Friends! We arrive at the end of another year, replete with the bounty of a satisfying cinematic twelvemonth. We’ve seen old friends return, bold new voices stepping into the limelight, veteran filmmakers offering up magna opera, and so much more.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful year, and have found new insights and enjoyed vital excitement in your year on the moving picture merry-go-round. Cinema needs you, just as much as you need it, so thank you for being here.

But, before we rummage through the Christmas Radio Times, highlighter in hand and stack of blank videos propping up the Christmas tree (yes, I’m old – it’s all true), let us take a moment for The Truffles – the HeyUGuys Alternative Movie Awards.

It’s out fifteenth year offering up our own awards for the movie good and greats, and as always our writers have chosen the movie moments, the actors and directors, the performances and the industry themes which moved them the most.

So, in the best festive tradition, let us enjoy a cup of something warm, and sit back to enjoy our look back over 2024 in film.

Merry Christmas.

Dave Roper

Best “Nope” Moment

Alien: Romulus

Still from Alien Romulus
Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Despite one ill-judged “cameo”, Alien: Romulus was generally a very well-judged entry in a franchise that has had its fair share of ups and downs of late. I first saw Aliens as a teenager and for reasons to do with taping off TV (VHS tapes kids – I’m telling you, those were the days) the first scene I ever saw was Ripley and Newt waking up in the lab with the facehugger containers opened and empty. Facehuggers have been nightmare fuel for me ever since.

So the scene in Romulus when the room with all the frozen specimens is slowly warming up, and they gradually all get loose was, no word of a lie, terrifying. When the cast are then running down the corridor and an absolute army of the blighters come crashing through the door and out into the corridor and full tilt. Like I said, Nope.

Most Impressive Debut

Zoe Kravitz for Blink Twice

I’m sure there are more accomplished debuts that passed me by, but hey – I don’t get along to the cinema as much as I would like to these days.

Blink Twice, considering its subject matter, proved to be an incredibly accomplished debut directorial effort for Kravitz. Of course a great script and killer cast will help, but her use of colour, the unsettling score and framing, the handling of the more unsettling tone – all of this seems to speak to someone with an intriguing career ahead of them. Always nice to see Christian Slater and Haley Joel Osment on screen too.

Best Shot Film

Dune: Part 2

dune part two

Man alive, they shot the shizzle out of this one. Denis Villeneuve really is an artist. Hans Zimmer’s thrumming score helps, and a for many a director, their DoP is their best friend, but to take something so utterly vast in scale and scope and make it come alive and feel tangible and immersive in this way is impressive indeed. Don’t get me wrong – Dune: Part 2 was impressive and satisfying across the board, and I would be happy to see it hoover up all manner of awards come the gong season, but simply as something to sit in front of and watch, absorb and be mesmerised by. Wildly impressive.

Most Fun at the Cinema in the Summer

Shared by Twisters and The Fall Guy

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in The Fall Guy
L to R: Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers and Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

As I commented to some friends on a group chat after seeing The Fall Guy, I have realised I am still a sucker for old-school stunts and action. Watching the sequences unfold, then seeing the tribute paid to the real stunt actors over the end credits, The Fall Guy was a load of fun. It’s such a shame it didn’t perform better at the box office, but it exists in the world and for that we should be grateful.

Twisters was similarly entertaining. Nothing that is going to change the world, but Glen Powell, like Ryan Gosling, has charisma to spare and is always fun to hang out with. Watching much of the output from streaming giants, it is clear to see that these sorts of films are not nearly as easy to put together as you might think. Give me either of these films 50 times before you waste my evening with Red One.

Most Obvious “They are going to be a star” Moment

Aaron Pierre for Rebel Ridge

rebel ridge

That bit when he squares up to Don Johnson, the police can’t get their router to work and then suddenly they realise that he is a proper badass and is about to make life very difficult for all of them. His piercing eyes, his incredible physicality, his humanity and charisma. Pierre is clearly hugely talented, and found exactly the right film here to connect to that. John Boyega dropped out, the film took forever to get made, but get made it did, and even if it gets a little muddled at times in terms of what it is trying to be (part First Blood, part Reacher, part social commentary), what it unquestionably must be seen as is a calling card for Pierre’s considerable talents. This feels like the film we’ll look back on (like Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out) to see where it all started.

Most “Nearly But Not Quite” Film

Road House

I *love* Road House (1989 vintage). It is terrible but amazing, the very definition of “they don’t make them like that any more” (see also Brian “the Boz” Bosworth’s Stone Cold). I had high hopes for this remake. Gyllenhaal is a great actor, regularly producing really great work, and Doug Liman is at the very least a solid director (and sometimes a good deal more than that). Conor McGregor was obviously “a choice”.

There were bits of this that I really enjoyed, a few call backs that landed pretty well and our man Jake had clearly put in the time to convince as a cooler. I guess we couldn’t really expect *that* line to get trotted out again for the remake, but we did at least get an attempt at “be nice”.

I enjoyed it, but it could have been so much more.

Ben Robins

The Say NothingAward for Biggest Shock & Awe

The Coffee Table

The Coffee Table

In all my years presenting this fake award on the internet (all three of them), I never thought I’d come across a film quite as monstrous and shocking and upsetting and just flat out ballsy as Caye Casas’ blackest of black comedies The Coffee Table. Absolutely nothing about this should work. It definitely shouldn’t be riveting. It definitely shouldn’t be one of the best films of the year. And it definitely, definitely, definitely shouldn’t be funny. But here we are.

the-coffee-table

Read nothing beforehand. Don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t do anything other than stare at the screen in disbelief for 91 harrowing minutes. And then promptly switch off your television, throw it in the nearest large body of water, and take the longest shower of your entire life, despite knowing deep down, that you’ll never ever truly be clean again. 

The Glen Coco Award for Best Teen Movie

Snack Shack

Despite kicking off his career with some proper down-and-dirty nastiness, Adam Rehmeier’s resurgence as the new indie coming-of-age king only upped pace in 2024. Fans of Dinner in America might be left a little cold by just how closely his familiar throwback gem Snack Shack follows the classic American summer movie mould. But it’s practically impossible not to be totally warmed and won over by Gabriel LaBelle and Conor Sherry’s hard-hustling leads; two teens who use their gambling winnings to buy out the local pool’s snack shack for the summer, to kickstart their business empire.

snack shack

There’s a satisfying rat-a-tat to Rehmeier’s dialogue that borders on screwball in the first act, but even when he shifts gears into more by-the-numbers stuff later on, there’s such a special little sparkle to the performances and relationships here. And even though it’s Sherry who ends up the de facto lead, LaBelle really burrows his way in to being the heart of the movie, proving just how impressive a young performer he really is (see also: his awards-worthy turn as Lorne Michaels in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night).

snack-shack

The Shyamalan Award for Dumbest Smart Movie

Trap

Still from Trap

There are two kinds of dumb smart movie; those that are smart in how dumb they are (see this year’s low-rent cult classic in the making Hundreds of Beavers), and those that are dumb in how smart they think are.

trap

Genre legend M. Night Shyamalan’s rivetingly awful potboiler Trap is the best example of the latter in a very, very long time. At best, it’s a cleverly angled vanity project designed to push his (admittedly talented) daughter Saleka’s music career. At worst, it plays like a TV movie remake of Silence of the Lambs written by someone who had only just recently been kicked in the head by the horse. A sumptuously silly serial killer thriller that begs us to revel in the cunning smarts of a man whose idea of a subtle distraction is to openly shove a disabled woman down a flight of stairs in front of a crowd of people.

And that all happens in the first act, before Trap is quite literally breath-taking in its ability to constantly one-up its own stupidity. Proudly showing off Shyamalan’s trademark skill of writing characters even more uncannily than Chat GPT. Something which a hammy Josh Hartnett happily devours though, having a tonne of fun as a spittingly nasty discount psycho forced to cosplay as a suburban dad, in a world in which everyone is somehow blind to his blatant acts of violence.

It’s a baffling experience, the sort that you just can’t look away from, made all the more enjoyable by how earnest Shyamalan continues to be. 

The “I Wish I Could’ve Seen This In A Cinema” Award for Straight-to-Streaming Majesty

It’s What’s Inside / MadS

Greg Jardin’s wildly capacious single location thriller It’s What’s Inside is the sort of darkly funny high concept genre movie that Netflix practically built its Originals strand on. But while the streamer usually favours the sort of uncomplicated narratives that constantly and consistently fill you in on what you’ve missed (for the casual, multi-screen viewer), Jardin does the very opposite – if you take your eyes off It’s What’s Inside for more than a few minutes, you’re done for.

It’s What’s Inside

And it’s huge amounts of fun; cleverly acted, a little soapy in its relationships and above-all, exquisitely cut together to tease just enough of its masterplan, but still keep plenty back to leave you kicking yourself come the finale. It begs for multiple watches, a big group of friends (so you can really feel it when the penny drops), and absolutely no context pre-watch, so no plot spoilers here.

On the other end of the spectrum is David Moreau’s wickedly ambitious, Shudder-backed MadS; a single-take nightmare (with supposedly, and convincingly, zero hidden cuts) providing a very personal experience. A bad trip party movie that lands on the garish side of psychedelic, serving as a real-time version of a Romero outbreak movie that’s almost vérité in its camera-work and commitment to keeping things grounded, despite a lot of satisfyingly gnarly set pieces. 

mads

The Fuck ThatAward for Nastiest Cinematic Creepy Crawlies

Infested

No one likes spiders and if they say they do, they’re lying. They’re nature’s Freddy Kruger; the very definition of the term “creepy-crawly”. So it’s wild that beyond the occasional family-friendly fare (1990’s Arachnophobia) and B-movie throwback (2002’s Eight Legged Freaks), spiders have very carefully evaded ever being the big bad in a creature-feature.Infested

Until 2024 that is, when they invaded not one, not two, but three of the year’s most monstrous horrors. And while the Aussie-backed Sting settled for a smattering of sweetness here and there, and Fede Alvarez’s gnarly Alien reboot Romulus finally gave the franchise’s multi-legged face huggers a proper pep in their step, it was Sébastien Vanicek’s seriously distressing Infested that took the crown as the film that most often made this writer leap back on the sofa screaming “fuck that fuck that fuck that”.

INFESTED

 

So it’s no surprise that Vanicek’s been fast tracked straight into making the next Evil Dead off the back of it; Infested is packed tight with nastiness. Properly nail-gnawing set pieces that are character-driven, skeezy as hell (without ever making the spiders overgrown or particularly otherworldly) and baked in a clever post-COVID subtext that doubles down on the French’s capacity for protest. Mostly, it’s just rare to find a horror that’s so genuinely creepy in the very literal sense of the word. 

The “New Nightmare” Award for the Seventh Film in a Franchise Thats Somehow One of the Best Ever

V/H/S/Beyondvhs beyond

I know I say this every year (and the last two have maybe not aged as well as the early entries), but hear me out – V/H/S/ Beyond actually is the best the series has to offer and stands as, at the very least, the height of the franchise’s Shudder era (2021’s V/H/S/ 94 onwards).

vhsbeyond

Five shorts that couldn’t be wilder or more different in look and tone, offering arguably the best batting average of any recent anthology, too. From Jordan Downey’s Resident Evil-esque shoot-em-up Stork, to Virat Pal’s more straight-laced (but equally vicious) Dream Girl, into Justin Martinez’s broad-daylight alien invasion shocker Live and Let Dive (yes, skydiving), Christian and Justin Long’s deeply, deeply horrible Fur Babies, before wrapping up with Kate Siegel and Mike Flanagan’s profoundly cursed abduction movie Stowaway.

vhs beyond

The last on that list proving to possibly be the most successful nightmare fuel of the year. Frames of its finale still firmly lodged in this writer’s brain months and months later; the sort of scare that hits very, very deep and taps into the vast cosmic terror of sci-fi like few have managed. Chilling.

Jack Hawkins’ Most Obscene Misuse of a Household Item of the Year Award for 2024

A brief history – Last year Evil Dead Rise took home this coveted award for the Cheese Grater – the year before saw Terrifier 2 take home the award, 2021’s Titane, a curious French indie featuring the gross misuse of a hairpin and a wooden barstool won it that year, and in its inaugural offing the 2020 award went to Possessor.

Terrifier 3

Regular cinemagoers may have noticed a few obscene misuses of household items this year. The widest-seen instance is likely the ‘ear moment’ in Gladiator II, when Macrinus eases a steel pin into Emperor Caracalla’s ear canal. Steel pins, for the record, are for fastening things, not skewering ear drums and brains. Other highlights include gross misuse of cutlery in Speak No Evil and the vicious weaponisation of a mirror in The Substance.

Then there’s Kill, the Indian action thriller in which a commando fights a gang of thieves on a Delhi-bound train. It’s naff nonsense, but director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat works hard to match The Raid in terms of crunchy, squelchy combat sequences, including a scene in which our hero goes all Gaspar Noe with a fire extinguisher, pummelling some bloke’s head until it’s a red, lumpy stain. Moments later, the commando deepthroats a man with the extinguisher hose and pumps him full of foamy fire retardant. It’s an impressive moment but too brief to leave a lasting impact. Kill is a groan-worthy soap opera, too.

terrifier-3-5

The subject of fire extinguishers segues nicely onto this year’s winner: Terrifier 3. The previous film won back in 2022 and it seems the fate of this award now rests on the output of filmmaker Damien Leone, such is his bloody-minded mission to exhaust every possible kind of bodily mutilation. Terrifier 3 features the obscene misuse of a nail, a box cutter and various other tools, but it is Art the Clown’s misuse of a fire extinguisher that takes 2024’s gong. Instead of using the fire extinguisher’s bludgeoning properties, Art empties the vessel of its usual contents and replaces them with liquid nitrogen, which he sprays on the leg, hand and face of a Santa impersonator. Once frozen, Art strikes the man with a vintage riveting hammer, shattering the icy flesh and exposing the bloody pulp beneath.

Leone was meticulous about this scene. He did not want the limbs to shatter like glass but
rather fragment like a block of ice. “But the inside shouldn’t be frozen,” Leone added, “because the freezing only goes so far, and the core of any living thing is still going to be warm and fresh… [it’s got to] ooze goo from the center.”

This is the kind of creative energy that wins the Most Obscene Misuse of a Household Item of
2024.

Cai Ross

The Joe Pesci Truffle for Achievement in Profanity

Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things

The normalisation of swearing in contemporary culture is something of a relative disappointment to many of us who grew up in a world of badly cut TV versions and cuss-free radio. Swearing was a rare thing, to be cherished, as when one heard a Richard Pryor album for the first time. The sheer shock of a forcefully delivered F-word was at one time as memorable as seeing one’s first total eclipse.

Now though, it’s pretty much everywhere. Even a romantic comedy like Love Actually is as peppered with profanity as a Scorsese gangster epic – though in that case, as incongruently and ineffectively as it’s possible to imagine.

Swearing’s new omnipresence has robbed it of so much of its great impact, so it was with a warm glow of delight that I received Mark Ruffalo’s fouthmouthery in Yorgos Lanthimos’s extraordinary fable, Poor Things. Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of such musically delivered Effs and Jeffs against a visually sumptuous, gloriously designed dreamscape? Perhaps it was the fact that Mark Ruffalo seemed to have summoned up the ghost of Terry-Thomas only to get it high on mescaline (perhaps it was just the sheer amount of fun he was clearly having)?

Whatever the reason, when Ruffalo bellowed, among other bon-mots, ‘You c***y c***faced dips**t,’ I once again felt like I was when I was 13 and found my parents’ Derek & Clive record. Halcyon days indeed.

 

The Travis Bickle Truffle for Most Awkward Cinema Experience of The Year

Anora

For my money, the film of the year is Sean Baker’s Anora. I hope it cleans up in Awards season. I hope Mickey Madison becomes a huge star. I hope Karren Karagulian gets his share of recognition for his hilarious performance as an increasingly frustrated fixer trying to find his wayward godson. I hope this is the film that launches Baker into the big league.

However, watching the first, say 25 minutes, having spotted that one of the regular guests at my restaurant was in there too, took me back to the night I suggested to my parents that we watch acclaimed French film Betty Blue, only to dive onto the remote control like it was a pinless hand grenade after one and a half minutes, so that I could change the channel over to Antiques Roadshow and safety.

The A Star is Born Truffle for a New Star Being Born

Aaron Pierre

My nomination for action film of the year, and I suspect I am not alone, is Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge. Calling back to the rough-edged swampy southern 1970s flicks like Walking Tall and Hustle, this was nonetheless a thoroughly modern thriller, pulsing with vitality and tension.

I have hitherto been unaware of Aaron Pierre, but as the falsely accused ex-marine, taking the battle to a bunch of corrupt cops led by Don Johnson (and how ace to see him continuing his golden run of supporting character glory), Pierre gave one of the most striking, charismatic and bruising performances of the year. I expect nothing but hugeness to come.

The French Taunter Award For Greatest Movie Insult of The Year.

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

A young boy and older gentleman wearing a hat standing outside shoulder to shoulder in the snow

‘Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.’ It’s always a good idea to have a ferociously pointed insult to hand for the rare occasions that one might need it. Generally, of course, the perfect withering rejoinder flashes into your mind about 9 hours after you need it, when your intended victim is many miles away and probably never to be seen again.

The movies are a great repository for savage unreturnable insults. Look at Steve Martin’s Roxanne: you get twenty in one scene alone. The Monty Python classic might be too well-known to be of any great effect. However, this year’s winner might still be relatively unfamiliar, but not, I suspect, for long, since The Holdovers, having won over audiences and critics last January, will now surely develop into one of the great Not About Christmas Christmas films alongside Trading Places and Die Hard.

We knew that Paul Giamatti’s teacher Mr Hunham was a master of verbal take-downs: his treatment of lazy undisciplined students spared not a single blush. However, the entire audience at my screening punched the air as one, when he turned it on his own boss by declaring, ‘I have the requisite experience and insight to aver that you are and have always been penis cancer in human form.’

Stick it in your wallet and use only in emergencies.

Stefan Pape 

English Accent of the Year Award

Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

mark ruffalo poor things

There has been a long lineage of wonderful English accents across cinema history, and some truly dreadful ones. But this particular award is not about accuracy. This award is about conviction. Commitment. It’s about resourcefulness, it’s about doing things your way, not the right away. The best English accent doesn’t have to sound like anyone who has ever stepped foot in England. You just have to give it a bloody good go. So well done Mark Ruffalo, you really gave it a real go in Poor Things.

Best Swearword of the Year

Wicked Little Letters

In Wicked Little Letters, there are a remarkable 71 “f**ks”. But in and amongst that, were some of the greatest insults you’ll hear for some time. It’s hard to pick a favourite, while we were tempted with “you sad, stinky bitch” due to the fact lead star Olivia Colman has it framed up on her wall. We just can’t look past “foxy-assed rabbit f**ker”.

Best Haircut of the Year

Ed Harris, Love Lies Bleeding

ed harris love lies bleeding

Ed Harris, easy. No notes.

The Historical Inaccuracy Award

Gladiator II

GLADIATOR-shark

There weren’t sharks in the Colosseum. Which is fine, it’s a movie, it’s a piece of entertainment. But director Ridley Scott has been quoted since, doubling down on the decision, and defending the possibility that sharks could’ve been featured inside the Colosseum. He said: “Of course they can”. Yeah not sure about that one Ridley.

The Chef of the Year

The Taste of Things

There’s been a bit of a return for the on-screen chef, with the frenetic energy of a kitchen making for a great cinematic stomping ground. From the likes of recent flick The Menu, to House of Spoils, the popular TV show The Bear. But it just has to go to Eugénie in The Taste of Things, played by Juliette Binoche. Never has a film made me hungrier – and I’m always hungry.

Thomas Alexander

Most Unexpected Jar Jar Binks Award

Hugh Grant, Heretic

The buzz of watching a trailer and seeing it’s an A24 production never fails to send excitement levels to the stratosphere!

And Heretic from the directing duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods does not disappoint.

A blend of thriller with shades of horror what makes this is the stand-out performance from Hugh Grant who is the recipient of this coveted, unexpected award…

Arguably the biggest surprise from Heretic is not just the Jar Jar Binks impression from Hugh Grant but also the fact it is delivered with such sincerity and charm yet remains creepy.

Bravo, Mr Grant.

Best Movie Merch Award

The Invisible Raptor

The Invisible Raptor

Not quite 65 million years in the making…The Invisible Raptor is absurd and truly shouldn’t work.

But it turned out to be the highlight from this year’s FrightFest at the Glasgow Film Festival.

Fully committing to the concept in all its silliness where it is genuinely funny and has heart is testament to the script from the writing team of Mike Capes & Johnny Wickham.

This love for the project is clear and actually creating an Invisible Raptor action figure is a stroke of genius.

Safety tested and is undoubtedly a collectible!

More Twists Than A Shyamalan Award

Conclave

conclave

The politics of selecting the next Pope could not be more dramatic.

Over its 2 hours there is never a dull moment with a cast that includes Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow as well as Stanley Tucci.

What is unexpected in amongst the scheming and plotting is the twist. Then there’s another twist and another.

It’s so well crafted and each reveal catches you. Shyamalan-levels of twists makes Conclave a fascinating watch that pulls you into the centre of the drama.

Jo-Ann Titmarsh

Women Rock Award

babygirl

2024 was not exactly a brilliant year for film but it was a brilliant year for women’s performances in film. Whoever wins at the Oscars in February will be a deserved victor and whoever loses was robbed, ROBBED! The Venice Film Festival served up a positive banquet of female performances that included Nicole Kidman unleashing her repressed sexuality in Babygirl, Angelina Jolie hitting the high notes in Maria, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore creating some of the best on-screen and red-carpet camaraderie of the year, and the fabulous Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here.

Not to be outdone, Cannes gave us Demi Moore’s tour-de-force performance in The Substance, while collectives of women shone in both Emilia Perez and All We Imagine As Light. 2024 was the year of the woman. Men are just so last year, darling.

Books are for life, not just for Christmas Award

The Magic Hours John Bleasdale

Don’t know what to get your cinephile friend for Christmas? Left your gift-buying to the last minute again? Never fear – simply head to a bookshop and the cinema section. There you will find such delights as John Bleasdale’s The Magic Hours, the first and definitive biography of Terrence Malick, that most elusive of directors. It’s a delight, full of unexpected humour and some genuinely stirring stories.

Tim Robey offers a fun romp through some of Hollywood’s biggest flops in his exhaustive but thoroughly entertaining Box Office Poison. It’s so good it makes you want to watch all those flops again and might even tempt me to finally watch Cats.

Turkey of the Year

Still from Francis Ford Copploa's Megalopolis

Well, it is Christmas, and it would be wrong to ignore the turkey. Step forward Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis – a turkey that will not be receiving a pardon from me. A shambolic, leery-eyed, overly-long, confused and tedious act of hubris that cost the director tens of millions of dollars and his reputation.

A fine cast and some beautiful cinematography was not enough to magically cook up a festive feast out of this dog’s dinner.

Back from the Dead Award

beetlejuice-beetlejuice-

Tim Burton resurrected the old cast of Beetlejuice and decided that it was so good he would name it twice. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was an absolute joy. Unlike many remakes or returns to old stomping grounds that can leave a viewer colder than a cadaver, Burton’s revival was in no way tired or lazy but a dizzying delight, as bonkers and funny as the first.

After a decade or so in the doldrums, Burton is in fine fettle and long may his good form continue. Also, regarding the Women Rock Award, may I mention the excellent performances from Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Monica Bellucci and Jenna Ortega? The men were pretty brilliant, too.

The Pretty Woman Award for Hookers with a Heart (and maybe statuette?) of Gold

anora

This goes to Sean Baker’s Anora. Yet another example of a splendid performance by a woman. Mikey Madison could well walk away with an Oscar for her gorgeous portrayal of the titular Anora, a dancer in a seedy club who meets a Russian rich kid who just might be her ticket to a new life.

Director Sean Baker, who has worked extensively with the underbelly and the ignored of US society, treats his heroine with dignity and intelligence, qualities that Madison allows to shine through. The film is gritty, slapstick, hilarious and poignant. Pretty Woman, this ain’t.

Alex Clement

The Perfect Pinch of Horror Award

Heretic

Hugh Grant in Heretic

Is that Daniel Clever? I’ll never look at Hugh Grant in the same way again. Heretic, to me, was the right level of scary; the perfect pinch as some might say. As someone who, let’s put it this way, isn’t a fan of horror movies, Heretic was the perfect balance of horror, creepy, bloody and just pure religious weirdness.

Hugh Grant is brilliant in this as he takes his acting skills to another level. He keeps us in suspense for long enough to know ’what the heck is this all about’? There aren’t too many jump scares, gore and blood, but if you love your horror movies to be filled with the above mentioned, then this one may as well be a Disney film in comparison. But for me, like Goldilocks once said, it was just right.

The Biggest Comeback Award 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (or Beetlejuice 2)

Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice in BeetleJuice Beetlejuice

We never thought this day would happen but here we are. A sequel to a classic film that deep down we knew we needed but never thought we’d get. Okay, let’s be honest – it’s not the OG, but, it’s such a delightful little autumnal treat that you can’t help but peek behind the curtain and watch with the whole family, twice.

It’s a gem full of great new songs, with some of the old cast gracing our presence and new ones too. Gladiator 2 who? THIS is the sequel we wanted and very much

 

Stop Trying To Make It Better, It’s Not Going To Happen Award 

Mean Girls

Mean Girls 2024

Just stop. The original from 2004 is all we need. It’s all we care about. If it’s not broken don’t fix it. Just leave it alone. Thanks.

Jon Lyus

The Read Nothing About This Film – Just Watch it Award

Hundreds of Beavers

hundreds of beavers

My good friend Gary Phillips has given me many recommendations over the years, often with some good advice as an addendum. This advice I’m now passing on to you, if you’ve not seen the film yet.

A minute or two into the film I thought, “There’s no way they can keep this going…”. An hour and forty odd minutes later I was proved so wrong. And wrong in a fundamental way, the sort of wrong that makes you elated that people are making films like this, unlike anything I’ve seen before and with the kind of vision and spirit that is absent in almost everything else I saw this year.

Don’t read about it – just watch it.

The Bill Hicks ‘Laugh out loud’ Awards

The Substance

The SubstanceHorror cinema remains the best place to go for good satire, fun thought experiments and, in this case, one idea honed to pin sharp perfection. Demi Moore is rightly getting plaudits for her work here, and much like Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl there is a growing trend for stars who made their name in different times to return, and for us all to reflect on what it means to be in another age, and another time.

That’s the basis for why I was engaged by The Substance, but what Coralie Fargeat chose to do in the final stages of her exceptional film was both unexpected and completely right. I was properly laughing out loud for the final twenty minutes. This is a film that seduces you to the edge and then wraps its tendrils around you before throwing us both screaming and laughing into the abyss.  Joyous.

The Gene Kelly Fever Dream Award for best Choreography

Smile 2

Still from Smile 2

There was much to enjoy in Parker Finn’s follow up to the surprise horror hit Smile. The change of pace was a welcome one, bringing in aspects of celebrity worship and the constant facetime it requires. It has a number of genuinely unsettling moments, but there is one moment in a dark hallway that personified and elevated the horror perfectly.

I won’t spoil it for you here, but man – it’s an instantly classic horror image. Hands, legs and smiles – oh my!

The Leonard Rossiter Award for Best Ralph Fiennes performance

Conclave

In a film steeped in tradition and understatement, the thick fog of ambition is, conversely, what brings everything in sharp focus. Fiennes is magnificent and his dramatic trajectory is true throughout every slow, painful second of the tension. His talent is undeniable, and put to thrilling work here. Also – bonus Isabella Rossellini, which is never a bad thing.

The best Nicolas Cage of the year Award

Longlegs

longlegs

Osgood Perkins came up with the goods this year, and legitimately terrified us from the get go by opening Longlegs with the most shocking jump scare of the year. It is a potent introduction to one of the best Nicolas Cage performances for years. It is a bold beginning, and it only gets worse (better!) from then on in.

The Orson Welles Award for Best Directorial Debut

Monkey Man

Getting to speak to Dev Patel about the long, arduous journey to bring Monkey Man to the big screen was one of many privileges this year. And man, was it ever worth it. The film is one of the year’s best, with bone-crunching fights and heart-wrenching dramatics beautifully intertwined. One of our best actors has become one of our brightest directing stars working today.

And so the curtain closes on another fine cinematic year. From all of us here at HeyUGuys have a wonderful Christmas, a thoroughly well-deserved break, and a bountiful, beautiful Happy New Year at the movies and beyond.

See you all in 2025.