The end of an exceptional year 2024 for French cinema and cinema attendance: together we are going to rewind this excellent vintage and invite our listeners to see or rewatch the best films of the year, in cinemas or on VOD.
First of all, know that we should reach, as in 2023, 180 million cinema tickets sold in France in 2024, which means that theater attendance is getting closer to its record level of 2019, therefore before Covid. And that among the hits of the year, for the first time in 10 years, two French films appear in first place, in order: A little something extra from and with Artus (10.8 million entries) and Le Comte de Monte Cristo with 9.3 million.
And in the top 10, we find mainly American productions such as the sequels to Vice-Versa et Vaiana or the fourth chapter of Despicable me and another French film: phew love by Gilles Lellouche and his 4.7 million spectators in fifth position.
More than 200,000 admissions in two weeks for this first film by a young filmmaker, astonishing in her mastery and full of promise. Her cheese comedy filmed with non-professionals in the Jura where she lives, enchanted us. We love Totone, a nickel-footed teenager who finds himself alone with his little sister, and who enters the competition for the best county.
If the tone is light, Twenty Gods addresses the issue of rurality very seriously, but without pathos or miserabilism. There is joy in this film, and beautiful images. Louise Courvoisier dares the rural western made in Francebut with a universal scope.
Another unexpected French success, The Story of Souleymane by Boris Lojkine, one of the best films of the year, hailed by a surprising but heartwarming score of 514,000 admissions, for this story that could have been considered “already seen”, and yet. ..
72 hours in the life of a Parisian Guinean bicycle delivery man, who waits and prepares for a crucial meeting at the prefecture, to obtain a residence permit. And if the film was so popular, it is undoubtedly because the fiction merged with reality. Abou Sangaré, Souleymane in the film, was also waiting for papers which he ended up obtaining. The Story of Souleymane which could, why not, also create a surprise during the César ceremony at the end of February, compared to the other 2024 hits.
Other French films left their mark on us, two documentaries: Madame Hofmann by Sébastien Lifshitz, A Family by Christine Angot, three Corsican films: The Kingdom by Julien Colonna, In his image, by Thierry de Peretti, Borgo by Stéphane Demoustier, without forgetting Jim’s Novel of the Larrieu brothers and Mercy by Alain Guiraudie, or even My life my facethe posthumous feature film by Sophie Fillières.
Seeds of the wild fig treespecial prize at Cannes, which was not respectful of this immense filmmaker, who deserved the Palme d’Or or a real prize, whatever, his gesture is as much artistic as political.
Mohammad Rasoulof clandestinely filmed the disintegration of an Iranian family whose parents, the father is a judge, are fervent supporters of the mullahs’ regime, but whose teenage daughters follow, terrified, on their smartphones the bloody repression of the women’s movement life freedom.
A relentless pamphlet against the radical Islam that has been suffocating Iran for 45 years, where real images and fiction advance in unison. Mohammad Rasoulof fled his country, he lives in Germany and maintains an incredible sense of humor, especially when we talk to him about creative constraints.
Seen in Cannes also, obviously, the Palme d’Or, Anora by Sean Baker, because there are few palms that almost everyone agrees on, this story of a stripper, and occasional escort, who falls in love with the son of a rich Russian oligarch, and will find himself in an insane whirlwind, between an express wedding in Vegas, and a chase in Brooklyn: it’s funny, moving, rhythmic, and the exciting Sean Baker progresses with each new film.
Finally 2024 in foreign films was also in bulk, Furious by George Miller, The Substance by the French Coralie Fargeat, Juror n°2 by Clint Eastwood, and the extraordinary and chilling The Area of Interest by Jonathan Glazer.
