And the 2024 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year

Wed, 25 Dec 2024, 11:00
Full Content
Full article content available

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?

Added to which, last year’s panto villain, heartless corporation beancounter David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, made a reappearance on the public stage – to more booing. Last year his studio was denounced for scrapping a finished film, Batgirl, for a tax write-off. Now it appears to let down one of Warner Bros’ most legendary names, 94-year-old Clint Eastwood, whose most recent film as a director is a legal thriller called Juror#2 – but Warner Bros put it out on a tiny number of screens as they prepared to dump it on streaming. Well, it’s not a masterpiece (though some critics, through a mixture of gallantry and contrarianism, seem almost to be claiming that it is). It does however deserve a fair hearing.

This was also the year that Daniel Day-Lewis dramatically un-retired and was

reported to be shooting a movie directed by his son Ronan

– a drama they have co-written about the father-son dynamic. It’s a high-risk venture, though perhaps no more of a risk than any feature film, and it’s marvellous to get Day-Lewis back.

For me, 2024 hasn’t been a vintage year for Hollywood and its big high-concept, high-prestige, luxury-ticket star vehicles, but there was plenty of amazing work from elsewhere in the world if you wanted to look for it: superb films from Alice Rohrwacher, Payal Kapadia, Sean Baker, Jane Schoenbrun and more. So here are my picks, and as ever, you are invited to comment on a winner and also to talk about people and films that should have made the grade.

Best film


La Chimera


All We Imagine As Light


The Zone of Interest


Anora


All of Us Strangers


Red Island


Love Lies Bleeding


I Saw the TV Glow


My Favourite Cake


The Beast

Best director


Alice Rohrwacher for La Chimera
Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest
Robin Campillo for Red Island
Andrew Haigh for All of Us Strangers
Sean Baker for Anora
Bertrand Bonello for The Beast
Marco Bellocchio for

Kidnapped


Rodrigo Moreno for

The Delinquents


Yorgos Lanthimos for

Poor Things


Agnieszka Holland for

Green Border

Best actress


Demi Moore for

The Substance


Sandra Hüller for The Zone of Interest
Emma Stone for Poor Things and

Kinds of Kindness


Mikey Madison for Anora
Danielle Deadwyler for

The Piano Lesson


Kani Kusruti for All We Imagine As Light
Divya Prabha for All We Imagine As Light
Chhaya Kadam for All We Imagine As Light
Cynthia Erivo for

Wicked


Saoirse Ronan for

The Outrun

Best actor


Cillian Murphy for

Small Things Like These


Andrew Scott for All of Us Strangers
Paul Mescal for All of Us Strangers
Josh O’Connor for La Chimera and

Challengers


Jeffrey Wright for

American Fiction


Christian Friedel for The Zone of Interest
Kôji Yakusho for

Perfect Days


Daniel Craig for

Queer


Ralph Fiennes for

Conclave


Hugh Grant for

Heretic

Best supporting actress


Isabella Rossellini for Conclave
Claire Foy for All of Us Strangers
Isabelle Huppert for

The Crime Is Mine


Emily Watson for Small Things Like These
Kathy Burke for

Blitz


Lesley Manville for Queer
Louise Mauroy-Panzani for Àma Gloria
Sakura Ando for Monster
Merve Dizdar for About Dry Grasses
Elizabeth Debicki for

MaXXXine

Best supporting actor


Jeremy Allen White for

The Iron Claw


Denzel Washington for

Gladiator II


Jamie Bell for All of Us Strangers
Alfredo Castro for

The Settlers


Jesse Plemons for Kinds of Kindness
Jeremy Strong for

The Apprentice


Yuriy Borisov for Anora
Michael Potts for The Piano Lesson
Nicolas Cage for Longlegs
Tom Hardy for The Bikeriders

Best cinematography


Hélène Louvart for La Chimera
Jeanne Lapoirie for Red Island
Jamie Ramsay for All of Us Strangers
Lukasz Zal for The Zone of Interest
Ranabir Das for All We Imagine As Light
Franz Lustig for Perfect Days
Yorick Le Saux for Blitz
Yunus Roy Imer for The Outrun
Drew Daniels for Anora
Yoshio Kitagawa for

Evil Does Not Exist

Best documentary


Grand Theft Hamlet

Occupied City


A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things


Black Box Diaries


Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat


A Long Journey Home


Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger


Beatles ’64


Copa 71


Children of the Cult

Best screenplay


Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest
Osgood Perkins for Longlegs
Bertrand Bonello, Guillaume Bréaud and Benjamin Charbit for The Beast
Radu Jude for

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World


Andrew Haigh for All of Us Strangers
Bas Devos for

Here


Peter Straughan for Conclave
Justin Kuritzkes for Challengers
David Zellner for

Sasquatch Sunset


Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska for Love Lies Bleeding

Best debut


Thien An Pham for

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell


Ramata-Toulaye Sy for

Banel & Adama


Luna Carmoon for

Hoard


Amrou Al-Kadhi for

Layla


Felipe Gálvez Haberle for The Settlers
Giacomo Abbruzzese for

Disco Boy


Paola Cortellesi for

There’s Still Tomorrow


Baloji for

Omen (Augure)


Amanda Nell Eu for

Tiger Stripes


Cord Jefferson for American Fiction

Most likely to be overlooked by the boomer MSM


Hundreds of Beavers

AI Model Selection

Avg. Response: 10.0s

Llama3.2:1b

Meta
Default
Size: 1B
Success Rate: 100.0%

Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-GGUF

Meta
Size: 1B
Success Rate: 100.0%
All models run locally on our servers. Response times may vary based on server load.