Here Are The Best Movies Of 2024, According to John Waters

It’s that time of the year, and once again the eccentric filmmaker has published his 10 favourite films of the year…

Director John Waters has made an entire career out of having fairly unconventional taste with a long list of movies that many consider to be campy outsider art. In recent years the eccentric filmmaker has been grabbing headlines by releasing his highly anticipated list of the top 10 films of the year. Well, we now have his list of his favourite films of 2024.

“The movie business as I knew it is now over. Except in New York City, where feel-bad, risk-taking, ratings-defying art flicks still play and I pay to see them in theaters,” writes Waters. “Thank you, distributors, from the bottom of my damaged little cinematic heart, for getting these films out there to the perverted public, who still demand to be startled and soothed by troublemaking directors from all over the world. Here they are — my ten best. See them and suffer … joyously.”

After years of publishing this list with the magazine ArtForum, Waters has switched it up and sent his thoughts to Vulture instead. Peruse all of his favourites from 2024 below. We’ve included a few of his comments in quotes below for a few of the films that he selected.

10) Viet and Nam (Director: Truong Minh Quy)

9) Babygirl (Director: Halina Reijn)

8) Emilia Perez (Director: Jacques Audiard)
“This wildly original musical-drama about the Mexican drug syndicate and its trans crime boss hiding in plain sight proves you can sing about anything in a film if it’s well-enough directed. Right now, I’m belting out, “It’s No. 8 on my list,” and who knows, maybe I’ll make a movie about it?”

7) Femme (Directors: Freeman/Ping)
“A twisted S&M love affair between a black drag queen (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) and a white rough-trade gay-basher (George MacKay) that gives new meaning to sexual role-playing. Butch? Femme? It’s all drag when it comes down to being a ‘top’ or ‘bottom.’ Each man kills the thing he loves, indeed.”

6) Joker: Folie a Deux (Director: Todd Phillips)
“Finally, a love story I can relate to. So insane, so well thought out, so well directed, so much smoking! It’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ meets Busby Berkeley with a 9/11 ‘That’s Entertainment!’ ending that will make you shake your head in cinematic astonishment. Stupid critics. Gaga so good. Joker so right. Die, dumbbells, die!”

5) Messy (Director: Alexi Wasser)

4) Hard Truths (Director: Mike Leigh)

3) The Brutalist (Director: Brady Corbet)
“A cold-as-concrete VistaVision (!) epic about the cruelty of architecture and the agony of being ahead of your time, with Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce butting to the front of the line of Oscars hopefuls. Yes, the running time is 3.5 hours, but the only thing too long is the intermission.”

2) Queer (Director: Luca Guadagnino)
“Daniel Craig may be queerbait for taking on the gay beatnik role of William Burroughs’s alter ego, but I’m all for it.”

1) Love Lies Bleeding (Director: Rose Glass)
“This hilarious, bloody film noir is the best movie of the year, one that Russ Meyer might have made if he had been a lesbian intellectual addicted to steroids. Even the pig-men are cute. Sort of.”