Better than the Baftas, greater than the Grammys, and more lobbied than the Oscars – welcome to the Ticket Awards 2014. Take your seats please, we’re about to start.

Our critics have whittled down what they consider to be the best film, music and cultural moments from 2014: some are popular choices; others are personal picks. But all are in the best possible taste.

We’ve made a few deviations from the usual “best of” lists. In film, we’ve pooled all the acting talent into “best performance”, rather than splitting the cream of the crop along gender lines, and we’ve also introduced a “best ensemble” category. Each critic picked their top 20, 10 or five in each category, with the results tabulated at Ticket HQ by our resident bean counters, and then presented here for you to choose from and chew over. In the music category, we had to make a judgment call on the “best moments”, such was the diversity of opinion, but we think we’ve picked a fine selection of “you should have been theres”.

Click here to find our shortlists, from which you can pick your own favourites and, most importantly, you can point out the ones we missed. Those who take part will be in with a chance of winning a selection of fantastic prizes, including annual passes to the IFI (ooooh) and tickets to the Electric Picnic (aaaah). Never has having a contrary opinion been so valuable. The closing date entries is midnight on December 14th, and we'll announce the results in The Ticket and on irishtimes.com on December 19th.

So get voting now, and best of luck

- Laurence Mackin, Ticket Editor