In a week full of a few embarrassing selections included in the likes of National Board of Review and AFI’s picks for the top films of 2024, leave it to BFI’s Sight and Sound to deliver a top 10 films of the year worth paying attention to. Led by Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine as Light, the list also includes Anora, La Chimera, Dahomey, Hard Truths, Caught by the Tides, No Other Land, Nickel Boys, and more, while the top 50 includes The Beast, The Shrouds, Close Your Eyes, A Different Man, The Brutalist, I Saw the TV Glow, Evil Does Not Exist, and more. A great year for cinema, indeed.
Director Payal Kapadia said: “When I was at film school, at The Film & Television Institute of India, we used to get a copy of Sight and Sound. We were all excited when the new edition came out and would clamour to read it. The magazine and its writers hold a special place in every cinephile’s heart, so to have my film, All We Imagine as Light at No. 1 in The Best Films of the Year Poll for 2024 is very special to me.”
Sight and Sound Managing Editor Isabel Stevens commented: “Watching All We Imagine as Light at Cannes – even before it won the Grand Prix – confirmed for us at Sight and Sound that its director, Payal Kapadia, is a vital artistic voice in cinema right now. So we’re thrilled that her film has topped our 2024 poll. The way Kapadia marshals the tools of cinema – sound, music, performances, cinematography and how she mixes fiction and documentary – to conjure a singular lyrical atmosphere of desire and yearning really make her stand out. This film makes you look again at the world around you to find beauty in unexpected everyday things and places. Our poll is packed with original, independent and foreign-language films and in fact, all the films in our top ten are proof that there is a world of thriving and exhilarating independent cinema beyond the big studio franchises.”
See the top 10 below and the full top 50 here.
1. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (Payal Kapadia)
2. ANORA (Sean Baker)
3. LA CHIMERA (Alice Rohrwacher)
4. DAHOMEY (Mati Diop)
5. HARD TRUTHS (Mike Leigh)
6. CAUGHT BY THE TIDES (Jia Zhang-ke)
=7. LOVE LIES BLEEDING (Rose Glass)
=7. THE SUBSTANCE (Coralie Fargeat)
9. NO OTHER LAND (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor)
10. NICKEL BOYS (RaMell Ross)