The Chicago International Film Festival returns this week for what is arguably its most ambitious program to date, an appropriate feat given the fest is also celebrating its 60th anniversary. The variety and scope of this year’s program is arguably unmatched, continuing the momentum garnered last year when the fest hosted the Chicago premieres of some of the best films of 2023, including “Poor Things,” “All of Us Strangers,” “The Killer,” “May/December,” and many more. This year, the fest premieres that truly stand out for us are remarkably different films: The second screening of Robert Zemeckis’ “Here,” after its AFI debut just a couple days before, and, of course, the screening of “Wellness Warrior,” by our very own Chaz Ebert. We haven’t reviewed those yet, of course, but we have covered dozens of films that are playing CIFF out of other fests including Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, and more. We will be covering over a dozen films out of CIFF that we haven’t written about yet, but thought the best way to preview this year’s event was to give you a portal to all of our coverage of CIFF 2024 films. Just looking at the list below reveals how completely the programmers of CIFF have brought home the best of the best of fest season 2024. Pick your faves. And go see a movie.
“All We Imagine as Light”
“Apocalypse in the Tropics”
“Armand”
“Better Man”
“Bird”
“Blitz”
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Dahomey”
“Desire Lines”
“Eephus”
“Emilia Perez”
“The End”
“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”
“Flow”
“Grand Tour”
“Hard Truths”
“Harvest”
“I’m Still Here”
“It’s Not Me”
“The Last Republican”
“Maria”
“Memoir of a Snail”
“Misericordia”
“Mistress Dispeller”
“Nickel Boys”
“Nightbitch”
“No Other Land”
“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”
“Pavements”
“The Piano Lesson”
“A Real Pain”
“The Return”
“The Room Next Door”
“The Rule of Jenny Pen”
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
“Separated”
“September 5”
“Small Things Like These”
“Transamazonia”
“Universal Language”
“Unstoppable”
“Vulcanizadora”