THE BEST INDIE MOVIES TO WATCH IN 2024
A Different Man
The Outrun
Love Lies Bleeding
A Real Pain
Exhibiting Forgiveness
Good One
PORTER brings you the best indie movies worth adding to your must-see list – from the ones you might have missed to awards-season winners and this year’s festival contenders
Priscilla
Last year saw Baz Luhrmann reimagine Elvis Presley’s early years – and now, Sofia Coppola is telling his ex-wife Priscilla Presley’s side of the story. Based on the bestselling memoir Elvis and Me, the film brings Priscilla firmly into the spotlight to compassionately explore what being married to one of the world’s most famous men really felt like. Expect Coppola’s signature hazy cinematography, plus star turns from newcomer Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi as Elvis. In movie theaters nowPeter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain star in the Michel Franco-directed movie Memory
Memory
Sometimes, a good film is made great through the depth and emotional intelligence the lead performers bring to the characters they are playing, which is exactly the case in Memory. Jessica Chastain plays social worker Sylvia, who is recovering from alcohol addiction and starts caring for former classmate Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), a man suffering from early-onset dementia. It’s not an easy watch – a story of abuse, recovery, intimacy and the unreliability of our memories – but you will be thinking about it long after the credits roll. In movie theaters in DecemberAndrew Scott (left) and Paul Mescal star in All of Us Strangers, a beautiful fantasy-romance from indie director Andrew Haigh
All of Us Strangers
Two of TV’s favorite faces – Fleabag’s ‘hot priest’ Andrew Scott and Normal People’s Paul Mescal – unite in this soul-stirring love story by indie director Andrew Haigh. Covering similar ground to his critically acclaimed debut Weekend, Haigh takes us on a journey into the beating heart of a serendipitous romance between two outsiders who live next door to each other. With supporting roles from Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, prepare to be heartbroken by four of this generation’s finest actors. In movie theaters from 26 JanuaryBradley Cooper directs and stars in Maestro, alongside Carey Mulligan
Maestro
Hot on the heels of Oppenheimer and Elvis, the silver-screen era of major biopics amps up with this grand tale of the legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein. Bradley Cooper directs and stars in the film, with Carey Mulligan playing his beloved wife Felicia. Alongside Bernstein’s colorful personal life and the cost of his artistic genius, the film is an ode to the couple’s enduring love. What’s more, rumors are already swirling that Cooper will take home the Oscar he missed out on for his directorial debut, A Star is Born. Available on Netflix from December 20George MacKay and Léa Seydoux lead Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast – a sci-fi film exploring life devoid of emotion
The Beast
Léa Seydoux is sublime as the heroine of this futuristic thriller by French indie director Bertrand Bonello. Falling somewhere between Black Mirror and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the movie’s plot unfolds in 2044, when any human emotion is considered a threat to survival. The psychological melodrama is based on a short story by Henry James, in which Gabrielle (Seydoux) undergoes a procedure to rid herself of all feelings. However, when she meets Louis (George MacKay), cracks start to form in her steely composure. In movie theaters nowCentered around an eccentric performing-arts camp in New York, Theater Camp came up trumps at this year’s Sundance Film Festival
Theater Camp
This laugh-a-minute, ‘mockumentary’-style indie earned a standing ovation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and sparked a bidding war between a handful of major studios. Based on a short by the film’s multi-hyphenate frontwoman, Molly Gordon (who writes, directs and produces on this), it is an affectionate delve into the world of theater enthusiasts at a small performing-arts camp in Upstate New York. When their fearless leader (Amy Sedaris) falls into a coma (triggered by a malfunctioning strobe light), the troupe bands together to ensure the show goes on. Expect jazz hands, improv and musical puns aplenty, as well as a cast of the brightest new starlets, plus Ayo Edibiri (The Bear) and Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen). In movie theaters nowGeraldine Viswanathan (left) and Emilia Jones in the hotly anticipated adaptation of Cat Person
Cat Person
Nothing captured the anxiety of dating in the online age quite like Kristen Roupenian’s short story Cat Person when it was published in 2017. The romcom-thriller went viral for its sinister untangling of a courtship that turns sour, with ghosting, catfishing and red flags aplenty. Susanna Fogel, who co-wrote Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart, is at the helm of the hotly anticipated movie rendition, and there are high hopes it will break the internet in the same way the story did. Look out for Oscar-winning Coda’s Emilia Jones and Succession’s breakout star Nicholas Braun in the lead roles. In movie theaters nowThomasin McKenzie (right) takes the titular role in Eileen, while Anne Hathaway shines as charismatic Rebecca
Eileen
Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s chart-topping debut novel of the same name, this big-screen adaptation follows the unraveling of Eileen Dunlop, a misanthropic woman stuck in a rut, both personally and professionally. When a charismatic new member of staff, Rebecca, joins the office, their friendship blossoms… until, under the influence of Rebecca, Eileen finds herself dragged into a heinous crime. Thomasin McKenzie is sublime as the slightly peculiar Eileen, and Anne Hathaway gives an awards-worthy performance as the seductive Rebecca. In movie theaters from December 8
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View MoreLily LaTorre leads as Sarah Snook’s unsettling child, Mia, in the Sundance Film Festival thriller Run Rabbit Run
Run Rabbit Run
This psychological thriller was the talk of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and stars Succession’s Sarah Snook as a frazzled mother struggling to make sense of her daughter’s emotional decline in the days after her seventh birthday. It is an exploration of the anxieties of motherhood, as well as a personal reckoning for Snook’s character. Director Daina Reid was nominated for an Emmy for The Handmaid’s Tale, so expect a nuanced portrayal of trauma and grief. In movie theaters nowRising star Kristine Froseth dazzles in Lena Dunham’s Sharp Stick
Sharp Stick
Lena Dunham makes a much-anticipated return to screens with her first feature film since her debut, Tiny Furniture. She has enlisted the help of some exciting rising stars – Taylour Paige (Zola) and Kristine Froseth (The Society), as well as Hollywood stalwarts Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jon Bernthal – for this tale of a young woman’s sexual awakening and her complicated journey of self-discovery. Available to stream now(l-r) Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Chase Sui Wonders and Rachel Sennott join forces in Bodies Bodies Bodies
Bodies Bodies Bodies
A party game goes fatally wrong in this sinister slasher from production company A24 – the team behind horrors like Midsommar and Hereditary. Amandla Stenberg and Pete Davidson join newcomers Maria Bakalova (Borat) and Myha’la Herrold (Industry) as a group of privileged teens who are dicing with death at the house party from hell. With a screenplay by Kristen Roupenian (author of Cat Person) and a buzzy new director, Halina Reijn, rest assured this is going to be a coming together of Gen-Z’s finest. Available to stream now
Cha Cha Real Smooth
With three big releases, 2022 was a significant year for Dakota Johnson and her production company, TeaTime Pictures. First up, she produced this life-affirming romcom by writer-director Cooper Raiff, which premiered at Sundance to rave reviews. Raiff also stars in the movie, as college graduate Andrew, who moves back to his parents’ home and a life of suburban mundanity. His world takes a turn when he meets single mother Domino (Johnson) and her daughter, who has autism. On Apple TV+ now
Asteroid City
Hot off the heels of The French Dispatch comes another Wes Anderson release. A self-professed Europhile, Anderson turns his gaze to Italy for this production, which is set at a Junior Stargazer convention in the 1950s. Expect all the typical tropes of a Wes Anderson film: storylines within storylines, pastel-hued sets and a blockbuster ensemble cast. This time, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, Maya Hawke and Tom Hanks all make appearances. In movie theaters now
The 15 Indie Films to Put on Your 2023 Watch List
Here are the most noteworthy movies to come out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.By Shirley Li and David Sims
FEBRUARY 3, 2023SHARE
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After two years of virtual screenings, the Sundance Film Festival debuted a hybrid event for the first time, welcoming both in-person and online attendees to enjoy a fresh helping of titles. As ever, the festival, which The Atlantic tuned in to from home, set the stage for the year to come in indie movies: Veteran directors debuted their latest work, newcomers hit the ground with impressive ideas, and distributors entered a frenzy of dealmaking with hopes of scoring the next CODA, Minari, or Promising Young Woman—just to name a few recent Sundance premieres that went on to become major awards contenders. The festival yielded plenty of noteworthy features; below are our favorites from 10 days of pressing “Play.”
Cassandro (Amazon)
The first fiction feature from the Oscar-winning documentarian Roger Ross Williams, Cassandro is a zesty peek into a world that might be unfamiliar to many: the luchadores of Mexican wrestling. Gael García Bernal plays Saúl Armendáriz, a real-life figure who helped transform the sport in the 1980s and ’90s. His onstage character, Cassandro, was flamboyant and wore drag, a persona known as an exótico in the scripted world of wrestling. Exóticos usually lose their fights, but Armendáriz turned Cassandro into a beloved champion. Bernal gives one of his richest performances ever, lending energy to the biopic, a genre that can often feel staid and repetitive. — David Sims
Fremont (no distribution set)
Babak Jalali’s film has more than a touch of Jim Jarmusch to it, especially in its handsomely grainy black-and-white photography and its gentle, slice-of-life plotting. It follows Donya (played by first-time actor Anaita Wali Zada), an Afghan immigrant living in Fremont, California, and writing fortune-cookie mottos for a San Francisco factory. The leisurely movie is focused mostly on Donya’s therapy sessions with a ruminative psychiatrist (an excellent Gregg Turkington) and her search for further companionship. But Fremont also goes in some surprising directions, and includes a brief but memorable appearance from The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as a potential new friend. — D.S.
Mutt (no distribution set)
This intense and tender debut film, which draws from the background of its own Chilean, Serbian, and trans director, Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, is one of my favorite kinds of indie dramas. Set during one wild day in New York City, Mutt has a terrific sense of location, a crackling contemporary authenticity, and a real fun feel, even as it digs into the complex interpersonal dramas surrounding a 20-something trans man named Feña (Lio Mehiel). He’s dealing with the return of an ex-boyfriend, the arrival of his father in town, and the emotional turmoil of his teenaged half-sister, who is skipping school. The film bounces from one plot to another with zippy aplomb, delving into its protagonist’s inner conflicts without any preachiness. Mehiel’s performance was a highlight of the festival. — D.S.
Passages (Mubi)
Ira Sachs, one of the most exciting indie filmmakers working (his career gems include Little Men and Love Is Strange), had a bit of a misstep with his sedate last feature, Frankie. But the spiky romantic drama Passages is a welcome return to form, led by three marvelous performances and a refreshingly direct depiction of sexuality on-screen. Passages follows Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a gay filmmaker in a long-term relationship with Martin (Ben Whishaw), who finds himself drawn to a woman named Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), creating a bizarre love triangle that nobody really wants to be a part of. Rogowski invests Tomas with compelling toxicity; there’s something undeniably magnetic about him, even as, more and more, he emotionally wrecks the people in his life. Passages is not a movie for anyone looking for a sympathetic protagonist, but it is a brutally funny and honest portrayal of soured love. — D.S.
Talk to Me (A24)
One of the big acquisitions at the festival was this gnarly Australian horror, which the indie-fright experts at A24 will release in theaters this year. Talk to Me is a sterling entry in the séance-gone-wrong subgenre, portraying a group of wayward friends who find a spooky embalmed hand and start using it to contact the dead. Some of the early set pieces of possession from beyond the grave have an anarchic-prankster element—think Ouija meets Jackass—but as things spin out of control, the visuals get impressively gory and intense, rendered with nasty glee by the brothers Danny and Michael Philippou (making their feature debut). — D.S.
Theater Camp (Searchlight Pictures)
Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s comedy was a charming surprise at the festival and has already been picked up by Searchlight for a theatrical release. It had all the risk factors for a grating mess, given that the main characters are adult camp counselors who have never outgrown their childhood sanctuary, a scrappy arts center called AdirondACTS. Gordon and Ben Platt play Rebecca-Diane and Amos, who spend their time sniping at the teenagers in their charge. The ensemble is filled with firecracker comic performances from Jimmy Tatro, Ayo Edebiri, Patti Harrison, and others. Theater Camp works because it manages to balance caustic one-liners with just the right amount of heart, injecting a little sentimentality into a largely scathing satire. — D.S.
A Thousand and One (Focus Features)
The winner of this year’s Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category, A. V. Rockwell’s feature debut is a novelistic wonder anchored by a fantastic lead performance from Teyana Taylor (who is probably best known as a skilled singer, dancer, and choreographer). Taylor plays Inez, a Harlem mother who abducts her son from the foster-care system after she’s released from prison. The film then follows their relationship through his entire adolescence, spanning almost two decades as Inez tries to hold her family together without running further afoul of the law. Rockwell’s script methodically builds to a heart-wrenching climax, but Taylor’s deep grasp of Inez’s strengths and flaws is what gives the story its power. — D.S.
You Hurt My Feelings (A24)
Nicole Holofcener is maybe cinema’s reigning master of the comedy of manners, but she hasn’t had a real hit in a few years—her last film, the Netflix release The Land of Steady Habits, was a rare misfire. You Hurt My Feelings puts her right back in her comfort zone, with a satire of the chattering classes that zeroes in on the tiny, unspoken slights that can ruin entire relationships. Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a novelist who’s racked with self-doubt over her latest project; her husband, Don (Tobias Menzies), is a therapist wondering if he’s actually any good at what he does. Through a series of funny misunderstandings, those insecurities fester and spill over catastrophically, and Holofcener depicts all the fallout with her typical witty deftness. — D.S.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (A24)
The writer-director Raven Jackson’s debut feature, co-produced by Barry Jenkins, is more of a poetic collage than a straightforward movie. Though All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt traces a coming-of-age, Jackson is not concerned with delivering a linear story; instead, she carefully and steadily trains her lens on what her subject, a Black woman living in rural Mississippi, observes: fingertips tenderly brushing an ex-lover’s back; crickets chirping on a humid summer afternoon; mud squishing underneath people’s feet. I yearned at first for a more conventional narrative, but the film—with its gorgeous imagery and soundscape—had me spellbound before long. It’s an immersive meditation on how a lifetime is made up of so many small memories—and a reminder to pay more attention to every feeling. — Shirley Li
Drift (no distribution set)
For the first 15 minutes of Drift, the film’s protagonist, Jacqueline (played by Cynthia Erivo), doesn’t utter a word. She’s stranded and roaming on a Greek island, offering foot massages for euros while dodging the authorities. But what seems like a portrait of a mysterious woman turns into a touching exploration of care and friendship when Jacqueline meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), a tour guide with her own reasons for wandering the Mediterranean coast alone. In his first English-language film, the Singaporean director Anthony Chen draws a pair of quietly stirring performances from his leads. Even as the plot risks becoming a touch too melodramatic, Erivo and Shawkat keep the story grounded, capturing how a single connection can transform a life of grief. — S.L.
Eileen (no distribution set)
Adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut novel, Eileen is dark and unpredictable, seductive and sharp. In 1960s Boston, meek Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) longs for a more exciting life than the one she has as a secretary who also babysits her alcoholic father. When the glamorous psychologist Rebecca (Anne Hathaway, at perhaps her career best) swans in, Eileen is immediately infatuated—but Eileen is no Carol, even though the director William Oldroyd sneakily unspools the story like a romance, with glances across crowded rooms and close-ups of illicit touches. Oldroyd has a knack for telling tales of young women with disturbing wants, and he knows what the audience likely craves from Eileen: more confidence, more guts—the typical ingredients to self-discovery. All the more fun, then, that Eileen becomes something decidedly different. Desire, the film warns convincingly, is a dangerous thing. — S.L.
Magazine Dreams (no distribution set)
I’d be surprised if Jonathan Majors isn’t a part of the awards conversation this time next year. His performance as the tortured bodybuilder Killian Maddox is tremendous, even as Magazine Dreams evolves from a compelling character study into a painful viewing experience. Written and directed by Elijah Bynum, the film has an unsubtle story; in the tradition of films such as Taxi Driver and Joker, it tracks how a lonely, socially inept man grows violent by trying to mold the world to his vision. But though every second of Killian’s self-destruction comes with cinematic flair—one long, mesmerizing take follows him barreling onto a competition stage right after getting beat up—Majors finds the character’s vulnerability too. Killian’s intimidating physicality belies a fragile ego and a splintering state of mind. Majors infuses him with humanity, making it impossible to root against his potential salvation. — S.L.
Polite Society (Focus Features)
If Jane Austen, Edgar Wright, Tina Fey, and Jordan Peele collaborated on a movie together, the result would be something like Polite Society—and that’s not including the Bollywood-influenced dance number or the many martial-arts showdowns that pepper the film. The pleasure of watching the writer-director Nida Manzoor’s zany, if somewhat bloated, debut comes from not knowing what genre she might possibly riff on in the next scene. The story follows a London teenager and wannabe stuntwoman named Ria (played winningly by Priya Kansara) as she tries to break apart her beloved sister’s engagement, which Ria finds surprising and therefore, you know, totally dodgy. Her well-intentioned quest quickly becomes chaotic, and Manzoor suffuses every moment with heightened silliness and lively tricks. Like a reverse spin kick done in midair, Polite Society is audacious, awesome, and hard to ignore. — S.L.
Rye Lane (Searchlight Pictures)
Call it a “weep-cute”: When Yas (Vivian Oparah) overhears Dom (Industry’s David Jonsson) sobbing in the bathroom after being dumped, she initiates a conversation that turns into a walk-and-talk through South London and—what else?—a budding romance. But Rye Lane isn’t just another entry into an embattled genre; the film offers a refreshing take on the risks that come with falling for someone new. Directed with fizzy energy by Raine Allen-Miller, the film stylishly tracks how Yas and Dom, both reeling from recent breakups, navigate heartache while keeping an eye on each other. The script is lighthearted and astute at the same time, flowing easily from flirtatious banter to guarded-but-revealing exchanges. Plus, there’s an A-list cameo for the ages about halfway through. — S.L.
Sometimes I Think About Dying (no distribution set)
Don’t feel sorry for Fran, the quiet office worker played by Daisy Ridley. She likes her life just the way it is, even if, every now and then, she imagines her own demise to pass the time. Despite what the title may imply, the director Rachel Lambert’s wonderfully restrained film is more quirky than gloomy—and rather unexpectedly sweet. Ridley is excellent as an introvert with a penchant for cottage cheese, and she’s well matched by the comedian Dave Merheje as Robert, a new employee with whom she timidly pursues a relationship. Sometimes may be the funniest film I screened this year at Sundance; it’s a droll and perceptive look at how we tend to treat one another with more kindness than we do ourselves. To Fran, the mundane can be sublime, even beautiful. She just needs a push to see the same in herself. — S.L.
Shirley Li is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
“ANIMA”
The most perfect visualization to date of Thom Yorke’s music, Netflix’s “ANIMA” finds a way to tunnel out and escape from the oppressiveness that people tend to associate with the slippery rock star. Paul Thomas Anderson’s film only wears a veil of dystopian uniformity so that it can fling it off and touch the tender spots underneath; so that it can find something and lose it and find it again. If “ANIMA” is a sublimely visceral encapsulation of what it feels like to listen to Radiohead (or its frontman), that’s because it feels like the kind of dream that follows you out of bed — the kind of dream that makes the mad world around you seem real enough to touch. Read the full review here.
“The Art of Self-Defense”
This sort of dark, jagged storytelling won’t settle with viewers who require every emotional beat to be telegraphed upfront, and regardless, the movie pushes the limits of its appeal over the course of 104 minutes. Riley Stearns’ script has a tendency to linger on dry interactions that can turn clunky when they overstay their welcome. But “The Art of Self-Defense” manages to clarify the filmmaker’s intriguing vision by stuffing it into a remarkably unnerving character study that winds its way to one of the greatest punchlines in recent movie memory. “I didn’t play by the rules,” Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) says at one point, “but there never were any rules.” That seems to be Stearns’ mantra. Read the full review here.
The Biggest Little Farm”
From the opening minutes of “The Biggest Little Farm,” John Chester makes it clear his utopian vision is going to fail. With his wife Molly, a culinary writer, the filmmaker abandoned their Santa Monica home to launch a sustainable farm an hour outside the city. The movie tracks this epic saga across seven years of hiccups and tragic developments as the reality of taming nature settles in. A gorgeous and often devastating look at good intentions slamming into harsh practical challenges, “The Biggest Little Farm” is the rare eco-friendly documentary that reaches beyond the celebratory formula to explore the application of its environmental message in detail.
t’s a remarkable educational experience for anyone eager to go back to the basics. In the process, it arrives at a deeper understanding of the underlying impulse, while delivering an emotionally resonant narrative with plenty of cute animals to spare. Read the full review here.
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