SEATTLE — Here is what this is not: a traditional Top 10 list, or a best-movies-of-the-year feature. Though I saw a lot of movies in 2024, my numbers were lower than usual (a family crisis meant that I missed many of the major year-end titles) and I don’t feel remotely able to pronounce anything as the year’s best. That said, here are nine movies that stayed with me this year (in a good way; not like “Madame Web,” from which I’m still recovering) — movies whose worlds I found myself frequently reentering, whose art and skill fascinated me and reminded me why I love this beautiful art form. Here they are, listed alphabetically. I hope you found nine — or 90! — movies this year that thrilled you, too.

“The Crime Is Mine”

This delightful French trifle came and went from Seattle theaters so quickly in early 2024 that I wondered if I’d dreamed it. But what a dream: The great François Ozon (“Swimming Pool,” “In the House,” “Frantz”) is in playful mode here, with an enchanting screwball comedy set in 1930s Paris and dealing with matters of murder, scandal, celebrity and excellent capes. Absolute froth, and glorious fun.

“Evil Does Not Exist”

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film was inspired by its lushly beautiful score (by composer Eiko Ishibashi); it seems to breathe music. An enigmatic mood piece (set in rural Japan, where a planned development threatens the peaceful life of the locals), it’s the sort of movie that changes you as you watch it. You become seemingly aware of the trees growing, of the way branches merge with the sky, of the way even water has a song.

“His Three Daughters”

Unfolding like a play, and mostly taking place in a nonremarkable New York apartment, Azazel Jacobs’ transcendent tale of three sisters tending to their dying father in his last days is the kind of film where you feel like you’re breathing the same air as the characters, becoming part of a family, feeling their regrets and joys and connections. Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen were perfection, as was a late-film moment that so beautifully encapsulated what it means to lose a loved one.

“Hit Man”

Richard Linklater’s irresistible comedy caper/sexy film noir lit up Netflix screens all summer, and for good reason: It’s just ridiculously fun. Glen Powell, as a mild-mannered psychology professor named Gary who moonlights as a fake hit man, gives a true star turn — letting us see the joy Gary’s finding in pretending to be someone else, and, simultaneously, the joy Powell’s finding in the role. A smart, funny popcorn movie that’s what you wish all popcorn movies could be.

“Nickel Boys”

It’s not in theaters yet (“Nickel Boys” will open in Seattle in early 2025, and stream on Prime Video later in the year), but I can’t get RaMell Ross’ eloquent adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel off my mind. Told from the point of view of a young Black boy at an abusive Florida reform school, the film’s inventive camerawork (by Jomo Fray) is remarkable, literally allowing us to see the world — in its beauty and its horror — through his eyes.

“A Real Pain”

You approach Jesse Eisenberg’s dramedy, in which two cousins travel to Poland to reconnect with family roots, thinking you’ve probably seen it before: An odd-couple duo takes a trip and learns a few things about each other. You leave it dazzled by Kieran Culkin’s performance as a freewheeling extrovert who’s covering up his own pain, by Eisenberg’s way of effortlessly combining wit and poignancy, and by the way this film so beautifully explores the idea of home, wherever it may be.

“Sweetheart Deal”

The most moving scene I saw on screen in 2024 came in Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller’s locally made documentary, which loosely follows four women struggling with addiction and involved with prostitution on Seattle’s Aurora Avenue. It’s a moment of courage and empowerment that quite literally took my breath away, and though the film is undeniably dark and difficult to watch, it leaves with you with hope — and awe.

“The Taste of Things”

Tran Anh Hung’s utterly delicious film is a love story told mostly through food. Set in 1889, at a dreamy manor in the French countryside, it’s one of those movies in which almost nothing happens but everything happens. Juliette Binoche, soft-voiced and lovely, plays chef Eugenie, who prefers to let her food speak for her — it’s poetry on a plate, as her employer and sometimes-lover Dodin (Benoît Magimel) knows. Everything about this movie is pure beauty; plan for a good meal immediately after viewing.

“Wicked”

You might have heard of this one. Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the smash Broadway musical — the first act of it, to be specific — is the happiest of cinematic thrill rides: wildly lavish, ridiculously colorful and led by two actors who can, when called upon, sing the paint off the walls. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as a pair of young witches in the Land of Oz, are a powerhouse duo; watching them defy gravity on an enormous screen was … well, the reason we go to movies.

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