10 Best Lifetime Movies of 2024

The best Life The 2024 movies have something for every Lifetime fan. Lifetime has a reputation for having some of the cheesiest original movies, but also the most dramatic. The network’s films are more like extended episodes of soap operas in that they offer the most dramatic stories possible, which often include illicit romance or even murder. The network’s demographic is largely female, and its films have been guilty pleasures for many people for decades.

By 2024, Lifetime was releasing a new original movie almost every week. While some of the films were acquired from other studios or production networks, most of them were made specifically for Lifetime. While some are inspired by true stories and offer inspiring tales of women in difficult situations, others are exaggerated or mysterious. There’s a variety of movies when it comes to Lifetime’s best of 2024.

10

The Book Club Murders

Book club members receive threatening messages

The Book Club Murders It’s the kind of Lifetime movie that throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. It’s an intense murder mystery with lots of twists and turns that a lifelong drama enthusiast will certainly enjoy.

The film follows a woman who has withdrawn from the social scene of her small town since her husband died in a fire. It also sees his teenage daughter dealing with the disappearance of her best friend. It seems like tragedy follows them, but when the woman joins a local book club and the members start receiving threatening messages before they are murdered, it also seems like it’s more than just a tragedy.

The only downside to this movie is that ultimately the book club doesn’t have much to do with why people end up dead. The film is still a fun, soapy mystery for those who already love all of the Lifetime classics.

9

The killer I caught

A rideshare driver becomes a customer’s obsession

One thing Lifetime does well is keep up with current trends. If there is a strong interest in cheerleading, they feature several films featuring cheerleaders in a year. When ride-sharing companies become more popular than taxi services, they create suspense around the idea of ​​working as a driver.

Here, a single mother is just trying to make a living. She starts driving for a ride-sharing service to help pay for her daughter’s college education. One of her clients, however, becomes obsessed with her – and not the clients viewers might initially suspect.

The film has a great setup, as the dangers of ridesharing are often portrayed as a driver potentially stalking a customer, rather than the other way around. Here, the client stalks this single mother, essentially becoming obsessed with using her as a replacement for someone he lost in life. As the red flags start to pile up, the audience sees this long before the supporting characters do, and it’s a tense ride and a genuinely scary movie for Lifetime.

8

Stalked by my Amish boyfriend

A woman gets stuck in a relationship

If there’s one topic that’s trending in Lifetime movies in 2024, it’s relationships among the Amish. Or, more accurately, the potential for dangerous relationships when both partners are not honest with each other. It turns out that the network has portrayed these relationships between characters who are Amish in several films this year. Of the films with a similar idea, Stalked by my Amish boyfriend is the best of the group.

The film shows a college student befriending and then beginning to date a young Amish man who is drinking rumspringa. They bond over shared tragedy, as if they both lost their mothers, and they seem to have a real connection. When she decides that they are from two different worlds and should go their separate ways, however, he begins to stalk her, going so far as to threaten her father and use that threat to get her to join him in an Amish community.

What’s interesting here is that the Amish community he’s a part of is actually made up of people who were raised Amish but rejected by their own communities for one reason or another. It’s easy to empathize with those who are considered strange and yet don’t like the main character who trapped his ex-girlfriend with threats and lies.

7

He slid into her DMs

A high school social media star is stalked by a fan

Just as Lifetime gets into the ridesharing trend this year, it also takes on social media influence in this film. It’s also another movie among Lifetime’s best that deals with a main character being chased. Lifetime tends to have a lot of movies with a chase plot because of the real threat it poses to its mostly female audience, but also because the plot makes a great plot for a thriller.

Here, the main character is a high school student who uses her job as a social media influencer to save money for college. When she and her boyfriend hit a rough patch because of their work, one of her fans reaches out to her and they begin a friendship that involves her selling him exclusive photos of herself to help pay for school. Her mother is her manager and encourages her, not realizing that he will become a stalker when she tries to end the relationship.

Her fan not only stalks her but also tries to kill her. Fortunately, the teen’s mother is there to defend her and kills him instead, but later she also makes a decision that turns the rest of the film on its head and deals with more than just the dangers of the chase.

6

Trapped in the Rockies

A group of friends are drawn to a meeting

While so many Lifetime movies focus on a single relationship, this one goes for a group of friends — one of whom is no longer with them. It’s one of the rare films that has a single location setting for a small cast. Almost all of the film’s action takes place at an isolated “resort” where the former college friends are all guests, giving it a different feel than most Lifetime films.

The group of friends have booked stays at the resort for different reasons and realize that they have all been drawn there exactly 10 years after one of their college friends disappeared on a weekend getaway. Everyone begins to suspect each other and the missing girl’s mother as responsible for bringing them there and everyone fears that something more sinister is going on.

While this film could have been even better if it had worked harder to keep the group even more confined to heighten the tension, it’s still a great mystery for the ages. There is a twist that the audience may not realize that definitely changes the way the public views the suspects.

5

Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall

The Story of the Most Famous Employee of the Psychic Reader Network

In addition to salacious mysteries and love-gone-wrong stories, Lifetime also has a huge catalog of films inspired by true events. Miss Cleo’s story is one of them, although it’s unclear how much has changed in the network film.

Miss Cleo was a medium who gave readings to people via a telephone hotline in the late 1990s. She became the face of the network and also the face of its downfall when she was investigated for fraud. This Lifetime movie is the story of how actress and writer Youree Dell Harris became Miss Cleo. It all starts with a single mother looking to support her daughters and responding to a Help Wanted ad.

The best thing this film does is show the audience that although Ms. Cleo cannot be blamed for the company’s practices as a whole, she contributed to the idea of ​​making money.. The film makes it seem like she believes she is helping the hotline callers by telling them what they want to hear. However, it also makes it clear that she absconded with investors’ money for a play she was supposed to perform long before she became Miss Cleo, allowing the audience to see that there are gray areas in his story – and in human nature.

4

Nightmare in the desert

A proposal goes wrong in the desert

This movie is another case of Lifetime putting as much drama as possible into a story and making it work. It’s unusual for a film with seemingly many plots to be able to bring them together and make them believable, especially when it’s a Lifetime movie. Nightmare in the Deserthowever, it does.

A woman and her boyfriend return to the town where she grew up. She is there to prepare to sell her father’s house and tell her boyfriend that she is pregnant. He plans to propose. Their plans go awry, however, when someone from their past follows them and puts their lives in danger.

Providing details about how they are in danger and what the person’s motivation is would spoil some of the film’s most emotional scenes. It’s certainly one of the best-crafted Lifetime movies of the year.

3

Searching for a Serial Killer: The Story of Regina Smith

A rookie cop conducts his own investigation

Another Lifetime movie based on a true story in 2024 is Searching for a Serial Killer: The Story of Regina Smith. This mystery involves a rookie cop unable to let go of a murder case that she worries others won’t care about.

Regina Smith becomes a police officer after leaving an abusive relationship and wanting to do something with her life that not only helps her daughter, but helps other people. Although she initially struggles in training, she becomes a dedicated officer. Still a newbie, she finds the corpse of a sex worker with her eyes missing. Although she is told to carry on with her own work and let the murder sort it out, Regina pursues an investigation with her partner.

Regina is responsible for bringing the serial killer responsible to justice, and the film does a great job of showing her need to solve the case. Regina is someone who cannot allow the families of the murder victims to not have justice.

2

Blood, sweat and joy

A mother participates in the cheerleading act

2024 was a big year for Tammin Sursok. The first Pretty Little Liars star has appeared in several projects filmed in the Vancouver area, specifically films for Lifetime and Hallmark. This is definitely one of your most interesting projects.

In Blood, sweat and joySursok stars as the mother of a teenage girl who misses her own glory days as a cheerleader. Now, she lives vicariously through her daughter’s achievements. When she and her daughter have a falling out, the daughter moves in with her father and leaves the school dance team while her mother gets in the way. Sursok’s character, who believes she can still pass as a teenager, decides to enroll in another school named after her daughter and compete to secure a scholarship for her daughter.

This initial plot is something truly strange for Lifetimeand it’s definitely fascinating to see Sursok try to do this. Of course, the film also turns into something even darker as she struggles to keep her secret. It’s a little crazy for Lifetime, but the film was actually acquired from Tubi for the network, so it makes sense that the tone wouldn’t be exactly the same, and it’s not a bad break from the channel’s sameness.

1

Tempted by Love: A Presentation by Terry McMillan

A woman juggles her aunt’s failing health, a successful career and new love

Garcelle Beauvais may currently be best known as one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hillsbut she is an actress first. Here, she plays a woman who has a distinguished career as a chef in a European restaurant. At age 50 and with rheumatoid arthritis, she is having trouble keeping up with her younger colleagues. When her aunt needs emergency medical care, she rushes back to the US to help her, and her airport driver is a man 20 years her junior, with whom she hits it off immediately.

While staying with her aunt, she evaluates her career options and meets the man with whom she has perfect chemistry. Although she is initially hesitant to get involved with someone much younger than her, they have a lot in common, such as his desire to become a chef. When you both need to make decisions about your careers, you also need to make a decision about your relationship.

This film is not like Lifetime’s usual dramatic and even scandalous original films. It’s more poignant a study of how a relationship progresses, rather than looking at one that’s on fire.. It’s a great break from the usual Life films.