For one British director to have made a movie named the world over as the year’s best may be regarded as good fortune. For two to do so looks like carefulness. Three, however, suggests a trend. And that only takes us to February.
The vicissitudes of awards season mean that some of 2024’s finest films – including the Holocaust psycho-horror The Zone of Interest, the metaphysical love story All of Us Strangers and the wartime Amsterdam documentary Occupied City – were out in the US before the end of 2023, in order to qualify for the Oscars. UK distributors, however, hold them for the first two months of the new year, for maximum Baftas momentum.
