As 2024 comes to a close, much of the month will be dedicated to wrapping up the year in cinema with a plethora of year-end features (bookmark here for those), but let’s take a deeper look at the December line-up. Featuring some of the most-praised films of the year, including my favorite shortest and longest works, and much more, it’s a great time for holiday movie-going.

We should note also that a number of notable films are getting Oscar-qualifying runs before the end of the year, which we’ll feature on this in proper when they get their official releases.

15. A Complete Unknown (James Mangold; Dec. 25)

Nabbing the last spot on this for sheer fascination with Bob Dylan alone and not much else, James Mangold in biopic mode is often far less interesting than some of his other work. However, with what seems to be a committed Timothée Chalamet...