From sandworms and showgirls to Nespressos and needle drops, the A Rabbit’s Foot staff bring you their favourite movie moments of 2024!
Chris Cotonou, Deputy Editor
The Nespresso cameo in Conclave
The scene where the cardinal draws an ELFBAR might be the more memorable gag in Conclave—a film where humour is a relief from the slow tension. But no moment inspired a bigger laugh than when, in the middle of an important meeting between Thomas and Joseph, the latter’s Nespresso coffee machine makes the familiar buzz that starts my morning. There are many daily noises like this one that we don’t hear enough in cinema, but when we do, they’re surprisingly immersive. And in religious drama Conclave’s case, funny as hell (pun unintended).
Angelina Jolie’s 1970s glasses in Pablo Larrain’s Maria
Thanks to Larrain’s film, Gen Z audiences are about to discover just how cool Maria Callas really was. Lots of movies this year have had serious eyewear game, but you can really imagine Angelina Jolie’s hulking square-framed prescription glasses taking off with fashion crowds. In contrast with Callas’ opulent outfits, they add a layer of vulnerability (and… drab normality?) to a character that is portrayed in the film as godlike and vain. When the frames are on, Jolie’s Callas is about to be at her most human.
The beautiful ending of Everybody Loves Touda
A shout out for Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s film, Everybody Loves Touda, which is competing on multiple fronts at next year’s Oscars. We follow a Cheikha singer from the country who tries to make it big in the city, with obvious challenges—especially from the manipulative, misogynistic men in her life. By the end of the film, Touda achieves her dream. In one single-take, we watch as those dreams are met, disregarded, and then triumphed over again. There was a standing ovation for Ayouch in Marrakech. Rightly so. It’s not perfect, but I can’t get Touda’s story out of my head.
Luke Georgiades, Features Writer
Experiencing reincarnation in Samsara
Have you ever watched a movie with your eyes closed? This is what filmmaker Lois Patiño asks of you halfway through his slow but mind-bending Samsara, a transcendental cinematic experience that rewards its audience’s patience with a feeling of existential wonder. During its twenty minute immersive interlude, you’ll meet Death face to face, travel with her, then be brought to the realization that you’ve been caught in her embrace the entire time.
The sexiest line of the year in Babygirl
Scrolls could be written about how we arrived at the point where Nicole Kidman’s delivery of “I’m going to pee” in Babygirl became, by a wide margin, the hottest line of dialogue in 2024. Me? I’m just happy we’re here at all. Delivered to Harris Dickinson (himself on top form), It’s the standout moment in a movie full of standout moments, delightfully peeling back layers of carefully-crafted corporate sophistication to lay bare the unashamedly kinky, deliciously primal heart of human desire. If nothing else, the arrival of Babygirl is proof of one thing: horny cinema is back with a vengeance.
“The Greatest Day” needle drop in Anora
No other needle drop in 2024 has come quite as close to perfection as the opening of Anora, which sees director Sean Baker use Take That’s seminal hit Greatest Day to set the stage for a sexy night on the strip circuit for Mikey Madison’s scrappy sex worker and titular heroine. Baker speaks of finding the song as a moment of serendipity. “The beats of the song matched up with the beats of the scene perfectly.” He recalls, during his interview with A Rabbit’s Foot. “We were jaw-dropped—it was as if Take That had written Greatest Day specifically for the movie itself.”
Timothee Chalamet riding the sandworm in Dune Part II
Timothee Chalamet’s dark messiah Paul Atreides has just ridden and tamed the largest creature in the Dune universe, and a collective exhale has left the lungs of every audience member in the room, myself included. It’s the moment fans of the original book series thought could never be brought to the screen, and just as it announces Atreides as a strong contender for Muad’dib, so does it cement Denis Villeneuve’s place as an undeniable titan of big-screen filmmaking. In a world stricken by formulaic superhero film fatigue, Dune Part II is a promise of new horizons still to come for the art of the blockbuster.
Kitty Grady, Digital Editor
The true terror of The Substance’s make-up mirror scene
The scariest scene in Coralie Fargeat’s gut-busting body horror in which aging star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) injects herself with a lurid fluid so she gives birth (through her spine) to a younger version of herself? A surprisingly quiet one. In a last ditch attempt at intimacy, Elisabeth (one hand already mauled due to substance misuse) decides to go on a date with an old school friend. Catching herself in the mirror as she leaves the house, she gets stuck viciously redoing and rubbing off her own makeup into a clownish mess. The true horrors of female beauty standards don’t need flights of fancy.
Pamela Anderson transition to indie darling in The Last Showgirl
The Baywatch star has been back on my radar for a while now– largely through her vibey Instagram stories and no make-up red carpet appearances, but 2024 has cemented the return of Pamela Anderson with The Last Showgirl. Gia Coppola’s indie movie about an aging Las Vegas Showgirl, it stars Anderson as the titular aging showgirl (a definite theme of the year), all wide-eyed and expressive. The start of a new chapter for Anderson as a star of budget indie movies, I hope.
The Brutalist’s 15 minute intermission
If you find yourself saying “They just don’t make them like this anymore” whenever you watch a movie made prior to 2000, then run—don’t walk—to see Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which premiered at Venice Film Festival earlier this year. A 3h55 epic about a Hungarian architect Laszlo Toth’s (Adrien Brody) voyage to America, it’s no surprise that Corbet struggled to get it made. But thank god he did—every minute is pure movie magic, even the in-built 15 minute intermission.
Renate Reinsve’s nervous laughing fit in Armand
Norwegian actor Renate Reinsve won us over in Joachim Trier’s 2021 The Worst Person in the World, as a selfish millennial with little direction in life. If I’m being honest, I found that role a bit two-dimensional and manic pixie dream girl for my liking. But in Armand, Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel’s directorial debut (yes, he’s a relation to Liv Ullman), Reinsve’s lead performance is much more layered. Playing a young mother whose 6 year-old son is accused of sexually assaulting another child, she is called in for a disciplinary meeting at school with the accuser’s parents. At the film’s core is Reinsve’s 7-minute laughing and then crying scene—a true theatre of cruelty as she struggles to come to terms with what is happening.
