wants some space, so when the latter is possessed by the ghost of the now-deceased former, the odd couple pairing works wonders.
Takaishi (Baby Assassins) adeptly balances a dual-persona role when Kudo possesses her, switching between cold hitman and frightened college student as she punches and kicks her way through a scene. Add Mario Kuroba as Kudo’s disgruntled former protege, and Ghost Killer makes for an eminently enjoyable theater experience.
There are fists, bullets, gags, and a surprisingly moving storyline about redemption, the price of revenge, and deciding to not let societal norms keep you from punching a dude who really, really deserves it. – Eric Van Allen
A Different Man
2024 is the year Sebastian Stan became one of our most vital actors. If the incisive, controversial The Apprentice didn’t clinch it, A Different Man certainly will. Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg (Chained for Life), A Different Man aims for modern beauty standards, insecurity, and exploitation in ways designed to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible.
A Different Man will linger with you far after the credits roll. Its hard-to-swallow, blackly comic take on exploitation, self-hatred, and jealousy is unlike anything else at the movies right now. Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson are a duo for the ages. More importantly, they’re a vessel for questions that Aaron Schimberg wants the audience to have at the forefront of their mind. The question is: will you dare to try and find an answer? – James Preston Poole
Bring Them Down – Best Picture
Directed by Christopher Andrews and written by Andrews and Jonathan Hourigan, Bring Them Down is the most uncomfortable theater experience I’ve had all year. The violent overreactions cascade one after the other in a quest for personal justice from a sense of filial piety. It’s all too much, and yet, I wouldn’t take any of it away.
Halfway between a drama and a thriller, tragedy is key to Andrews’ storytelling in Bring Them Down. I don’t know if I can ever watch Bring Them Down again. One time was enough, but it’s also all it needs to depress you and move you to your core. Pain is all there is in Bring Them Down. – Kate Sánchez
Dead Talents Society – Best Picture: Audience Award
John Hsu’s Dead Talents Society has such an infectious sense of joy, even while ramming a spike through the pervasiveness of influencer culture. The film follows the story of a Rookie ghost who must boost the number of living people who remember her–and in the afterlife, there’s no more surefire way than to start your own viral urban legend.
Dead Talents Society is equal parts What We Do in the Shadows and Strictly Ballroom, unpacking universally terrifying stories to reveal the comedically exhausting lengths these ghosts go to in order to evoke a fantastic scare. Hsu and a fantastic ensemble provide zany behind-the-scenes gags and a biting satire of Asian horror’s widespread legacy while also holding space for tender moments critiquing the fame and success-obsessed world we all live in. In the end, we all deserve our 15 minutes of fame–and to live our best (after)life. -Julian Singleton
Fantastic Fest 2024 ran from September 19 to September 26, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Contributors to this best-of-the-fest list attended the festival on press credentials.
