A 2024 recap

The year 2024 ended. The award season is now in session, which means there are a lot of interesting releases that are just arriving to theatres (that's the main reason why it's easier to make a recap after one month in 2025). If we go back to 2024 and carefully analyse it, we could ask questions like: Was this a good year? Was there even something interesting? What did we learn? Is this the right path to walk? Just like in our personal lives and the global panorama, the entertainment industry wonders the same. In this article, I'll try to recap the most important productions of the year and try to answer those questions.

January

The year opened not with a film or a series, but with a delicate author's right laws' situation. After many efforts to avoid it, Mickey Mouse’s first design from Steamboat Willie officially belongs to the public domain. Unfortunately, we'll still have to wait for something interesting to be produced with it.

The first big streaming hit was for Peacock and Universal with the Ted series, a funny prequel of the 2012 movie. It quickly went viral in social media and season 2 is now official. Considering the kind of producer Seth MacFarlane is and the modest production values it has, it could become a long-running series.

After 5 years since its pilot on YouTube, Hazbin Hotel finally had a full season on Prime Video. With funny and catchy songs and a totally twisted and dark sense of humour, this animation was the proof for every young career starter that dreams come true.

On the other hand, in theatres, we got the first year's disappointment: Mean Girls. Even though they had it all to make a great movie, they failed. It had no personality or originality (even for adaptation standards), because it relied too much on the first film legacy. This wouldn't be the only disappointing musical of the year.

The surprise of the month was Griselda, a miniseries about the infamous narc Griselda Blanco, created by the showrunners of Narcos. Sofía Vergara showed she is much more than Gloria from Modern Family and got many nominations for this role.

February

DreamWorks and Netflix opened the month with Orion and the Dark, an animation written by Charlie Kaufman about a boy afraid of the darkness who becomes friends of its incarnation. Despite its high quality, it didn’t receive a lot of attention. Another animation that had the same luck was Iwájú, a miniseries co-produced by Disney+ and Kugali, a debuting animation studio. This story about crime and social inequality was pretty mature for most Disney animations. It's a shame they both passed under most people’s radar.

Unlike those titles, there was a series that became an instant hit with critics and the audience: Shōgun. Tells the story of a British captain who gets in the middle of a huge political plot in feudal Japan. It was praised for its strong performances, smashing production design and keeping itself far away from common eastern representation clichés in American productions. After winning 18 Emmys, it is clear this was the best series of 2024. Disney and FX confirmed a second season, even though the whole book was adapted. We'll have to wait to see if this story can continue with the same mastery.

In movies, Madame Web and its massive box office bomb was one of the year's worst films and the first embarrassment for Sony Pictures. Apple also delivered another embarrassing movie. Argylle was supposed to be great, but instead Matthew Vaughn created a messy spy film. On a better side, Lisa Frankenstein with Kathryn Newton and Spaceman with Adam Sandler were interesting experiments for both actors, despite their mixed reactions.

Two franchises were active this month. The Walking Dead franchise returned with The Ones Who Live. This spin-off was the long-awaited Andrew Lincoln's return as Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira's as Michonne. Some fans were satisfied, but others not so much. The other franchise was Star Wars with The Bad Batch's final season. Although it didn’t make as much noise as expected, maybe because they never took advantage of its potential.

Nickelodeon's beloved franchise Avatar came back in form of a Netflix live-action adaptation. It wasn’t a masterpiece like the animation, but good and viral enough to have season 2 confirmed.

March

On a really sad note, Dragon Ball fans around the world mourned the death of Akira Toriyama. This was a big shock for the anime industry; many important names offered their respective condolences and said goodbye to the one they called master. His legacy will never die, not only because of how big and successful it is, but also because of every creator around the world who was inspired by Dragon Ball.

On a happier note, this month's attention was stolen by one of the best science-fiction adaptations of one of the best science-fiction novels and one of the best sequels, directed by one of the best living directors: Dune: Part Two. Performances, cinematography, sound, production design, VFX; absolutely everything was at its peak to deliver an experience that became a worldwide box office success and held the record of highest grossing film of the year for many months. It had received many important nominations, but it is still unclear if Villeneuve will ever receive his totally deserved award for Best Director. It's also unclear when exactly we'll watch Dune: Messiah.

Love Lies Bleeding, a peculiar crime romance with Kristen Stewart by A24, came out after passing by some earlier festivals but struggled to get just a little bit of attention. Meanwhile, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire made a lot of money without even trying.

Kung Fu Panda 4 arrived only 2 weeks after Dune, but still managed to earn a lot at the box office. Although, this movie's actual achievement was Jack Black's Baby One More Time cover, this song quickly went viral. Also, this was the most polarizing chapter of the saga; we'll see if that becomes a problem for the next movies.

Speaking of viral and animation, X-Men ‘97 came to revive the X-Men. It took 5 years for Marvel and Disney to finally do something with these characters after buying Fox. This follow-up to the classic X-Men animated series of 1992 brought back every single mutant, villain and storyline possible for one of the best X-Men stories ever. Fans have the highest expectations for season 2, but don’t know how long we'll have to wait after showrunner Beau DeMayo was fired for still unclear reasons.

Also in Disney+, the Coppola series was another example of the good relationship between Argentinean productions and Disney+ distribution. We see the Diego Maradona's manager, Guillermo Coppola, going through the most important years of his career and a huge display of visual creativity to make this historical drama a more immersive experience.

Finally, outside of fiction, one documentary series was on everyone’s radar, but not for the best reasons. Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV kept viewers and journalists on the edge while scriptwriters, actors and other crew members from some 90s Nickelodeon shows told their experiences on set; many of those memories were extremely disturbing (almost getting to morbidity). For almost a whole month, the internet was calling for Dan Schneider and Brian Peck's heads, the two main infamous names in this documentary.

April

After some film festivals, Sasquatch Sunset had a short time on theatres in very few territories. This film was praised, but also disliked; maybe that’s the reason why it wasn’t talked so much, even though it had Jesse Eisenberg. This popular actor was busy this year. He starred next to Kieran Culkin and debuted as director in A Real Pain. This story about two endearing cousins in an emotional trip was one of the biggest surprises and best films of the year. It has been receiving a lot of recognitions and nominations and is still pending to be released in some territories around the world.

Another actor who debuted as director was Dev Patel in Monkey Man, about a man who starts a movement in a corrupt city. This film had it all: drama, action, innovative action sequences and bold cinematography. Patel was also the writer, producer and his own stunt. Maybe it didn't earn as much as expected, but time will put this film in its rightful place.

The actual box office flop of the month was Abigail. The story follows a group of criminals hired to kidnap the little daughter of a powerful man, only to discover they are trapped with a bloodthirsty monster. It's a shame not many people watched it. But even more shameful was what the Paramount executives did to its star, Melissa Barrera, after she spoke out against the Israel-Palestina conflict. She is no longer the star of the Scream franchise. Her colleagues Jenna Ortega and the directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett showed solidarity by quitting the franchise. Melissa has proven she can make great performances in roles like the one she got in Your Monster, an independent film highly praised in many film festivals.

Another great movie, but sadly also a flop, was The Fall Guy. Ryan Gosling shines as a cool stuntman who gets involved in a big crime plot around a missing actor of a blockbuster directed by the love of his life. This movie has it all, from masterful action sequences to comedy and romance. David Leitch proved how much he loves filmmaking.

This month's attention was mainly on another kind of movie. Civil War follows a group of journalists traveling across the USA to get to the White House, where the war is coming to an end. Instead of being a social or political critic, this movie was actually about journalism and maybe a wake-up call for the U.S. It was the most expensive A24 movie and its highest grossing, too. The studio announced they're considering producing franchises; making spectators think this might be the end of the A24 we used to know.

The other popular movie was Challengers, about a love triangle between tennis players. Was directed by Luca Guadagnino, known for powerful unconventional love stories. This film should have been a massive hit. young and popular actors like Zendaya, but that wasn’t enough to make it the big hit Warner expected.

The other director who came back was Zack Snyder. Rebel Moon – Part Two ended up being even worse than the first part. This time, not even his most devoted followers defended this movie. As always, he proudly released his director’s cuts, but their reception was even worse. Maybe Snyder should consider taking a time off from directing and staying as a producer and/or going back to the zombie sub-genre, which will be hard after Netflix cancelled his future projects of Army of the Dead.

Netflix also delivered Dead Boy Detectives, a fun spin-off of the universe of The Sandman, while we are still waiting for season 2. They also released Baby Reindeer, a miniseries about loneliness and obsession, apparently based on real-life events that quickly went viral.

In Disney+, Monsters at Work came back with a superior season 2. It's normal that Disney exploits its franchises with mixed results, but this time the interest in this title vanished really fast after the season finale. Something that is getting more common every day.

On Prime Video, Fallout became a must-see series and was called one of the best video game adaptations. This violent post-apocalyptic world was loved because of its lovely characters and dark sense of humor. Something the Knuckles series didn’t make after being completely ignored.

May

The Star Wars franchise returned with Tales of the Empire, although it didn’t cause the same impact as Tales of the Jedi did the year before.

What caused a surprisingly good impact was Fairly OddParents: A New Wish, a reboot of the old Nickelodeon animation series with a new protagonist and return of many characters of the original show. Always keeping the bad side of the series locked away.

Many film festivals were held on these dates and brought some of the best films. For example, The Annecy Film Festival (France) had the privilege to present some of the best films of the year: Look Back, The Glassworker and Sauvages. Also, two of the nominated for Best Animated Feature: Memoir of a Snail, a sad story of two brothers, and Flow, about a cat surviving a flood.

On the opposite side, at the Cannes Film Festival, Emilia Perez was premiered and praised. Now, is one of the most polemic, discussed and hated films of the year. This French crime movie musical set in Mexico about a narc leader who fakes her death to turn into a woman has been in the eye of the hurricane for a poor representation of Mexico, terrible songs without rhymes or rhythm (that somehow got nominations for best song), terrible acting with terrible Spanish spoken by non-actually Latin-American actresses and insensitivity about the organized crime situation in Mexico and Latin America. The cast and director's answers about these issues has only made things worse. It's been available to watch on Netflix for months, except in Latin America, where it's just arriving in theatres. The internet is now full of people explaining fully detailed about all those problems and why almost every non-Spanish speaker Academy member and common spectator doesn’t seem to care. Now, we should wonder if any other award-winning movie has misrepresented a culture and/or country, but the academy and/or the rest of the world didn’t notice. Something is clear: if France wanted to choose an amazing film to represent them at the Oscars that also premiered in Cannes, it should have been The Count of Monte Cristo, a blockbuster-size adaptation of the novel and possibly the best one ever made.

Going to the blockbusters (and a more relaxing note), the new Planet of the Apes saga delivered one of their best movies with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. This adventure took many old elements from the original film to talk about power and evolution. The visuals in this franchise never looked better. This is just the first of a new series of films, and the box office says people want more. Director Wes Ball is now apparently the chosen one to direct a The Legend of Zelda adaptation.

The other great monkey movie was Better Man, Robbie William's biopic, that still hasn’t premiered everywhere. Anyway, it was a great victory for biopics, after disappointing titles like Back to Black and Bob Marley, and for musicals; although the actual massive success for musicals was still on its way.

A Quiet Place: Day One expanded its universe. It proved how much potential this apocalyptic world has. Fans loved the new characters. John Krasinski proved to be a good producer and to be able to take good care of his franchise. His reputation was affected by his other movie, this time as director: IF, a lame family film.

Unfortunately, the beloved and acclaimed Mad Max saga didn’t run with the same luck. Fury Road is one of the best films ever made; but not even that, a cast full of stars and incredible high-tension action sequences saved Furiosa from being the most surprising box office disappointments. Looking on the bright side, director George Miller is now in talks to direct a Thor movie after becoming friends with Chris Hemsworth.

The new Superman movie didn’t come in 2024, but still, it was a good year for this character. On streaming, Adult Swim and DC Animation delivered a great season 2 of the new fans' favourite My Adventures with Superman. This would just be the first of an amazing good streak of DC shows.

The other show that came back was Demon Slayer. What could have been just another training arc ended with one of the biggest cliffhangers in anime. After that, it was announced this story will end with a trilogy.

Another series that actually ended was Young Sheldon. For the final episodes, Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik came back to fully portray Sheldon and Amy, not only their voices. This finale wouldn’t be the end for The Big Bang Theory franchise.

In a minor but still popular side, South Park had another special. In The End of Obesity, we saw a thin Eric Cartman and the actual hell of the U.S. healthcare system. Fans liked it, but it's sad this was the only South Park content in the whole year.

June

This was a busy month, so let’s start with the heaviest part. The Acolyte was supposed to be the first Star Wars project set in the High Republic, following a group of Jedi investigating a series of murders. The problem: it was boring. Eight episodes was too long for a mystery with zero surprises. It only had one good episode and all of their great actors were wasted, just like all the new ideas. The worst part is now it's not totally clear if it's canon or not; Disney and Lucasfilm got rid of the merchandising and cancelled the show after its disappointing number of views, fans' poor reception and how expensive was to produce it. Despite all of that, it was the second most watched show on the platform in 2024; just behind Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which premiered in December 2023.

Unlike The Acolyte, Young Woman and the Sea was great. This real-life story about the first woman who swam across the English Channel was not only loved by critics and the audience; it may have saved Daisy Ridley's career after The Rise of Skywalker. This was her chance to prove to the world she is a good actress and she didn't throw away her shot. Now, it's time for her to pick cautiously her next role, and this time more people has to see it.

With Presumed Innocent, Apple delivered another great miniseries, which has been accumulating nominations for Jake Gyllenhaal. Although it wasn’t enough to get the views they wished, again.

Netflix delivered the first amazing and heartwarming animated film about robots of the year. Ultraman: Rising is a new adaptation of the Japanese franchise about robots vs. kaiju. Here, the Ultraman pilot adopts a baby kaiju.

But if we talk about animation, it is impossible not to mention Inside Out 2, one of Pixar's best sequels. The highest grossing film of the year, the highest grossing animation, and, by now, the 8th highest grossing film ever. There's no doubt there will be Inside Out 3 and more sequels from Pixar. At least, this studio doesn’t usually make bad movies, unlike Illumination with the annoying Despicable Me 4, that somehow still make millions out of it.

Another film from Cannes was Kinds of Kindness by Yorgos Lanthimos. It was another strange film of this acclaimed director; only this time may have been too weird for everyone. Ended up as one of the worst box office bombs.

Most of the month's attention was on The Boys Season 4. This acclaimed violent satire of the U.S. society, politics and media proved that maybe Americans never actually understood this show. This story is now getting closer and closer to the end of the line, but that won’t stop them to produce spin-offs.

House of the Dragon came back with its season 2. It had a good start with its first episodes, but it slowly moved away from many parts of the source material and turned into a slower and more introspective story instead of the all-out war everyone expected.

A movie that actually needed people to watch it was Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1. Kevin Costner spent a huge part of his own fortune to produce, direct and star this massive three-hour western with so many plot lines and characters it will be continued in more chapters. He got mixed reviews and almost no audience in theatres. This was another of the year's biggest flops. Chapter 2 was supposed to arrive in cinemas months later, but got delayed after those low numbers.

July

Apple Studios got another box office bomb with Fly Me to the Moon, a romantic comedy in the middle of the Moon Landing. They also premiered Las Azules, a miniseries about the real live events of the first women police recruits in Mexico. Praised, but again, not many views.

On Max, the creative team of the Harley Quinn animated series proved they can do absolutely anything and will still be funny. Even with a spin-off of a character like Kite Man.

Meanwhile, blockbusters like Twisters proved disaster films with passion are still possible and profitable; also added one more title to Glen Powell's amazing streak. But, we all know which film made everyone run to the theatres. Deadpool & Wolverine may have been not as good as the previous ones, but it's undeniable how funny it was. It gave fans exactly what they wished for, although we still have to wait to see if it was worth it. This was the only Marvel Studios film this year and it was for the best. In the next two years we'll see if this film taught them something or if it was just the proof studios needed to understand it is time to exploit the 2000s nostalgia. Whatever happens, the Deadpool's Bye Bye Bye dance and the chorus version of Like a Prayer will live on everyone's mind rent-free for a long time.

The horror genre was a bit busy. MaXXXine came to finish the X trilogy. Some people loved it, while others argued it didn’t live up to the hype. The surprise was Longlegs, a police story that involves an obscure cult and another over-the-top performance of Nicolas Cage.

M. Night Shyamalan made another thriller, Trap. Only this time, it had mixed reactions. Not one of his best movies, but way far from his worst ones.

August

Once again, Disney proved to know what to do with their recently acquired franchises. Alien: Romulus recovered everything from the past Alien movies and added new ideas in a solid and amazingly executed story. Director Fede Álvarez is now working on a sequel.

Zoë Kravitz debuted as director with Blink Twice, a thriller about a party on a billionaire's private island. For a directorial debut, this movie had a more than decent performance, earning enough just not to be considered a total flop.

Borderlands came only to become the year's worst box office's bomb. This movie could be one of the worst cases of wasted cast and the worst video game adaptation in this new era of amazing video game adaptations.

Speaking of terrible, what started as an interesting and popular comic-book adaptation and managed to deliver 3 great and consistent seasons finished with one of the worst conclusions ever made in the history of Netflix. Just because of this fourth season, The Umbrella Academy is no longer a worth watching show.

On a brighter side, Netflix surprised with Terminator: Zero. Despite its extremely slow rhythm, the story, tone and animation made this anime something more than just interesting for fans of this franchise.

Regardless, in terms of animation, the star was Batman: Caped Crusader. This spiritual successor of the old and wonderful Batman: The Animated Series managed to survive the Max purge in 2022 and found a new home in Prime Video. Bruce Timm proved once again why fans owe him so much.

Warner Animation also surprised us with a new and more accurate adaptation of Watchmen. The voice acting and cell shading animation nailed this two-part movie. It was way better than almost every other direct-to-video movie.

September

New Cannes' films arrived. One of them was Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola. This legendary director came back after so many years and also invested his own fortune to produce this movie about U.S.A. as a modern version of Rome. This polarizing and experimental film was in the middle ground between eloquence and pretentiousness; no wonder why it bombed. The actual hit from Cannes that also became one of the most important films of 2024 was The Substance. This horror film criticized the male gaze, how this industry literally destroys women's bodies and self-esteem just to please the worst kind of people and how time kills everything we have given more value: the superficiality. A speech as aggressive as the body-horror scenes in this movie. Demi Moore made one of her best performances next to Margaret Qualley, a new popular idol.

The Walking Dead had another round with the second season of Daryl Dixon's spin-off. This time, he reunited with his old friend, Carol. It may have worked as a solo series but made some fans wonder if this franchise has a real plan.

We've been waiting since 2021 for The Batman II, which has been delayed again for two more years. In the meantime, we had The Penguin. This dark and violent miniseries was loved by fans and critics alike. Oswald Cob was a villain to hate and fear. Every actor was impeccable, but Rhenzy Feliz and Cristin Milioti definitely deserve a lot of recognition for their roles.

On the opposite side, Marvel Studios surprised fans with Agatha All Along. This series felt almost totally different from the rest of the franchise and introduced some of the most interesting characters of this phase. Besides, it had one of the best episodes in a Marvel series. And delivered another viral song, too. Sadly, it ended up as one of the least-viewed Marvel shows on Disney+. Proving once again that social media is not actual translation for views on streaming or theatres.

Netflix distributed Rebel Ridge, an action thriller about a soldier against police corruption and discrimination. A really underrated film with something to say about these issues. Meanwhile, Zack Snyder played a new move producing Twilight of the Gods, a hyper-violent vengeful journey to kill the Nordic gods. The animation aesthetics gave the story a unique identity and the characters were endearing. But it was criticized for the unnecessarily explicit sex scenes and some terrible dialogue. We'll see if he can recover Netflix’s trust.

A new popular anime hit came out this month. Dandadan is possibly the most bizarre, original and funny premise of the last years. Typical high-school comedy, aliens, supernatural lore and one of the catchiest opening songs; this series has it all.

Blockbusters were interesting. Transformers One was one of the best decisions by Paramount in a long time, followed by the terrible decision of not investing enough in marketing; leading this great movie to become another unfortunate flop. Anyway, fans and common spectators tried to make people watch this movie as a recommendation, proving this new plan for the franchise has support. Piece by Piece, Pharrell Williams biopic, showed a new creative way to make this kind of movies; regardless, for some reason it hasn’t arrived everywhere yet. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was not as good as expected but is nice to see Tim Burton getting back on track; so nice it became a major hit. Speak No Evil was one of the best American horror remakes of a European film, with an incredible performance by James McAvoy. But in the end, only one movie stole everybody’s heart and became the other best film of the year: The Wild Robot. Somehow, robots and animation have become allies to tell the most touching stories of the last few years. If you still don’t know this tale of a robot adopting a goose, go now and watch it.

October

We all know what happened. Joker 2 turned out to be one of the worst disappointments of all time. What sounded like a good experiment turned out to be an unnecessary and pretentious critic to its own fandom and a boring story. It also featured some uninspired musical numbers, making it another bad musical.

Luckily, Warner and DC also delivered the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. It shows how Christopher Reeve became an activist after an accident left him paralysed. Also, Superman & Lois came to an end with its fourth season. This deeply emotional finale was also the end of the Arrowverse from the once popular TV network The CW.

The franchise that came back, instead of ending, was Dragon Ball. Daima was Toriyama's last work. At first, the new designs were criticized, but eventually accepted. It had some similarities with the non-canon series Dragon Ball: GT, only this time it was better received.

The other anime that came back was Blue Lock. The spin-off movie released earlier this year, and the season 2 proved once again that a football anime can be as over the top as Captain Tsubasa, but also with more complex characters.

From Spain to Prime Video, came a new zombie blockbuster: Apocalipsis Z. A pretty conventional zombie movie but with enough drama and action to be a little bit more than just entertaining for common viewers and zombie movies fans. Anyway, the real big deal in horror was Terrifier 3. With this movie, Art the Clown has finally become a horror pop culture icon and made this movie one of the most profitable of the year. Smile also had a nice sequel, with a new story with new characters.

Director Pedro Almodóvar made his first English-speaking movie, The Room Next Door. It may be far from his best films but is still worth watching cinema, featuring fully touching acting by Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.

Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh starred at the heartbreaking romance We Live in Time. It is still pending to be released in many territories but has proved, just like Anyone But You, that R-rated romance can gross a lot, too.

The other prestigious director who came back was Alfonso Cuarón with an Apple TV+ miniseries Disclaimer. Kate Blanchett shines in this story about a woman falling from her highest point in life, which reminds a little of her role in Tar.

Venom 3 was the end of this weird and dumb but kind of fun trilogy. No one expected something from this movie, so no one was disappointed. According to a note by Variety, Americans chose to watch this film to escape from the mania around the elections. Good news for Sony Pictures, at least.

Speaking of which, The Apprentice, the movie about Donald Trump's career as a real estate developer, was released one month before the U.S. elections. It made some noise online and managed to earn a lot of money in many territories, except for The States. It is known that Trump himself was mad about this production; maybe that’s the reason why its distribution inside the country had so many problems. Anyway, it didn’t stop Sebastian Stan from being nominated as Best Actor in one of his two best performances. The other one was A Different Man, about an aspiring actor who changes his appearance. In terms of recognitions, it was a good year for Sebastian Stan.

From this month, many of the favourites movies for this awards season started to make some noise. Now, we can see them in theatres: The Brutalist, about an architect following the “American Dream”; Conclave, about the election of the new Pope; Saturday Night, about the chaos before the first Saturday Night Live show; Anora, about an exotic dancer falling in love with a millionaire boy, etc.

November

Disney+ released two great documentaries: Music by John Williams, a recap of all of his masterpieces, and Beatles ’64, about the date the band first landed in the U.S.

One of John Williams' oldest friends came back, too. Robert Zemeckis, worked again with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in Here. It received mixed reviews but it is admirable that he is still working and trying new stuff. Clint Eastwood came back as well. Only this time, he silently retired with Juror #2. It's far from his best works as director, but it gave Nicholas Hoult his first great role this year.

Another actor who proved himself was Hugh Grant in Heretic. He shines as a gentle but evil neighbour who torments two missionaries. It was good to know it got great reviews and earned a lot of money.

The Dune franchise tried to become a phenomenon again with Dune: Prophecy. This huge production about the Bene Gesserit sisterhood had it all to be a smashing hit for Max, but lacked of characters as interesting as the ones from the movies. We hope they solve that for the next season.

Cartoon Network (with Adult Swim) finally delivered a new original series. Invincible Fight Girl was a nice surprise. The plot's about a young girl following her dream to become a wrestler. The 2D animation style and homages along the episodes proved how much influence anime has had on a new generation of animators.

In a bit strange move, Young Sheldon (which was already a spin-off), had its own spin-off. Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage tells the life of Sheldon's older brother as a responsable husband. It only has released the first half of the first season, but it doesn’t seem to have caused the same impact as the last instalments, even if they went back to the classic sitcom format of The Big Bang Theory. There are rumours about another spin-off; this time, it would be about Stuart, the comic book store owner.

Moana 2 was the last slap in the face for musical fans and the animation industry, after becoming one of the year's most profitable movies. After a lame year for movie musicals, Wicked shows-up and becomes a smashing hit in critics and box office, breaking Mamma Mia's record as the highest grossing movie musical. This mega-production was everything Broadway fans and theatre kids were waiting for so long. It is now nominated in many categories for the Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress, for Cynthia Erivo, and Best Supporting Actress, for Ariana Grande. It didn’t exactly save the year for the genre regarding the public's perception, but it meant a lot after all those terrible musicals. Fans are craving the part 2. As a fun fact, some producer thought it could become another "Barbenheimer" phenomenon just because it was competing against Gladiator II. Of course, it didn’t happen; but still, both films were well deserved massive box office successes.

Netflix and Ted Danson delivered a new great comedy. This time, based on the Chilean documentary El Agente Topo. A season 2 of A Man on is the Inside is confirmed. Anyway, every Netflix and streaming title got eclipsed by Arcane's second and final season. Through three weeks, we witnessed the end of one of the best series of all time, with the highest budget for an animation. It is amazing how they managed to make an ending that felt organic even when the first plan was to make more seasons. New spin-offs are confirmed; a right choice considering the vast lore of League of Legends and some plots with an open ending. Besides, as the first season, there were new great original songs like Heavy is the Crown by Linking Park or The Line by Twenty One Pilots.

On a different note, Netflix took off almost every interactive title from the catalog. A sad but understandable move, knowing how complex and big this kind of content is and how hard it is to keep people watching them. To sum up, they couldn’t afford to keep them on the platform. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch survived, but other amazing titles like We Lost Our Human won’t be seen anymore — or at least until someone comes up with a true solution.

In Brazil, after its exhibitions in Venice and other important festivals, Ainda Estou Aqui (I'm Still Here) was finally seen by the Brazilian audiences and has accumulated praises until now. Now, it's nominated for Best Picture.

December

Luca Guadagnino made one more movie. Queer is a love story set in Mexico, starring Daniel Craig. This role was supposed to be Joaquin Phoenix's, but now we know, thanks of this film, he tends to abandon productions in the worst time.

Speaking of Mexico, one of the most praised Mexican movies, Sujo, finally arrived to theatres. Tells the story of a young boy struggling to grow up far from the violent environment his dad came from.

Robert Eggers finally delivered his Nosferatu remake he wanted to make for so long. A dark production design with a well-directed cast and strong performances by Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Bill Skarsgård and Nicholas Hoult, who proved he's more than ready to become Lex Luthor.

Timothée Chalamet played another iconic character as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. It hasn't arrived in every territory yet, but it won’t take long after its Oscar nominations.

Four blockbusters came to give a closure to the 2024. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim really tried to be a great event, but not even a beautiful anime-like animation and amazing characters was enough to save it from being one of the saddest flops. Kraven the Hunter also tried to not be as badly received as Sony's past instalments, but obviously didn’t make it. This is the end of all this messy Spider-Man villain movies, or at least that’s what we all hope so. On a much brighter side, The Lion King (2019) prequel, Mufasa, was better than anyone could’ve expected. They solved some of the problems of the last movie and hired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write new original songs. I Always Wanted a Brother was another viral song, for a few weeks. But no other blockbuster could have beaten Sonic 3. The best instalment of this franchise, by a long shot. Loved by fans and critics. Smashed the box office and now is the 9th highest grossing movie of 2024.

On streaming, things were busy. Disney+ made Dream Productions, an Inside Out spin-off that works as a self-criticism about the studio and the industry that also adds more material to the main topics of this franchise. Star Wars, closed their year with the first episodes of Skeleton Crew (which released the rest of episodes on January). George Lucas always said Star Wars was meant to inspire children and that's this series' point. This old school adventure of kids teaming up with a Jedi was appreciated by most of the fans. Which, for this franchise's standards and this year’s record, is a huge victory. To close their year, they released What if…?'s third and final season. They expected to give a good closure, but it was the opposite. This series started as one of the fan's favourites and with the biggest potential, which they never reached and ended up with uninteresting stories.

On the contrary, James Gunn finally let us see a small view of the new DCU before Superman with Creature Comandos. This animation presents a new set of tragic misfits forced to work together. The story might not be the best, but the characters are all complex, funny and endearing enough. Also, it had another set of good songs.

But, in the end, the one who got busiest for this final lap was Netflix. Two Christmas movies were on trending: That Christmas, a British animation about many characters in Christmas Eve, and Carry-On, an action thriller starring Taron Egerton as an airport security officer. They delivered another huge surprise for animation, too: Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld, a cool teenage fantasy drama that has been earning support on social media. Also, after 2 years since the announcement, finally delivered their adaptation of Cien Años de Soledad; getting extremely positive reviews and good numbers in short time. Finally, it all ended with Squid Game season 2. Obviously it wasn’t as good as the first one but received a huge number of views instantly, in spite of the fact it was actually the first half of a final season. The end of this story will come at some point of 2025.

So, was it a good year? I think it was not precisely good, or at least not as good as we could have expected or wished for. The 2024 was interesting, in terms of results. None of the highest grossing movies were original, but also a lot of blockbusters franchises flopped. Amazing independent films like The Substance, Flow or A Real Pain became hits; far from the highest grossing ones, but still something their creators can celebrate. Other great movies like Monkey Man, The Fall Guy or Challengers didn’t become the hit their studios and directors expected despite having many odds on their side. Every year, it gets harder to predict a hit or a bomb, no matter how good the film is or how much money was invested. Almost the same goes for streaming, too. We can’t know if a series will be on trending for more than a month; even if it's releasing a new episode every week. If it's a new instalment of a popular franchise, it must be award material, like The Penguin, and not to be forgotten after one month, like The Bad Batch. If it's original, it must be a masterpiece like Shōgun or Arcane; viral, like Baby Reindeer or Ted, or extremely expected, like Squid Game. There’s no place for failure and The Acolyte proves it. There’s still space for new medium-sized ideas, but it will be hard to tell if those projects actually work and the pressure on them will be higher and higher every year to become into a franchise, get a sequel or a new season.

After an interesting year; full of surprises, disappointments, very few masterpieces that will still be relevant in the future, some great productions that may get more exposure in a few years and many underrated titles. We had stories about friendship, family and people in conflict with themselves. The 2025 will show us if the studios and platforms have learnt anything. We'll see which other actors want to venture into directing and how fresh their ideas are. Will see if franchises (specially Star Wars) can protect their reputation. We'll see if musical movies can recover from this year. But, more important, we'll see how audiences react to all the upcoming content and what they'll choose to watch at the end. Well, we'll see….