John Waters Reveals His Top 10 Films of 2024 – Guadagnino & Glass

John Waters Reveals His Top 10 Films of 2024 – Guadagnino & Glass

by Alex Billington
December 6, 2024
Source: Vulture

“It’s the ones you love the most who always disappoint you in the end.” (A quote from Love Lies Bleeding.) It’s always so much fun to find out what John Waters’ favorite films are every year! (And then argue about them!) One of the most exciting “best of the year” lists that kicks off this time of the year is from filmmaker John Waters – his Top 10 favorite films in a list that is unlike any other. For 2024, Waters has chosen a less quirky, more sexy selection of mostly LGBTQ films as his best of the year. His previous Top 10 list from 2023 included Beau is Afraid and Master Gardener and Fallen Leaves. One of his most controversial picks for 2024 – he loved Joker 2 (aka Joker: Folie à Deux) and is big on defending it. 🤦‍♂️ “Stupid critics. Gaga so good.” His numero uno opened much earlier in 2024 – the dark & wild Love Lies Bleeding starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian, released by A24. After years of publishing this list with the magazine ArtForum, Waters has switched it up and sent it to Vulture instead. Peruse all of his Top 10 favorites from 2024 below.

Waters includes a short one/two-sentence explanation with each pick, so head to Vulture to read all of his thoughts on his Top 10 of 2024. I’ve included a few of his comments in quotes below for some of the films where he said some interesting things. Without further ado, here are John Waters’ Top 10 Films of 2024:

1. Love Lies Bleeding (dir. 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.”
2. Queer (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
3. The Brutalist (dir. 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.”
4. Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)
5. Messy (dir. Alexi Wasser)
6. Joker: Folie à Deux (dir. 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!”
7. Femme (dir. Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon 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.”
8. Emilia Pérez (dir. Jacques Audiard)
9. Babygirl (dir. Halina Reijn)
10. Viet and Nam (dir. Truong Minh Quy)

What do you make of Waters’ Top 10 list for this year? Have you seen all of the films he lists this year? Many of these picks are more mainstream and/or have been released already. The Brutalist and Babygirl are still waiting to open in theaters this month, but Femme and Emilia Pérez and Love Lies Bleeding you can watch right now anytime. I’m with Waters on many of these – The Brutalist is indeed a masterpiece and I’m glad it made it in his Top 5. Femme is a fantastic film and I listed it as a runner-up in my Top 10 of 2023 last year because it’s just that good. Emilia Pérez and Babygirl and Queer are all worthy picks – and the latter two are very erotic, which is what Waters usually goes for anyway. There are usually some strange and one-of-a-kind films to watch in his sleection, and Waters is always introducing us to some of the most underrated films of the year. As usual, it is good to pick at least one of these (or maybe three of four!) you haven’t seen yet, and give it a look to see if it impresses/intrigues you as much as it did him. Thoughts on all of these 2024 films?

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