As we trudge into 2025 and the national onslaught that awaits us, let us remember that our art will hopefully outlast this current struggle. And 2024 was indeed a great year for cinema, with independent, offbeat and otherwise refreshing films finding their way to audiences as much if not more so than the dying breed of blockbusters that ruled yester-decade.

(Of note: there is a movement in popular American cinema that is changing how the police are portrayed in movies. No longer are they the force for good, with an occasional bad apple. Rather, ACAB applies, because cops either enact or are complicit in violence against the citizens they supposedly serve).

Here, organized into double and triple features, are my 10 most precious films from 2024:

*Intelligent* Hollywood Fun: ‘Dune: Part Two’ and ‘Hit Man’

Going to a theater and beholding “Dune: Part Two” was a thrilling and immensely encouraging blockbuster experience. The sequel to the grand but hollow “Dune: Part One” has no tedious lore set up burdening its momentum, so things are finally allowed to get interesting. Paul Atreides’ descent into fascist imperialism through exploiting religious extremism, paired with the imagery evoking the ongoing genocide in Palestine, make “Dune: Part Two” much more than merely an impeccably crafted piece of action cinema.

In “Hit Man,” Richard Linklater takes a real-life premise — a college professor going undercover for the police — and mines intellectual gold. The characters are smart, funny and sexy — thanks in large part to Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, who are wildly attractive together. The film balances dark subject matter with a light touch, and its out-there ending will leave audiences challenged in a way few rom-coms manage. Also, ACAB.

Political Rage, Simmering: ‘Evil Does Not Exist,’ ‘Rebel Ridge’ and ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’

Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns after the one-two punch of “Drive My Car” and “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” with a complete departure from his usual, conversation-heavy material, titled “Evil Does Not Exist.” The proposition of a “glamping” site upstream from a rural mountain community quietly lays bare the fragility of humanity’s ecological balance, and what may be necessary to maintain it. Despite their speechlessness, one will not soon forget Hamaguchi’s unsettling final frames.

Many may remember “Green Room,” the A24 neo-Nazi horror flick from Jeremy Saulnier. Well, Saulnier, too, came back last year with “Rebel Ridge,” a similarly riveting investigation of White Supremacy in contemporary America. Aaron Pierre is a star in this thriller filled to the brim with extremely tense action, smart decisions and righteous anger at civil forfeiture, police corruption and brutality, and other BS that happens daily in this fine nation of ours. Also, seriously, ACAB.

And then we have the film, made in secret under an authoritarian regime, that had to be smuggled out of the country along with its director. Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” makes a newly appointed judge’s home into a microcosm for Iran’s oppressive treatment of political dissidents. Rasoulof, by integrating horrific real-life footage from student protests with family melodrama performed to perfection, leaves his characters and audiences no room to feign ignorance: a reckoning is due.

Trans Imagery, Thriving: ‘Monkey Man,’ ‘The People’s Joker’ and ‘I Saw the TV Glow’

Dev Patel produces, writes, directs and stars in “Monkey Man,” a John Wick-like revenge picture in which Patel’s absurdly handsome nameless protagonist takes on an entire far-right government. “Monkey Man” would fit right alongside the films mentioned in the previous section but for the subplot wherein Patel is taken under the wing and aided to self-actualize by an army of hijra trans women.

The sight of proud trans women kicking butt in a mainstream action picture is not just revolutionary, it’s cool as frick.

A movie about the Joker came out in 2024 that finally pushed the superhero genre forward, and I’m not talking about the Todd Phillips joint — Vera Drew’s “The People’s Joker” miraculously made it to theaters despite a cease and desist order from Warner Brothers.

Punk rock to its core, “The People’s Joker” takes iconography we all know and are tired of and makes legitimately daring decisions with it, offering commentary both tender and subversive. Also, ACAB.

If Jane Schoenbrun’s first narrative feature, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” is terrifying in its silent, screaming melancholy, “I Saw the TV Glow” tears open terror (and cinema) itself in pursuit of a most transgressive, and necessary, resurrection.

Though it is taking cues from “Twin Peaks” and “The Matrix”, one is comfortable saying that there is no film quite like “I Saw the TV Glow” because it is simply that *trans*-cendant.

Best of the Best: ‘The Peasants’ and ‘Origin’

Hugh and DK Welchman, in their second effort at a film in which every frame is literally a painting, choose for their subject Władysław Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning tome, which tells of one year in a 19th-century Polish village. “The Peasants” is stunning to look at from start to finish, and the source material’s literary breadth fully translates as class, gender, sex and religion clash in the name of preserving The Land. Handily, it’s the most entrancing cinematic experience of the year.

Ava DuVernay is easily one of the most important U.S. filmmakers of the century, and “Origin,” an adaptation of the nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” is her most ambitious, experimental work yet. DuVernay chooses to realize a research piece by telling the story of its writing. To see the life of a scholar told in this way — learning is living is learning — one knows that the past is alive, that it’s not even past, and that we must confront it just as we confront the trials of the everyday. “Origin” is the best film of 2024.