The best movies of 2024 so far

polygon.com:

Movies released during the first few months of any year have it pretty rough. They’re competing with all the prestige movies still in theaters after the end-of-year rush for awards qualifications, and they’re coming out in a season where a lot of people are still exhausted from holiday season, financially strained by it, or both. It’s easy to overlook new releases at the beginning of the year — but fortunately, it’s also easier than ever to catch up, given how many movies debut on streaming services these days and how quickly theatrical releases move to streaming.

Here at Polygon, we keep a running list of the year’s best movies, starting early and updating often, making a case for the films we think are worth your time. It’s still quite early in the year, but we’ve already seen a variety of 2024 movies that we heartily recommend. And we’ll keep this list going throughout the year, so you can see what we’re watching and recommending and catch up on anything you’ve missed as new movies continue to roll out.

The movies will be listed in reverse chronological order, so the newest releases will always show up first. And we have a short section at the end devoted to late 2023 releases we didn’t have the time to consider for our 2023 best movies list.

Where to watch: Theaters

Don’t get fooled by only seeing one Coen name in the credits; Drive-Away Dolls (or its original title, which still appears in the credits: Drive-Away Dykes) has the same hilarious crime-caper spirit that marks all of the Coen brothers’ best early works.

The ’90s-set movie follows two lesbian friends (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) on an East Coast road trip with two clueless gangsters hot on their trail. Equal parts excellent friends-on-the-road movie and crime comedy, Drive-Away Dolls is an early contender for the most fun movie of 2024, and one that will likely be hard to beat. —Austen Goslin

Where to watch: Theaters

Sometimes, you just want to see Kathryn Newton wear increasingly