I'm never sure how to approach this one. With the best music list, there's a tried and tested formula, but given the mixed media here I've been mulling the options for how to divide up this visual smorgasbord.

Another thing to get ones head around is the audience. I'm keenly aware that my 'blog' gets literally tens of readers for each post; the majority of whom are friends and family. Therefore, making it as easily digestible for them is perhaps paramount - although I'll never let go of the slimmest of chances that some commissioning editor is reading, so I was also mulling some high-brow thematic flow.

Ah, sod it, that's already too much navel-gazing preamble. You're here for what stuff on the screen I liked best - and it's a pretty long list - so here it is:

Films

Lets start with the big screen - although if I'm honest, the only times I went to the cinema this year were to entertain my son - and I can report that the latest Despicable Me film is passable, while the sequel to Inside Out is almost as good as the first one.

So the rest of these have made their way to one of the streaming services in the last 12 months.

Point of order actually - our household subscribes to all by Apple TV, so I'll embed a link to where all these things can hopefully still be found, should you choose to follow any of my recommendations.

Early in 2024 I eventually gave in to the zeitgeist and watched Saltburn. It's pretty flimsy plot-wise and gets fairly ludicrous towards the end, but there's certainly some memorable scenes - the final one, obviously, but what stayed with me more than the bit in the bath was the part where he can't afford a round in the posho union.

Also arguably a 2023 movie, but one I watched sometime in January 2024, was Leave the World Behind, the feature debut from Sam Esmail. I do enjoy attempts at accurate depictions of apocalyptic events, and this one had a very plausible premise and some fine actors doing their best to respond realistically to an attack on America, all with the visual sheen anyone who's watched Mr Robot will know and like.

Something we definitely should have watched in a cinema was Dune 2; another sound and vision spectacular from Denis Villeneuve. This really is widescreen, Dolby sound stuff. A little meandering on the storyline, but then that's the source material for you, it was the big set pieces that stuck with me for quite some time; despite viewing it on just a 50 inch.

Talking of visually arresting, with audio to boot, The Zone of Interest was a quite remarkable piece of work by Jonathan Glazer. Perfectly portraying the banality of evil, this adaptation of a Martin Amis novel follows the commandant of Auschwitz and his family in their daily lives next door to the concentration camp. Its the technique of placing cameras and microphones around this house that delivers such an eerily normal feel to proceedings, punctured by occasional sounds - but never sights - of the atrocities being committed over the wall.

Staying on the continent, I was also impressed by the equally slow-moving, but engrossing, Anatomy of a Fall. This French crime procedural is elevated above the average by a brilliant performance from Sandra Hüller and expertly-judged writing and directing by Justine Triet.

I do like a sort of low-consequence film now and again, and The Holdovers felt like exactly that as it gradually unfurled and dug deeper into the limited cast. Of course, as the layers were peeled back, the superb Paul Giamatti and his co-stars revealed the deep melancholy that kept them at their school over the holidays. A surprising delight. 

Sticking with emotional heft, All of Us Strangers really packed a punch. Andrew Haigh's pairing of Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal as booze-crossed inhabitants of the same London apartment block sucks you in and spits you out. If you haven't seen it, I won't give anything more away, but be prepared for a wee cry at the end.

To cheer yourself up afterwards, may I recommend Wonka; the best of the current Sky Cinema festive offerings and pleasantly entertaining in a sort of Paddington vein - even with copious amounts of Chalamet singing.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was noticeably paired back this year, as I'll mention later in terms of their series output, but it was a particularly bopter-y period for their blockbusters, with only Deadpool & Wolverine to save the studio. To be fair, the third instalment was highly entertaining, with all the meta/multiverse/fourth-wall-breaking/wise-cracking/graphic-slo-mo-violence turned up to 11, as Ryan Reynolds' character is finally folded into the timeline.

Another violent, dark comedy I watched recently is Kneecap. The similarities stop there though, as this is a dramatisation of the real life tale of how two lads from West Belfast became Irish rap superstars. Obviously a few liberties are taken, but all three members of the group do a fine first acting job - I suppose it is their lives they're portraying - and it's frequently very funny. All the more so because such a staunchly anti-British rule message was funded in no small part by British money.

Sticking with violence, making its way to my telly recently was Dev Patel's directorial debut, Monkey Man. I didn't know what to expect going in and was half thinking there was going to be some kind of animal superpower thing going on, but thankfully this is just a hectic mashup of Slumdog Millionaire, The Raid and The Green Knight. It's a fairly simple genre flick, made mesmerising by the bone-crunching (literally, for him, apparently) and impressively choreographed fighting and creative camerawork.

At this point I'm struggling to link the paragraphs thematically, so I'll begin to conclude this section by saying that I quite liked Challengers. Much like Luca Guadagnino's previous outings, this tennis love triangle was silly, sexy and sounded great, courtesy of a score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor.

And to finish, a couple of animated gems. Hayao Miyazaki's latest, The Boy and the Heron, started out like the heartbreaking Grave of the Fireflies and then moved into a fantastical realm much like Spirited Away. I didn't all make a great deal of sense to me, but when it looks this good; does that really matter? Then the most recent film I've seen comes from the ever-brilliant Ardman, in the form of Wallace an Gromit's latest outing; Vengeance Most Fowl. Just delightful family fun, with so many superb visual gags.

Where can I buy high quality stills from Studio Ghibli films?

Documentaries

Now for some factual films - increasingly my favourite genre of an evening sitting on the sofa.

Starting with those that are actually all in a feature-length one-er, I reckon the best place is the consistently curated Storyville stream on the BBC. The most recent one I saw was Dogs of War, the remarkable tale of Dave Tomkins, a prolific British mercenary and arms dealer, who recounts his tales of derring-do, but flinches when asked to consider the significant collateral damage along the way.

Some of my favourite docs are those that illuminate and elucidate a bit of history I was unaware of. The Attica prison uprising was one of those, and some. Genuinely gripping archive footage and interviews with those involved, especially when you don't know which way it's going to go. While a knew the rough story and grisly outcome of the Jonestown massacre, the two parter on Jim Jones' cult was still properly shocking.

Chieko Kiriake, one of several righteously angry a-bomb survivors 

Between cults and nuclear apocalypse you could programme a whole channel for me. So the poorly-titled Atomic People was Pete-nip. What starts with an array of well-lit, adorable old Japanese people, quickly sours as they politely explain the horrors of the a-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I feel like between this and the holocaust, we've a duty to bear witness to what the last of the survivors have to impart, as a warning from the past to avoid such madness in the future. 

Which is why its so annoying that while Trump's first term was so well-documented and yet... AND YET. One of the most unpleasant parts of his coterie was/is Roger Stone, whose scheming that culminated in the January 6th capitol uprising is documented in A Storm Foretold. This one's actually hard to watch, given how unpleasant a man Stone is, but it does give some fascinating insight into some of the far right schemers now pulling the strings.

Still sticking with the Beeb, and with more current affairs, the documentary about what really happened to the so-called Arctic 30 revealed just how wrong that Greenpeace campaign went, when up against an intransigent Putin. I give them a tenner a month, and fully support provocative protest in the face of the climate crisis, but this showed - in great detail - just how close to death and disaster things got.

Over on Sky, I was similarly impressed with the access the crew got to champion boxer and mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, who's life got very busy recently when Russia decided to invade his country. Interesting to learn just how deep rooted the mutual dislike between him and Volodymyr Zelenskyy is.

I generally only dip into the true crime side of things when I've been told something is really worth watching - so only have a few such recommendations from 2024. Despite knowing the outcome, The Push was a fascinating courtroom procedural following an incident that took place in Edinburgh and had the city gripped. Also culminating in our high court was the farcical case of Nicholas Rossi/Alahverdian, as documented in the really well put together mini-series, Impostor.

Clearly the same person, no?

The main reason I find myself watching far more British-made than US docs in this genre is how long they are. Take, for example, The Body Next Door: a gripping, international, 28-year spanning whodunnit that its makers managed to squeeze into three 45 minute episodes. And compare that to the second series of The Jinx, which drags out a second trial where not that much happened into six, hour-long episodes.

Completely different, but suffering the same elongated-ness problem, was the  Mr McMahon doc on Netflix. If you want an in depth history of the WWF/E, then this is your show, but if you want some dirt on the horrible individual that led the franchise, then you have to sit through an awful lot of wrestling nonsense to get not a lot back - as Vince stopped getting interviews once the recent allegations came out.

I was no great fan of his rap career, but since he's transitioned into a writer and presenter focusing on wealth inequality, I consume just about everything Darren McGarvey produces. His latest series, The State We're In, did a really good job explaining how the UK is dealing with crises in health, education and justice - by talking to those on the frontline and comparing approaches with other nations across Europe. Given his own recent mental health struggles, it's impressive just how well he comes across and how personable he is when interviewing a real range of people. While I'm on the subject of mental health, a quick mention of Joe Tracini's documentary Me and the Voice in My Head. Quite hard to watch at times, but a really brave and often very funny insight into living with borderline personality disorder, while also being a performer and presenter when his alter ego allows it.

Joe Tracini and the little devil on his shoulder

I loved The Sopranos. I miss The Sopranos. So when I saw that brilliant documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney had made a two-parter about David Chase, I was all over it. Despite being pleasingly grumpy about the whole thing, the show's creator nonetheless goes into great detail - along with a bunch of the cast - about the highs and lows of one of the greatest TV series ever made.

Closing out this section, brief shouts for a few biographical docs. The recent Simple Minds one was great - I forgot how cool Jim and Charlie are and its nice when a band look-back isn't completely riddled with booze, drugs, fallouts and death. Which can't, sadly, be said for Little Richard, who's I Am Everything doc was nonetheless excellent. While we're on that theme, it's a real shame it looks like that the Prince doc made by the guy behind the Oscar-winning OJ film will never see the light of day, due to the family taking issue with both sides of the man. Much like Simple Minds' relative career simplicity, last night I watched the Beeb's bio of Roger Moore - narrated, hilariously in accent, by Steve Coogan - which, shagging most female co-stars and having three divorces aside, showed him generally leading a pretty fantastic life, with good humour, gratitude and a raised eyebrow.

OK - a final few - promise. Coming back to cults, I'd never heard of the Sirius 'apocalyptic order', which saw 74 people take their lives (or have them taken) across France, Switzerland and Canada during the nineties. But this three-parter followed the journalists and detectives who got to the bottom of it, and while a tad anti-climactic, it was still pretty shocking. 

I've got a definite man-crush for Simon Reeve, so enjoyed his latest exploits in the most far-flung places he could reach; hence the name Wilderness. He's vying for my attention with the floppy-haired Manc Brian Cox, who also stretches the BBC's travel budget to bring us the wonders of our solar system. Attenborough was also pretty hot back in his day, but thankfully these days he's mostly just providing voiceovers for more exceptional camerawork in Asia and Mammals.

Underrated handsome young man

Dramas

My final broad section is all the stuff on telly that was acted or animated in a fictional manner. Looking through my list, there's barely anything you'd class as strictly comedy, which feels like a separate trend blog in itself, and does seem like a bit of a shame.

I suppose you could make a case for Baby Reindeer, given it's about a comedian, but blimey-crikey that's about as dark black as comedy could possibly get. Similarly, The Boys frequently contrasts gross-out humour with pretty unpleasant gore and adult themes. The fourth season felt like more of the same, but had me sufficiently entertained to keep watching.

Along the same lines, I find Guy Ritchie joints to be a bit of a guilty pleasure, so gave The Gentlemen a go, despite some confusion about how it related to the 2019 film. It doesn't take much effort on the part of the viewer, which appears to be Netflix's new drama strategy if recent reports are to be believed, and continues in the vein of Lock Stock, Snatch, etc - geezers, pikeys, aristocrats and stoners getting in scrapes, twists and capers with plenty of slo-mo set-pieces, scene-chewing cameos and daft dialogue.

Ever-so-slightly more sophisticated was the second season of The Tourist, swapping one hunk (Theo James) for another (Jamie Dornan), while also swapping outback Australia for rural Ireland, contrasting tourist board-worth drone shots with some fairly cliche-heavy portrayals of Irish gangsters. The plot got a bit over-stretched towards the end, but again, it was generally funny, action-packed and very watchable.

2024 was the year I finally caught up on The Bear, just ahead of the third season coming out. Seems like everyone I speak to about TV recommendations is either up to date, or watching along, so not much I need to say about the show, other than it's altogether too stressful for me, I don't need that many inter-scene shots of Chicago soundtracked by bland US rock, Ritchie's story arc is lovely, and the latest season is a bit patchy.

I was also playing catch-up with Boat Story, a recommendation from someone in 2023. After thoroughly enjoying Daisy Haggard's Back to Life, I figured it was worth a punt and was well rewarded for my time. A twisty tale along the lines of Whisky Galore, but with a boat-load of drugs, she was great in it, alongside the ever-reliable Paterson Joseph (Mark's boss in Peep Show).

From an emerging national treasure to a genuine institution, 2024 saw the final season of Inside No.9, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's brilliant bunch of multi-genre, half-hour, star-studded dramas. I'd argue there weren't m(any) classics this time around, but I did enjoy the wee documentary they put together to celebrate the run.

Another British crime drama with a sense of humour worth mentioning was Sweetpea. Using the well-worn trope of an under-appreciated, over-looked person exacting revenge on those who have looked right through them, the story is brought to life by a great performance from Ella Purnell in the lead role.  Between being all over buses during that show's run and being plastered on the side of Amazon delivery vans promoting Fallout on Prime, the young actress had quite the year. The latter was also pretty good, perhaps not up to the dystopian grandeur of The Last of Us, but definitely more fun to watch.

In previous years I've compared and contrasted Prime and Netflix's big fantasy money holes, House of the Dragon and the Rings of Power. I actually stuck out the first seasons of both, but this time round, while there was just about enough intrigue and dragons to see the former through, I gave up on the Tolkien adaptation after about three episodes - there's only so separate storylines with po-faced actors chewing through tedious dialogue, in different parts of Middle Earth, that I can handle.

The imperious Lord Yoshii Toranaga

Whereas, Shogun showed the way to properly handle a big historical epic. I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did, but the slow build to an impressive final few episodes was driven by fine central performances from the effortlessly charismatic Hiroyuki Sanada and mesmerising Anna Sawai.

More dragged along by some solid acting, the latest instalment of True Detective was a female double-team solving a fairly preposterous case in Alaska. Jodie Foster is on fine form alongside Kali Reis, both with their demons to subdue with work and drink, as is par for the course. It lost me towards the end when attempts to square the fantastical happenings in the ice and snow stretched credulity, but was still considerably better than that Colin Farrell series.

Talking of Colin, his career is on the up and up, although you wouldn't know it with the amount of prosthetics he's wearing to become The Penguin. This is the latest attempt by DC Comics to create some popular spin-off character content, and was just about worth sticking with to the fairly grisly end. Thankfully their rivals over at Marvel have taken criticism on board and rolled back a bit on the amount of superhero streaming content. The one that the wife and I did like recently was Agatha All Along, which follows the travails of sassy dark witch Agatha Harkness, who we last saw losing to the Scarlet Witch at the end of WandaVision. I wasn't expecting much, but that low bar was easily hurdled due to a charming coven ensemble, plus the wonderful Joe Locke. 

Staying on Disney+, Star Wars have perhaps unwisely kept a fairly steady stream of mini-series' coming, most of which we've dutifully watched, with mixed results. The best of which this year was Acolyte, created by Leslye Headland and female-forward in its plot - problem with that is that this enraged much of the brand's increasingly toxic fanbase, with the execs rolling over again in the face of the anti-woke online mob and not renewing it. Shower of arseholes the lot of them.

Staying in space, a quick word for Scavengers Reign, a beautifully animated sci-fi series on Netflix. It follows a well worn 'crash land on planet, struggle to survive' storyline, but does so with such inventiveness and intrigue from the alien inhabitants that I gobbled it up in less than a week. Sticking with that platform and animated content, mostly because I'm running out of things to link disparate shows, I also fell hard for Carol at the end of the World. A show that defies easy explanation, and will no doubt fall between the cracks, but for a bit of gentle, odd, beguiling 'adult' (read: not that kind of adult you pervert) cartoon, it's definitely worth seeking out.

Wears a turtleneck well - Eddie the assassin 

I have one decent thematic combo to hit you with before it all falls apart for the ending odds and sods. Assassins for hire seemed to do well in 2024, ending with Sky's big splash remake of The Day of the Jackal, with Eddie Redmayne arguably miscast as the super sniper facing off against the uncompromising MI6 agent played by Lashana Lynch. Despite looking rather sumptuous and featuring lots of expensive knitwear, it was a good couple of episodes too long and did that annoying thing where the ending teased for an unnecessary second series. At least David Fincher's very similar Fassbender vehicle, The Killer, wrapped things up within two hours, while the other streaming movie I'm lumping in, Hit Man, had the interesting twist of the guy only pretending to be a hitman - and actually being based on a true story.

Another, hopefully less tenuous, connection I'd like to make is between the aforementioned Kneecap film and the tv series Say Nothing. Both are based around the catholic response to British rule in Belfast, and although they obviously took very different approaches to the subject matter, they're both imbued with a fine rebel sense of humour to contrast with the seemingly daily atrocities committed by both sides.

Enjoyed this Threads reference in Generation Z

I think I might just blast out the rest via bullet points if that's alright with you?

  • Mr Bates vs The Post Office - a dramatic depiction of this shocking IT scandal that struck such a nerve it hurried politicians into committing to proper payouts for the affected subpostmasters. 
  • Welcome to Wrexham - not really a drama is it? But not exactly a documentary either. Anyway, the latest series dragged on a bit; I still take issue with quite how much local human interest stuff there is.
  • How to With John Wilson - Again, hard to categorise John, but he's made it to three series despite being completely idiosyncratic. Honestly one of my favourite things on the box, if you don't know, I implore you to find it on iPlayer.
  • Generation Z - Ben Wheatley's teen zombie drama didn't feel fully fleshed out and seemed a bit stuck between how dark or light it wanted to be. It was pacey and entertaining though, so just about makes the list.
  • The Listeners - Rebecca Hall playing a teacher who starts hearing a low hum that gradually takes over her life. The creeping dread is masterfully built up, as things get weirder and more trippy.
  • Bluey (specials) - A fitting place to end is this kids show that's arguably more beloved by parents. This year saw its creators get really creative, with some amazing new episodes, and one almost half-hour long show, that ended with one of the most genuinely tear-inducing scenes I saw all year. Bravo the Brisbane team.