Christmas is all but over, New Year is a whisker away, and another extraordinary year in the world of movies and television has almost reached its end. Now, as we sit through 2024’s proverbial end credits, breath held just in case any final frame stings arrive to shake things up as we head into 2025 (*cough* The Odyssey *cough*), we’re taking a break from our festive feasting to reflect on the biggest movie — and TV — news of 2024.
Here was a year of huge franchise comebacks on the big and small screen, of hot-button debates about AI and a very different kind of cancel culture, of box office bangers and viral sensations, and of a slew of hugely exciting meetings and truly heartbreaking partings with the people who make the films and shows we so dearly love. In short, it’s been emotional.
But without further ado, join us as Empire takes an epic look back at the stories that had us all talking in the year that was 2024.
The Mandalorian & Grogu set a course for the big screen
A not so long time ago in a galaxy not so far, far away, 2024 kicked off with an exciting bit of Star Wars news. Following the conclusion of The Mandalorian Season 3 in 2023, speculation had been rife that showrunner Jon Favreau was already knees deep in writing a fourth season of space adventures for everyone’s favourite bounty hunter dad and his little green adoptive son. But while Favreau was indeed writing the next chapter in the book of Mando and Grogu, it turned out that what was next for the dynamic duo wasn’t another season on Disney+, but rather the ingeniously titled The Mandalorian & Grogu — a feature-length Mandoverse movie slated for release on 22 May, 2026. If only we’d known then that in the months to come not only would Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White join the cast, but that this would wind up being the only Star Wars movie to shoot— or indeed even enter production — this year. How young we were!
Read Empire’s The Mandalorian Season 3 review.
Marvel finds its Fantastic Four
It would be fair to say that at the start of the year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe found itself in the midst of a bit of an existential crisis. The likes of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, while fine enough films to be going on with, hardly challenged the notion that the MCU’s Multiverse Saga was languishing worlds away from the heights of the Infinity Saga before it. But in February, the stirrings of a breakthrough came with the announcement that Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Jospeh Quinn had been cast as The Fantastic Four in WandaVision director Matt Shakman’s upcoming movie. As we’ll get to later on, this would prove to be only the first of many big moments for Marvel in 2024. But as an opening gambit, even before we got word of Ralph Ineson’s Galactus casting and Julia Garner’s as Silver Surfer, this was more than enough to have us feeling, well, fantastic.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer sweeps the Oscars — but Ryan Gosling’s Kenergy steals the show
“I am become Oscar winner, the destroyer of the competition!” is not what Christopher Nolan said after finally winning Best Director at the 2024 Oscars — but he definitely should’ve. On the glitziest night of the year, Hollywood’s finest assembled to see Nolan’s epic three-hour nuclear biopic Oppenheimer sweep the Academy Awards, picking up a solid seven statuettes including nods for Best Picture, Actor In A Leading Role for Cillian Murphy, and Actor In A Supporting Role for Robert Downey Jr. However, while the awards very much belonged to Oppy (with a decent fistful heading the way of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, too), the Oscars very much belonged to Ryan Gosling. Taking to the stage to perform Barbie hit ‘I’m Just Ken’, Gosling more than brought the Kenergy, raising the roof on the Dolby Theatre with a spectacular performance that saw Ncuti Gatwa, Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir join him on stage, Slash absolutely shred a killer guitar solo, and the main man himself deliver some genuinely astonishing vocals. In truth, we’re still feeling the Kenergy even now — we haven’t taken off our hot pink gloves since March. SINCE MARCH!
Read Empire’s full Oscars 2024 report.
Late Night With The Devil sparks AI debate
Riffing on everything from Ghostwatch to Network to The Exorcist, all while striking out on its own unholy path, writer-director duo Cameron and Colin Cairnes’ Late Night With The Devil arrived in March to rapturous, all-round praise. But by the end of the month, it wasn’t David Dastmalchian’s winning turn as embattled chat-show host Jack Delroy or the movie’s inspired 70s talk show set-up we were all talking about. Instead, it was AI, as would become a trend throughout 2024 (see also: AI posters for Civil War; Lionsgate’s deal with Runway; *that* Megalopolis trailer.) After it surfaced that three of the film’s interstitial title cards were made using generative AI, social media was ablaze with hot takes as some rushed to the defence of the Cairnes’ ambitious indie film, which was produced on an incredibly low budget and elsewhere displays abundant human creativity, while others decried this incident as a precedent setter for increasingly egregious AI use going forwards. This only marked the beginning of a discourse that has the whole film community — in and outside of the industry — talking. For more on that, we’d recommend checking out our recent deep-diving, interview-led feature, The Future Of Cinema.
Read Empire’s Late Night With The Devil review.
Glen Powell becomes Hollywood’s biggest deal
Riding the wave of a standout supporting turn in Top Gun: Maverick and a money spinning romantic co-lead role in Sydney Sweeney rom-com Anyone But You, ‘Next Big Thing Glen Powell’ became ‘Bona Fide Movie Star Glen Powell’ in 2024. First up, there was his electrifying, smooth as you like turn — or, rather, turns — as a professor-turned-fake-hitman in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. Then, to seal the deal, the Texan thesp immediately followed that up by booking a starring role in Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man before whipping up a box office storm as tornado wrangler Tyler Owens in Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters. And with an ever-growing list of projects including movies with JJ Abrams, John Patton Ford, and John Lee Hancock looming on the horizon, expect to see plenty more Glen Powell as we head into 2025 and beyond. Hell, if Tom Cruise really is bowing out of Mission: Impossible with next year’s Final Reckoning, we know just the guy the IMF needs to be looking at next…
A new era of Doctor Who begins
Following a trifecta of 60th anniversary specials, a first-ever bigeneration, and a peppy Christmas Special, Russell T. Davies’ triumphant return to the Doctor Who showrunner hotseat continued in May with the premiere of Ncuti Gatwa’s first season at the TARDIS’ helm. Kicking off with a double dose of space babies and embattled Beatles, a new era for the Whoniverse began in style with Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday instantly bringing a fresh, magnetic dynamic to the world’s longest-running sci-fi show. Backed by fat stacks of Mouse-branded Benjamins thanks to a new Disney+ deal and boasting some bold swings from a typically outré RTD, Who’s return dominated online discourse for months as the mysteries of Ruby Sunday’s parentage, Sutekh, and more completed the show’s regeneration after a rough few years.
Read Empire’s reviews of ‘Boom’, ‘73 Yards’, and ‘Empire Of Death’.
Rian Johnson announces Wake Up Dead Man and everyone joins the cast
With the one-two punch of Knives Out and Glass Onion, writer-director Rian Johnson simultaneously introduced us to one of the great sleuths in screen history, Daniel Craig’s Foghorn Leghorn-accented Benoit Blanc, and set the bar for casting a third Knives Out Mystery sky-high. Well, suffice it to say that Johnson cleared that bar and then some with the roll call for his ominously titled threequel Wake Up Dead Man. Across a breathless week at the end of May, Josh O' Connor, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, and Josh Brolin all added their names to the hotly anticipated murder mystery’s potential victim/killer list. And while we still don’t know the plot synopsis for this one just yet, that title, taken from the U2 song, has us suspecting supernatural fowl play may be afoot. Plus, did you see that shot of Daniel Craig on set? Hmm…
Read Empire’s Glass Onion review.
Marvel’s Blade continues to ice-skate uphill
As a summer heatwave hit our shores, over at MCU HQ, Marvel Studios’ long-gestating Blade movie continued to find itself ice-skating uphill. Having already lost one director, Bassam Tariq, back in 2022, June began with the embattled movie — first announced way back in 2019 with Mahershala Ali set to star — losing its second helmsman, Yann Demange. However, even though directors and writers have been biting the dust left, right, and centre when it comes to the MCU’s attempts to get Blade off the ground, and even though the movie would go on to be wiped off the slate entirely by Kevin Feige in October, Marvel’s head honcho still insists the Daywalker will have his, er, moment in the sun someday. In Feige we trust…
Read more from Kevin Feige on Blade’s future.
Feathers McGraw makes a comeback
The Daywalker may have hit another brick wall in June, but one felonious fake fowl had no such problems — in fact, after a thirty year spell in the clink, he was breaking free to wreak havoc anew. Yes, in a double-whammy of cracking news, Aardman Animations announced the return of Wallace and Gromit in feature-length caper Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and then dropped the bombshell that beady eyed supervillain Feathers McGraw would be back causing chaos in the Bristol-based studio’s newest claymation. Such was the power of McGraw’s announcement as Vengeance Most Fowl’s big bad in fact that the 30-second teaser trailer for the movie wound up on our list of the Best Movie Trailers Of 2024.
Read Empire’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl review.
The MCU finds its mojo in Hall H
If 2023 saw the Marvel Cinematic Universe lose its mojo, then it was in Hall H at San Diego Comic Con that Kevin Feige and co found it again. Just days after the record-breaking release of mutant team-up Deadpool & Wolverine in multiplexes, Marvel Studios returned to SDCC after a year away and stole the show with a blockbuster panel. Tantalising tidbits came thick and fast stateside as The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Captain America: Brave New World, and Thunderbolts* all got their own mini presentations. But even Harrison Ford Hulking out and roaring at the Comic Con crowd paled in comparison to the double bombshell Feige dropped on fans when he revealed that not only would the Russo Brothers be back to direct the newly renamed Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, but that Robert Downey Jr. — Iron Man himself — would be back, only this time playing the role of… Doctor Doom! “New mask, same task,” teased RDJ, and with those four words it was as if the MCU’s reign over our brains had never ended.
Read Empire’s newly updated Marvel Cinematic Universe ranking.
The box office booms…
After last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes threatened to put an ultimately necessary but undeniably difficult stopper in the post-COVID recovery of bricks and mortar cinema, there was always a sense that this year could be make or break for the future of the theatrical experience. And while things got off to a nervy start early doors with the lukewarm reception received by both Furiosa and The Fall Guy at the box office, things soon took off in a big way as summer hit. The one-two drop of both Bad Boys: Ride Or Die and A Quiet Place: Day One helped heat up cinema seats before records were broken left, right, and centre by Inside Out 2 (the highest-grossing animated movie of all time) and Deadpool & Wolverine (the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time). Couple those heavy hitters with the recent success of Wicked (more on that further down) and Moana 2, as well as the strong early year turnout for Dune: Part Two and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, and you’ve got all the proof you need that if studios build it — and release it in cinemas — then we will come.
…as the streamers keep swinging the axe
Meanwhile, as the big screen experience roared back into life, over on the small screen a whole host of shows faced the chop as streamers’ purse strings tightened and their grip on what made streaming such a dream in the first place loosened. In a year filled with so many cancellations even Avanti would find themselves tutting, we saw *deep breath* The Acolyte, KAOS, Scavenger’s Reign, Our Flag Means Death, American Born Chinese, Schmigadoon!, The Brothers Sun, Dead Boy Detectives, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Halo, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Outer Range, and more all get cancelled or dropped. And all these axed shows in a year that saw the likes of The Rings Of Power and House Of The Dragon all enjoy sophomore seasons that were great specifically for the fact they’d been given space to breathe and room to grow, with enough runway for future seasons given by their respective producers that the showrunners can actually cook with the confidence that the full arc of their shows will get to be executed. Ah, the dream…
Read Empire’s in-depth piece on the streaming situation, Audiences Can’t Keep Up With Streaming Shows — And They’re Paying For It.
House Of The Dragon and The Rings Of Power wage streaming war
(and George R.R. Martin opens friendly fire on HOTD)
After two years away, this summer saw HBO’s Game Of Thrones prequel House Of The Dragon and Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings prequel The Rings Of Power return to our screens, bringing some much needed high fantasy heat to our weekly viewing with a brace of scorching sophomore seasons. From Team Black and Team Green to Sauron and Celebrimbor, The Battle At Rook’s Rest to The Siege Of Eregion, and the ongoing plotting and politicking over the fates of Westeros to the fight for the very soul of middle-Earth, both series brought their A game as they battled for our eyeballs and those all important ‘X number of minutes streamed’ — and we all reaped the rewards. Or, at least, most of us did. In a bizarre instance of friendly fire, Game Of Thrones author George R.R. Martin took a break from not writing The Winds Of Winter to blast House Of The Dragon’s plot changes in a lengthy, since-deleted blog post. Only time will tell if Martin’s prophesied “toxic butterflies” come to pass in HOTD Season 4 and 5…
Read Empire’s House Of The Dragon and The Rings Of Power Season 2 reviews.
Jurassic World is reborn with Rebirth
Two years after Colin Trevorrow’s multigenerational romp Jurassic World Dominion seemingly brought the blockbuster dino franchise to the brink of extinction, from the dying embers of the summer rose some very exciting news: a new Jurassic World movie had begun shooting. All of a sudden we had a title — Jurassic World: Rebirth; we had a director — Godzilla and The Creator helmsman Gareth Edwards; we had a writer — Jurassic OG David Koepp; we had an all-star cast — including Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, and Ed Skrein; and we even had a plot synopsis — involving life-saving drugs, top secret missions, and folk getting stranded on a dino-infested island. Even after all these years, Jurassic Park movies, uhh, find a way to have us hyped. Roll on July 2025!
Read an extract from Empire’s exclusive interview with Gareth Edwards on Jurassic World Dominion.
Dame Maggie Smith and James Earl Jones die
For all that 2024 has given the world of film and TV, it’s also been a year of some truly immense losses. Carl Weathers, Bernard Hill, Roger Corman, Shelley Duvall, Donald Sutherland, Tony Todd… the list goes on. And in September, a cruel twist of fate saw us say farewell to two of the most iconic figures in film history, Dame Maggie Smith and James Earl Jones, within mere weeks of one another. As tributes poured in from far and wide to a pair of bona fide acting legends, we were reminded once again of the power of cinema — and of the people who make the movies we love possible.
Read Empire’s tributes to Dame Maggie Smith and James Earl Jones.
Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel is a Folie À Dud
Heading into 2024, Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie À Deux was one of our most hotly anticipated films. After the incendiary, box office smashing success of 2019’s gritty, street-level Joker, the prospect of more time in the mind of Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck — only now with added Lady Gaga — was a giddying prospect. But as the release approached, and as Phillips and his collaborators tip-toed around the supervillain sequel’s musical nature (enough time has passed now — it’s a musical, folks), anxiety began to grow about the movie’s prospects. Then, when Folie À Deux finally did hit cinemas… well… nobody was laughing on or off screen. Limping to a weak $200 million showing at the box office before being unceremoniously released on digital services just 25 days after it opened, Phillips’ film proved to be one of the huge surprises of the year for all the wrong reasons. Was it the obfuscation of the musical numbers in the marketing that killed it? The imminent launch of James Gunn’s DCU? Or, with Deadpool & Wolverine nailing the R-rated comic book movie over the summer, were cinemagoers just not keen for another, even more downbeat Joker movie? We may never know. But still, we did get a great Gaga album out of it all at least — so silver linings…
Read Empire’s Joker: Folie À Deux review.
Daniel Day-Lewis comes out of retirement
7 years after hanging up his acting boots, Daniel Day-Lewis shocked us all in October by coming out of retirement. After days of whispers circling that the three-time Oscar winner may be returning to his day job — and a smattering of shots of the There Will Be Blood actor rocking a tache on a period movie set hitting the papers — it was finally confirmed that Day-Lewis will be back on our screens in Anemone, his son Ronan’s directorial debut. Co-written by the father-and-son duo, the film — an exploration of familial bonds — is also set to star Sean Bean and Samantha Morton. We don’t know when it’ll arrive in cinemas just yet, but considering how a Daniel Day-Lewis comeback was on none of our bingo cards at the start of the year, we’re willing to wait for Anemone, however long it takes. Maybe the nepo babies aren’t so bad after all, eh?
Christopher Nolan sets the most secretive — and starry — movie of 2026 at Universal
As one blockbuster found itself taking the clown car to box office A&E in October, another was only just getting started. Now, Christopher Nolan could’ve been forgiven for taking some time out from making colossal, cerebral works of cinema after his mega Oppenheimer Oscar success, but instead the newly knighted Sir Nolan revealed that he’s getting straight back in the saddle with Universal for a secrecy shrouded new summer blockbuster. And, as has become customary for the auteur, ever since that announcement we’ve had a deluge of buzzy castings confirmed. Tom Holland! Matt Damon! Zendaya! Anne Hathaway! Lupita Nyong’o! Robert Pattinson! Charlize Theron! A veritable constellation of stars are already aligning to help shepherd Nolan’s next IMAX event. But the big question on everybody’s lips was, well, what exactly is he making? Some were saying we’re in for a period vampire film set in the roaring twenties. Others reported Nolan’s next film would be a new riff on cult ‘copter actioner Blue Thunder. And then just before Christmas we learned the truth. Nolan’s next Odyssean epic will be the Odyssean epic: The Odyssey. That’s right — start swotting up on your Greek poetry folks, because 17 July, 2026 will be here sooner than you think!
Read Empire’s Christopher Nolan ranked list.
Simon Kinberg lands new Star Wars trilogy at Disney
As Supreme Leader Snoke once said, “Darkness rises, and light to meet it” — and in 2024, both the Light and the Dark Side of the Force were felt in the Star Wars Universe. We got The Acolyte this year — and The Acolyte was cancelled this year. We got Daisy Ridley talking up her return as Rey this year — and said Rey movie also lost its screenwriter… and its release date this year. But, just before the festive season really kicked in and just before Skeleton Crew dropped on Disney+, the more-than-just-a-rumour mill delivered a real Star Wars Holiday Special (no, not that one!). Apparently, X-Men producorial alum Simon Kinberg is gearing up to helm a new Star Wars trilogy. Conflicting reports stated Kinberg’s movies both would and wouldn’t comprise Episode X-XII of ‘The Skywalker Saga’, but most concurred on the fact these would be the long-mooted Rey focused New Jedi Order films. After so many announced and subsequently dropped Star Wars projects in recent years, we’re taking everything with a pinch of salt these days, but with this one there really seems to have been an awakening. Have you felt it?
Read Empire’s Complete Star Wars Timeline guide.
Glicked becomes 2024’s Barbenheimer
Call it marketing, call it clever counterprogramming, call it a viral trend that spiralled gloriously out of control, call it whatever you want: Barbenheimer was *the* cinematic event of 2023. A multi-billion dollar money spinner born of the ultimate “Wouldn’t it be funny if…” scenario, cinemagoers flocked in their droves to double-bill Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. And so, when the internet discovered that Sir Ridley Scott’s swords-and-sandals epic Gladiator II would be hitting multiplexes at the same time as Jon M. Chu’s movie musical spectacular Wicked, the stage was rapidly set for Glicked to become this year’s Barbenheimer. And, well, it kinda did. Releasing to strong reviews (and even stronger memes), Glicked’s complimentary parts both gave the box office a real late year flourish, with Scott’s sequel scoring a cool $406 million to date and Chu’s Wizard Of Oz prequel defying gravity to the tune of $571 million and counting thus far. And that’s just the numbers talking. We’ve also had Paul Mescal doing a Glicked inspired musical bit on SNL, Mescal and Ariana Grande getting in on the action with their Variety Actors On Actors appearance, and moments from both films — namely the sharks and Denzel Washington’s line deliveries in Gladiator II, and Wicked’s showstopping ‘Defying Gravity’ sequence — taking on a life of their own, creating trends upon trends. What next year’s Glicked will be is anybody’s guess — Mission: Stitchpossible anyone? Anyone? Fine…
SPUMC reaches an early climax — or does it?
As 2024 wends its way to completion and 2025 raps ever more urgently at our door, Hollywood has just suffered another *checks notes* monumental loss before the year is through. Yes, having delivered us such gems as Madame Web, Venom: The Last Dance, and Kraven The Hunter in the past twelve months, Sony Pictures’ universe of Marvel characters — or SPUMC, as we have known and loved it — reached its premature conclusion in December. As such, while Sony remain committed to making more Spider-Man adjacent projects (Spider-Noir, Beyond The Spider-Verse etc.), it would appear at long last that our dreams of a Sinister Six movie are finally, truly dead. But while we mourn our lost SPUMC (pass us the tissues…), we look back with fondness on Morbin’, on being in the Amazon with Madame Web’s mom when she was researching spiders just before she died, and on the wonders those Venom movies did for Tom Hardy’s not-so-secret rap career. There’ll always be a place for SPUMC in our hearts, even if no longer on our cinema screens.
Read Empire’s breakdown of SPUMC’s death.