Lifestyle
9 movie scenes I couldn't stop thinking about in 2024
Some scenes just stay with you. Clockwise from left, I Saw the TV Glow, My Old Ass, Trap, Tuesday.
A24/Screenshot by NPR; Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services; Warner Bros. Pictures; A24
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A24/Screenshot by NPR; Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services; Warner Bros. Pictures; A24
As a critic, I’m sometimes asked about my note-taking habits: Do you take a lot of notes? (Almost always; my memory can get fuzzy fast.) How do you do this in a dark theater? (Absolutely no phone screens! I scribble furiously with a pen and paper and hope for the best.) What do you usually take notes about?
To that last question, it truly varies, but I can say that I’m consistently being pulled in by words, spoken and unspoken. The profound, the funny, the relatable, the subtext-laden; the lines that reveal some kind of truth about the world on screen and thus the world we’re existing in now. When I think of some of my most memorable film-going experiences of 2024 – a great year for movies! – these are some of the moments and performances that have moved me, and stuck even many months later.
“I’m a little sick of the fluff.” — Girls State
Emily Worthmore, one of the candidates for governor at Girls State, poses with friends.
Apple TV+
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Apple TV+
Gendered inequities become glaringly obvious very quickly in Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s fascinating documentary about the long-running high school program known as Girls State. Like many before them, the ambitious civic-minded teens profiled here set out to build their own government from the ground up. But the film was shot in 2022, the first time the Missouri chapter hosted both the girls and boys programs on the same campus at the same time, and the girls spend much of their time observing how much attention is paid to the enforcement of dress codes and how little is given to discussing more substantial and urgent political issues. (Meanwhile, there’s ample evidence the boys’ ambitions are taken far more seriously. Among their advantages: being “sworn in” to “office” by the state governor.)
In one scene some of the girls commiserate over their disappointment with the tenor of the program, with one of them calling it out as distracting “fluff.” The moment speaks to the obstacles that still persist for women in politics and is a sobering depiction of young hopefuls getting an early taste of political disillusionment.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about before. I’m sorry about that before.” — I Saw the TV Glow
Owen (Justice Smith) panics at a child’s birthday party at the end of I Saw the TV Glow.
A24/Screenshot by NPR
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A24/Screenshot by NPR
The final lines of Jane Schoenbrun’s challenging and mesmerizing transgender allegory are a wallop of a denouement, proffering both sadness and hope. The sadness comes from everything we’ve learned about the meek protagonist Owen (Justice Smith) to this point – how, out of paralyzing fear, they’ve made a deliberate choice to deny their true self, and live a depressing and unfulfilling life. Now working at the kind of job that can only be described as the stuff of nightmares – a Chuck E. Cheese-like amusement center – the crushing weight of their denial finally hits, and sends them into a panic attack in the middle of a child’s birthday celebration.
But Schoenbrun leaves room for hope when Owen collects themselves in the bathroom and in a visually stunning sequence, realizes that who they are is still very much a part of them no matter how much they try to ignore it. They crack a slight smile that suggests some relief and then return to work, ambling past patrons and colleagues while mumbling apologies for their outburst. In a way Owen is still shrinking themselves, apologizing for being who they are. And yet: There’s a sense there’s finally been an existential breakthrough, and perhaps a less painful way forward.
“What the f***? Did you honestly think you were going to be married and have multiple kids and your dream job by the time you were 40?…Oh, you did. OK.” — My Old Ass
In My Old Ass, Maisy Stella plays soon-to-be college freshman Elliott — and Aubrey Plaza plays 39-year-old Elliott, a PhD student.
Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services
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Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services
The beauty of Megan Park’s coming-of-age dramedy is that it never attempts to explain how 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) comes to encounter her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza), beyond a hallucinogenic mushroom trip the first time she appears. The obvious and more pressing question then is, What does my future hold? When older Elliott delivers the sobering news to younger Elliott – that life rarely plays out exactly as planned – the reality of many millennials and Gen Zers the world over is succinctly and wittily acknowledged. Own a house? Work a fulfilling job that also pays at least a living wage? LOL.
Park’s film mercifully doesn’t dwell on such cynicism, but it is all the better for those little nuggets of pointed commentary peppered throughout, blending a healthy dose of lived wisdom with the energy of youthful optimism.
“I love you so much more than me, and this is your life. And from now on, we’re gonna do what’s best for you.” — Tuesday
Lola Petticrew plays the titular character in Tuesday, a teenager with a terminal illness. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays her mother, Zora.
A24
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A24
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Zora is unquestionably relatable — what person wouldn’t do everything in their power to ward off a loved one’s impending death, especially their child’s? But ultimately, Zora’s impulses are more harmful than good for her terminally ill daughter Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), who’s already come to terms with her own fate. It takes several extreme attempts at “killing” Death, imagined here as a majestically baritone macaw voiced by Arinzé Kene, before Zora understands she must set aside her own fears of what’s to come and live in the present.
When that epiphany arrives, their mother-daughter relationship begins to heal; Tuesday no longer has to worry about how her mother will fare once she’s gone, and Zora can cherish and appreciate what little time they have left together.
“Why didn’t they call me by my real name? Don’t they know it?” — Dahomey
A wooden statue of King Ghezo, who led Dahomey in the 19th century, is given a voice of its own in Dahomey.
MUBI/Screenshot from YouTube
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MUBI/Screenshot from YouTube
Twenty-six pillaged artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey were returned by France to the Republic of Benin in 2021. One of those objects, No. 26, is given a literal voice in Mati Diop’s stunning documentary, composed from a mix of male and female voices blended to create what she describes as “genderless vocal texture in deep, metallic frequencies.” As Diop’s camera captures the meticulous process of preparing them for transportation, that voice poetically ponders what it means to go back to a home you no longer recognize, through lines written by Haitian author and poet Makenzy Orcel. It’s a poignant reminder that even well-intentioned correctives to historical blights are insufficient in making up for what’s often lost — memories, names, and above all, a sense of self.
“You have a kind of — a forthrightness, you have a kind of aggressive quality. It sounds like a criticism; I don’t mean it as one. I’ve just always worried — I’ve just always wondered how that would work with a man. I’ve wondered if it might be easier for you to be with a woman.” — Janet Planet
11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) and her mom, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in Janet Planet.
A24
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A24
One night, inquisitive tween Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) asks her mom Janet (Julianne Nicholson) if she’d be “disappointed” if she dated a girl when she’s older. Janet, an acupuncturist and total hippie, admits she’d be neither disappointed nor shocked if that came to pass. The clarity of the observation about her daughter reveals that Janet sees a quality in Lacy that doesn’t exist within herself, namely that “forthrightness,” a lack of interest in tamping down any part of who she is.
This plays out throughout writer and director Annie Baker’s quiet drama, as Janet slips in and out of relationships with men who are no good for her, and as Lacy looks on skeptically. But the mother-daughter divide is made most honestly plain in this scene, which is both tender and (metaphorically) loud in the way it speaks to how women are traditionally conditioned to act and think about themselves. There’s care in Nicholson’s delivery, along with a tinge of regret.
“I need you, because I hate myself.” — The Substance
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) attempts to revive her younger counterpart, Sue (Margaret Qualley).
MUBI/Screenshot by NPR
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MUBI/Screenshot by NPR
There is nothing subtle about this movie, but in a sparse script overflowing with bluntly obvious points about the horrors of sexism and misogyny, this line is the most apt thesis statement. What makes Coralie Fargeat’s astounding, seismic body horror so unique is that the external forces – men, the patriarchy writ large — are on the periphery. Instead, Fargeat is preoccupied with what those forces stir within Elisabeth (Demi Moore), a TV aerobics star resorting to the most desperate of measures to regain her youth, and Sue (Margaret Qualley), the other, younger half she gruesomely expels from her body with the aid of “the substance.”
As Elisabeth’s experiment goes awry, she begins to regret what she’s done and attempts to kill Sue, but can’t bring herself to go through with it. Now haggard and pitiful, Elisabeth says the not-quiet-at-all part even louder: “… I hate myself.” The film is a testament to how corrosive that hate can be.
“I’m taking such good care of my little white boys.” — Challengers
Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), her ex-boyfriend.
Amazon MGM Studios
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Amazon MGM Studios
There’s so much narrative possibility packed into this throwaway line, spoken by tennis star-turned-coach Tashi (Zendaya). She’s a ruthless striver wedged in the middle of a homoerotic love triangle because she married Art (Mike Faist) after first having dated his best friend Patrick (Josh O’Connor). Does she love either of them as much, if not more, than she loves the thrill of a little green ball connecting with a swinging racket in a game of “good tennis”? Doubtful. But she’s dedicated her life to making sure Art does what she wasn’t able to accomplish on her own after a career-ending injury, and she’ll be damned if she’ll let Patrick humiliate him on the court.
Zendaya, of course, is a Black woman playing an athlete in a predominantly white and occasionally racist sport. Director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes mostly ignore this reality, arguably to a fault; the movie’s avoidance of Tashi’s perspective in this regard keeps it from having any true thematic heft. But what little it does give us is in the form of this brief acknowledgment from Tashi that she’s hitched herself to these two pathetic “little white boys” who’ve squandered all their privilege and talent right before her eyes.
“Reminding everyone, visual markers. Surveillance footage from area of where victims were found recorded men of various builds: A redheaded male; two African-American males, above-average height; a male with white hair in his 60s; a white male in his 30s with a tattoo of a rabbit or animal on his right arm. A white male with a scar on his lower jaw.” — Trap
Josh Hartnett as Cooper and Ariel Donoghue as Riley in Trap.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Look, I never said this was a list of the best movies of 2024. M. Night Shyamalan’s nepo-baby project starring Josh Hartnett as a hot and doting dad who’s also a serial killer is truly one of the dumbest, most nonsensical things to come out of Hollywood in recent memory. But it’s fun as hell, and the commitment to such a ridiculous premise is weirdly audacious: The F.B.I., led by a serial killer “profiler” played by Haley Mills, has trapped thousands of people at a pop star’s concert to catch a guy who could be literally anyone. (That pop star is played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka.)
What does this killer look like? Who knows! Except if you’ve seen this movie and made it through to the end, you eventually realize that everyone hunting this guy down should’ve absolutely known. It makes no sense. The plot holes are abundant. This is cinema.
Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif.
Ben Margot/AP
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Ben Margot/AP
When Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University a few years ago, he joined the student newspaper, following the path of his journalist parents, Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a writer for The New Yorker.
Through his reporting as a student journalist, he eventually broke a story about manipulated data in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that helped lead to the university president’s resignation.
Theo Baker’s book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was released May 19. In it, Baker describes Stanford as a place where proximity to Silicon Valley gives rise to a parallel system of influence, recruitment and money, with investors looking to identify promising students almost as soon as they arrive on campus.
He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep there was “a sort of Stanford inside Stanford,” where elite students are drawn into an “alternate reality” of excess and access to cut corners.
In the interview, he discusses how Stanford is not just a university but also a pipeline where status and power can matter as much as ideas.
We reached out to Stanford University for comment and have not heard back.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
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