The best things to do in Melbourne this weekend

If your trick-or-treating days are behind you, what better way to spend Halloween this year than returning to the world of Disney’s haunting classic, Edward Scissorhands. Tim Burton’s 1990 tale of a man-made creature with shears for hands is back on the big screen – and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is performing the eerie score live.  Landing at Hamer Hall from October 30-31, Edward Scissorhands Live in Concert brings Danny Elfman’s acclaimed score to life under the baton of Nicholas Buc – delivering a perfectly spooky soundtrack for All Hallows’ Eve.  In the lead-up, there’s plenty happening in Melbourne that feels straight out of Peg Boggs’ pastel suburbia or Edward’s gloomy hilltop castle.  Throw some axes at Maniax Turn your hands into blades a la Edward’s scissorhands with a session at Maniax Axe Throwing. It’s more target practice than hedge trimming but you’ll be able to channel your inner Edward.  Skate at O’Brien Ice House Is there a movie scene more memorable (or romantic) than when Edward’s ice carving creates a flurry of snow that falls over Winona Ryder’s Kim? Recreate the magic at O’Brien Ice House while you glide around the rink and feel like you’re inside the movie. Go on, we know you want to.  Step into a magical world at Storyville Bar Slip into a fairytale at StoryVille Bar, where you can perch in golden birdcages, lounge under a huge tree or by a Narnian fireplace and feel like you’ve wandered into the pages of a Brothers Grimm story.  Get a fresh...

Banksy is renowned for his thought-provoking, boundary-pushing and disruptive works. And now, the elusive, world-famous street artist is bringing his artwork to Melbourne in a new exhibition: Banksy Limitless at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in November 2026. This new showcase features more than 250 works, large-scale installations, sculptures, digital displays – plus an impressive state-of-the-art hologram experience. Visitors can uncover untold stories behind iconic works including Cinderella at Dismaland, London Zoo and Ice Cream Van, while immersive rooms and bold visual storytelling invite audiences to step inside Banksy’s provocative universe. Renowned for his sharp wit and unflinching social commentary, Banksy continues to challenge perspectives on politics, culture and human rights. In keeping with his humanitarian ethos, a portion of proceeds from Banksy Limitless will support the M.V. Louise Michel, an independent high-speed lifeboat rescuing migrants in distress. So much more than a traditional exhibition, Banksy Limitless is a powerful, multi-sensory experience that will pull you in. Don't miss it.  The exhibition will run from November 25 to April 25, 2027, and tickets are on sale now. Adult tickets start at $39, and children at $28. You can get yours here. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. RECOMMENDED: A Chapel Street icon is getting a ‘lucky’ makeover after...

Passage: The Art of Atong Atem is a world-premiere exhibition celebrating the thought-provoking work of South Sudanese-born Melbourne-based contemporary artist Atong Atem. Opening at NGV on October 30, this major solo exhibition brings together more than 65 works spanning the past decade, including a new commission created exclusively for the gallery. Born in Ethiopia to South Sudanese parents, Atem moved to Australia with her family in 1997. Known for her striking photographic self-portraits, Atem transforms herself through colourful textiles, paint, costume and symbolic objects to explore identity, race, gender and colonialism. Her images weave together history, memory and imagination, celebrating the resilience of her Dinka Bor culture and Melbourne’s African diaspora while challenging how identity is represented and performed. Her work honours cultural traditions and ancestral stories that have endured displacement and war. A highlight of the exhibition is As Above, a large-scale wall installation exploring the stories held in the skies and constellations. Blending Dinka dance, traditional beading and Catholic iconography, the world-premiere commission brings together different cultural traditions in a striking visual narrative. The exhibition also presents Banksia (2021), a photographic series made at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum that turns the spotlight on African, African American and Caribbean convicts and free settlers who arrived with the First Fleet. ...

Ever wanted to soar above a rainforest canopy or wander beneath the frozen surface of the polar seas? Melbourne Museum invites you to do just that with Our Wondrous Planet, a breathtaking, immersive exhibition celebrating the interconnected magic of life on Earth. Spanning reef, rainforest, ice and soil, this multisensory experience drops visitors into the planet’s most vital ecosystems. Room-sized projections, interactive moments and storytelling bring the natural world to life. More than 800 remarkable animals from across the globe take centre stage, appearing in environments that pulse, swirl and shimmer. Witness the beginnings of a coral reef, come face-to-face with rainforest icons, glide through icy waters and explore hidden root networks and organisms working quietly beneath our feet. The exhibition is anchored by distinct spaces: Our Family, showcasing animals from the much-loved Wild gallery and exploring the human place in the tree of life; Our Roots, a reflective First Peoples-led space centred on care, reciprocity and connection to Country; and Our Moment, an interactive zone encouraging visitors to work together on the planet’s biggest challenges. What sets Our Wondrous Planet apart is its blend of First Peoples and scientific knowledge, showing how everything on Earth is connected and how small human actions can make a difference. Family-friendly, visually spectacular and thought-provoking, this exhibition entertains while leaving plenty to reflect on. Our...

Melbourne’s stages have seen a slew of jukebox musicals tread the boards over the past few years. They’ve ranged from the powerful (Tina – The Tina Turner Musical) to the cheesy-yet-crowd-pleasing (Mamma Mia! The Musical) and the glossed-over tributes (MJ the Musical). Thankfully, at a time when it feels more important than ever to encourage people to get out and support the local arts industry, A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical arrives at the Princess Theatre full of razzle-dazzle, an abundance of infectious energy and a stacked setlist guaranteed to appeal to the masses. What is A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical about?  Written by Anthony McCarten, directed by Michael Mayer and created in collaboration with Neil Diamond himself, A Beautiful Noise opens on a dour therapy session between an older Diamond (played with commanding gravitas by Terence Crawford) and his doctor (Monica Sayers). It’s an unflinchingly sharp first introduction to the musical legend – all the more surprising given the heavy involvement of Diamond and his wife Katie – who is being particularly stubborn about revealing anything about the “clouds” that darken his demeanour. Enter the doc whipping out a book of all his lyrics, and suddenly, in true musical theatre fashion, the songs are quite literally spilling onto the stage in the form of the ensemble singing a teasing medley of hits to come.   From there we’re transported back in time as a young Diamond (Will Swenson) gets his big...

Love a good pop-up that’s packed with cool stuff – but hate that it disappears before you’ve had a chance to go back? Melbourne streetwear label Tild has heard your collective groan and is making shopping a bit easier by having its longest pop-up yet. Running from October 4 to November 1, it gives you an entire month to browse and buy their merch. Founded in 2021 by Melbourne sisters Tilly and Lucy Comb, Tild is all about blending streetwear with vintage-inspired style. Think jackets, hoodies, trackpants and singlets splashed with bold prints and playful graphics, as well as everyday staples with a retro twist. Get to this pop-up at 240 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy that’s open daily from 10am to 4pm. So, take your time and find yourself something fun. Get all the updates via their Instagram. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. RECOMMENDED:  Here's more to see and do when you're in Fitzroy Crown Melbourne's $200-million redevelopment is picking up speed

Do you ever look around at the increasingly disastrous times we find ourselves in and wonder how we got here? Or who got us here?  When we think of folks who act like a god only to fall victim to hubristic overreach and despair, we leap to Mary Shelley’s fictional Frankenstein and his spurned, rightfully furious ‘monster’ in fiction, or to real life and J Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb, the man who infamously quoted the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” There’s another: Dr Joseph Weizenbaum, the subject of Eliza, MTC’s riveting new work by celebrated Melbourne playwright Tom Holloway, directed by Paige Rattray. I know Frankenstein and Oppenheimer, but who are Weizenbaum (and Eliza)? Forget Claude and ChatGPT, Eliza is the original AI ‘chatbot’, created by Weizenbaum in 1966. He was a computer whizz at MIT whose family escaped Nazi Germany thirty years earlier, fleeing to the US when he was still a kid.  Far from birthing an intelligent new lifeform – AI isn’t that – Weizenbaum was being a bit of a smart arse, purposefully creating Eliza as a software program designed to mimic the question-reframing language of therapists. Not because he wanted to make therapy easier and cheaper to access, but because unlike sci-fi authors including Asimov, he wanted to prove there was nothing close to human about AI. Eliza was a mimic, faking its way through the Turing test, yet easily out-sentience-d by a parrot.  Intriguing! So who’s involved...

It's time to don your sharpest business suit once again, because American Psycho – The Musical is back. After a sell-out 2025 season, this blood-spattered cult hit returns to Chapel Off Chapel from October 29, inviting audiences into the twisted mind of Patrick Bateman – the Wall Street golden boy who's as obsessed with status as he is with murder. Although set in the money-obsessed Manhattan of the 1980s and based on Bret Easton Ellis's infamous novel, the razor-sharp musical is seen through a 2026 lens. It holds up a mirror to our current world where status and success, capitalism and consumerism have such a strong hold over us. Conor Beaumont (recently seen in Heathers the Musical) reprises his acclaimed lead performance alongside a stellar cast of Australian musical theatre talent, including Mia Dabkowski-Chandler, Alexandra Cashmere, Harley Dasey, Jake Ameduri, Jordan Twigg and more. Directed by Mark Taylor (Next to Normal), the show blends a razor-sharp book by Riverdale’s Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with an atmospheric score by Grammy and Tony winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). Plus, there’s a banging '80s score peppered with hits from Phil Collins, Tears for Fears, New Order and Huey Lewis and the News. American Psycho – The Musical is showing at Chapel Off Chapel from October 29 to November 21. Find out more and get your tickets here. For more show-stopping numbers, check out the best productions in Melbourne this month.

From Cleopatra and Mark Antony's empire-toppling romance to Romeo and Juliet's family-defying affair, love has often been an act of rebellion. Rebel Heart: Love Letters and Other Declarations takes matters of the heart seriously in this sweeping, immersive new exhibition at the State Library, drawing on its extraordinary archives to trace how people have dared to love across centuries of Australian history. The exhibition runs for almost a year and brings together handwritten letters, private diaries, rare manuscripts and deeply personal objects to weave a tapestry of passion, heartbreak and devotion. You’ll encounter Victorian-era same-sex couples living together against the odds, a mid-century interracial marriage that challenged the White Australia policy, and the prison romance between bushrangers Captain Moonlight and James Nesbitt. Fragile keepsakes are also featured in the show, including a haunting 1853 mourning brooch woven from lovers’ hair, alongside letters that read like a late-night confessional. What makes Rebel Heart especially distinctive is how it bridges the past with the present. Historical stories are amplified by newly commissioned music from Australian artists Angie McMahon, Mindy Meng Wang, Mo’Ju and Amos Roach, each responding to real love stories held in the library’s collection.  The exhibition also explores how rebellion and romance play out today – from DMs and fandoms to fan fiction and even AI relationships. It’s set to be a smart,...

There’s more than a good drop on offer at Hanging Rock Winery – this vineyard has morphed into an outdoor gallery. Art in the Vines – Art in Motion 2 is a free outdoor exhibition at Hanging Rock Winery, running daily from 17 October 2026 until the end of April 2027 with Hanging Rock and Mount Macedon providing a spectacular backdrop.  Spanning three acres of the winery’s grounds, the exhibition features more than 20 kinetic sculptures by local, Victorian and interstate artists. With the wind and weather constantly changing, the sculptures will move and interact with their surroundings, meaning no two visits will be quite the same. The standout attraction is a special showcase of five works by acclaimed Australian kinetic sculptor Rudi Jass, whose creations combine precision engineering with an artist’s eye for movement, balance and natural forces. Drawing on skills developed during his years working for Porsche, Jass creates carefully balanced sculptures that respond to the slightest breeze with seemingly effortless grace. The exhibition has already recognised some standout talent, with Mark Reyment winning the Hanging Rock Winery Sculpture Prize for At least you know it’s trying, a quirky work inspired by the Hanging Rock Races. Local chainsaw artist Paul Hurley took home the Arcare Prize for best up-and-coming artist for Black Cockatoo. Curator Malcolm Thomson says the kinetic theme challenged artists to make movement an integral part of their work, producing a...