And the 2024 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year

Now the Guardian’s Top 50 countdown, as voted for by the whole film team, has announced its No 1, here are our chief critic’s personal choices, in no particular order

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies review – sad but sweet Thai inheritance tale

The premise – a young man cosies up to his grandmother for the sake of her will – sounds cynical, but this is actually a tear-jerker with an important point

The Universal Theory review – beautiful, wigged-out German multiverse mystery

Gorgeous images and a lush score intrigue in Timm Kröger’s 60s-set noir thriller about a postgrad student’s alpine adventures

Sujo review – slow-burning Mexican drug cartel drama

A young man struggles to escape his bloody birthright in Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s elegant Sundance winner

Sujo review – Mexican coming-of-age drama in the shadow of a cartel killing

A story about a boy deciding whether to enter the criminal underworld or become a student that lacks enough passion and anger to really hit home

The Universal Theory review – chilly German sci-fi noir splices genres with style

Ambitious feature by Timm Kröger moves from lurid colour to stark black and white following an academic’s Alpine adventures in the metaverse

Remembering Every Night review – drifting drama follows three Tokyo women living their lives

Yui Kiyohara’s film of long shots and silences could be deeply boring or oddly fascinating depending on your point of view

All We Imagine As Light review – Cannes prize-winning Indian drama is a quiet, tender marvel

Payal Kapadia’s poetic, everyday tale of three women who work at the same hospital is all the more remarkable for being her fiction feature debut

Snow Leopard review – striking Tibetan drama about one big cat’s fate

A rare snow leopard becomes the centre of a tense family dispute in the late Pema Tseden’s final film

Memories of a Burning Body review – Costa Rican older women talk about sex and desire in deft docudrama

The vivid recollections of three women who grew up in the repressive 1950s and 60s are elegantly re-enacted in Antonella Sudasassi’s prize-winning drama

The Last Dance review – the Chinese funeral home comedy you’ve been waiting for

A wedding planner turned undertaker struggles to win over a Taoist priest in writer-director Anselm Chan’s drama with hidden depths

‘I felt this film was my duty’: director Mati Diop on Dahomey, about the return of looted African treasures

The French-Senegalese film-maker on winning the top prize at Berlin for her otherworldly new work, cultural identity and her beef with Beyoncé

The Goldman Case review – compelling real-life French courtroom drama

The 1970s appeal hearing of far-left activist and armed robber Pierre Goldman is mined for all its showboating excitement in Cédric Kahn’s film

Sugarcane review – impressive account of the Catholic church’s abuse of Indigenous children in Canada

Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s documentary is all the more powerful for its measured telling

Girls Will Be Girls review – simmering emotions in Himalayan boarding school coming-of-age drama

A head prefect’s burgeoning romance is one more thing she needs to excel at in Shuchi Talati’s Sundance audience prize-winning tale of sexual awakening