2024 Movies Shot on Film: From ‘Challengers’ to ‘Nosferatu’
Kodak, which had a momentous 2023 with more than 60 movies shot on film (led by the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer,” lensed by Hoyte van Hoytema) has gotten off to a promising start in 2024 with Luca Guadignino’s “Challengers” and Jane Shoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow, which A24 released wide May 17. Upcoming releases include Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders” and Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu.”
Meanwhile, Kodak premiered 33 movies shot on film at Cannes. These included nine winners, including Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which earned the Palme d’Or prize, Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language”, which took the first Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award, and “Grand Tour,” which grabbed Best Director for Miguel Gomes. In addition, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness” earned Jesse Plemons Best Performance by an Actor, and “Armand” won the Caméra d’or Prize for director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel.
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Also, 16mm film continues to prove its popularity and relevance, with 26 of the on-film titles at the festival choosing it as their capture medium.
This article was first published January 27, 2024. It has been updated.
Cannes 2024 Premieres
“Anora” (Neon, Competition)
Baker’s comedy stars Mikey Madison (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) as a Brooklyn sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, only to have her happiness turn sour when her in-laws try to force an annulment. Shot in 35mm by Drew Daniels (“Red Rocket”).
“Bird” (Competition)
Arnold gets surreal with this coming-of-age British fable about a 12-year-old (newcomer Nykiya Adams) who seeks escape from boredom and her preoccupied tattooed father, Barry Keoghan, and finds friendship with an eccentric vagabond (Franz Rogowski). Shot in 35mm by Robbie Ryan.
“Motel Destino” (Competition)
Aïnouz centers his erotic thriller at a roadside motel used by sex workers in his hometown of Ceará, Brazil, in which a gang member offers solace to the co-owner of the hotel. Shot in 16mm by Hélène Louvart.
“Grand Tour” (Competition)
Gomes sets his period drama in Burma in 1917, where a British civil servant runs away from his fiancée, who pursues him on his melancholy Asian grand tour. Shot in 16mm in black-and-white by Gui Liang, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, and Rui Poças.
“September Says” (Un Certain Regard)
Ariane Labed’s film explores two very close sisters — September and July — who experience tension on a holiday in Ireland when July begins to explore her own independence. Shot in 35mm by Balthazar Lab.
“Viet and Nam” (Un Certain Regard)
Truong Minh Quy’s drama focuses on Nam and Viêt, both young miners, who cherish fleeting moments, knowing that one of them will soon leave for a new life across the sea. Shot in 16mm by Son Doan.
“Armand” (Un Certain Regard)
Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel’s drama revolves around two mothers who battle each other to uncover the truth in a schoolroom when one of their sons accuses the other of hurting him. Shot in 16mm by Pål Ulvik Rokseth.
“When the Light Breaks” (Un Certain Regard)
Rúnar Rúnarsson’s drama explores a bereaved art student through the immediate aftermath of her lover’s sudden passing, complicated by secrets revealed between them. Shot in 16mm by Sophia Olsson.
“East of Noon” (Directors’ Fortnight)
Hala Elkoussy offers an allegory of two realms: The East32 industrial relic and the liberating fluidity of The Sea. Shot in 35mm and 16mm black-and-white by Abdelsalam Moussa.
“Gaser” (Memento International, Directors’ Fortnight)
Ryan J. Sloan’s revenge thriller stars Ariella Mastroianni as a young New Jersey mother suffering from dyschronometria, a degenerative brain condition, who uses cassette tapes to keep track of time. Shot in 16mm by Matheus Bastos.
“Savanna and the Mountain” (Directors’ Fortnight)
Paolo Carneiro’s documentary about the remote Portuguese village Covas do Barroso and how the townspeople fight to halt the construction of a lithium mine. Shot in 16mm by Duarte Domingos.
“Sister Midnight” (Directors’ Fortnight)
In Karan Kandhari’s black comedy about an arranged marriage in Mumbai, Uma (Radhika Apte) is transformed into a ruthless free spirit. Shot in 35mm by Sverre Sørdal.
“To a Land Unknown” (Directors’ Fortnight)
Mahdi Fleifel’s Palestinian feature concerns cousins and refugees fleeing Greece for Germany by posing as smugglers. Shot in 16mm by Thodoros Mihopoulos.
“Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point” (Directors’ Fortnight)
Tyler Taormina’s comedy about a family’s final Christmas at their ancestral home is marked by teenage rebellion. Shot digitally with one sequence in 16mm by Carson Lund.
Universal Language (Directors’ Fortnight)
Matthew Rankin’s Canadian comedy is an ode to Winnipeg’s Iranian community in the ’80s as well as Iranian cinema of the period, performed entirely in Farsi and French. Shot in 16mm by Isabelle Stachtchenko.
“Blue Sun Palace” (Critics’ Week)
Constance Tsang’s melodrama (winner of the French Touch Prize of the Jury award) explores the bond between two migrants in the Chinese community of Queens who are thrown together by sudden violence. Shot in 16mm by Norm Li.
“Julie Keeps Quiet” (Critics’ Week)
Leonardo Van Dijl’s drama (winner of the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution and the SACD Award) concerns the titular tennis academy star who chooses to stay silent when her coach is suspended and under investigation. Shot in 35mm/65mm by Nikolas Karakatsanis.
“It Doesn’t Matter” (ACID Selection)
Josh Mond’s sophomore film reunites him with actor Christopher Abbott and centers on the relationship between a lost man (Abbott) from Staten Island and a young filmmaker (Jay Will). Shot digitally and in 35mm by many of its participants on shake phones and confessional Zooms.
2024 Release Dates
‘Challengers’ (Amazon MGM Studios, April 26)
Luca Guadagnino’s first comedy is a love triangle about the sexual tension of tennis with queer undertones. It stars Zendaya as a championship tennis star/coach opposite Mike Faist as her husband, and Josh O’Connor as her ex-lover and his childhood best friend thrust into a grudge match tennis competition. The 35mm film-friendly director reunites with cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (“Suspiria,” “Call Me By Your Name”) for a movie that he describes as “hyperkinetic,” “fairly fizzy,” and “sexy.”
‘I Saw the TV Glow’ (A24)
Schoenbrun’s (“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”) latest meta-cultural exploration follows two teenagers (Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine) who bond over their love of a ’90s supernatural TV series, “The Pink Opaque,” only to see reality blur after it’s sudden cancelation. Shot in 35mm by Eric K. Yue (“A Thousand and One”) with the Arricam LT and Zeiss Master Prime lenses, they wished to convey the deep sense of loneliness and isolation with a rich color palette along with grainier blacks.
‘Handling the Undead’ (Neon, May 31)
Documentary director Hvistendahl (Adjø Montebello) tackles horror from “Let the Right One In” author John Ajvide Lindqvist (who co-scripted). It’s about three grieving families in Oslo who must contend with a strange electric field that awakens the city’s newly dead. Shot in 35mm by cinematographer Rokseth, the film reunites Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie from “The Worst Person in the World.”
‘The Bikeriders’ (Focus Features, June 21)
Nichols’ ’60s drama about the rise of a fictional Chicago motorcycle club got pushed back by Disney last year because of the SAG/AFTRA strike and was picked up domestically by Focus Features. Inspired by the 1967 photo book by Danny Lyon, it stars Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, and Michael Shannon. Cinematographer Adam Stone shot 35mm anamorphic with the Panavision Millennium XL2 and Panavision G-Series lenses to capture a sense of naturalism.
‘Kinds of Kindness‘ (Searchlight Pictures, June 21)
Lanthimos’ three-part anthology fable, starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Willem Dafoe, involves a man who tries to take control of his own life, a policeman whose wife seems like a different person, and a woman who searches for a cult leader as her spiritual guide. Go-to cinematographer Robbie Ryan shot in 35mm.
‘Trap’ (Warner Bros., August 2)
The psychological thriller set at a concert marks the first film under Shyamalan’s new first-look deal at Warner Bros. Shot in 35mm by Mukdeeprom, it stars Josh Hartnett, Hayley Mills, and the director’s daughter, singer Saleka Shyamalan, who performs at the concert.
‘Between the Temples‘ (Sony Pictures Classics, August 23)
Silver’s (“Thirst Street,” “Stinking Heaven”) late-coming-of-age comedy stars Jason Schwartzman as a cantor who experiences a crisis of faith when his grade school music teacher (Carol Kane) reenters his life as his new adult bat mitzvah student. Shot in 16mm by Sean Price Williams (“Funny Pages,” “Tesla”) with the Super 16mm, Aaton XTR, and a mix of S16 and S35 Zeiss Super Speed lenses, among others.
‘A Different Man’ (A24, September 13)
Schimberg’s (“Chained for Life”) psychological thriller is about an aspiring actor (Sebastian Stan) who undergoes radical reconstructive facial surgery, only to lose out on a role about his former life. Shot in 16mm by cinematographer Wyatt Garfield (“Manodrome”), the film co-stars Reinsve and Adam Pearson (“Under the Skin”).
‘Nosferatu’ (Focus Features, December 25)
Eggers’ on-again-off-again reworking of the legendary silent vampire film by F.W. Murnau (1922), later remade by Werner Herzog in 1979, finally gets released as a Christmas feast. Shot in 35mm in color by go-to cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, the film boasts a desaturated look reminiscent of 19th-century Romanticism. It stars Bill Skarsgård as the infamous Count Orlok, Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, and Nicholas Hoult as her husband Thomas Hutter. The rest of the cast includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and, of course, Willem Dafoe (who played “Nosferatu” star Max Schreck in “Shadow of the Vampire”).
‘Grace’ (Bodega Films, TBD)
This picaresque Russian ode to cinema premiered last year in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Shot in 16mm by cinematographer Nikolai Zheludovich (“Pigeon’s Milk”), it concerns a father (Gela Chitava) and his teenage daughter (Maria Lukyanova) who live on the road in their van, traveling to remote villages with their pop-up drive-in theater equipment.
‘NR. 24’ (TBD)
Andersen’s Norwegian biopic concerns apprentice Gunnar Sønsteby (Sjur Vatne Brean) from Rjukan, who decides to resist Nazi Germany on the day of the invasion, later becoming leader of the “Oslo gang,” carrying out daring acts of sabotage that make him Norway’s greatest war hero. Shot in 35mm film by cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth (“Handling the Undead”).
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