Best International Movies Of 2024

As 2024 comes to a close, Deadline's film critics each picked their top 3 international films of the year. Three of these recent selections have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards for Feature Film – although not all of the titles below have been released by their country of origin.

Overall, as Deadline awards columnist and chief film critic Pete Hammond noted, “there was an exceptional list to choose from.” All three of his best films began their careers at the Cannes Film Festival, “which is another reason why the famous French festival sets the cinema table for the rest of the year,” he says.

Besides Cannes, premieres at the Berlin, Venice and Toronto festivals are also shown below.

Here are the best international films of 2024, according to Hammond, Damon Wise and Stephanie Bunbury, based on their respected individual opinions and listed alphabetically under their names.

Pete Hammond Selections

The latest of many versions of the classic Alexandre Dumas story, The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Count of Monte Cristo) It premiered out of competition at Cannes to huge applause and a huge reception, and why not? This lavishly produced three-hour epic impresses from start to finish. Coming from the current screenwriting and directing team of Alexandre de la Patilière and Mathieu Delaporte, who recently gave a similar treatment to a Dumas film. three knights, This thrilling tale of a man who escapes after being wrongly imprisoned for 14 years to take revenge on those who put him there, is the stuff great adventure films are made of, and this one is with a brilliant performance by Pierre Nigne as Edmond Dantes, aka the Count. of Monte Cristo fills the bill and more.

Click for pluscinemaz.comThe Count of Monte Cristo review

Emilia BeRez

It brought a real international sensation after its debut at Cannes, awards for its four leads, as well as a Jury Prize for director Jacques Audiard, and the Spanish-language French entry for Best International Film at the Oscars, simply impressive in every respect. Most notable as an unparalleled musician. Featuring stunning performances from Carla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz who all shared the Cannes honor, this story about a drug cartel leader who decides to change his life and sex is perhaps the most original film you'll see all year. And even upon second viewing it gets better.

Click for pluscinemaz.comEmilia Perez review

Latvia's nomination for Best International Feature Film, in a very good year for feature-length animation, is one of the most surprising and memorable animated films I've seen this year. It premiered at Un Concern Regard at Cannes, and it picked up critics' awards for Best Animated Feature, but it goes beyond that label with a story that truly resonates with where we are in the world right now. It's the story of a cat who survives a catastrophic flood, and then when his community is drowned, he teams up with a group of four other God's creatures in an attempt to survive and learn to live together despite their differences. Coming from animation genius Gintis Zilbaloudis, this gorgeous animated adventure will live in your hearts long after you've seen it.

Click for pluscinemaz.comflow review

Damon Wise's picks

April

Due to the largely commercial lineup of works at this year's Venice Film Festival, Diya Kulumbegashvili's film April This was a deep dive, and in any other year we would have received more than a Special Jury Award. Ostensibly an abortion drama, the kind that sends distributors screaming for the hills, Kulumbegashvili's film is a sophisticated portrait of a deeply complex woman, an experienced obstetrician on trial after one of her patients loses her unborn child. Michael Haneke's shadow lurks in every corner of his pure but intentionally ambiguous compositions.

Bring them down

Director Christopher Andrews' Irish rural thriller takes some getting used to, partly because it feels like it's finding itself The wolf man Star Christopher Abbott speaks better Gaelic than co-star Colm Meaney, but mostly because the fractured storytelling withholds key information until about the halfway mark. After that point, Bring them down It's off to the races, revealing itself as a bloody war sweeping the West, fought between Abbott's shepherd and his deceitful young neighbor. The latter role is a gift to Barry Keoghan, whose elusiveness creates its own mood in the film's violent and tense third act.

lovable

From Norway, Lilja Ingolfsdottir's haunting deconstruction of a suburban couple makes Noah Baumbach's film Marriage story Looks like a Pixar comedy by comparison. Key to the film's success is Helga Goren, who plays Maria, a 40-year-old divorcee who is reconsidering her new relationship seven years later. It is told entirely from Maria's point of view, even when her own testimony makes it somewhat unlikable, lovable It is a showcase of Goren's amazing talent; She oscillates between strength and vulnerability, putting everything she has on screen in a beautifully chaotic flow of raw emotion.

Stephanie Bunbury's picks

Dahomey was the West African kingdom now called Benin, which the French invaded in 1890 and, among other assaults, took 7,000 works of art back to France. In 2020, 26 of them were returned to a newly created museum in Porto Novo that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Musée Branly in Paris, where they had been stored for a century. Mati Diop reflects on this cultural exchange while detailing the process of packaging and preserving the work on screen; It also gives voice to Behanzin, a statue of a former king – who became wealthy from the slave trade – now living a harsh wooden life. An intellectually dense film, full of ideas, some contradictory, some disturbing, all provocative.

Click for pluscinemaz.comDahomey review

My favorite cake

A sweet romance from Iran, where small pleasures like a walk in the park with a gentleman are denied even to a respectable septuagenarian like Mahin (Leili Farhadpour). But in its autumn years, it kills life from its horns. When she hears a friendly taxi driver (Ismail Mehrabi) say that he has no one at home to cook for him, she invites him to dinner, unafraid of the law or of seeming silly. They drink wine, spend the night, and are on their way to ruin. Directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaa let their story unfold with the understated charm of a romantic comedy, but one can't mistake the enthusiasm of the election campaign.

When autumn comes

At her cottage in Burgundy, where the leaves are turning red and the forest is brimming with mushrooms and wild fruits, elderly Michele (Hélène Vincent) tends her garden, goes to church and supports her best friend (Josiane Balasco), whose son is in prison. French director François Ozon is at his best here – yet anyone, even an apparently virtuous grandmother, may harbor dark secrets and desires that are difficult to mention. Vincent, with her beautiful face, is quietly mesmerizing; Ludivine Sagnier, as her antagonistic daughter, is an absolute firebrand. Ultimately, this is a sad but unsentimental meditation on families: how they fail us and how they can be rebuilt with love.

Click for pluscinemaz.comWhen autumn comes review