My Favorite Discoveries of 2024

A very overdue list of media I enjoyed from last year.

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (William Morrow and Company, 2024)

Tony Tulathimutte established himself as American literature’s resident bard on the millennial condition with his 2016 debut novel Private Citizens, which won endorsements from luminaries like Jonathan Franzen and might be among the funniest books I’ve read. Rejection collects several short stories he has written since then, including “The Feminist,” which was originally published in n+1 and might be my favorite from the collection. Like his novel, Rejection assimilates a wide breadth of cultural references and social observations into an uncomfortable portrait of how we approach relationships, social status, and identity in the disorienting landscape of twenty-first century America. It’s as dizzyingly humorous as it is scathing, exposing the hypocrisies that anyone “terminally online” will recognize as the source of toxic grievances.

My First Film by Zia Anger (Mubi, 2024)

Zia Anger was named a rising talent to watch in film programmer Eric Allen Hatch’s widely discussed 2018 editorial for Filmmaker Magazine, “Why I Am Hopeful.” While she is known for directing music videos for the likes of Mitski and Angel Olsen, I became acquainted with her work through her short films, I Remember Nothing and My Last Film, which encapsulate her surreal and unclassifiable filmmaking style. Her debut feature, My First Film, adapts her eponymous multimedia performance in which she recounts her struggle to shoot a feature film over a decade ago, when she was still in her twenties. It’s a bold mix of documentary and fiction that excavates one artist’s relationship to failure.

Sonic Wires by Dream House Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon, 2024)

Named after the art installation by La Monte Young, the contemporary classical ensemble Dream House Quartet comprises The National frontman Bryce Dessner, pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, and David Chalmin. I eagerly anticipated their next release after listening to their wonderful self-titled 2023 EP and fortunately didn’t have to wait very long. Sonic Wires is their debut album and features familiar works by Steve Reich and Philip Glass arranged for two guitars and two pianos, compositions by Dessner and Chalmin, and sparkling interpretations of more challenging contributions by Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and others.

ME by Don Hertzfeldt (Bitter Films, 2024)

Don Hertzfeldt is something of a legend in indie animation, writing, directing, animating, and sound designing each film entirely by himself. About ten years ago, his workflow switched from hand drawn to digital, starting with his time travel trilogy World of Tomorrow, which earned him his second Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. His latest project, ME, expands upon this practice, recycling animation from a previous commission he was sadly forced to scrap. Hertzfeldt emphasized during a screening when I was in Austin for SXSW that he made an effort to avoid sharing details about the film ahead of its release. I agree that the experience is enhanced by knowing less beforehand, but I will say that the 22-minute short deals with the apocalypse and uses music extensively.

Samsara by Lois Patiño (2023)

Inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Samsara is equal parts ethnography and fantasy, documenting the daily lives of monks in Laos and seaweed farmers in Zanzibar and bridging the two continents with a sensuous journey into the afterlife that must be seen (or rather not seen) to be believed. At the film’s midpoint, viewers are instructed to close their eyes for several minutes while the screen flickers, triggering scintillating visual patterns evocative of an altered state. Galician filmmaker Lois Patiño chose Laos as the setting for his third film concerned that setting it in Thailand would elicit comparisons to the similarly meditative work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Animal Well by Billy Basso (Bigmode, 2024)

It’s exciting to witness a debut as assured as Animal Well. Developer Billy Basso spent seven years designing the puzzle platformer singlehandedly, writing the music and even building the game engine from scratch. The result is a file just under 40 MB in which the player explores a vast subterranean, nocturnal environment populated by various animals and ghosts. The game has earned widespread praise for its atmospheric sound design and pixel art, as well as comparisons to Fez, considered by many to be one of the great indie games, for its detailed world-building and elegant gameplay. Despite being given little guidance, attentive players will find progressing through the game intuitive and notice clues to solutions for more complex puzzles hidden in the artwork.