By Drew Dietsch
| Published
2024 is coming to a close and it’s time for everybody to start getting their “Best Of” lists together. After the smash success of Wicked, lots of critics and moviegoers are projecting it could be a legit contender at the Oscars for Best Picture. The $150 million production is the usual mainstream offering that gets bandied about as the best movie people saw in a year. That’s thanks to it being one of a handful of multiplex-monopolizing mega-studio blockbusters that pushes out more original and independent movies. If audiences had more awareness and open-mindedness about the best movies of 2024, they’d discover that the actual best movie of the year cost 1/1000 of Wicked’s now-industry-standard gargantuan budget.
The Best Movie Of 2024
Hundreds of Beavers is an independent comedy film that cost $150,000 to produce. Taking inspiration from silent comedies, formative black and white cartoons, and even video games, Hundreds of Beavers tells the deceptively simple tale of a unlucky fellow named Jean Kayak who ends up needing to survive in the wintery wilderness by becoming a fur trapper. This descends into such incredibly crafted lunacy as Jean finds himself at war with nature and its inhabitants (mostly beavers, but the title spoiled that). Trying to dictate all the gags and running jokes here would do them a disservice. Hundreds of Beavers really does need to be seen to believed.
What I can relate to you here is Hundreds of Beavers is not only the best movie of the year because it’s a hilarious and expert-level display of artistry on multiple levels, but because it stands in stark contrast to the studio system and showcases that true creativity is often the realm of independent creators.
Originality From Inspiration
Though it’s no measure of any individual movie’s quality, the overwhelming dominance of unoriginal movies has become a serious problem with my enjoyment of popular cinema. I should define “unoriginal” in this context. Let’s take a look at the current Top 20 Box Office Earners of 2024 and see if we can put together a definition:
Out of those, sixteen are sequels. Of those sixteen, ten of those are not direct sequels, meaning they are the third entry or further in their franchise. When it comes to the four non-sequels, one of those is Wicked, a Part 1 with a sequel on the way. And only one of those four non-sequels is an original script that wasn’t adapted from a previous work. Yes, when it comes to a fully original movie doing well at the box office, IF is number one.
So, what does this have to do with Hundreds of Beavers? One of the reasons it’s the best movie of 2024 is how it’s able to take inspiration from popular media and present it in a way that feels truly fresh. Instead of “referencing” to create its art, it blends all the things it loves into a new dish. You won’t see a Triforce symbol anywhere in the movie as an advertising tie-in (heck, whole movies are just video game ads at this point), but you’ll tap into the film’s usage of video game visual language like menu selections and overworld maps. Felix the Cat isn’t popping up so someone can rake in a few rights royalties and be unrecognized by any modern viewer, but the silent cartoon era of anarchic possibility informs so much of what makes Hundreds of Beavers a laugh riot.
But, why bring up the comparison to Wicked’s budget? Because it’s not just Hundreds of Beavers being original that makes it the best movie of 2024. There are plenty of original movies this year that are excellent! It’s what Hundreds of Beavers achieves with such a relatively small amount of funds that propels it into the number one.
Creativity Despite Cost
I have not seen Wicked so I am not going to critique anything about that movie other than what I have seen in trailers and other promotional material. Specifically, Wicked’s approach to cinematography looks like most of the high-end commercial and advertising cinema that we see around the largest ad campaigns. That’s not to say it “looks bad” at all, but it comes across as uninspiring in the larger landscape of cinema. Part of that is because it has the backing of a massive studio and studios have become more and more risk averse when it comes to more striking and stylistic moviemaking.
Contrast that with Hundreds of Beavers being independently financed and what it’s able to use the medium of movies to do with much relatively less. I’m not trying to demean the (I’m sure over)work of the VFX artists and other craftspeople behind Wicked, but watching Hundreds of Beavers pull off such inventiveness with 1/1000 of that film’s budget is more energizing for the future of cinema than another blowout blockbuster.
Don’t take this piece as a “Wicked sucks!” screed. I haven’t seen it so I don’t know if it sucks or not! But when we start all these annoying awards rumblings, remember that the actual best movie of 2024 is a little piece of art made for less than a thousand Wickeds.
