Glen Powell, popcorn buckets, and horror hits: the biggest movie trends of 2024

With 2024 drawing to a close, we’re taking a look at some of the year’s wildest movie trends, including the proliferation of popcorn buckets, lookalike contests, and devil babies, plus Twisters star Glen Powell’s irresistible rise. 

2023 was the year of Barbenheimer, but 2024 has lacked a similarly seismic cultural moment, despite efforts to turn Garfuiosa and Glicked into a thing.

But multiple movie trends have emerged over the course of the last 12 months, some of them pretty dark, with horror having a huge year, alongside Sandworms, and bat-sh*t crazy endings.

But there’s been light along the way, including the return of Joy in Inside Out 2, several people being arrested at the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest, and Glen Powell setting hearts (and more) a-flutter when his t-shirt got wet in Twisters. But we’re starting with the year’s most predictable trend…

Sequels

2024 gave us good sequels, most notably Dune: Part Two, and Gladiator II. While the year also featured its fair share of duds, like Venom: The Last Dance, and Joker: Folie à Deux.

But what stands out is the sheer number of sequels or prequels that hit screens across the year. Nine of the top 10 grossing movies were continuations of some sort, while 16 of the top 20 also fall into that category.

This isn’t news in itself, as sequels have dominated at the box office for decades. But Barbie and Oppenheimer gave us hope that Hollywood was changing; hope that was dashed by the lack of original product in cinemas this year, driven by an unwillingness to take a chance on new material.

Devil babies

There must have been something sinister in the air throughout 2024, as Satan’s spawn was everywhere.

Immaculate kicked off the devil baby action in March, in the process delivering a genuinely shocking climax (see Sydney Sweeney image above and endings entry below). Then it was The First Omen‘s disco-dancing foetus in April. Followed by Apartment 7A doing Rosemary’s Baby before Rosemary.

It probably means nothing. But it could also point to the end of times.

Lookalike contests

A ‘Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest’ was held in NYC today pic.twitter.com/W19giHO8iy

— Dexerto (@Dexerto) October 27, 2024

It started with a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in New York in October. Organised by YouTuber Anthony Po, the event was promoted via flyers and attended by thousands. 21-year-old Miles Mitchell won the $50 prize, while four people were detained by the NYPD for disorderly conduct. 

Then the lookalike floodgates opened. Contests dedicated to Paul Mescal, Harry Styles, Jeremy Allen White, Dev Patel, Jacob Eleordi, and our man of the year, Glen Powell, followed in November. 

While it wasn’t just guys, as Oakland staged a Zendaya contest during a cyclone, and it wasn’t just real people, as there were also lookalike competitions dedicated to Shrek, Tommy Shelby, and Nacho Libre, with the craze showing no signs of abating.

Animation

Cartoons were everywhere in 2025. Inside Out 2 wasn’t just the most successful movie of the year with a $1.7 billion haul – it also became the biggest animated movie in history.

The Despicable Me series continues to be the most lucrative toon franchise ever, adding $969 million to its ongoing haul.

Sequels to Moana and Kung Fu Panda also hit big. While The Wild Robot became one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, and managed to gross an impressive $324 million globally.

Sandworms

2024 was a big year for Sandworms. Huge, in fact. First, they took center stage in Dune: Part II, with Paul Atreides riding one while immersing himself in the Freman way of life, before the creatures become central to the war against the Sardaukar.

Which would be enough Sandworm for any year. But then they made an appearance in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, wreaking havoc in their sparse desert domain.

“We shot with a huge wind fan blowing each way to let us know when the worm was coming, and when it was going, or little pockets of sand popping out of the ground as we were running so we knew that they were [there],” Jenna Ortega told Entertainment Weekly of her sandy encounter. “It was weird; it definitely made it feel more real, which is strange talking about clay worms, but you really did feel like they were after you.”

Glen Powell

Following his celluloid debut in Spy Kids 3 as ‘Long-Fingered Boy,’ Glen Powell’s rise has been slow and steady. A memorable performance in Everybody Wants Some!! In 2016, turned him into a successful jobbing actor before Top Gun: Maverick put him on the map in 2022.

Powell then became a household name thanks to Anyone But You a year later, in the process helping to reinvigorate the rom-com alongside Sydney Sweeney. 

Then in 2024, he proved himself to be a bona fide movie star thanks to a multi-faceted turn in Hit Man, and a blockbuster lead in Twisters, where Glenn held his own opposite some spectacular special effects, and his wet t-shirt helped the film to a whopping $371 million gross.

Horror

2024 was a banner year for horror, with multiple scary movies releasing during the summer season, and posting blockbuster numbers.

A Quiet Place: Day One was the biggest hit, with the acclaimed prequel grossing $262 million off a $67 million budget. While the most talked about horror movie of the year – Longlegs – made $127 million from a $10 million outlay. 

Meanwhile, Terrifier 3 was the huge Halloween smash, grossing $90 million from a mere $2 million budget and cementing Art the Clown’s position as the genre’s most bankable icon (as well as its sickest).

Big gambles on big flops

George Lucas once said: “Never invest in a movie – in the movie business, they call those people suckers because you’ll never get your money back, ever.” Kevin Costner and George’s buddy Francis Ford Coppola ignored that advice in 2024, and their bank balances duly suffered.

Costner left Yellowstone to work on Horizon, a proposed four-part saga that he reportedly sunk $40 million of his own money into. Part 1 grossed just $31 million, and while Part 2 will follow in 2025, don’t hold your breath for Parts 3 and 4.

Coppola took an even bigger swing, selling his wine company and sinking around $100 million in Megalopolis. The film was a mega flop, however, being panned by critics and making just $12 million at the box office.

Popcorn buckets

2024 will be remembered as the year of the war of the popcorn buckets. Dune 2 kicked off the fad by releasing a promotional container that was supposed to look like one of the film’s aforementioned Sandworms, but in reality resembled something a bit ruder.

Then pretty much every other blockbuster movie followed suit, meaning popcorn buckets dedicated to Despicable Me 3, Ghostbuster: Afterlife, Inside Out 2, Alien: Romulus, and Deadpool & Wolverine.

While more recently, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice released its own Sandworm container, one that succeeded in not looking like a vagina.

Bat-sh*t crazy endings

This is a spoiler-free zone, so we’ll just be alluding to what happens, but 2024 was the year of truly deranged endings. Indie darlings Queer and Civil War did the unexpected at the death, while Love Lies Bleeding went large in its final few scenes.

But predictably, horror ended the hardest. Sydney Sweeney delivered an acting tour de force in the unforgettable Immaculate climax. Art the Clown out-psychoed American Psycho during his foul finish. And The Substance gave us a conclusion that was both bat-sh*t crazy and the best ending of the year.

That’s our round-up of trends, but you can head here for the best movies of 2024, and the best TV shows of the year.