Juror #2 – the latest and perhaps last film from director Clint Eastwood – is a stirring morality play that places high stakes drama at the forefront of a crime procedural that will inspire much debate regarding natural law and the justice system.

Nicholas Hoult stars in Juror #2 as Justin Kemp, a writer and recovering alcoholic who is summoned to jury duty for a case involving the murder of a young woman (Francessca Eastwood) allegedly at the hand of her former-criminal boyfriend (Gabriel Basso). Unbeknownst to everyone is that Justin is the guilty culprit; the result of an accidental hit-and-run on a dark and rainy night.

Juror #2 features 98-year-old Eastwood in prime-form, especially in his ability to capture great performances from his cast. The prolific Hoult delivers a fantastic turn as a morally conflicted man caught in an ethical minefield, as his attempt to walk a perilous moral line leaves him an anxious and soul-wrenched mess of a man.

The directorial debut of actor Jack Huston, Day of the Fight is a wonderfully crafted and portrayed film about penitence, forgiveness, and enduring the hard rounds in this fight we call life.

Michael Pitt delivers a career best performance as Mike Flannigan, a disgraced former boxing champion and ex-con who attempts to atone for the sings of his past on the day of his comeback fight.

Featuring excellent black-and-white photography from Peter Simante and a stellar supporting cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Ron Perlman, and Joe Pesci, Day of the Fight is especially strong thanks to the assured direction of Huston who delivers a film of heart, soul, and positive masculinity.

An excellent directorial debut from Jennifer Esposito, Fresh Kills delivers a fresh take on the mob movie with the female point-of-view the focus in a mafia daughters coming-of-age in the mean streets of Staten Island during the 1990s.

Fresh Kills stars an excellent Emma Bader as Rose, the youngest daughter of mobster Joe Larusso (Domenick Lombardozzi) who in 1987 moves his family – which includes his wife Gloria (Jennifer Esposito) and his wild-child daughter Connie (Odessa A’zion) – from Brooklyn to the suburbs of Staten Island. Fast forward to the early 90s and a psychologically fragile Rose tries her best to break away from the mob-life and its old-world conventions.

Esposito – who also wrote and produced Fresh Kills – brings to the film her own real-life experience growing up in 1980s Staten Island where the mob would be found on every corner. This result’s is an absorbing authenticity to the period setting of Fresh Kills that can be felt in the outfits, the music, the natural use of language, and the stuck-in-time architecture that the shot in Staten Island Fresh Kills has in spades.

A based on true-events crime-comedy featuring excellent chemistry between Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, Hit Man has director Richard Linklater delving into the idea of identity and ego while subtly spoofing biopic filmmaking.

Powell stars as Greg Johnson, a professor of psychology in New Orleans who finds he has a talent for undercover work when he stumbles into the role of pretend hit man for the police. While disguised as the charming contract killer Ron, he meets and falls in love with Madison (Arjona) who approaches “Ron” to murder her abusive husband.

Equally playful and thrilling, Hit Man especially works due to the palpable chemistry between Powell and Arjona. While Powell is all kinds of entertaining in his various disguises, it is his time as Ron alongside Arjona that makes the screen crackle with electricity, with Arjona delivering a magnetic performance of primal sexuality and great comedic timing.

An underdog story of faith and ambition told with impeccable craft and commanding performances, Cabrini does justice to the legacy of a saint who stood up for the downtrodden against those in power.

Cabrini stars Christiana Dell’Anna as Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini, a Catholic sister who in the late 19th century established a mission in New York City where a growing number of Italian immigrants endured persecution and poverty, resulting in a high number of homeless orphans. As Mother Cabrini tries to establish her mission, she is met with danger both in the streets and the corridors of power, where the (fictional) Mayor Gould (John Lithgow) uses the power of his office to try and run Mother Cabrini out of town.

Director Alejandro Monteverde stages Cabrini as a David vs. Goliath battle, yet one that is won through faith, ambition, and the good mother’s embrace of the purely American attitude that “we are bold, or we die!” Dell’Anna portrays this little-saint-that-could with frail physicality, strong spirit, and keen intelligence that encapsulates the character of this Patron Saint of All Immigrants.

An innovative serial killer thriller that messes with genre perceptions and gender dynamics, Strange Darling is an electric horror story of hunter and prey delivered by an exciting new filmmaking talent in JT Mollner.

Sweet Darling begins with an opening crawl that brings us up to speed regarding one of “the most prolific and unique serial killers of the 21st century”.  Through a series of six non-sequential chapters, we learn how a hook-up between Willa Fitzgerald’s “The Lady” and Kyle Gallner’s armed and dangerous “The Demon” leads to a high-stakes pursuit of killer and victim that is riveting in all its facets.

Mollner pulls off something of a miracle in his ability to deliver a fresh and exciting take on an over-represented sub-genre of horror/thriller film, with his excellent writing and unconventional story structure reminding somewhat of early Quentin Tarantino. As the “Lady” and “Demon” (respectively), Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner deliver exceptional performances. Fitzgerald is especially excellent in her portrayal of savagery and fragility inhabiting the same warped mind.

An outstanding achievement that propels Dreamworks Animation to equal (if not better) footing with Pixar, The Wild Robot bedazzles the eye and speaks to the heart with its story of love overcoming the limitations of the mechanical and natural world.

Based on the book written by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot tells the story of Roz (voiced by Lupita N’yongo) an intelligent robot who finds herself marooned on a tropical island and develops a strong connection with the native animals.

Director Chris Sanders does a terrific job in delivering an animation feature of visual spectacle and powerful emotion resulting in on of the most moving films of the year.

Presented as a lost recording of the “live TV event that shocked a nation!”, Late Night with the Devil is a unique horror movie experience in which scares are delivered under the bright lights of prime time. It is a feat that Australian directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes pull off with impressive flair, with the transparent nature of the late-night TV format restricting the usual horror cheat-codes of dark lighting and jump-scare sound trickery.

Late Night with the Devil stars David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy, the struggling late-night host of Night Owls who after time away to grieve the death of his wife returns with a special Halloween episode in which the feature guest is a teenage girl named Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) who was recently saved from a satanic cult. It turns out, though, that Lily has a demon inside of her, a frightening fact that Jack and his audience will soon have to reckon with.

Set during the late 1970s, the Cairnes brothers tap into strong psychological and spiritual effect the fear, violence, and paranoia of that decade had a upon the American people, especially when scenes of chaos and war were displayed on TV sets across the nation while Charles Manson and Anton Lafey jockey for screen time against Johnny Carlson.

In a rare leading turn, Dastmalchian delivers one of his best performances as a man whose desire to ascend his status as a mid-tier talk show host results in ramifications sinister and deadly, yet sure to boost those slagging ratings. Great too is Ingrid Torelli as a wide-eyed teen dealing with demon’s literal and metaphoric, and Fayssal Bazzi who delivers a scene-stealing turn as a medium plagued by a nefarious spirit.

Inside Out 2 was the first blockbuster of 2024 and for good reason. The sequel to 2015’s award winning Inside Out proves to be one of Pixar’s best films in its own right, with its continuing story of young protagonist Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) and her emotional journey into adolescence a quintessential example of how to create a coming-of-age story with rich emotions and dazzling artistry.

Amy Poehler returns as Joy, the de-facto leader to a group of personified emotions in Riley’s brain whose optimism and patience is put to the test in the arrival of Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) who turns Riley’s life upside down as she heads into high school.

Director Kelsey Mann does the near-impossible in delivering a sequel better than the original, with Inside Out 2 a masterclass of strong emotional-intelligent storytelling within an eye-popping animation film.   

A beautifully crafted and performed blend of Looney Tunes madness, physical comedy gags, and silent film artistry, Hundreds of Beavers delivers filmmaking ingenuity at its most energetic and entertaining.

Directed by Mike Cheslik, Hundreds of Beavers stars Rylan Brickland Cole Tews as Jean Kayak, an apple-jack salesman whose distillery is destroyed by a group of beavers. Out of business and out of his depth in the snow-driven wilderness, Jean learns how to survive in the elements while courting the daughter (Olivia Graves) of a merchant (Doug Mancheski) who demands a steep price for his daughters’ hand: one hundred dead beavers.

Shot in black and white and with no dialogue, Ceslik adds playful 2D animation elements along with a wonderfully composed score by Chris Ryan to create a wholly engaging adventure comedy spectacle. Quick-cut editing (also by Ceslik) gives the film a pop and pace that never drags despite its almost two-hour runtime. The sight of actors dressed in animal costume to depict the wildlife, meanwhile, delivers a surreal zest as if Sesame Street blended with Jeremiah Johnson by way of Evil Dead II, with Hundreds of Beavers a playfully violent movie that literally lets the fur fly.

With its use of action as language and an innovative use of monochrome visuals, Hundreds of Beavers delivers as a gut-busting funny and mesmerising live-action cartoon of little comparison.