It’s still early days, but 2024 is already shaping up to be a stonking year at the cinema. Last year was a cracker, thanks to Oppenheimer, Barbie, Past Lives et al, but the next 12 months will see Denis Villeneuve delivering his long-awaited Dune sequel, George Miller back at the bullet farm with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a new Bong Joon-ho, and a tonne of other big-screen fare to get very, very excited about. And we’ve already been spoiled rotten, thanks to the achingly lovelorn All of Us Strangers, Yorgos Lanthimos’s riotous Poor Things, The Iron Claw, the beefcake wrestling movie with the big heart, and Dune: Part Two, the sci-fi blockbuster with the giant worms.

So, the criterion for entry: some of the following movies came out in the US at the back end of 2023 – Oscars qualification requires it – but we’re basing this list on UK release dates to make sure the best movies to be in cinemas worldwide in 2024 are included. We’ll be updating it with worthy new releases as we go, so keep this list bookmarked. Anyway, enough of that – here are the year’s very best so far.

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