2024 Year in Review: Top 10 Moments

The best moments of the year are those that simply brought the most of whatever it is they had to offer. The tensest. The grossest. The most thrilling. The most shocking. The most heartbreaking. The most transcendent. Great filmmakers know how to build up a sequence, a scene, and a moment so that it conveys the deepest impact. None of these moments can be taken out of the context of the films that surround them. Rather, they exemplify the best of what comes before and after them.

When I reflect back on the films of 2024, these are the scenes I keep returning to in my head, asking what it all means or how they accomplished this. Some are moments of grand spectacle that only the movies can offer, while others invite deeper questions about life and existence. Neither is more valuable than the other, and both are required to make the cinema the grand experience that it is. So, I share with you the 10 moments this year that mattered the most to me.

First, a couple runners-up: when Kelly-Anne and Clementine watch a video together in Red Rooms; when Kneecap perform “H.O.O.D.” in Kneecap; the final dance in Fancy Dance; the underpass sequence in Twisters; and the interrogation scene in The Seed of the Sacred Fig.

Now, the top 10:

10. Thelma takes a fall. (Thelma, directed by Josh Margolin)

Ninety-three years old at the time of filming, June Squibb brings such life and energy to the title role of Thelma Post that I believe wholeheartedly she could star alongside Tom Cruise in one of the Mission: Impossible films her character watches in this. She is sharp, funny, and spry – but she is also 93. Margolin never lets us forget the vicissitudes of aging, usually in lines given to Richard Roundtree’s Ben. Thelma refuses to acknowledge that there are some things she can’t, or at least shouldn’t, do, and we’re there with her every step of the way.

Until one fateful step. After a fight with Ben, Thelma storms off into the night, determined as ever, then she makes one wrong move – and that’s all it takes. She tumbles to the ground. The first time I saw this scene in the theater, I gasped. It was legitimately shocking. We in the audience intuitively know the dangers of an elderly person falling, and the movie reminds us, in mostly subtle ways, of this fact. But, you can’t believe it could happen to Thelma.

Squibb plays the moment perfectly with equal parts anger, frustration, and fear. A long, quiet moment passes, then Ben returns. He helps her up using a method he learned in a safety class at the senior center. The quest continues. This moment, however, lingers in the mind as the perfect distillation of the film’s primary theme: Just because you’ve aged doesn’t mean you can’t be a badass, but just because you’re a badass doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.

9. Ani gets tied up. (Anora, directed by Sean Baker)

The first 45 minutes to an hour of Anora play out like a fairy tale, as sex worker Ani (Mikey Madison) meets, falls in love with, and impulsively weds Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). The next half-hour plays like a home-invasion thriller, except that nobody wants anything except to have a conversation. We meet Toros (Karren Karagulian) and Igor (Yura Borisov), the hired goons of Ivan’s father. From the first moment they arrive, the train goes off the tracks – for Ani and the audience.

What this actually represents is the end of the fairy tale, the joy and opulence of the first act colliding with the harsh reality of the world. The spoiled Ivan makes a break for it, leaving Ani to wonder what the hell is going on with these two men she has never met, standing in the living room of the home she believes is hers. Things escalate quickly from shouting match to wrestling match to Ani being tied up with a phone cord.

The sequence goes on forever and you keep wondering how Baker and cast will top each wild moment, but somehow they do. By the time Madison is screaming, “Rape!” at the top of her lungs, the audience is stunned into silence, unsure if we can be seeing what we’re actually seeing. It’s the movie’s finest set piece, the dial being turned up to 11 on a story that starts at 10. It’s also the beginning of the end for Ani’s dream, and as fun as it is to watch, the truth hits like a ton of bricks.

8. Margaret goes into labor. (The First Omen, directed by Arkasha Stevenson)

The First Omen has no right being as good as it is. A prequel to a nearly 50-year-old horror masterpiece that already has three sequels and a remake, we’ve seen this formula go wrong much more than it’s gone right. Hell (pun intended), we’re less than 18 months removed from the truly dire The Exorcist: Believer. Going to the well one too many times can be deadly.

Against the odds, Stevenson makes it work. A lot of that is due to the work of leading actress Nell Tiger Free as Margaret, but spoiler alert, we’ll talk about her more in the top performances column. For now, let’s focus on Stevenson’s skill with putting together a horror sequence. 

There are a number of tremendous thrills and chills in this film – not to sound like an Entertainment Weekly blurb – from the riot scene to the first car crash. However, the director truly ups the ante in the third-act sequence in which Margaret makes her escape from the Satan-worshipping cultists with whom she has been living. It’s a harrowing sequence with one shocking twist after another, better seen than described, so I will leave it to you to seek out. Suffice it to say that each moment builds on itself until the sum of the parts is greater than you could have imagined.

7. Monstro Elisasue hosts the New Year’s Eve special. (The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat)

Fargeat’s style is the definition of maximalism, a go-big-or-go-home approach finely tuned to wring the most possible spectacle from her scenarios. In filmmaking terms, “the substance” may as well be steroids, and it’s wonderfully exciting. When subtlety is not the point, anything can happen, and how often do we get to be surprised at the movies anymore?

The tale of Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle and Margaret Qualley’s Sue (just Sue) is not particularly grounded to begin with, but in the last 20 minutes, Fargeat goes full 1950s monster movie. No joke, characters in this movie literally stand up from their seats, point their fingers, and yell, “The monster!” “Shoot the monster!” and “It’s a freak!”

Then, in one of the movie’s many unsubtle metaphors, the ones pointing their fingers are the ones who end up with blood on their hands. And their faces. And their suits. Really, on everything. We’re talking geysers of blood erupting from orifices just invented for this movie. It was serial killer John Doe in Seven who said: “Wanting people to listen … you have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.” Fargeat, now and forever, has our strict attention.

6. “What kind of American are you?” (Civil War, directed by Alex Garland)

Garland’s superlative war film is being unfairly lost in the Academy Awards fray, presumably because it was released so early in the year. At more than $100 million in worldwide box office, though, this is A24’s second-biggest hit ever, so good for them. One imagines, however, that a later-year release may have ensured the film would be recognized for its considerable crafts. 

Regardless, we have the work, and it is considerable. Garland expertly captures the uncertainty and paranoia inherent in the conflict he is portraying. He builds tension through the slow burn of having to work your way across a devastated landscape in which you have no idea who your friends and enemies are. Perhaps more importantly, they have no idea who you are.

Jesse Plemmons gives one of the year’s great one-scene performances as a militiaman who captures our protagonists and holds them at gunpoint, questioning what kind of Americans they are. It’s another way of asking, simply, ‘Are you like me or are you not like me?’ which is what the whole American mood seems to have boiled down to at this point. With me or against me. My tribe or not. Does your life have value, or doesn’t it? It’s a scary time, getting scarier, and Garland nails it.

5. Bob and Joan perform “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” (A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold)

There are two love triangles at the heart of Mangold’s wonderful Bob Dylan biopic: the first is among Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), and Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning); the second is Bob Dylan, the past, and the future. At the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, Bob settles all accounts, whether he means to or not.

The whole movie builds to the infamous “Dylan goes electric” moment, and that is pulled off flawlessly by Mangold, Chalamet, and Co. But, that’s the plot climax. The emotional climax of the film comes the day before when Bob invites his long-estranged ex, Sylvie, to watch him perform. On a whim, though not without some prodding, she agrees. They go and Bob is called onstage to perform his hit “It Ain’t Me, Babe” with ex-lover Joan, who by this point, barely tolerates him.

Their performance is tremendous – four performers at the absolute peak of their powers, Bob and Joan and Chalamet and Barbaro. Mangold’s camera, however, centers Sylvie in the wings, heart shattering as she watches the man she loves share something with another woman – and with the world – that she could never share with him. The moment is equally beautiful and crushing, signifying that Bob is lost to her but also that Bob may be inherently uncatchable.

4. Rain navigates a maze of blood in zero gravity. (Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Álvarez)

It’s kind of wild that Romulus is the ninth theatrical Alien feature film. “Unsuspecting crew meets a vicious and unrelenting alien” is just a reliably sturdy premise. Of the nine, I’d rank Romulus smack dab in the middle. Álvarez, of course, is a master at building suspense and crafting terror, so it’s always a ride. But, this film is content to play the hits and rarely breaks new ground – with one glorious exception.

Romulus takes the Aliens, more-is-more approach and gives us lots of xenomorphs. And, one of the key things we know about xenomorphs is that their blood is highly acidic. Like, burn through multiple levels of an industrial mining ship acidic. Álvarez makes excellent use of this terrifying fact throughout Romulus, but the pièce de resistance comes toward the end of the second act, when our heroes have their backs against a wall, facing down a horde of aliens.

They can’t shoot the aliens because the blood will burn through the hull of the ship, causing catastrophic failure. However, we learn early on that the gravity on this ship can be turned off for a short period of time. Turn off the gravity and the blood floats. But remember, their backs are against a wall. The only way out is through the blood maze. It’s one of the most gripping sequences I’ve seen in any Alien movie. Credit to Álvarez and everyone involved here that nine movies into a franchise, they still found a way to show us something we had never seen before.

3. Cat and bird climb the mountain. (Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis)

Much of the animated masterpiece Flow is rooted in reality, a heightened sci-fi-esque future reality, but reality nonetheless. Meaning, carnivores eat meat, if you don’t have gills, the rising water level will eventually drown you, and cats are mercurial under the best of circumstances. We accept all of these things and happily go along for the ride.

Then, late into a relatively short movie, Zilbalodis gets transcendental on us and crafts the single most beautiful sequence of the year. Our protagonist is a small black cat who picks up a variety of animal friends throughout the film, including a secretary bird who has been looking out for the cat in ways both seen and unseen. Their connection is one of the key emotional fulcrums of the movie, so when they get separated in a storm, it is devastating.

Eventually, they reunite at the top of a mountain, where time and space and reality itself seem to fold in on each other. The rain reverses direction, returning to the sky above. The heavens part. Cat and bird float into the clouds, but only one is prepared to transcend. The other clings to the earth, to life, the will to survive being innate. Call it god. Call it the universal connection among all things. Call it an acid trip at the end of days. Whatever it is, it is breathtaking.

2. Paul Atreides rides a sandworm. (Dune Part Two, directed by Denis Villeneuve)

In my At the Movies piece, I took time to write a paean to the beauty of the small, quiet movie and the need for meditative space at the cinema. I believe that with all my soul. But, sometimes, Paul Atreides rides a freakin’ sandworm through the desert, and you just have to get up from your comfy movie theater seat and applaud.

As the most recent crop of Star Wars projects largely dropped the ball (give or take a Last Jedi or Rogue One), a gap in the culture was created for high-minded space opera. With his Dune series, Villeneuve has only been all too happy to fill that gap. I can’t say that I’m 100 percent buying everything this franchise is selling, its champions perhaps placing the films on too high a pedestal. That said, no one is making movies like this these days, and when you want an epic tale on the grandest scale about intergalactic warfare and centuries-long birth conspiracies, accept no substitutes.

Honestly, there’s too much plot going on to fully set up this moment in the movie in these brief paragraphs. The short version is that Paul (Chalamet again, having just a helluva 13 months, going all the way back to Wonka) is embedded with the Fremen people and may or may not be their messiah. For reasons, it’s important that he ride a sandworm, so of course, he rides the biggest one. Conveniently for us, he does so in IMAX, and for about five minutes, we remember why cinemas need such big screens.

1. Cardinal Lawrence casts a vote for himself. (Conclave, directed by Edward Berger)

Conclave is a locked-door thriller all about electoral procedure that turns on who votes for whom and why. Yeah, it achieved a certain amount of relevance in 2024, but that’s not what makes it great. The achievement of this film is the way that Berger, fresh off the accomplishment of All Quiet on the Western Front, infuses every moment with drama and tension, using little more than the weight of moral inquiry. 

It’s a movie about decisions. For the audience to care, those decisions must have meaning, and the audience must understand that meaning both intellectually and emotionally. Berger and screenwriter Peter Straughan do an expert job of communicating that meaning, and Ralph Fiennes, portraying Cardinal Lawrence, carries that burden effortlessly.

The titular conclave has one purpose: to elect a new pope. There are a few viable candidates, and over the course of the film, that pool of candidates narrows, and it becomes clear that this is an election about the very soul of the church. Will they move backward or forge new paths (again, relevant)? Lawrence finds himself in the midst of a crisis of faith, not lacking belief in god but rather in the institution of the church. He does not want to be pope, but certain interested parties insist that not only should he be pope but that deep down, he must want it. They all want it.

So, when push comes to shove, Lawrence finally votes for himself – and all hell breaks loose. The how is one of the year’s great cinematic surprises, so I will not reveal it here. But in this moment, everything comes to a head: the weight of history, the burden of expectation, the fecklessness of our institutions. The world may be run by (mostly) men in locked rooms, but while they hide in their bunkers, the world turns. They can neither stop it nor control it. They play their games while the rest of us simply want to live our lives.

2024 Year in Review: At the Movies

Last year, I introduced an adventures-in-moviegoing-style column to the Year in Review series. This year, I christen it At the Movies, in tribute to my favorite writer and critic, Roger Ebert. In April 2025, it will be 12 years since his death, but he is never far from my mind or my heart, and whether consciously or not, I carry him with me every time I walk into the theater.

In the spring, I read Matt Singer’s essential Opposable Thumbs, which recounts the history of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert as professional rivals entered into a mutually beneficial pact that evolved into a unique brotherhood. It also tells the tale of Siskel and Ebert™, the cultural force that would define the way generations watched, discussed, and thought about movies. It gets my highest Last Cinema Book Club recommendation. (Remember when I tried to make that a thing? Perhaps I’ll bring it back.)

I wrote the following in this piece last time around: “We’ll start in my neighborhood, a scant 10-minute walk from my front door, at the Highland Park Theater, itself the subject of closure rumors. As of now, it survives.” From the time I published those words, it would survive just another 51 days. The 100-year-old theater closed Feb. 29, 2024. 

Community chatter about potentially reopening it started pretty much immediately but died out quickly after. It sits vacant, the marquee marked by graffiti. Most days, you still can see inside. Despite the end-of-February closure, for a while, someone continued to update the posters in the lobby. The last such update came with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which released May 10. That poster still hangs, and there is something haunting about that ghost of a theater forever advertising a film it never got to show and probably never will.

There are many such haunted houses in the city, the most prominent of which is probably the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard. One of the COVID pandemic’s many economic casualties, the dome just sits there at that vacant intersection, waiting for some hero of the cinema to come save it. It supposedly was set for a 2025 reopening, but the last anyone heard about that was in 2023. I’ll give it a couple more years, then start the Last Cinerama Dome Standing Fund and buy it myself, if necessary. Quentin Tarantino can’t save them all.

And, that’s as fine a transition as any to a May 22 screening of Pulp Fiction at Tarantino’s own New Beverly Cinema. The theater hosted a week of showings to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the film’s triumphant debut at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or. Though I had seen the film bordering on 50 times, I had never seen it on the big screen. It was like seeing it with fresh eyes. Everything that is radical and inventive and shocking about that film – the kinds of rough edges that get sanded away by cultural ubiquity – felt new and exciting again.

A couple weeks before, I caught Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece High and Low at the New Beverly, as well. It’s hardly breaking new ground to call it one of the great director’s best. I look forward to Spike Lee and Denzel Washington reinterpreting and remixing the premise for our modern age with a film that is slated to come out in 2025.

Staying on that side of town, the programming at the Academy Museum continues to impress, as one might expect. A couple days before Pulp Fiction at the New Bev, I visited the Academy for a screening of the Telugu megahit RRR. This was my fourth viewing but first in a theater. It is a spectacle that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible with the loudest speakers, both of which describe the Academy Museum to a ‘T.’ The crowd was raucous and lively, cheering and hooting and hollering. Super fans compared résumés – ‘I’ve seen it 15 times in theaters’; ‘I’ve seen it 20!’ I had a wonderful time, but once is enough, thanks.

On the other hand, a couple days after my birthday in July, the Academy screened a film I could never tire of watching. The Addams Family is on a short list of films that potentially could lay claim to the title of movie I have seen the most times in my life. My best guess puts it right at the top, just ahead of Addams Family Values. It was shown as part of the Branch Selects program, in which a different branch of the Academy selects a movie each week that represents the best of its craft. This particular screening was hosted by the Makeup and Hairstylists branch and was preceded by an introduction by Kevin Haney, one of the film’s makeup artists.

Seeing it on the big screen was a reminder of what a miracle that film is. It could have been a cash grab, a relatively untapped piece of IP, generated to prey on Boomer nostalgia. In that respect, it worked and was a massive hit. But, it is also a beautifully crafted piece of art when it didn’t need to be. The depth and texture of the set design. The inventiveness of the camera moves. Of course, that wonderful makeup. Those performances. A C+ movie would have been a hit. These artists went for the A+ and the extra credit. Their reward: a legacy as a multigenerational cultural touchstone.

From one gothic treat to another, my annual sojourn to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for its Halloween programming consisted of a night under the stars watching modern horror anthology classic Trick ‘r Treat. Director Michael Dougherty made a surprise appearance before the screening to talk a little about the difficulty in getting the film made. He seemed genuinely moved to be speaking to a thousand-plus fans who made the trip out to demonstrate their love for his creation.

The programming of the American Cinematheque is a highlight of any year of moviegoing. I didn’t make it out to the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica as much as might have liked, though advanced screenings of Nickel Boys and Nightbitch were particular highlights. Likewise, I still have not attended a film at the newly reopened Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, but I expect to rectify that in 2025. On the other hand, I found myself at the Los Feliz 3 often for many of the Cinematheque’s wonderful offerings.

In July, I caught an early showing of Sean Wang’s excellent coming-of-age film Dìdi. Wang and cast members Izaac Wang and Joan Chen hung out for a truly insightful Q&A afterward. In October, I attended a special double bill of Guy Maddin’s Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton and My Winnipeg, part of a tribute to the filmmaker in honor of his latest release, Rumours. Maddin spoke afterward and was exactly as rye, prickly, and brilliant as I had always hoped. 

Finally, in December, the Cinematheque presented a series of Steve McQueen films around the release of Blitz. I attended a late-night showing of Lovers Rock, widely considered the crowning achievement of the filmmaker’s monumental Small Axe. You’ll hear no argument from me, and it was an absolute privilege to see this Amazon-produced pandemic release on the big screen, where it belongs.

There were other special experiences this year such as catching writer-director-star Lake Bell and cast at the Eagle Theatre for a 10th anniversary screening of her excellent debut, In a World; a very early screening of the magnificent Sing Sing at the Alamo Drafthouse with a live-streamed cast Q&A afterward; and the Alamo’s Bob Dylan Costume Party attached to an advanced showing of A Complete Unknown.

But, I’d like to close with some thoughts on three movies that reminded me of what I love so much about the cinema. I saw a lot of blockbusters this year and probably caught more movies in IMAX than in any previous year that I can recall. Dune Part II, Twisters, Alien: Romulus, etc. Spectacle is alive and well on the big screen. I support that fully. I am a great enjoyer of popcorn and soda and explosions and stunning vistas and grand images projected to unfathomable heights.

This year, however, what I appreciated most were the movies with the opposite intent. If cinema is the only church I attend – and it is – then occasionally, I’d like that church to be a place of reflection and meditation, of peace, calm, and tranquility. So much of life is noise and distraction that to find two hours, more or less, to be unburdened, unbothered, and untethered feels like a necessary balm for the spiritual wounds we endure.

Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, Ryuske Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, and Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light could rightly be classified as slow cinema, but I prefer to think of them as the cinema of mindfulness. There is no room for split attention. You are either fully in or fully out. These films insist that you be present in the moment, that you engage your mind, body, and spirit, and that you give yourself over to these filmmakers and their worlds. It’s a rare and humbling thing when it happens, and it speaks to everything I want from the cinema. Here’s to another great year at the movies.

2024 Year in Review: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world

No one who knows me or follows this site will be surprised to learn that on Jan. 7, I was on my way to a movie. I am often on my way to or from a movie, but what made this particular sojourn eventful was that it came amid a historic windstorm here in Los Angeles. That windstorm would lead directly to one of the most catastrophic fire disasters in state history. 

As I type this, those fires continue to burn. The smoke from the nearer of the two major fires – the Eaton Fire, raging in the hills above Pasadena – has clouded my home to one degree or another for seven straight days. It is a cruel irony that I am prepared to brave the smoky conditions because of the facemasks I have left over from the last catastrophic event to destroy lives and shake the foundations of our institutions.

At the time I was headed to the movies on that fateful day, I was aware that the Palisades Fire had begun and that it was getting worse. Thousands were without power, and in fact, the street lights on much of the route to the theater were out. It was dark and eerie. Winds howled and blew debris back and forth across the road. The neighborhood was abnormally vacant.

A view from my office of the Palisades Fire on Day 1, taken by my company's CEO.

This was at the Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock, home of Vidiots, which I have mentioned a number of times before on this site. I was attending a screening of Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s Porcelain War, about a pair of married artists in Ukraine, forced to take up arms to defend their homeland from the Russian invasion. Collaborating with the US-based Bellomo, Leontyev and partner Anya Stasenko document their lives, their work, and their daily experience under constant threat of attack. It is a truly powerful piece of art that offers a firsthand account of a conflict most know only from cable news.

Leontyev, Stasenko, Bellomo, and producer Paula DuPré Presmen were in attendance, along with Leontyev and Stasenko’s small dog, Frodo. If you see the movie, you cannot forget Frodo. I thought on the irony of these real-life heroes sitting before me, having come here from a war zone only to find themselves bit players in a disaster movie.

One woman in the audience stood to ask whether Leontyev and Stasenko were concerned about the incoming US administration – one which has given considerable comfort to the enemy over the years – and the impact that might have on their fight. Leontyev dismissed this notion, suggesting that the Ukrainian people can hardly be bothered with American politics while trapped in their homes and enduring 23 hours a day of shelling. 

Their concerns are much more immediate, and both expressed a firm desire to return home as soon as possible to rejoin the fight for their land, their culture, and their very existence. They talked about participating in the making of Porcelain War because, as artists, they recognize that a people’s culture is equivalent to a people’s history. This film is an everlasting document, recording the Ukrainian people’s struggle and resolve. It cannot be destroyed.

Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, and Frodo, after the Jan. 7 screening of Porcelain War

Here, on our shores, the war we wage is not against a threat from without but from within. It is a fight for culture and decency and for a nation’s soul, which may have been sold a very long time ago. Whether it can be retrieved or redeemed remains an open question, and the answer to whether we deserve rescue or redemption may not be one we like.

In this little corner of the world, I will continue to consider these questions through the lens of our cinema. It is an artform with the power to reflect who we are and to demonstrate who we wish we could be. It is a medium more capable than any of sending a message about the lines we draw and the transgressions we abhor. It is our most significant cultural force and most powerful cultural weapon. 

At Last Cinema Standing, we fight to preserve, record, and amplify this medium because as Marshall McLuhan said: “The medium is the message.” In 2024, the message of the best in cinema was clear: recognize and resist. Recognize the forces that seek to divide and destroy us, then resist their every attempt to do so. In many ways, this has always been the mission of this site. Without cinema, there is no history. Without history, there is no identity. Without identity, there is nothing. So, long live cinema.

What we see and how we see it: On the many perspectives of Nickel Boys

There is an editing choice about a third of the way into RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys that is so brilliant that it almost beggars belief. In order to preserve one of the film’s many beautiful revelations, I will not describe it in detail here. All I will reveal is that the sequence in question is repeated near the end of the film with greater context and our own greater understanding, and that repetition retroactively serves to give deeper meaning to the first time we see it. We have a … new perspective, if you will.

And, that’s what Ross’ film is about: perspective. Who sees what when? Who feels seen by whom? Who matters to whom and why? All of these questions lie at the heart of one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking, and artfully crafted films of the year. I had the good fortune to see an advance screening of the film Sunday night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica followed by a Q&A with Ross, who directed, produced, and co-wrote the film, and star Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

The discussion was thoughtful, intelligent, and enlightening, proving that Ross and Ellis-Taylor are swimming in a deeper end of the pool than most folks in the business. The conversation, moderated by The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey, touched on the film’s innovative POV camerawork, the history of Black culture as depicted in photography of the Old South, and the art of blending historical fact with narrative fiction.

Based on Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel, The Nickel Boys – note that Ross intentionally drops the definite article – the film follows the story of Elwood Curtis, a gifted young Black boy in 1960s Florida who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and at the mercy of a justice system that cannot or willfully will not see him. Through a terrible happenstance, Elwood, played with conviction and determination by Ethan Herisse (Ethan Cole Sharpe plays a younger version of the character in earlier scenes), is remanded to the Nickel Academy, a “reform school”-cum-slave labor camp for wayward Southern youth.

While there, Elwood befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson) and learns the hard way about “the way things are.” Meanwhile, Hattie (Ellis-Taylor), Elwood’s grandmother, is determined to fight the system, consulting with a lawyer who calls the conviction a “miscarriage of justice.” He is more than happy to take on Elwood’s appeal – for a price. One of the film’s most pivotal scenes comes when Hattie visits Elwood at the academy and describes her dealings with the lawyer. 

Ellis-Taylor and Ross dove deep into this specific scene during the Q&A, as it was Ellis-Taylor’s first day of shooting on the film and a fascinating microcosm of the challenges and opportunities presented by filming from the first-person POV. The performer revealed that the very process necessitated by the unique shooting style invited her to incorporate that sense of dissociation and invisibility into the character.

The film camera traditionally is impartial. The way artists use the camera often speaks to a larger agenda – we’ll get more into that in a second – but the camera itself records and refracts the reality set before it. As such, it is not a great scene partner, which Ellis-Taylor said allowed her to tap into the part of Hattie that feels unseen and unheard by an uncaring justice system. The actress is remarkable in the scene, and one particular moment speaks to just how remarkable.

Ross talked about how he and cinematographer Jomo Fray planned out nearly all the movements of the camera, which always reflects the POV of either Elwood or Turner. Is the character looking down at the ground, looking to the sky, making eye contact, etc.? In the scene, the original plan was for the camera to be looking down at a picnic table during Ellis-Taylor’s monologue, reflecting the Elwood character’s sadness and inability to connect with his grandmother after all he has endured. 

The camera does this briefly, then in an improvised moment on Ellis-Taylor’s part, Hattie slams her hand down on the table and demands that her grandson – Elwood, the camera, we – look her in the eye. Slowly, the camera does so. The moment feels real. It feels right. Ross said the action reminded him to think of the camera as a scene partner, as a character, not simply a recorder of events. Ultimately, that ethos – the audience as camera; the camera as character – underscores the entire film.

Nickel Boys has been rightly lauded for its cinematography, but I came away floored by the film’s editing. Ross and editor Nicholas Monsour, who cut Jordan Peele’s Us and Nope, deftly weave between two main points of view, while also incorporating archival photographs, home movies, and news footage of the Apollo 8 mission to the moon.

Ross used a question about this archival footage as a way to get into a discussion about the use of historical Black photos to caricature and dehumanize the Black experience. The well-meaning but shortsighted photographers who captured “Black Southern life” in the 1930s-60s had neither the insight nor the curiosity to question the validity of the images they gathered. These images fit their preconceived narrative, or agenda, and that was all that mattered.

This film is a corrective to the historical record and proof that great art is necessary to fill in the gaps of poorly chronicled history. (Side note: Mati Diop’s tremendous documentary Dahomey covers similar territory from a totally different angle; see it if you can.) In so doing, Ross grants these lives the dignity and respect they have long been denied. 

The Apollo 8 footage is particularly profound in this respect. Why Apollo 8? Why not Apollo 11, the self-evidently more historically important mission? Because Apollo 8 – and this information is subtly relayed in the film – was the first mission to photograph an earthrise. That is, the earth rising over the horizon of the moon. It’s a glorious new perspective on our place in the universe.

That’s how far humanity had come by this point. We could photograph ourselves from the far side of the moon. For the first time, we could truly see ourselves. And yet, back here at home, we refused to see each other. What makes Nickel Boys such a brilliant film is that it insists that we see each other, that we hear each other, and that we understand each other.