End-of-year movie countdown preview
About this week's sequel to 808 Lines About 404 Movies
For those of you who have been reading this newsletter since this time last year, you may remember that I wrapped up 2023 with a countdown of every single movie from that year that I saw, which I called 808 Lines about 404 Movies (you can read the first half here, and the second half here.) The title, as those may age might remember, was a homage to The Nails’ song “88 Lines About 44 Women.”
It was my intention this year to do something like that again, but I ran into an interesting problem: I ended up seeing more than 404 movies. A LOT more. For a variety of reasons, the number of movies I saw this year set a new personal record.
As the number approached 500, my new idea was to call it The Ben Hecht 500. But then.. the number got way beyond 500.
So here’s how it’s going to work: The countdown will look a lot like last year’s, with worst-to-best countdown of every 2024 film that I saw. My plan is to write on Tuesday about the worst movies of the year, and then count down the top 500 across three parts, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The worst-of list, and the final part will be free, with the rest at least partially paywalled (I invite you to become a paid subscriber, if you haven’t!)
Each entry will have links to reviews, features, interviews or anything else I wrote about the films, as well as info on where to stream it.
A word on eligibility: I cast a pretty wide net for this list, so if a film has a plausible claim as a 2024 release, it’s included. It’s movies that got 2024 releases and were part of 2024 awards campaigns, and also movies I saw at film festivals and through other early-access channels, which may not have releases set in 2024. There are also some movies I saw at festivals in 2023 and earlier, that finally came out this year. If something was part of an awards campaign in 2023 or earlier, that’s out, but otherwise… there will be some films that make both the 2023 and 2024 lists.
Also, movies (usually documentaries) that are two parts, get included as “movies,” for this list’s purposes, but if they’re three or more parts, they don’t.
And finally, if you’d like the (much) shorter version, you can read my Top Ten list at Splice Today here.
Thank you so much for reading, and I’m excited to share this year’s list with you.