“Movies are the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts.” – Roger Ebert
The Cinapse team is all about cinematic discovery. But also, deep down, we’re a bunch of softies who just want to see more love and equity in the world. It’s one of the elements that draws us to cinema. And so, as we love to do each year, we’ve combed through the most powerful cinema we’ve experienced in 2024 releases and are sharing some of the most empathetic titles of last year for you to explore and be changed by. These are presented in alphabetical order, and represent some of the most powerful films curated by the individual writers who submitted them. Consider our hearts fully on our sleeves, and let us know if you check any of these titles out based on our recommendations! (If we did a full review of the film, you can also click the title to find our full coverage). Now go walk a mile in the shoes of these powerful films!
Dìdi
Chris/Wang Wang/Asian Chris/Didi is simply one of the great “coming of age” characters of this generation and far more people should be talking about and checking out Didi. Set in 2008 (so Chris is a generation or more younger than me personally), the film somewhat meticulously gives the bildungsroman treatment to the AIM/MySpace era in a genuine way, making Didi not only feel authentic on the level of any kid growing up in that era, or from an Asian American experience, but also from the increasingly significant technological experience. Writer/Director Sean Wang tells one of the greatest stories of its kind, Joan Chen gives an Oscar-worthy supporting performance as Didi’s mom, and star Izaac Wang infuses the film with all of the awkwardness, anger, shame, and desire that you and I all felt in our teen years. If you do check it out, give Didi a little grace, as he can be an asshole sometimes, just like us.
Flow
Gints Zilbalodis’ animated feature unfolds in a post-apocalyptic future that emphasizes its post-dialogue nature while highlighting a world beyond humanity. Although language is a relic of the past, concepts of communication and empathy remain very much alive, and are essential for the survival of a ragtag group of animals left adrift in a cramped lifeboat after a life-changing flood. These creatures–a cat, dog, capybara, lemur, and bird–all possess individual personality quirks that lead to quickly understandable conflict; however, against all odds, they learn to rely on one another. Along the way, they relinquish what they once considered more important: hoarded trinkets from a flooded tower, the last fish from a hard-won daily catch, and a sense of safety in isolation. The beauty of Zilbalodis’ deceptively simple film is how each of these animals’ actions speaks volumes–suggesting that no matter how much the world may change or destroy what exists within it, those who remain will naturally gravitate towards connection, empathy, and understanding. In Flow, empathy isn’t just a tool for survival: in a world of unpredictable chaos, it may be the only constant we can count on.
For Love and Life: No Ordinary Campaign
Speaking for myself personally, this is the top spot on this list and the most important documentary of 2024.
For Love and Life follows the desperate plight of Brian Wallach and his wife Sandra as they deal with his battle with the debilitating and ultimately terminal disease ALS. Faced with the knowledge that Brian, a successful lawyer and political influencer, would eventually lose his motor skills, then basic bodily functions, and finally his life, the couple set out to learn more about the disease, and were shocked to find very little support, practically no research for a cure, and an uphill battle against walls of red tape.
Where most people would (understandably and helplessly) resign to this inexorable fate and try to just pass these precious remaining days as comfortably as possible, Brian and Sandra made a fateful decision to fight against impossible odds, using their political knowledge and experience (the pair met working the campaign trail for Obama) to launch the I Am ALS Movement, making enormous strides in securing research funds and petitioning for legislation to make meaningful changes to bureaucratic barriers so that all ALS sufferers can live a better life with greater hope for the future.With the current shitshow of the US government under Trump and Musk, and the sense of hopelessness and helplessness that that can create, the importance of individuals fighting the system and trying to effect positive change has never been more critical.
Hard Truths
It’s a shame that for as much critical love that Hard Truths has received from various groups, the film hasn’t achieved the level of widespread visibility it should have by now. Mike Leigh’s film offers up one of the most prickly characters to lead a film this year. Marianne-Jean Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman who spends every waking minute being caustic and aggressive to whomever she encounters, including her own family. Only her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) sees beyond her hostile behavior to the person she once was. Watching Pansy is as exhausting as it would be being in the same room with her in real life. Yet Baptiste and Leigh craft a compelling portrait of someone suffering so much emotional damage that when Pansy is allowed to examine her pain, the result is one of the most human cinematic moments of the year. Hard Truths shows the difficulty of being around damaged people and giving them the grace they need when they need it the most.
Nickel Boys
Empathy is in the DNA of Nickel Boys.
Almost any moment can be singled out for the purpose of this list, but the one I want to highlight is a brief exchange between Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and Turner (Brandon Wilson). Hattie has come to Nickel Academy to visit her grandson Elwood and runs into Elwood’s friend Turner. Elwood is in the infirmary due to a beating, but Hattie thinks he’s just sick. Turner knows the truth, but is too scared to tell her. She asks Turner for a hug, which he obliges. To this point, we know Turner keeps a wall up around himself as a coping mechanism to get through Nickel. And we know Hattie is an affectionate woman who is missing a part of her heart without Elwood at home. Their embrace allows them to acknowledge and share their pain and their need for a moment of kindness in a world unrelenting in its cruelties. It’s a lovely moment for characters in desperate need of one. It’s made all the more potent by a later scene between the two under under more severe circumstances.
For as difficult and upsetting as Nickel Boys can be, the film frequently makes time to remind the characters of their own humanity. It’s the kind of empathy necessary to get through the darkest of times.
Piece By Piece
In a hip hop landscape dominated by highly publicized beefs, political alliances, and intense sexualization – the story of Pharrell Williams stands out as something so pure and artful in a way so few in the rap game do. Pharrell has always looked at the world differently than most of his contemporaries, hearing colors and seeing sounds. Naturally, he decided to tell his story with LEGO.
A truly inspiring film for the whole family, packed with incredible music, wildly entertaining LEGO versions of big names from both inside and outside the music world, and some of the most unique and colorful sequences put to screen this year, Piece by Piece can fill hearts and cure wounded souls. Worth noting, I’m not one to be drawn to animation nearly as much as many of the other writers on this site.
The Remarkable Life Of Ibelin
“Our deepest sorrow lay in the fact that he would never experience friendships, love, or to make a difference in other peoples’ lives. You proved us wrong. You proved us so wrong.”
“In there, my chains are broken, and I can be whoever I want to be”
Perhaps gross, but nonetheless true: I’ll never forget sitting down to watch Ibelin in an Alamo Drafthouse with a big cheeseburger, and soon after finding myself tasting my own free flowing tears in said cheeseburger as this film proceeded to move me, devastate me, and inspire me. On the one hand the life of Mads, a young man with a progressive muscular disorder that increasingly limited his mobility and ultimately led to the end of his life at a young age, but who found love and companionship and inspired many people in World Of Warcraft‘s Azeroth, is inspirational in its own right. But what I think makes this THE great empathetic cinematic work this year is the message that Mads leaves with all of us: that the ultimate meaning and impact of our brief and limited lives lies in the difference we make in the people around us, and if any of us can aspire to loving and caring for others, learning to be vulnerable and share what’s real with one another, then the world will ultimately be a better place. The film is much more profound than I can sum up here but absolutely seek this one out.
Sing Sing
Austin Vashaw:
Sing Sing chronicles the story of a group of maximum security prisoners who find artistry, healing, and a sense of purpose through performance, as participants in the “Rehabilitation Through the Arts” program. In one sense it’s a “putting on a show” story, but certainly one of the most unique and thoughtful explorations of that concept.
The men, many of them hardened criminals with severe differences of personality and opinion, must work together, encourage each other, and confront their own discomfort and vulnerabilities in order to succeed. It’s a tremendous film with deep and memorable characters, exploring conflict, passion, and relationships.
Based on a true story, the film features several former inmates and members of the program playing versions of themselves, breathing into the film a special quality of authenticity and immediacy. The acting is tremendous across the board, and in our own Cinapse Awards we recognized both Colman Domingo (Male Lead Performer) and Clarence Maclin (Male Supporting Performer) for their outstanding work.
Steppenwolf
Julian Singleton:
I never would’ve expected a film as drenched in blood and brutality like Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Steppenwolf to be a candidate for a film like this. For much of the film, Steppenwolf seems decidedly anti-humanity. Set in an unnamed steppe country besieged by civil war, where roving warlords take advantage of suffering humans wherever they can, the daily name of the game is either become a victim or be a ruthless perpetrator of violence. Convict-turned-mercenary Brajyuk (Berik Aitzhanov) accepts his place in this senseless universe with detached amusement, but his forced pairing with Tamara (Anna Starchenko), a traumatized, stuttering mother searching for her kidnapped son, forces Brajyuk to confront the sense of compassion he thought he’d buried long ago.
More Cormac McCarthy than Mad Max, the carnage of Steppenwolf is fiercely random and dispassionate–but Tamara refuses to let the universe’s indifferent violence sway her from an inspiring, resistant benevolence. Disguised as a revenge thriller, Steppenwolf is secretly one of 2024’s most empathetic films–recognizing how compassion remains a necessary and effective weapon against seemingly incessant nihilism.
The Wild Robot
Ed Travis, from his above-linked review:
I spend a lot of time watching, writing about, and pursuing cinema that celebrates empathy and The Wild Robot will no doubt be one of my favorite films of 2024 not only because it is a deeply compassionate and kind film, but because it’s not afraid to lay bare the stakes for not embracing kindness. Indeed, a central premise of the film is that kindness is a survival skill and it does a fantastic job of subtly reminding us viewers that this skill isn’t only key to our characters’ survival, but for society as well. It’s bizarre to live in a time where simple kindness and self-sacrificial love are revolutionary concepts that feel antithetical to the societal norm, but nevertheless here we are, and The Wild Robot offers somewhat of a countercultural narrative to the masses as a result.
BONUS EMPATHY: Smile 2
At first glance this might seem like an odd inclusion on this list, a nasty horror movie that luxuriates in menace and dread. But those qualities are precisely what makes it one of the more empathetic horror films of the year. Naomi Scott’s stellar performance as pop star Skye Riley at the center of the film provides a very intimate portrait of a woman struggling, torn apart by a sense of anxiety and depression, to say nothing of imposter syndrome, that hounds her. It is maybe cliche to argue that being a celebrity is hard, but depression is a monster that knows no bounds. By the time you reach the end of Smile 2, you have seen the prison that is her own mind in a more honest and captivating way than many adult dramas concerned with topics of self-harm. At times a difficult watch, but one with a surprising amount to say about the demons that infect even the most seemingly successful.
And We’re Out.
