What to watch, read and listen to: here’s our cultural countdown of 2024

In an era of seemingly endless streaming releases, it’s almost impossible to keep up with what to watch, read or listen to. Thankfully, our team of critics, editors and writers do the heavy lifting throughout the year and then round up the essentials in our annual countdowns.

This week, our rock and pop albums countdown was topped by Charli xcx’s zeitgeist-shifting Brat, which our head rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis said “does everything you might conceivably want a pop album to do”. The singer also gave us the fun of a Brat summer … You can see the top 50 here including, at four, the lovely Charm by Clairo, who also spoke to Elle Hunt about making one of the year’s best records. Our folk, classical and global music writers have also shared their favourites. And I enjoyed this essay by Alexis about a year that reinforced our innate desire for a collective musical experience, whether it was the Eras tour or desperately scrambling for Oasis tickets.

The film team’s top 50 of the year is fascinating, highlighting many titles otherwise swamped by blockbuster noise. This year’s number one is British director Andrew Haigh’s sad, strange, beautiful drama All of Us Strangers. Film writer Benjamin Lee wrote that “Haigh’s study of loneliness does, in its own strange way, make us feel less alone”. Culture editor Alex Needham interviewed its star, Andrew Scott, and asked him about the film’s central theme. I loved All of Us Strangers and was pleased to see the stunning Zone of Interest near the top too. Owing to different release dates, Guardian US runs a concurrent film countdown, which was topped by The Brutalist, and our Australian team also wrapped up the best movies made there, too.

Our TV countdown concludes on Monday – the list is now down to number 2 (the controversial Netflix drama Baby Reindeer) and includes some of my favourite shows of the year such as Alma’s Not Normal and We Are Lady Parts. Our books team’s comprehensive roundup of the year’s best books, from children’s fiction to graphic novels to food, sport and science titles, is always an extravaganza. I’m glad they included James by Percival Everett and Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood – I have an exciting pile to read over new year. The Observer also produced a beautiful piece about the best children’s books.

Our other culture desks have been looking back, too, including our UK-based stage critics, (don’t miss The Years when it comes to the West End), and our art and architecture writers, who loved exhibitions of Monet and Marlene Dumas and buildings ranging from a Norwegian art gallery to the genius Olympic repurposing of Paris.

Our sports desk also gets in on the act, with its countdown of the best 100 male footballers on the planet (having just done the same for female players). Manchester City’s Rodri and Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmatí were the two winners. (Both lists were once again notably absent of any Leeds United players – I’ll be having a word next year.)

Finally, I wanted to update readers around the world on the sale of the Observer, our Sunday newspaper in the UK. On Wednesday, the Scott Trust – the Guardian’s ultimate owner – announced the completion of the sale of the Observer to Tortoise Media. Under the terms of the sale the Scott Trust will take a significant shareholding in the new group, which will operate under the Observer brand. There will be no job losses as a result of this deal, and the Observer newspaper will continue to be printed and distributed every Sunday in its current form. We believe these plans will create a sustainable future for the Observer and the Guardian and make for a stronger liberal press overall. We will continue to update readers further in the new year. I am delighted that the excellent Observer journalist Lucy Rock has been appointed editor of the newspaper.

Thank you for supporting our journalism for another year. Happy Christmas.

In France, in a trial that shocked the world, all 50 of Gisèle Pelicot’s attackers were found guilty alongside her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot of raping, or attempting to rape or sexually abuse her. Angelique Chrisafis profiled the abusers and reported as Gisèle herself had the final say in court about what needs to happen to change attitudes towards rape. Our panel of female French experts also assessed the major changes that need to be made in French society in the wake of the Pelicot case. Rebecca Solnit asked an important question following Gisèle’s rewriting of her own story: how will men engage in addressing the culture that led us to this point?

In Louisiana, Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to child rape. Years of dogged reporting by Ramon Antonio Vargas on Hecker and the cover-up by the church in New Orleans was crucial to the guilty plea. Incredible journalism.

Patients have been moved to intensive care or received potentially life-saving treatment as a direct result of hospitals in England adopting Martha’s rule. Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, described the rule – named after Martha Mills, who died in 2021 aged 13 - as “one of the most important changes to patient care in recent years”. The rule was introduced following campaigning by Martha’s parents, Paul Laity and Merope Mills, a senior editor at the Guardian.

Eyewitness accounts and satellite imagery show the stark contrast in the before and after scenes of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Once a “densely populated, vibrant and busy” area, it has been reduced to rubble by constant Israeli bombardment over the past 14 months. Our graphics and video journalists teamed up with reporters, including the Gaza-based Malak A Tantesh, to visualise the extent of the destruction, the scale of which was also made clear in this video analysis.

Helen Davidson followed the trail of Chinese migrants trying to reach Australia through Indonesia along a new and high-stakes escape route via a people smuggler’s boat.

Robert Booth revealed the harsh conditions some Facebook content moderators in Kenya operate in, where 140 moderators have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to distressing social media content. They are now taking legal action against Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

With the world watching closely at what Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa does next, columnist Nesrine Malik made the case for optimism in a post-Assad Syria. Bethan McKernan headed to Aleppo, the city left to rot after rising up against the regime, where she found signs of positive change. In Damascus, William Christou reported from inside a giant Captagon factory – the regime had been making up to $5bn a year from a lucrative operation smuggling the amphetamine across the region.

Mark Blacklock spent a year investigating perhaps one of Britain’s strangest businessmen, Humphrey Smith, the chair of the British pub chain, Samuel Smith in a riveting long read. Meanwhile, for our Today in Focus podcast, George McDonagh spent 12 months following life in Port Talbot to chart how the Welsh town coped as its blast furnaces were closed down. Stephanie Bakker wrote a fascinating report about a Dutch woman who changed her mind about being euthanised.

Matt Goss of the band Bros opened up to Simon Hattenstone in a revelatory interview about love, his (now nonexistent) relationship with his brother, and the end of his 11-year Las Vegas residency.

The wonderful photojournalist Mike Bowers is leaving Guardian Australia after 11 years. This week we looked back at some of Mike’s most memorable images.

One more thing … Jon Lee Anderson’s piece on Javier Milei in the New Yorker is packed full of weird and worrying details about Argentina’s very rightwing leader.