IndieWire’s Staff Picks Their Favorite Films and Television Shows of 2024

Here’s a good way to terrify someone who works at IndieWire at a cocktail party: ask us to name our favorite films and television shows of the calendar year. Instant brain-breakdown! While I have personally taken to having my Letterboxd at the ready (a quick click over to my “likes” for the year helps my mind kick back into gear), I expect this year’s iteration of our all-staff list of favorite movies and shows will assist to an even greater degree.

The ask was a simple one: if you’ve got the time and inclination, we’d love to share your lists with our readers. And, even during this very busy time, putting this list together was a real pleasure, and a reminder of all the very good new offerings that hit our screens this year. Of course, sharing them with you, dear readers, only makes it all the better.

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To further this peek behind the curtain, I’m also happy to include the parameters I laid out to the staff when it came to this assignment:

1. For films, please only name films that have been released this year, though if you did see something in a qualifying release late last year we might otherwise consider a 2023 film, ask me, I might have some wiggle room here.

2. And the same for TV.

3. You can submit up to ten films and ten shows – no more. Less? That’s fine! But no more.

4. You can rank your picks or not rank them.

5. Please don’t mix your picks in one list, I’d like one film list and one TV list. Feel like you can only do one or the other? That’s fine, too.

6. To keep this concise, we’re not allowing people to write about individual films or shows, but if you’d like to include a couple of sentences as an intro to your lists, that’s totally fine.

As you will see in the lists that follow, even with these parameters (which even I flouted a bit), there is tremendous range here. Yes, the films and shows that top our site-wide lists (like “Nickel Boys,” “Anora,” “Nobody Wants This,” and “Somebody Somewhere”) pop up here, but there is also a (frankly, somewhat worrying) affection for reality television of all stripes. Mostly, these lists are designed to effectively answer that cocktail query, and much more. Enjoy!

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