2024, then. It’s time to look back at a year of podcast bros, Brats and Baby Reindeer with the Guide’s annual roundup. As ever, for an exhaustive rundown of what was good culturally this year, do check out the Guardian’s lists of the best films (both in the UK and US), TV shows, albums (across rock and pop, folk, jazz and classical), games, art and architecture, and theatre, comedy and dance. The Guide’s list doesn’t pretend to be that definitive. Instead, we’re sharing a smattering of our favourites, unranked.
How did the year pan out? Well, the film world might not have witnessed a Barbenheimer-sized cultural event in 2024, but there were plenty of box office success stories: notably Dune: Part Two, Deadpool and Wolverine, Inside Out 2 and Wicked. As that list suggests, sequels were the dominant mode as a panicky Hollywood stuck to tried and trusted ideas – though that old safe bet, the superhero movie, continued to generally struggle this year.
