Boy Movies #80
The annual Boy Movies boys of the year list
You’re reading Boy Movies, a newsletter. This is both the 80th issue overall and the last issue of 2024! Wow! If you want more from me between issues, I’m on Letterboxd, and if you like what I’m doing here you can support me on Ko-fi or Venmo <3
ALTRWR1, once upon a time Boy Movies was a weekly newsletter with new issues every Tuesday. In celebration of the holidays, and in the interest of getting the final post of 2024 out before I proceed to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s rotting on my mother’s couch and playing The Sims for twelve to fifteen hours per day, I’m briefly returning to that era.
While other, better writers churn out proper end of the year lists, I’m here with the second annual Boy Movies boys of the year list. To any writers at any major publications who may be reading this, please feel free to write up the Boy Movies top 24 boys of the year list, as many people across the globe have been waiting for this with bated breath.
The Boy Movies Top 24 Boys of 2024
24. Adam Scott, Madame Web
Madame Web is a movie about a guy who is inordinately excited to become an uncle. Madame Web is a movie that dares to ask what if Uncle Ben was hot like a squirrel. Madame Web is a movie that does not allow Adam Scott As Uncle Ben to say the names “May” or “Peter” due to what I can only imagine are incredibly messy rights issues between Sony and Disney. And you know what? He still gave the best performance in the whole thing.
23. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Nicholas Hoult, various movies I did not see
The Fall Guy. Juror #2. Kraven the Hunter. The Order. Nosferatu. The Garfield Movie. What do these 2024 films have in common? They star Aaron Taylor-Johnson and/or Nicholas Hoult. What else do these 2024 films have in common? I didn’t see them. But I like Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Nicholas Hoult so much and I’ve enjoyed seeing photos of them on various press tours this year. Yay <3
22. David Dastmalchian, Late Night with the Devil
This man is a star AND an actress. The movie is fine.
21. Harry Lawtey and Ken Leung, Joker: Folie a Deux
Maybe you found Joker: Folie a Deux to be a waste of time2, but it gave me the opportunity to see two members of the cast of HBO’s Industry on a big IMAX screen. Good for them and good for me. I also recently met Ken Leung and we talked about Lost, which doesn’t have anything to do with anything but the brutality of everyday existence gives me so few opportunities to brag.
20. Alessandro Nivola, The Brutalist
The only person in the cast who seemed aware that he was in the same movie as Adrien Brody. When he exits the story you spend the rest of the runtime hoping against hope that he’ll come back (he doesn’t — ugh). Also, he’s HOOOOOOOT!
19. Julio Torres, Problemista
His bouncy little walk… absolutely delightful.
18. John Early, Stress Positions
John Early has one of the most expressive faces I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing on screen. He would’ve made a fabulous silent film actor but I’m glad we have him today.
17. M. Night Shyamalan, Trap
“I’m actually her uncle, her mother’s brother.” I’m actually her uncle, her mother’s brother. I’m actually her uncle… her mother’s brother. I’M ACTUALLY HER UNCLE, HER MOTHER’S BROTHER!!! That’s right, king. We were all wondering.
16. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is winning Best Picture at the Allison Awards, I can tell you that much. Year of the creature!
15. Venom, Venom: The Last Dance
YEAR OF THE CREATURE!!! Is Venom a “boy”? That’s for me, his biggest fan, to decide.
14. Kieran Culkin, Variety’s Actors on Actors
Yeah, he was good in A Real Pain, but did you see him getting all worked up telling Colman Domingo that Anna Nicole Smith wasn’t a Sagittarius, “she was a person”? Getting to watch Kieran Culkin bitch at someone in front of a camera is one of the greatest joys of modern life. DO YOU THINK THINGS ARE HAUNTED?
13. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay, Femme
I was unfamiliar with George MacKay’s game until I saw him get dommed by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in Femme. Now I understand him intimately.
12. Sebastian Stan, A Different Man
Watching A Different Man was to live temporarily in a Sliding Doors-esque fantasy world where Sebastian Stan chose to star in cool movies for adults instead of getting chained up in Kevin Feige’s basement all those years ago.
11. Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
I simply think he’s one of our greatest living actors. To make me feel for Roy Cohn, of all people…
10. David Jonsson, Alien: Romulus
What a banner year for Industry alums making their mark on 2024 cinema’s most totally fine to unforgivably bad releases3. His sweet little android face… his bad jokes… Cailee Spaeny, I understand you: I, too, want to protect him with my life.
9. Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, Challengers
Most homoerotic use of a churro in a motion picture.
8. The Conclave, Conclave
From the overwhelmed and overworked Ralph Fiennes to the bleeding heart liberal Stanley Tucci to the conservative Italian vape-hitter, Conclave gave us the year’s greatest, and bitchiest, ensemble. AMEN.
7. Daniel Craig, Queer
Queer was not the film of the year, but Daniel Craig in Queer might just be my performance of the year. I say this as someone who enjoys Craig’s Bond movies: What a shame he was trapped in legacy franchise hell for so long when the whole time he’s been capable of stuff like this. It’s fitting, though: As friend of the newsletter Lyvie Scott once famously wrote, Daniel Craig is “a girl actor trapped within the boy movie industrial complex.”
6. Austin Butler, The Bikeriders
The Bikeriders is a film that dares to ask what if a man was Kate Winslet in Titanic? What if a man was Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street? What if a man was Marilyn Monroe? The answer to all of those questions is, of course, Austin Butler.
5. Harris Dickinson, Babygirl
I wish I could put a photo of him up in my locker. Year of the Dick, despite him telling Letterboxd that one of his four favorite movies is The Big Lebowski. Can’t win ‘em all — although I do think he would love this newsletter.
4. Dev Patel, Monkey Man
I've seen the world, done it all, had my cake now
Diamonds, brilliant, and Bel Air now
Hot summer nights, mid-July
When you and I were forever wild
The crazy days, city lights
The way you'd play with me like a child
Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?
Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?
I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will
Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?
I've seen the world, lit it up as my stage now
Channeling angels in the new age now
Hot summer days, rock and roll
The way you'd play for me at your show
And all the ways I got to know
Your pretty face and electric soul
Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?
Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?
I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will
Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?
Dear Lord, when I get to Heaven
Please let me bring my man
When he comes, tell me that you'll let him in
Father, tell me if you can
All that grace, all that body
All that face makes me wanna party
He's my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds
Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?
Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?
I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will
Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?
Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?
Will you still love me when I'm not young and beautiful?
3. Hugh Grant, Heretic
So infectiously fun, so surprising, so balls to wall kooky. Hugh Grant likes to joke about being old and ugly and washed up now, but I still would, with zero hesitation. And I bet you would, too.
2. Denzel Washington, Gladiator II
The year’s most entirely alive performance, made even livelier by the fact that everyone surrounding him seemed to have taken fistfuls of downers before stepping in front of the camera. To glide through Grandpa Ridley’s ill-advised Gladiator sequel with such jubilant swag and to give us, “I’m putting this dress on, these rings, and I’m going crazy”? Boy oh boy. He sure did.
1. Josh Hartnett, Trap
Who else? He graduates from his #2 spot on last year’s list because in 2024 there is absolutely no other choice. Tough to imagine anyone else in the world playing this role or fitting more seamlessly into the uncanniness of the M. Night cinematic universe. His handsomeness is the perfect mask, and he knew we’d want to see him rip his shirt off for no discernible reason. In a perfect, more daring world, he’d be in the awards conversation.
Honorable mentions: Channing Tatum, the wretched Deadpool & Wolverine; Boyd Holbrook, A Complete Unknown; Antonio Banderas, Babygirl; Adrien Brody, The Brutalist; Tom Hardy, The Bikeriders and Venom: The Last Dance; Adam Driver in that one clip from Megalopolis; Ben Affleck, The Greatest Love Story Never Told 🙁
What else did you write this year, Allison?
Not a lot! Or, I don’t know, I don’t feel like I wrote much this year, but I did some other stuff. I spent months working on a feature at my day job (that makes it sound more serious than it is — it’s literally about Interview with the Vampire) and took a screenwriting class (no, I will not discuss what my screenplay is about because I am not a man approaching a director after a Q&A). I scaled back on Boy Movies for the purposes of time management and also mental health management, but dare I say that the issues I did send out were some of the best I’ve ever done. Oh well! We’ll see what next year brings. Onward and upward.
Here are the Boy Movies issues I’m proudest of:
And here are some of my favorite things that I wrote for TV Guide:
My big fat Interview with the Vampire Season 2 digital cover story
I did a ton of other IWTV coverage this year, like this interview with the Daniels Molloy that I spoke into existence, a chat with Delainey Hayles and Rolin Jones about la finale de Claudia, and this video with Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and Delainey. I rarely work on videos so please be gentle when you hear my stupid voice asking them stupid questions.
My review of Masters of the Air, a show that somehow came out this year
Merry happy
Happy holidays, Boy Movies community. See you in 2025!
As long time readers will remember… nobody responded a few issues ago when I asked if we liked this abbrev so now I’m using it forever…
Maybe if you read Ariana’s testimony you’d have a change of heart.
It was NOT Marisa Abela’s fault that Back to Black was a mess.
Venom is a goo, hope this helps
flawless list, as to be expected… special shout outs to 17 which made me laugh out loud and for the problemista shout because that was one of my favorite movies of the year and in my heart i feel like it should be getting more of the Promising First Time Feature Director treatment than it is but also, his bouncy little walk!!!! i think on lbxd i called it his snes character walk lol.
also a shout out to the guy sitting next to me at deadpool and wolverine who when channing tatum appeared on screen said out loud “oh man, i love channing tatum.” me too, guy sitting next to me at deadpool and wolverine. me, too.