Yahoo Movies The most under-appreciated movies of 2024
From Anne Hathaway to Tom Hardy and Amy Winehouse, here are some solid 2024 movies you either missed or should give another chance.
We've nearly reached the end of 2024, with just a final month of cinema and streaming releases to come. But Hollywood is slowing down for Christmas, so it's a good time to look back at the most under-appreciated movies you might have missed during the blockbuster onslaught of this year.
You'd be forgiven for missing some of these gems, while others are movies you will have seen but deserve to be given another chance. There's some under-the-radar horror, a Tom Hardy movie with a voice nearly as silly as Venom, and a music biopic that got wrapped up in an inevitable media storm.
Let's have a look at some under-appreciated movies for you to catch up on as we wrap up the cinema calendar for 2024...
Late Night with the Devil
Released in the early part of the year — and somewhat swallowed by a debate around use of generative AI — Late Night with the Devil might well be the best horror movie of 2024. David Dastmalchian plays a ratings-grabbing late night TV host in the 1970s who decides to risk an encounter with the occult on a Halloween special in order to give his ailing show a boost.
It's a chilling movie that, due to its TV show construct, actually works better on a small screen in your own home than it does in a cinema. If you've got time to scare yourself silly in amongst all of the Christmas festivities, this is about as good a choice as you can make.
Late Night With The Devil is streaming on Shudder.
The Bikeriders
A few years ago, the idea of Tom Hardy as the switchblade-toting leader of a biker gang would've been box office dynamite. Combined with the star wattage of Jodie Comer and Austin Butler — mostly free of that Elvis Presley accent — this seemed like an absolute winner. Despite some strong reviews, the box office was middling and there's little chance of the movie clocking up awards season attention.
Read more: Tom Hardy defends taking 'big swing' with The Bikeriders accent (Cover Media, 2 min read)
This is a shame because The Bikeriders is brilliant. It's a broiling powder-keg of violence, powered by the homoerotic chemistry between Hardy and Butler's characters. Jeff Nichols is a very thoughtful filmmaker and he brings that energy to what could easily have been an exercise in genre cliché. In this creator's hands, it's something special.
The Bikeriders is available to rent or buy on digital.
I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun's 2021 horror movie We're All Going to the World's Fair was the most intelligent and terrifying depiction of the irony-pilled nature of the modern internet that I've ever seen. This meant that whatever they made next was always going to be intriguing. I Saw the TV Glow, drawing on Schoenbrun's own experience with their gender identity, tells the story of a young man who befriends a teenage girl due to their shared obsession with a Buffy-esque fantasy TV show.
It would be a crime to explore the complex ways that Schoenbrun's film plays with the intersection between fiction and reality, but it's a fascinating journey through questions of identity and coming-of-age. Schoenbrun doesn't make ordinary films, but they do make extraordinary ones.
I Saw The TV Glow is available to rent or buy on digital.
Speak No Evil
It was easy to be cynical about Speak No Evil, which served as a Hollywood remake of one of the most shocking and surprising European films of the last decade. But with James McAvoy's explosive central performance at its heart, James Watkins' spin on the movie became a very special horror movie in its own right.
Read more: Does the Speak No Evil remake have a better ending than the original? (Yahoo Entertainment, 7 min read)
Watkins' film explores social niceties and ramps up the tension through sheer awkwardness before giving way to a blood-soaked final act that mixes the original movie with Straw Dogs. In another world, Speak No Evil could've become one of the year's biggest horror films.
Speak No Evil is available to rent or buy on digital.
Robot Dreams
This Spanish-French animation did manage to scoop a nomination at the Oscars earlier this year, but its limited cinema release meant it never got the attention it deserved outside of cinephile circles. It's a mostly wordless but endlessly charming depiction of the friendship between a lonely dog and the robot companion he orders from a company.
That's the setup, but there's so much more to the story than that. There will be laughs, there will be tears, and you'll never hear a certain Earth, Wind, and Fire hit the same way ever again.
Robot Dreams is streaming on MUBI.
Blink Twice
Zoë Kravitz made her directorial debut this year with Blink Twice, which is an ambitious and unsettling movie in just about every way. Kravitz could easily have picked something more conventional than this tale of Channing Tatum's tech mogul and his shady antics on a private island, but here she throws absolutely everything at the wall.
Read more: Explaining the wild ending of Blink Twice (Cosmopolitan, 3 min read)
Blink Twice is a pitch-black thriller with more spiky edges than you can possibly imagine, anchored by Tatum in a performance that goes thoroughly against his usual on-screen persona and Naomi Ackie as the audience surrogate. It's not an easy watch, but it's an excellent movie.
Blink Twice is streaming on MGM+ via Prime Video.
The Idea of You
Anne Hathaway in a romcom is just irresistible, so it was a surprise when The Idea of You disappeared from view pretty soon after its release. Part of this is the fact it was a streaming release of the kind that very rarely leads to any lasting presence, but it's a shame that more people didn't discover this charming and pleasantly old-fashioned addition to the romcom canon.
Read more: The Idea of You Star Nicholas Galitzine Says 'I Distance Myself' from Harry Styles Comparison (People, 2 min read)
Hathaway plays a divorcée who stumbles into a romance with a pop star played by Nicholas Galitzine — who, despite reports to the contrary, isn't supposed to be Harry Styles. It's a delightful story that, while it boasts few surprises, is exactly the sort of a film we all want to settle down with on a Friday night.
The Idea of You is streaming on Prime Video.
Something in the Water
When it comes to 2024 shark movies, there was a lot of commotion about Under Paris — a ridiculous Netflix thriller about predators lurking in the River Seine. However, there was a much better shark attack movie swimming through cinemas at around the same time — Hayley Easton Street's British destination wedding thriller Something in the Water. The story follows a group of female friends out on a pre-wedding boat trip, only for the whole thing to go belly-up.
This is a horror movie, of course, but it's driven predominantly by the interpersonal relationships between the young women. It delivers plenty of spectacle and the tension is almost unbearable, but its true power is in its emotional heft. That Netflix movie could never match it.
Something In The Water is available to rent or buy on digital
The Beekeeper
Jason Statham is better at kicking, punching, and shooting people than anybody else working in Hollywood today. To watch him fight on the big screen is akin to watching an elite ballerina prancing around a stage with immaculate grace. In The Beekeeper, he plays a retired spy drawn into a moral crusade. He's a metaphorical beekeeper, but also someone who keeps bees.
Read more: Here's how The Beekeeper ending sets up a Jason Statham sequel (Yahoo Entertainment, 10 min read)
That's the joy of David Ayer's film, which delivers crunching violence while also maintaining a glint in its eye and lodging its tongue in its cheek. After all of the chaos Ayer went through with Suicide Squad, he's finally found a way to have fun at the movies again. This film came out in the UK via Sky Cinema and made little noise, but it's well worth a look.
The Beekeeper is streaming on NOW with a Sky Cinema membership.
Back to Black
Back to Black was always going to be a controversial movie, telling the story of Amy Winehouse, her rise to the summit of the music industry, and the complex final years of her life as a tormented woman made into a figure of ridicule by the tabloids. But the film does a decent job, helped by Marisa Abela's respectful performance, of telling her story in a way that shows what made Winehouse such a special woman.
Read more: Amy Winehouse biopic 'Back to Black' a celebration, its makers say (Reuters, 2 min read)
Jack O'Connell does fascinating work as Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil and, while some edges of the Winehouse story — notably the portrayal of her father — are smoothed off, this is a movie that deserves far more respect than it got.
Back To Black is streaming on Netflix.
