The Best African Feature Films of 2024

In this list, veteran auteurs exist alongside refreshing mavericks keen to make their mark.

A still of Bonko Khoza from ‘Heart of the Hunter.'

Photo illustration by Mia Coleman for OkayAfrica.

African cinema in 2024 is cutting through the noise with films that are anything but ordinary. Despite an industry that's been taking punches—shrinking investments, economic headwinds—filmmakers are doing what artists do best: telling stories that demand to be heard.

This year's lineup is a thunderbolt of creativity. Half of these films come from first-time directors who aren't just knocking on the door of cinema—they're kicking it wide open. From the Western Cape's sweeping landscapes to the intimate corners of Tunisian village life, these movies capture something electric: the pulse of a continent in motion.

These aren't just films. They're conversations. Provocations. Glimpses into worlds both familiar and startlingly new. Some will make you lean in, some will make you look away, but none will leave you unchanged.

Want proof that African cinema is alive and thriving? Keep reading.

10.'Black Tea' (Mauritania)

Truth be told, Black Tea isn't Abderrahmane Sissako's finest outing. However, this genteel, poetic romance involving an independent young Ivorian woman falling for a Chinese gourmet tea trader over a joint love of the rituals of tea brewing is proof that the Mauritanian maestro behind classics like Timbuktu and Bamako remains an interesting, enigmatic voice regardless. Black Tea premiered at the Berlinale in February.

9.'Heart of the Hunter' (South Africa)

This Netflix adaptation of Deon Meyer's popular 2003 novel of the same title (Proteus in Afrikaans) is a visually appealing, finely executed exercise in genre filmmaking. Helmed by Mandlakayise Walter Dube, Heart of the Hunter uses the stunning vistas of the Western Cape region as background for this intriguing tale of politics, espionage, and retribution. Stream on Netflix.

8.'Perfumed with Mint' (Egypt/Tunisia)

A singular and often challenging cinematic experience, Perfumed with Mint, which premiered in Venice, conjures up a nightmarish vision in which plants talk and characters are trapped by their trauma. An elegy to a generation defeated by the vise-like grip of an oppressive regime, Perfumed with Mint's non-linear narrative is a debut feature by Muhammed Hamdy, an Emmy-winning Egyptian filmmaker best known for his work on 2013's revolution documentary The Square.

7.‘Disko Afrika: A Malagasy Story’ (Madagascar/Mauritius/South Africa)

20-year-old Kwame (Parista Sambo) is another young adult struggling to make a living in the Madagascar sapphire mines. Then, he finds himself thrust between making a quick buck and loyalty to loved ones. Director Luck Razanajaona's debut feature pulsates with quiet pan-African energy powered by striking imagery and groovy highlife music. It premiered last November at the Marrakech International Film Festival.

6.‘Who Do I Belong To’ (Tunisia)

For her debut feature, Tunisian filmmaker Meryam Joobeur revisits the world of her 2018 Oscar-nominated short, Brotherhood. A family of rural shepherds is upended when its estranged eldest son returns from Syria with a pregnant niqab-clad wife in tow. With magical realist elements, Who Do I Belong To expands and reboots this story by focusing on the women in the family, thus highlighting fresh perspectives and experiences. Who Do I Belong To premiered in competition at the Berlinale.

5.‘Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight’ (South Africa)

This adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's bestselling memoir is the debut directorial attempt by South African actress Embeth Davidtz (Matilda, Schindler's List). Set during the pivotal 1980 elections, which marked the end of white rule in Zimbabwe, Davidtz, who also co-stars, deploys sensitive, self-aware storytelling to explore the end of the tenuous truce between white landowners and black farm workers through the eyes of the eight-year-old protagonist. Sony Pictures Classic has acquired rights for worldwide distribution next year.

4.‘Village Next to Paradise’ (Somalia/Austria)

Mo Harawe's feature-length debut is an accomplished piece of filmmaking that pairs classic socio-realist traditions with hyper-specific observations of living in a contemporary Somali village. Harawe's trademarks include slow takes, long gazes, sparse dialogue, and the tiniest hints of artifice- or inexperience- in the performances of his mostly non-professional actors. A make-shift family consisting of a down-on-his-luck laborer, his industrious sister, and an adorable child must balance their expectations from one another. World premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival on May 21.

3.‘Mother Mother’ (Kenya/Somalia/Canada)

In Mother Mother, the feature debut by Somali-Canadian musician turned filmmaker K'naan Warsame, the inciting incident is a surprise in the first act. The rest of the film, a sharply observant parable set in a Somali village then, has its two central characters, the formidable camel farmer, Qalifo (Maan Youssouf Ahmed), and an American visitor, Asad (Elmi Rashid Elmi), negotiating a reluctant delicate truce. Warsame uses busy camera movements and verité techniques to present this heartwarming tale of guilt, forgiveness, and penance. Mother Mother had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

2.‘Everybody Loves Touda’ (Morocco/France)

Moroccan actress Nisrin Erradi gives perhaps the performance of the year in Nabil Ayouch's latest, a woman versus patriarchy narrative that is enlivened considerably by well-timed musical numbers. Erradi plays the eponymous Touda, a determined small-town singer and single mother aspiring to the status of 'Sheikhat' — a revered class of diva versed in the poetic traditions of historical Aita music. Touda's ambitions and frustrations come to a head in the breathtaking- and heartbreaking- finale, which is worth the price of admission. In French theaters on December 18.

1.‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ (Zambia/U.K./Ireland)

Zambian-Welsh auteur Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch) makes her long-awaited follow-up with this richly imagined surrealist gem of fracture, family, and finding one's voice. The burial ceremony of a well-regarded patriarch becomes the site for heroine Shula (Susan Chardy) and her cousins to process long-suppressed secrets and traumas. Nyoni demonstrates a masterclass in adventure and balance. The film has roots in tragic circumstances, but Nyoni's dazzling cinematic vision infuses the material with a playful, super-confident register that might have faltered in the hands of a lesser talent. Now in theaters in the UK.

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