2024 was a year of contradictions; of an ascendant right-wing that swept Donald Trump to victory in the American presidential election, coupled with a banner year for queer and trans filmmaking. There are not one, but two trans filmmakers in my top 10 list. There’s even a transgender actress making serious Oscar season waves (although in talking about the best films of the year, the less said about Emila Perez the better.).

Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow is ostensibly a film about the bonds created by the communal act of watching favorite TV shows. These are the kinds of deeply personal cult hits that feel as though they're made just for you; like a secret shared amongst friends that not only defines you but gives you an identity as a member of an exclusive club in which minutiae and trivia become a kind of language only the initiated can understand.

Love Lies Bleeding is perhaps the horniest, most aesthetically electrifying film I've seen in a multiplex in very long time. It's a sweaty, sweltering, heady mix of queer eroticism, crime thriller, magical realism, and dark comedy that feels genuinely rebellious in a way films rarely do anymore.