Now the Guardian’s Top 50 countdowns, as voted for by the whole film team, have announced their No 1s, here are our chief critic’s personal choices, in no particular order
• The 50 best films of 2024 in the UK
• The 50 best movies of 2024 in the US
• More on the best culture of 2024
The time has come once more for me to present my “Braddies”, a strictly personal awards list for films getting a UK release in the calendar year just gone – quite distinct from the Guardian’s collegiate best-of-year critics’ poll.
It’s been 12 months in which the big-worry issue refuses to go away, two little letters that until recently, didn’t mean anything much at all and now reduce us to a quiver of anxiety: AI. The conclusion of the writers’ strike was supposed to have provided for the primacy of creative humanity, and for keeping AI in its place as a tool. But studios are keen to find efficient and profitable ways to exploit their intellectual property and Lionsgate has actually signed a deal with artificial intelligence firm Runway to engage with their back catalogue. An uneasy thought. I was one of those who winced at the film Alien: Romulus which used AI to revive a very distinguished British actor for a major role and seemed very pleased with itself about how clever this was. What happened to originality?
