This year’s slate of TV shows and films kept us beyond entertained in many ways. Some of them brought tears to our eyes as we said goodbye to beloved characters. Others made us squee with joy or literally lol at our favorite characters. While there are a plethora of memorable TV and film moments that stick out in our minds at any given time, these ones are truly the cream of the crop, in our opinion.
Here are Nerdist‘s Best TV and movie moments of 2024:
The Rings of Power – Adar Gives Galadriel Her Ring and Returns to Uruk Form
It’s no secret that I love The Rings of Power’s Adar and think he is well and truly a hero of the series. But that became a clearer picture, I think, to everyone when Adar chose of his own volition to give up a Ring of Power and return it to its rightful owner Galadriel. This scene in The Rings of Power season two’s final episode is critical for several reasons. First, it makes Adar an elven ring bearer, cementing his place in Tolkien lore and history in a powerful way. Second, it makes him one of the few, maybe only people to have put on a Ring of Power and willingly taken it off again. The draw of the rings is enormous and they are often are to let go off without great personal fortitude.
Seeing Adar’s strength and true goodness of heart enshrined in such a way was incredibly meaningful for the series and the character. Finally, Adar seeing a kind of “healed” version of himself, but forgoing to for the version of himself that he’d earned—scars, stigma, and all—was very beautiful. In a way it showed that Adar needed no healing from the truth of his existence, that he was whole and healed exactly as he was. Galadriel’s awed reaction is apt to the way I think we all felt, watching this one of the best TV moments of 2024 take place. -Selected by Ro Rusak
The Boys – Hughie Bids His Father a Heartbreaking Farewell
Like its previous rounds, The Boys fourth season did not lack its share of weird, gross, and plain disturbing moments. While many of them support the show’s tone with a dose of shock value, sometimes this series has a way of tearing your heart to shreds. The events leading up to Hughie’s father’s death hit my heart hard as someone who lost my mom in 2023. Hughie’s ill-fated attempt to use Compound V to save his father’s life goes horrifically awry with his father’s uncontrollable powers killing others in the hospital. Hughie has to reconcile with his decision and accept that he must let his father go. Simon Pegg and Jack Quaid absolutely nail every second of fear, horror, and overwhelming sadness, especially when Hughie gives his father a fatal dose of drug so he can die peacefully. It’s a heartbreaking episode that is, in my opinion, one of the strongest scenes in The Boys and across TV as a whole. -Selected by Tai Gooden
The Substance – The Final Act (That We Won’t Spoil)
The Substance from director Coralie Fargeat is more than a horror movie. It’s a satire, a balls-to-the-wall body horror, and a serious statement on how women are viewed in our culture when they start aging. But for all its virtues, nothing beats its final act, when…well, we won’t spoil it for you here. Let’s just say there’s a crowd of people and a big, bloody, and glorious mess. We believe the end of The Substance will go down in horror history as one of the best scary movie endings ever, along with Brian De Palma’s Carrie. Demi Moore kills it in this scene, and deserves every award she’s nominated for. The ending of The Substance is forever etched into our minds now. -Selected by Eric Diaz
Doctor Who – Fifteen Body Rolls to Kylie Minogue in “Rogue”
Doctor Who’s first season with Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteen Doctor had a ton of great moments. How could it not? He’s absolutely electrifying as the brave and comedic time traveling hero. It was hard to narrow it down to one moment but there’s one scene in “Rogue” that I’ve watched an unhealthy amount of times. The Fifteenth Doctor finds himself on bounty hunter Rogue’s bad side as they enter his ship. He’s preparing to launch him into an incinerator, but Fifteen is feeling rather frisky and starts to poke fun at his super serious counterpart in his rickey spaceship.
He uses the sonic screwdriver to reveal the music that’s playing Rogue’s ship and it is Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.” Fifteen does a perfect body roll as a look of shame comes over Rogue’s face and their back and forth of turning the song on and off is fantastic. It’s a perfect Doctor moment that shows this character’s cheekiness and cleverness all at once. -Selected by Tai Gooden
Agatha All Along – Lilia’s Great Sacrifice
It’s hard to do time-skipping well in fiction. It’s an inherently difficult storytelling device full of logical and narrative pitfalls. Relying on prophecy is just as challenging, especially in modern pop culture where fan theories often end up being better than what we get. Tantalizing visions and engaging cryptic words can easily disappoint in underwhelming payoffs. But Agatha All Along nailed both devices with one of the best episodes of 2024, the show’s seventh installment “Death’s Hand in Mine.” And that episode delivered one of the single best moments this year when Patti LuPone’s Lilia sacrificed herself for her coven.
The Sicilian Divinations witch spent her whole life hiding from others because she couldn’t protect them. No matter what she saw coming it wasn’t enough to save the people she cared about, so she decided to stop caring about anyone. That was also the only way to stop the episodes that made her experience her life out of order.
We didn’t know exactly what was happening to Lilia before “Death’s Hand in Mine,” but it perfectly pulled together the strings of her own story in a moving moment when a true acting legend helped Lilia finally take back her life in the most heroic way possible. She loved being a witch, and we loved that in her final moment she got everything she always wanted. -Selected by Mikey Walsh
Interview with the Vampire – Daniel Exposes Armand’s Messiness and Lies
Interview with the Vampire season two truly delivered this year and it had MANY best moments. For me, Daniel Molloy, as played by Eric Bogosion and Luke Brandon Field, and Armand, as played by Assad Zaman, featured in a great many of those. It was a tough toss up for me between the scene where Armand tortures Daniel in the past and this one, but in the end, I had to give it Daniel Molloy’s ultimate powerplay. With help from the mysterious Talamasca, Daniel Molloy lets his interview with the vampire crest to a peaceable end… before really going in for the kill. Poor Armand, he thought he’d made it to the end of this trial with all his ducks and lies in a row. But it was not to be.
This ultimate climactic series of revelations brings incredible performances from Bogosion, Zaman, and Jacob Anderson’s Louis de Pointe du Lac as finally, finally the Dubai house of lies comes crumbling down in an explosive conclusion. I am also obsessed with the scene of newly turned vampire Daniel Molloy having the time of his life at the very end of the series. And when Daniel revealed Armand was his maker. Well, I cheered. All in in all, the final stretch of Interview with the Vampire was an epic one. We can’t wait to see what season three has in store. -Selected by Ro Rusak
