HAPPY NEW YEAR! And thank you for joining us here at RogerEbert.com as we share our film reviews, TV/streaming reviews, collections, interviews, journal entries and more. All of our contributors and their individual collections of published work can be found here.
None of it happens without this super Editorial Team: Managing Editor, Brian Tallerico; Editor-at-Large, Matt Zoller Seitz; Contributing Editor, Nell Minow; Associate Editor, Robert Daniels; and Assistant Editor Clint Worthington. And our super Corporate Team: Sonia Evans and Daniel Jackson. I am so grateful to them, and to all of you. Please kick back and enjoy as we give thanks to them.
To start your year off right and to help you choose some good viewing from among many of the best films of last year, I present individual top ten lists of films from over 39 writers and contributors at RogerEbert.com. In honor of my late husband Roger, I called them our “Two Thumbs Up” picks. My own Top Ten Films of 2024 list was headed by “Emilia Perez,” a film unlike any other I have seen, with a dazzling performance by Zoe Saldana and an outstanding cast of women who won the first Female Ensemble Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It also garnered 10 Golden Globe nominations. Other great works included “Hard Truths,” “Separated,” “The Nickel Boys,” “Nosferatu” and more. We also published a composite list headed by Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.”
Brian Tallerico was joined by his fellow television critics Nandini Balial, Cristina Escobar, Rendy Jones, Kaiya Shunyata and Clint Worthington in selecting the 25 Best TV Series of 2024.
All throughout the year, we were fortunate to have incisive film reviews and opinion pieces from so many whose names are too numerous to mention, but they include: Brian Tallerico, Matt Zoller Seitz, Nell Minow, Robert Daniels, Clint Worthington, Sheila O’Malley, Glenn Kenny, Christy Lemire, Tomris Laffly, Monica Castillo, Peyton Robinson, Simon Abrams, Marya E. Gates, Isaac Feldberg, Godfrey Cheshire, Carlos Aguilar, Katie Rife, Peter Sobczynski, Craig Lindsey, Zachary Lee, and others.
We also have to thank our phenomenal TV review staff, including Brian Tallerico, Kaiya Shunyata, Cristina Escobar, Rendy Jones, Nandini Balial, and Clint Worthington. Read all of their work here.
We had incredible conversations with prominent artists this year, including Rachel Morrison, James Mangold, Jude Law, Paul Schrader, Payal Kapadia, Jesse Eisenberg, Danielle Deadwyler, Steve James, Lee Pace, Guy Maddin, Sean Baker, Coralie Fargeat, Gregg Araki, James Ivory, and many more. Read them all here.
We also owe thanks to our Far Flung Correspondents representing many nations such as Gerardo Valero, Seongyong Cho, Scott Jordan Harris, Omer Mozaffar, Wael Khairy, Lisa Nesselson, Olivia Collette, and Jana Monji.
As we embark on a new year, I’d like to take a moment to look back at 2024. In January, we returned to the Sundance Film Festival, publishing dispatches from our editors Brian Tallerico, Robert Daniels and our contributors Marya E. Gates, Monica Castillo, Niani Scott, and Tomris Laffly.
Our annual Women Writers Week was held in March, showcasing the essential work of so many brilliant female writers. Here again, the names are too numerous to mention, but they include Nell Minow, Sheila O’Malley, Justine Smith, Peyton Robinson, Jana Monji, Monica Castillo, Carla Renata, Sherin Nicole, Sarah Knight Adamson, Marya E. Gates, Olivia Collette, Nea Ching, Audrey Fox, Violet LeVoit, Caroline Madden, Danielle Mathias, Ashley Merryman, and many more.
At the end of April, we held our latest installment of Ebertfest at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois. Some of our special film guests included Malcolm D. Lee, Eric Roberts, Andrew Davis, Lisa Cortes, Kishi Bashi, Christine Swanson, Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, and many others. And we are looking forward to welcoming you and more esteemed filmmakers from April 23-26, 2025.
In May, I returned to the Cannes Film Festival along with Scott Dummler of Mint Media Works, where we produced a series of video dispatches featuring our contributors Ben Kenigsberg, Jason Gorber, Isaac Feldberg and Robert Daniels.
Black Writers Week was held in June and featured the work of contributors such as Robert Daniels, Carla Renata, Jourdain Searles, Travis Hopson, Niani Scott, Peyton Robinson, Brandon Towns, Brandon David Wilson, Reginald Ponder, Cortlyn Kelly, Kaiya Shunyata, Doreen Spicer-Dannelly, Shawn Edwards, Eric Pierson, Odie Henderson, and many more.
At the Toronto International Film Festival in September, I joined Cameron Bailey and Marianne Jean-Baptiste in presenting Mike Leigh with the TIFF Ebert Director Award. Brian Tallerico was joined by some of our previously named writers to pen this year’s dispatches on awards season hopefuls at the festival.
IN MEMORIAM: We lost many extraordinary people this year, including Quincy Jones, Teri Garr and Maggie Smith. We also honored many more luminaries in our Tributes section.
Once again, I offer my thanks to all of our writers, and to you, our readers and subscribers for keeping film discourse alive and well. I pray for Peace and I am hoping that 2025 will be healthier, happier and more prosperous for all. Here’s also a wish for a year of FECK: Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness, and of course, Good Movies!
Roger, the conversation about movies continues…
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