After a ten month hiatus from the hallowed halls of the film section, I’m defrosting just in time to shotgun Buck’s Fizz and be a force for hate. Tis the season to exploit The Mancunion’s commitment to freedom of the press and complain at its unwitting readers. Whilst 2024 had its fair share of box-office booms, some of which came as complete surprises (Longlegs making more domestically than NEON’s previous top-earner Parasite is a sign of the end times), studios still managed to miss the mark a delicious number of times. And here I am to rub salt in the wound. You invite me into your student newspaper like a bad spirit and this is what you get.
Before we begin, full disclaimer: I’ve only actually seen half of these so I’m kind of going off vibes for a few. Sorry, but I’m not volunteering to watch more of Ryan Reynolds. I don’t get paid for this.
12) Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Watching Chris Hemsworth fail is always funny, yes, but this is easily a top three film of the year for me and I was absolutely gobsmacked to see it bomb. Furiosa is sorrowing, it’s brutal, and it’s huge, taking the manic machinery of Fury Road and reinventing every single wheel on the wasteland death buggy. Anya Taylor Joy is outstanding, effortlessly balancing the unflinching ferocity and ardent agony of the fight to go home. I will break every bone in my body if you watch this.
Also, I’m pretty sure that, like, 90% of the rage in this film comes from the Australian heat. I live in Seville. You can only sweat so much before you start wanting people to die.
11) Saturday Night
Hell is empty, and all the devils are in the American domestic box-office audiences. I haven’t even seen this film yet and I already know its going to make me want to do cocaine and run through a prop wall. Saturday Night is a punchy love letter addressed to a douchebag-ex audience that doesn’t watch old Late Night clips on YouTube and it shows. It may be the beginning of the fall of the SNL empire when Domingo is a more lucrative venture than a visceral ode to the golden age of sketch comedy. May God have mercy on our souls.
10) Megalopolis
This is skimming the bottom because I was genuinely quite sad when this film flopped. Seeing Coppola’s bloated pinger of a story lose to Transformers One evoked the same sense of ‘No! Leave Grandpa alone!’ that Tyson v Paul did. Megalopolis reeked of the pity (with a tinge of cringe) of an old man trying to prove he can still play football and putting his hip out. And that second comparison is about Shia LaBeouf. I can only find solace knowing that Coppola probably doesn’t even know it flopped. Has anyone told him? Do the vineyards have Wi-Fi? Does he remember that he made a film? Crank up his 2C-B dosage and he never needs to know.
9) Madame Web
Ok, admittedly we’ve dropped quite a few pegs after Furiosa, but let me plead my case. I’m completely fatigued with the stifling cheer of blockbuster press tours, and Dakota Johnson has become an accidental oasis of authenticity in a desert of Snack Wars and conversations with Jimmy Fallon. She hated this movie, which made me hate it, and it felt like we were hate watching together, which made me love it. It’s crap, and we all know it, and there’s nothing I love to do more than complain freely on the long stretch back from Vue Printworks to Fallow.
The only reason Madame Web isn’t lower is that watching Sydney Sweeney play an awkward *pushes glasses up nose* school-skirted teenager made me feel like a 4channer.
8) The Crow
So, I didn’t know that this film had come out already? Not sure if we needed Bill Skarsgard to revamp an Asian-American actor’s iconic final work, but the guy who directed this also directed Ghost in the Shell so at least he’s consistent. Evidently, I haven’t actually seen this given that I was unaware of its release, but the poster looks like it’s advertising one of those terrible CW shows about [insert supernatural creature] living in the modern world that gets cancelled after a season. And of course, mandatory ‘unnecessary remake blah blah blah make original movie blah blah blah’ comment but FKA Twigs can do no wrong, so… half marks?
7) Drive Away Dolls
Imagine that you dominate the industry with your brother for decades, you decide to go your separate ways, he makes The Tragedy of Macbeth, and you make a relentlessly insincere and humourless flop that reads like a road trip bottle episode of Girls (derogatory). And also Matt Damon is in it. And there’s a slur in the title. And I think those last two are connected.
Just a limp, cheap imitation with a box office bomb that proves even the Coen name can’t save your lesbian movie written by a man. Margaret Qualley may be the most over-hyped actress of our generation and the ‘country’ accent proving that she retches when the private jet passes over anything between CA and NY isn’t helping. If Ethan was trying to certify that he was adopted then I guess this was a success.
6) Joker: Folie a Deux
I am being 100% fr when I say Morpheus was better than this. The much-anticipated sequel to Todd Phillips’ Taxi Driver AU fanfic managed to be decidedly less pure-nonsense-masquerading-as-nihilism than its predecessor, but a lifeless script and pure detest for said predecessor just makes the whole ordeal feel utterly pointless.
People will blame these failures on the addition of Lady Gaga and thus women as a whole, rather than the overlooked ridiculousness of the entire Arthur Fleck concept that is only glaringly obvious in the cold light of a sequel. Although, Folie a Deux’s very existence as a jukebox musical (albeit the worst one of all time) really riles up its cringe fan base, in addition to their King Incel finally getting some, which helps its case slightly.
5) The Watchers
Nepo babies jumping the filmmaking queue and then swiftly biting the curb is one of the few snippets of retribution that we get in this cruel world. M Night Shyamalan’s daughter Ishana spent three years at Tisch and ran a handful of the family second unit teams, and the only thing she learned was how to bollock a twist just like daddy. Unoriginal, boring slog that throws exposition at its half-empty audiences and then has the audacity to visually subject us to Dakota Fanning hitting a Juul for 95 minutes. The faerie malarkey may genuinely just be what NYU kids think Ireland is like. Ishana, how about you watcher me put my foot though a wall.
4) The Fall Guy
This film is La La Land for people who need a truck to flip every other minute or they’ll zone out. Thankfully, David Leitch’s flashy summer flick insists on inserting a relentlessly unfunny duologue every five minutes because zoning out may be the only way to endure a film that genuinely features a Yungblud cover of ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’. Leitch making this unbearable ‘ode’ to stunt professionals when he literally worked as a stunt double has the same agonisingly ironic self righteousness as old-timey Kings that would commission portraits of themselves and still end up looking clapped.
And there’s just something about the whole ‘Newbie Woman Director That Is Too Uptight and Bothered About Film gets swept off her feet by Ruffian Stunt Hunk’ that I just don’t like. Nor the joke about Amber Heard. I’m so glad this bombed.
3) Argylle
I despised the clips released for this underwhelming spy satire’s initial trailer back in 2023, and then swiftly forgot about all about it. Evidently, so did everyone else. I’m sick of the synthetic casting shortcut of lazily shoving random pop stars into huge roles for their acting debut; Dua Lipa – what are you doing here? Henry Cavill does so many terrible spy films that I’m beginning to think that he isn’t taking not being the next James Bond very well. AI couldn’t have written this, because Chat GPT has more artistic integrity than Matthew Has-A-Weird-Thing-For-Suits Vaughn. Also, the effects of Kingsman on mediocre writers’ brains genuinely needs to be studied. It’s like the white man’s Fleabag.
2) Back to Black
Could we not have picked anyone else to lead a biopic that touches on the grooming of young stars than the middle-aged woman that married the 18 year old that she directed? Amy Winehouse deserves a lot better than a half-baked re-trudging of her darkest days that inhabits the very spirt of exploitation that it tries to criticise. It doesn’t bother pretending to be anything but the industry continuing to drain profit out of an artist long after it sucked the life out of her.
It also manages to somehow be both outlandishly sensationalist and agonisingly pedestrian, which was a multi-faceted failure that I didn’t even know was possible. Just a disgrace of a biopic that pedals faux-nuance, made without sensitivity for addiction or the permission of Amy’s family. I don’t even want to write any jokes about it. It just made me feel terrible.
1) IF
Someone should tell Republicans that the biggest threat to the American child isn’t ‘gender ideology’, it’s Ryan Reynolds. He’s infiltrating our schools! Children are singing the horrendous Deadpool/Wolverine Jimmy Fallon song! He put a Deadpool reference in the credit of a children’s movie! This plastic ‘heart-warmer’ tried to reproduce the breathless wonder of Inside Out and Rise of the Guardians but could only regurgitate tired tear-bait that swiftly bombed at the box office. Maybe because children can’t buy cinema tickets, geniuses! They don’t have any money!
Maybe the real issue is that John Krasinski’s only other writing credit is his rip-off of Tim Lebbon’s The Silence and IF’s concept feels like something you’d get out of a short-story prompt generator in the worst possible way. Some ideas are original for a reason, John.
Final note: You might’ve noticed that the Emily Blunt/John Krasinski coalition has not faired well in this ranking which suits me fine because I don’t like them. They seem like the parents that talk about you in front of you to their child when you’ve come to their house for a play date. I know Emily Blunt would be like ‘No. Maisy isn’t staying for tea. I don’t want to cook for her’ and I’d have to stand there and act chill. A plague upon their houses.
All of these films are probably streaming somewhere, but I wouldn’t bother with anything with a single digit ranking on this list.
