Phil de Semlyen

War is hell but it does make for some great movies. There are few real-world events that present such natural conduits for drama, suspense, horror and heroism, and filmmakers have taken advantage from nearly the beginning of cinema: Lewis Milestone’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front won one of the first Oscars for Best Picture, in 1930. More recently, Alex Garland plunged us into the maelstrom of Iraq with Warfare. The best war movies aren’t just historical reenactments, though. They use combat as the basis for exploring a slew of existential questions. Why do we fight? Why do people enlist? What happens afterwards? Is war ever justified? Rarely is there a clear answer, but simply broaching those subjects can produce compelling cinema. For this list, we’ve compiled films that span the historical and fictional gamut, from both world wars, to Vietnam, to the so-called ‘War on Terror’, to imaginary interplanetary conflict. It’s impossible to really convey the horror of war if you haven’t been there – done right, though, movies can provide some small window into what those who’ve fought have seen, experienced and felt. These 50 films come closest. Written by David Fear, Keith Uhlich, Joshua Rothkopf, Andy Kryza, Phil de Semlyen and Matthew Singer Recommended: 🎖️ The best World War I movies💥 The 50 best World War II movies🪖 The 20 best Vietnam War movies – as ranked by a military historian🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time

A new year is upon us. Many will be locking in on a new gym routine. Others will be embarking on Dry January. But you? You’re setting your sights on seeing more of the world in 2026. And we’re right there with you – there’s no better time than now to start dreaming and planning some big adventures for the year ahead. So, where to go? Our Time Out editors, from South Africa to Sydney, have a few ideas up their sleeves. After all, this lucky lot make a living from exploring their corners of the world, discovering the next best cities, cool neighbourhoods and emerging travel destinations. Our recommended 2026 travel hotspots include Unesco’s next World Book Capital in Morocco, a new thermal wellness destination in the Canadian Rockies, unspoiled beach towns in Brazil – and many, many more where that came from. This is Time Out’s rundown of the best places to travel in 2026 – and how to plan the perfect trip in each.RECOMMENDED:🤩 The 26 best new things to do in the world in 2026🎵 The biggest and best music festivals to go to this year🖼️ 19 exhibitions worth travelling for in 2026 Grace Beard is Time Out’s travel editor. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines. 

2026 has officially landed. An entire year of adventure awaits, with Britain set for a deluge of thrilling new things to see and do. Beyond the individual openings, however – the new bars and restaurants, museums and attractions – where should be on your radar for places to visit in the UK?  If you’re up for being inspired here at Time Out, as always, we’ve got you covered. We’ve scoured the listings of all that’s happening in Britain in 2026 and consulted our nationwide network of writers and editors, harnessing all that info to put together a guide to the places that should be on your radar over the next 12 months.  Destinations made it onto Time Out’s list for a vast range of reasons. Some have swaggered onto the scene with a quickfire burst of thrilling new attractions. Others have built their cred slower and reached a point of quiet brilliance, while others still are established spots that simply remain very much worth their rep. Several places will be made even more tempting by those aforementioned 2026 openings, whether that be delicious places to eat and drink, game-changing new transport options or unmissable cultural events.  From trendy seaside towns to revived industries cities, medieval forts to ‘the new Berlin’: here are the UK’s 14 top places to visit in 2026. RECOMMENDED: Looking for just London stuff? Here are 26 new things to do in the capital in 2026. 

Um novo ano começou. Muitos vão se dedicar a uma nova rotina de academia. Outros devem embarcar no Dry January. Mas você? Se você decidiu conhecer mais do mundo em 2026, nós estamos com você. Não há momento melhor do que agora para começar a sonhar e planejar grandes aventuras do ano. Então, para onde ir? Os editores da Time Out, da África do Sul a Sydney, têm algumas ótimas ideias. Afinal, esse grupo privilegiado vive explorando seus próprios cantos do mundo, descobrindo as próximas grandes cidades, bairros mais descolados e destinos de viagem emergentes. As recomendações para 2026 incluem desde a próxima Capital Mundial do Livro da Unesco, no Marrocos, até um novo destino de bem-estar termal nas Montanhas Rochosas do Canadá, passando por vilarejos de praia ainda intocados no Brasil, entre muitos outros lugares. Este é o guia da Time Out com os melhores destinos para viajar em 2026 e dicas de como planejar a viagem perfeita para cada um deles!

War has long fascinated filmmakers, no conflict more so than World War II. No wonder: the sheer scale of the destruction, the atrocities associated with it and its place in human history make it a natural framework for stories of resistance, survival and unimaginable loss. So many movies have been made about the war, it’s almost a genre unto itself.  For that reason, choosing the best World War II movies is a challenge. That’s why, along with polling our well-studied Time Out writers, we also called in an outside expert: Quentin Tarantino, a man who knows a thing or two about making a great WW2 film. Among the selections, you’ll find towering epics, intimate character studies, intense documentaries, historical revisions and even a few comedies. War is hell, and World War II was particularly hellish – but at least we have these films to help make some sense of it. Written by Tom Huddleston, Adam Lee Davies, Paul Fairclough, Anna Smith, David Jenkins, Dan Jolin, Phil de Semlyen, Alim Kheraj & Matthew Singer Recommended: ⚔️ The 50 best war movies of all-time🎖️ The best World War I movies, ranked by historical accuracy🇺🇸 The 20 best Memorial Day movies

As a parent, navigating your kid’s tweenage years is tough. No longer a kid but not yet a tornado of hormones, it’s a short-lived but awkward time that affects just about everything, up to and including movie nights. Where you happy little butterball could once be pleased with anything loud and colourful, now they’re getting more discerning. At the same time, they’re not so desperate to prove their maturity that they’re demanding a legal thriller or a Merchant Ivory costume drama. So how do you choose the right flick to please all audiences? Don’t freak out. We’re here to help. We’ve rounded up 36 movies that almost seem laser-guided to explode the pleasure centres of anyone between the ages of ten and 12. And the good news is that much of what works for that demographic is the same stuff you loved at the age, from ’80s blockbusters to silly comedies to adventure flicks to movies about young love and the struggle of growing up. Throw one of these on and you’ll be a hero, at least for one night.   Recommended: 🎒 The 100 best teen movies of all-time👪 The 50 best family films to stream on movie night🤣 The 35 best family comedy movies

Update for 2026: Disaster movies aren’t quite as en vogue as they once were, but every once in a while, a new one comes along that deserves inclusion in the pantheon. In 2025, that was The Lost Bus, a true-life tale of survival set during California’s devastating Camp Fire of 2018. Will the upcoming Greenland 2: Migration also make the cut? Watch this space! Like the greater action genre to which they belong, disaster movies speak to something primal in all of us: the fear that our lives rest in the hands of unknown forces that care nothing about who we are or what we’ve done. For decades, filmmakers have seized upon the human anxiety that the universe could, at any moment, decide to squish us like bugs. Sometimes, the disaster itself is a backdrop to stories about human survival. Other times, wanton destruction is the whole point – and hey, there’s nothing wrong with a director flexing their effects budget, if it’s eye-popping, ear-busting and senses-overloading enough.  You’ll find both represented on this list of the greatest disaster movies ever made. In putting together this list, we left out rampaging monsters and invading aliens and kept to the more common definition of ‘disasters’ – earthquakes, asteroids, tidal waves, geostorms, etc. Here are 35 classics of the genre that register 11 on the cinematic Richter Scale. Recommended: 💣 The 101 best action movies of all-time😱 The 100 best horror movies of all-time😬 The 100 best thrillers of all-time👹 The 50 best monster

Updated for 2026: A year ago, hardly anyone would imagine a Paul Thomas Anderson movie making this list. Now, it’s undeniable: One Battle After Another is absolutely elite, exhilarating filmmaking that slams on the gas and never lets up for close to three hours. Action movies get a bad rap. Not necessarily from the general public, of course. Audiences love ’em, for the most part. But for hardcore cinephiles, action is too often regarded as cinematic junk food, replacing all story and substance with eardrum-shattering explosions and mindless violence. Sure, you can enjoy one every now and then, but a steady diet of loud noises, death-defying stunts and one-liners? That’s for the normies. Here’s the thing, though: if the main point of any film is to make you feel something, what produces more visceral feeling than a good action flick? Anyone who’s ever had their senses rattled by a truly great action movie knows that there are few moviegoing experiences that can compare. Another thing: not all action movies are loud and dumb. Some are nearly operatic in scope and balletic in their grace – and sometimes, you might even actually care about the person dodging bullets and delivering throat chops. This list of the greatest action films ever made is proof that the genre is more versatile than it appears. Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time💥 The 18 greatest stunts in cinema (as picked by the greatest stunt people)🥋 The 25 best martial arts movies of all-time🌊 The 33 be

Horror has become Hollywood’s most bankable genre, both artistically and at the box office. Last year proved it once again, with movies like Sinners and Weapons becoming cultural phenomenons and franchise entries such as The Conjuring: Last Rites and Final Destination Bloodlines raking in the receipts. At a glance, there doesn’t seem to be another surefire blockbuster on the 2026 slate. Sure, the Insidious juggernaut will likely roll on, there’s yet another Scream sequel incoming, and Zach Cregger is already following up Weapons with a Resident Evil reboot. But is there another wholly original story likely to (ahem) scare up audiences in droves? Hard to say. Then again, that’s the thing with horror: the movies most likely to make us scream the loudest – out of both fear and joy – are those we never see coming. We’ve done our best, however, to identify the upcoming movies all true horror-heads need to have on their watchlist. 26 massive movies you need to see in 2026.15 book-to-movie adaptations to get (very) excited about in 2026.

Love hurts. Love scars. Love can make you giddy with laughter or hot under the collar and tight in the pants. It can make you sing and dance or shoot to kill. However it’s expressed, love is perhaps the most elemental emotion a human being can feel. So it makes sense that filmmakers turn to it for inspiration more than any other. A great cinematic romance drills straight into the heart of the audience. Even if you’ve never, say, robbed a bank with your loved one, or stood by your sweetheart as they transformed into a hideous monster, the best romantic films make you understand and sympathise with the decisions of those under love’s spell. Because one way or another, we’ve all been there. Falling in love is easy, but choosing the greatest films about love is a puzzle. That’s why, to help us curate this list, we chatted to more than 100 filmmakers, actors and writers, including those from Time Out. Believe us when we say these are folks familiar with the language of amor. Who knows more about making hearts swell than Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook? Or Notting Hill screenwriter Richard Curtis? Shoot, we even asked the ultimate romantic, Miss Piggy. Whether you prefer comedies or dramas, horror or sci-fi, we’re sure you’ll find the following list of the 100 greatest romantic movies ever speaks to your own heart as well. Written by Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Tom Huddleston, Catherine Bray, Trevor Johnston, Andy P Kryza, Guy Lodge, Phil de Semlyen, Alim Kheraj & Matthew Si

January 2026: Take advantage of the big post-Christmas lull to beat the crowds and explore London’s museums this January. The capital’s iconic institutions will be blissfully quiet as you catch up with last year's biggest openings, from Wes Anderson at the Design Museum to Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A. Don't miss the final weeks of the Barbican's iconoclastic fashion show Dirty Looks, or neglect to navigate your way to British Library's intriguing Secret Maps exhibition, both of which close this month. Or find out more great things to see this year with our pick of 2026's cultural highlights. Museums are one of the things that London does best. This city boasts grand institutions housing ancient treasures, modern monoliths packed with intriguing exhibits, and tiny rooms containing deeply niche collections – and lots of them are totally free to anyone who wants to come in and take a gander. And with more than 170 London museums to choose from, there's bound to be one to pique your interest, whatever you're in to.  Want to explore the history of TfL? We’ve got a museum for that. Rather learn about advertising? We’ve got a museum for that too. History? Check. Science? Check. 1940s cinema memorabilia, grotesque eighteenth-century surgical instruments, or perhaps a wall of 4,000 mouse skeletons? Check, check and check! Being the cultured metropolitans that we are, Time Out’s editors love nothing more than a wholesome afternoon spent gawping at Churchill’s baby rattle or some

The year ahead will the unite the cinema-going world with giant big-screen offerings like Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Avengers: Doomsday. But before we get to those globe-spanning cultural moments, we must head off on our own journeys: in the US, January can be a trek through the wasteland of post-awards releases; here, it’s a magic carpet ride of high-quality Oscar films (Hamnet, No Other Choice) and some OTT genre fare for anyone who feels like switching their brains off in the warmth of their local picture house. Lock in for these 10 new releases.  RECOMMENDED:📽️ The best films of 2025📺 The best TV shows of 2025 you need to stream🏵️ The 100 greatest movies of all time

If you’re feeling a touch downbeat about the state of the world, Eugene Jarecki’s (Why We Fight) searching but sympathetic doc about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will not lift your spirits. With fly-on-the-wall footage, some extraordinary talking-head interviews, unexpected cameos (Lady Gaga, Pamela Anderson) and a sense of moral outrage, the American filmmaker takes on – and down – a global system of power that should worry the hell out of us all. Jarecki’s film, a conspiracy thriller in documentary clothing, provides a corrective to the public image of this deeply polarising figure, showing Assange as a warrior for transparency whose intelligence leaks embarrassed powerful national interests and who paid a terrible price for it.  We see Wikileaks growing from a small team led by the determined, spiky Australian as it broke through in 2007 by releasing US military footage of an Apache gunship gunning down unarmed civilians and Reuters journalists in Iraq. The viral video, dubbed ‘Collateral Murder’, turned the organisation into a name that everyone had heard of, even if they couldn’t quite pinpoint its exact aims. Ambiguity grew, fuelled when Assange was charged with rape in Sweden and hid out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The women he was accused of assaulting appear incognito here, revealing that the Swedish authorities pressed charges against the wills of the victims.  But the Wikileaks of The Six Billion Dollar Man is a more considered and journalistic enterpr

Aside from an overlong film, there’s little more dull than hearing some overprivileged critic whining about film length. After all, an extra helping of 3D-enhanced escapism measured in hundreds of millions of dollars in bleeding-edge effects: what’s not to love? With James Cameron serving it up, it’s like complaining about a Michelin-starred chef adding four courses onto their degustation menu, no extra charge.  Forgive me, then, for being that critic but if ever a movie could give your eyeballs gout, Avatar: Fire and Air is that film. At three hours and 17 sometimes spectacular, occasionally stultifying minutes (two more than Schindler’s List), your mind will struggle not to wander as human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his blue clanspeople tackle new-yet-entirely-similar threats in a straining sequel that again zeroes in on Pandoran whale juice as its McGuffin. You will try to make it through this movie without needing a pee. You will not succeed.  Unlike the first two Avatars, which even haters would concede were epic journeys of discovery, with Cameron as an attentive guide to a dazzling alien universe, a sense of familiarity kicks in from the opening 3D shots of a guilt-ridden Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) soaring through the floating Hallelujah Mountains on a banshee. The death of his brother Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in Avatar: The Way of Water will send him off on his own redemption arc, one of a few half-hearted story progressions in a movie that’s largely co

American cinema’s fake-it-til-you-make-it brigade – Catch Me If You Can’s Frank Abagnale Jr, Moses Pray in Paper Moon, Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, Uncut Gems’ Howard Ratner, Barry Lyndon and all those other hustling antiheroes – has a dazzling new addition. But, with his skittish chutzpah and pathological lack of self-doubt, Timothée Chalamet’s ever-calculating ping pong player Marty Mauser has something most of those others lack: real talent to back up the front.  In Josh Safdie’s sports movie-cum-crime caper, Marty is a gifted but impoverished ping-pong player who’s only an inch or two from conquering all. By the terms of his own cutthroat world, he’s a loser who lives within touching distance of glory. One more push could make all the difference. Or get him killed.  Safdie, who co-writes with Uncut Gems’ Ronald Bronstein, spins this sorta-kinda true story into a mile-a-minute affair with a twinkle in its eye. (Marty is based on late ’40s table tennis champion Marty Reisman, whose nickname, ‘the Needle’, spoke to his jabbing wit as much as his wiry frame.)  And what a confederate Safdie has in Chalamet. The Dune star has been immodestly talking up his performance on the film’s press tour and, to borrow from Tropic Thunder, it seems a lot like a case of not dropping character until the DVD commentary. And let’s pray there is one because there’s a lot to unpack in this puckish figure whose pioneering outlook is articulated by Daniel Lopatin’s synth score and some ’80s bangers –

A blunt-speaking matriarch’s rapid decline in palliative care over a series of December days may not sound like the last word in festive viewing, but that is where this debut directorial effort from Kate Winslet takes us with almost indecent jolliness. It’s an advent calendar with a dose of morphine and a forced smile behind every window, a stark-yet-saccharine affair that sells out its own attempts at pathos with thin characters and jokes about goose-ducken. Only a cast of elite thesps keeps it from sinking into ignominy.  With the Lee actress directing from a screenplay written by her 21-year-old son Joe Anders, the Winslet family is clearly a lot more in tune with its emotions than the film’s angsty Gloucester clan. Helen Mirren is June, the vinegary but loving mum to three wildly different daughters: buttoned-up success story Julia (Winslet); stressed-out mum Molly (Andrea Riseborough), whose dotty husband (Stephen Merchant) is driving her to the brink; and New Age whirlwind Helen (Toni Collette). Even closer to home are distracted husband Bernie (Timothy Spall), avoidant in the face of this looming and seismic loss, and heavy-laden son Connor (Johnny Flynn), who finds both panic and purpose in his mother’s latest, and possibly final, collapse.The waxen June and her family decamp to an empty fairy-tale hospital given a romcom glow by cinematographer Alwin H Küchler (Steve Jobs) to arrange care rotas and relitigate old grudges, while the boisterous grandkids prep the mise

There have been better animated sequels and more epic ones, but has there ever been a fluffier follow-up than this bouncy, buoyant caper starring at least half the nature world? To Zootropolis’s bickering duo of frenemies-turned-partners, idealistic bunny cop Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and sly street fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), part 2 throws in a venomous pit viper called Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan) for slithering but cute sidekick antics and a message of prejudice-busting teamwork.  Gary’s gentle nature is wildly at odds with the lethal neurotoxins that course through his fangs, a neat central tension. The well-meaning serpent just wants a hug but stands to accidentally kill anyone who gets too close. Bateman and Goodwin are perfect as the snarky-and-sweet central duo, and Everything Everywhere All at Once star Ke ups the loveability levels in a voice cast that packs in cameos from Ed Sheeran, Dwayne Johnson and even Disney CEO Bob Iger (voicing weatherman Bob Tiger and presumably immediately ready to green light Zootropolis 3). Shakira returns too, to bash out a song as a pop star gazelle. The plot doesn’t measure up to the first Zootropolis’s ingenious Chinatown stylings, and younger viewers may need a grounding in noir storytelling to follow the action. But the quest for a McGuffin that will reunite Gary De’Snake and his ostracised viper brethren with their territorial birthright opens up a new map book to this colourfully imaginative world. The reptile k

F Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. The novelist might have changed his tune if he’d happened across a young model called Lee Miller back in the New York of the late 1920s.Even back then, in her pixie-cropped fashionista era, the New Yorker must have exuded an unquenchable thirst for discovery and reinvention. Fast forward 30 or so years and she’d been a muse for Man Ray and the Surrealist movement, starred in films, become a famous photographer, decamped to Paris, Cairo and London, traversed war-torn Europe as a daredevil journalist and finally, haunted by the conflict, holed in a cosy corner of Sussex to host arty parties and pioneer avant garde recipes like ‘onion upside down cake’ and ‘marshmallow Coca-Cola ice cream’. She died fêted as a celebrity chef. Second act? She had a folio’s worth.  All of those eras are up on the Tate Britain’s walls for the duration of the gallery’s blockbuster exhibition. Dividing Miller’s extraordinary career chronologically, it’s a time-travelling experience as well as a showcase of her technical and compositional skills. ‘Before the Camera’, shows her as a beautiful young model in NYC in 1926, the daughter of a keen amateur photographer. Walk through a dozen or so rooms and there she is, in Hitler’s bathtub, world-famous and hollowed out, returning to self-portraiture to capture a shattered continent in one image.   If the shimmery black-and-white portraits she took – from a playful Charlie Cha

Wicked stans, musical theatre diehards and anyone tempted to drop the word ‘goosify’ into conversation should add about 12 more stars to the above rating, skip my thoughts and settle in for another two-and-a-half more of Elphaba and Glinda belting out anthems of empowerment while Jonathan Bailey’s army officer Fiyero suffers a crisis of conscience in the background.  Still here? Well, whisper it but the concluding part of John M Chu’s musical epic will be a disappointment for anyone who hasn’t sipped the green and pink Kool-Aid. Rather than an elegant dash for the finish line, Wicked: For Good magnifies the shortcomings of the stage musical’s underpowered second half with sluggish pacing, awkward scenes and storytelling that packs all the visceral punch of Glinda’s bubble machine. Where the first movie had urgency and a sense of peril to propel it forward – not to mention a host of bona-fide bangers – part two is more of a wheelspin downhill. Once again, Wicked’s kingdom of Oz is a luridly over-designed world (were we too harsh on Oz: The Great and Powerful?) where human fondant fancy Glinda the Good (Ariane Grande) is torn between loyalty to the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and love for old pal Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo, a powerhouse again).   The witch, having broomsticked away at the end of Wicked, is deep into her Ewok era, living in the trees of Oz to hide from Wizard’s troops and flying monkeys. Goldblum is his usual cheerily mercurial self, but the Wizard cuts a detached figure

It’s weird, in the year 2025, that it seems necessary to point out that the Nazis were bad. But Nuremberg, an old-fashioned and satisfyingly complex morality tale in the guise of a courtroom drama and spy thriller, does that job in impressive style. Supercharged by James Vanderbilt’s smart script and snappy direction, and with an on-form cast, it plots a course through the immediate aftermath of World War II and into the legal nightmare of holding its German perpetrators to account.  If Russell Crowe seemed a cartoonish choice to play avuncular Nazi second-in-command Hermann Göring, he delivers his best performance since The Nice Guys a full decade ago, paradoxically dialling things back to prove that he’s not a faded force. Rami Malek returns to something like Bohemian Rhapsody form as the American psychologist, Douglas Kelley, sent to the Allies’ high security Nuremberg prison to evaluate him and his fellow Nazis.  Appearances are deceptive throughout this psychologically acute and entertaining dramatisation of the Nuremberg war trials of 1945. Göring seems jovial and harmless; Kelley seems in control of their sessions in the Nazi’s small cell. Straight-arrow American prosecutor Robert H Jackson (Michael Shannon) and his gin-sipping British counterpart (Richard E Grant) seem to have a copper-bottomed plan to send Göring and his fellow war criminals (including the deeply odious Robert Ley and Julius Streicher) to the gallows. ‘Eisenhower is not for hanging anyone without a t

What happened to the fun? Along with co-writer Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright burst onto the scene as the brains behind Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, all zip and fizz and crash zooms and witty edits, soundtracks that might have taken years to pull together, and fan-thrilling Easter eggs and cameos.  Unexpectedly, his sci-fi action film could have been made by any number of less gifted filmmakers. There’s little sign of that tightly calibrated, cinephile-fuelled pop-art house style that made his name in this update of Stephen King’s The Running Man (published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman to critique early Reagan-era saturation TV).It’s a movie that got up on the wrong side of the bed and compensated with four quadruple espressos. Like Arnie’s spandex-and-sass 1987 version (not to mention The Hunger Games, The Squid Game, The Long Walk and any number of other variants on the theme,) it’s a parable of a near-future underclass giving blood to entertain the masses and hopefully win big in the process. But unlike Schwarzenegger’s version, Wright isn’t playing much of this for laughs. His lead, Hit Man’s Glen Powell’s Ben Richards, may be the most pissed-off protagonist since Mel Gibson’s thunderous heyday. It’s a movie that got up on the wrong side of the bed and compensated with four quadruple espressos Unable to provide for his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) and their sick bubba, and fired from a series of (literally) toxic jobs, he signs up for a deadly reality TV show r

Measured rather than playing to the gallery, The Choral is Brassed Off in a minor key – an elegant, Yorkshire-set exploration of music as a spiritual morale-boost in the darkest times. With Ralph Fiennes gravely essaying the controversial choirmaster at its heart, it does a lovely job of swerving the obvious notes but misplaces its stirring crescendo. In fairness, the setting isn’t a joyous one. We’re in the fictional mill town of Ramsden in 1916, a Yorkshire community rocked by steady losses on the Western Front. Word from France comes in the form of death notices delivered by postie Lofty (Oliver Briscombe) to bereft mothers. The town is divided between those eager to do their bit and those who fear that they or their young loved-ones will soon be called on to die in the trenches. The local choral society is busy trying to lift the town’s spirits with a production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Except local patron and mill owner Alderman Duxbury (Roger Allam) is stuck trying to replace the departing choirmaster who’s just joined up. And when everyone twigs than Bach was, in fact, a Hun, the question becomes moot. It won’t do to be getting cosy with German culture in a time of war – although, as their new musical director Dr Henry Guthrie (Fiennes) points out, that would rule out Haydn, Beethoven and most of the other options too. Guthrie’s own German past soon marks his card too, although he claws back some patriotic points by suggesting a modernised version of Elgar’s ‘The

Two bungalows with a shared partition, a dog, and a couple of Oscar nominees at the top of their formidable games: Paul Andrew Williams’s pared-back and bruising three-hander is a realist drama with deep undercurrents that whirlpool into a denouement you will not see coming.  On a nondescript street in an unnamed town a few metres from a set of traffic lights that seem forever stuck on red, Brenda Blethyn’s elderly, arthritic pensioner Elsie muddles along, assisted by a series of box-ticking private carers and the occasional call from her distant, middle-aged son John (W1A’s Jason Watkins). Those comings and goings are observed by her wiry, sardonic neighbour Colleen (Andrea Riseborough). The distance between these two lonely souls – a stretch of lawn with a lone splash of colour provided by Elsie’s flowerbed – shortens in increments as Colleen and her beefy bull terrier Sabre pile over to help with the shopping and pick up the slack. Soon, Elsie is providing that most British sign of welcome and sticking the kettle on.Blethyn is a two-time Oscar nominee and Riseborough, of course, earned one as For Leslie’s working-class alcoholic, and they are both absolutely stellar as two strangers finding a gentle connection. Both communicate different forms of brittleness – physical for one, psychological for the other – with immense skill, but leave space for a third kind: the idea that their connection is also alarmingly fragile. Colleen’s manner and lack of back story plant the idea

The jury’s out on popcorn and the case has been made against phone use (time to criminalise?), but where do we stand on big, ugly, drenching-the-cinema-floor sobbing? Chloé Zhao’s (Nomadland) Tudor tearjerker makes the debate suddenly germane. ‘Take tissues’ is a hopeless cliché. Tissues won’t do. You’ll need towels.  With Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal delivering the performances of their careers, Hamnet tells the story behind Shakespeare’s great tragedy – Hamlet – and much more besides. The wild power of motherhood; the fearsome responsibility of parenting; the jolting anxiety of nurturing something precious in a time of death; the drive for creative expression. Zhao holds all these primal but relatable forces in check before unleashing them in an emotionally totalising final reel. Devotees of Maggie O'Farrell’s 2020 novel, a deeper dive, of course, into the deep wells of bewitching force-of-nature Agnes Hathaway (Buckley) and her genius-in-the-making husband William Shakespeare (Mescal), will be reassured that the author has collaborated with Zhao for an adaptation that’s the right kind of lean. Gone are narrative curlicues that enrich on the page but would clutter on screen: early dating strife; Shakespeare’s journeys to London; the establishment of The Globe; a whole flea-cam interlude that follows the plague carrier from Asia to Stratford-upon-Avon and would look awesome in a David Cronenberg film. Hamnet is a movie that finds power in simplicity.  And Zhao trusts that

One of the UK’s biggest celebrations of international films, Kinoteka Film Festival is back with another two months of carefully curated Polish cinema. Headline news from this year’s newly announced line-up is a special retrospect for Polish great Andrzej Wajda, as well as new movies from contemporary filmmakers like Corpus Christi director Jan Komasa and Agnieszka Holland, who returns with Franz Kafka biopic Franz. Komasa has two films at the festival: Good Boy, a black comedy with Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough; and political thriller Anniversary, starring Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, Phoebe Dynevor and Dylan O’Brien. Alongside screenings of Andrzej Wadja’s work at BFI Southbank, ICA and Ciné Lumière, look out for a 35mm presentation of Ashes and Diamonds – his classic 1958 war film will open the festival at BFI Southbank on February 4. Look out, too, for a double bill screening of Wadja’s Man of Iron alongside Andrzej Żuławski’s legendary 1981 horror movie Possession starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill. Photograph: BFI STILLS POSTERS & DESIGNS‘Ashes and Diamonds’ It’s part of a Ciné Lumière double bill series which juxtaposes the work of Wadja and his filmmaking rival Żuławski. The festival’s closing gala on March 29 is Maciej Sobieszczański’s powerful coming-of-age drama Brother.  The festival runs from February 4 to March 29 at venues across London and the UK.  Outside of London, UK venues include Filmhouse Edinburgh, Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle and Oxford’s

Camden’s Odeon cinema is closing for good next month. After nearly 90 years of screenings, dating back to 1937, the Parkway picture house will shut its doors for the final time on February 24. Beloved of Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, the cinema is currently operating as a 5-screen multiplex but is earmarked for demolition to make way for a new property development.‘Following talks with our landlord, we have come to a mutual agreement to close our Camden cinema,’ an Odeon spokesperson told the Camden New Journal. ‘Supporting our local cinema team is our number one priority and we will be looking to secure jobs for as many of them as possible at our other cinema locations.’ 17 years ago, on April 9th 2004, 'Shaun Of The Dead' was released in UK/IRE cinemas. I went to see it at Odeon Camden with Simon Pegg, Nira Park, my editor Chris Dickens and our production manager Karen Beever. We sat at the back because we were nervous. Here are Nira's tickets. pic.twitter.com/sM8uAl9PL1 — edgarwright (@edgarwright) April 9, 2021 According to Camden New Journal, the Secret Cinema Group had explored using the convert the adjacent Mecca Bingo hall – also being demolished and redeveloped – into a space for interactive events, before opting against the plan. Instead, the wider site will be transformed into student housing and under the name Camden Town Xchange. On the plans are 244 student bedrooms and a further 49 affordable homes. Photograph: Camden Town XchangeRenders o

Gavin and Stacey superfans roll up! The iconic terraced house from the beloved BBC comedy series has just become available as a holiday rental – the perfect bolthole for anyone with a secret yearning to relive the high points of the classic sitcom.  The Lush House in Wales was bought by a Gavin and Stacey superfan in 2025 and has since been converted into a holiday rental.  Photograph: Sykes Cottages In the show, the house belonged to Doris O’Neill (Margaret John), a friend and the next door neighbour of Gavin and Stacey.  It sleeps up to seven, with three bedrooms, a private garden and all the modcons.   Photograph: Sykes Cottages Perched on hilly Trinity Street in the seaside town of Barry, it’s situated right in Gavin and Stacey heartland in range of the beach, fairground, and the famous Marco’s Café.  Photograph: Sykes CottagesLush House, Barry Dock Hit the link for more info and to book in for a stay. Salad not included. 26 massive movies you need to see in 2026. The Night Manager season 2: the globe-trotting locations behind the le Carré spy thriller.

If you’ve read and loved Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, Hamnet will be high on your new year’s viewing list. And Chloé Zhao’s lyrical, heart-rending and beautifully acted adaptation will absolutely live up to those high hopes.  Helping Zhao craft Hamnet’s Tudor England, a lived-in world of Stratford townhouses, Warwickshire farms and London’s Globe Theatre, was Aussie production designer Fiona Crombie. Oscar nominated for her work on Yorgos Lanthimos’ 18th century comedy The Favourite, she was charged with recreating early 1600s England to backdrop the deep love and tragic family life of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley).  The result is an extraordinary, handcrafted evocation of Elizabethan England – right down to period-specific herbs and lumpy apples. ‘We talked about using green screen, but [we wanted] this movie to look as close to the real thing as it could be,’ Crombie tells Time Out. Here’s how – and where – it was done. Photograph: Universal Pictures 1. William Shakespeare’s Stratford house was built at Elstree Studios Along with the Globe Theatre itself, the movie’s key location is William Shakespeare’s Henley Street birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. It’s where the great playwright-to-be lives with his parents, the quietly compassionate Mary (Emily Watson) and bullying glove maker John (David Wilmot) – and where Agnes Hathaway comes to live when she conceives their first child, Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). It’s here that twin

Remember Jonathan Pine? Even Jonathan Pine is hazy on the details.Played by Tom Hiddleston, John le Carré’s hotel manager-turned-spy is back for a second season – a full 10 years after the smash-hit first run of The Night Manager saw him infiltrate the life of cynical, avuncular arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) and shepherd him towards a violent kind of justice. Season 1 was glamorous, murky, exotic, violent and sexy. Season 2 is more of the same, with another array of exotic settings to backdrop its shadowy story. ‘This season stands alone as a piece of television,’ producer Matthew Patnick tells Time Out, promising bar-raising new locations. ‘It’s the same visual excitement – and then some – but we go somewhere very different with it.’ Unlike the first run, season 2 does not come direct from the pages of le Carré, who died in 2020, but screenwriter David Farr is channelling more of the great spy writer’s chilly psychological explorations into another globe-trotting spy thriller. Photograph: Des Willie/BBC What is The Night Manager season 2 about? All the Roper subterfuge has taken its toll on our suave hero. The new season finds Jonathan Pine’s real identity consigned to the bin of burnt aliases and the troubled spook operating under the name Alex Goodwin. He’s living a quiet life, heading up an MI6 surveillance team called the Night Owls, but he remains haunted by the fate of Roper and his own sense of moral compromise.  But the appearance of an old Roper associat

Os amantes de livros têm um ano muito especial pela frente, tanto nas salas de cinema como nas plataformas de streaming. Entre os gigantes da literatura cujas obras vão ser adaptadas encontram-se Emily Brontë, Margaret Atwood, Enid Blyton, Albert Camus e Don Winslow. Mas o mais excitante de tudo é talvez o regresso do grande mestre da narrativa épica: Homero vai receber o toque de Christopher Nolan, em versão IMAX, com a adaptação de A Odisseia, com estreia prevista para o Verão. BookTokers, façam uma pausa no desafio de leitura de 2026 e vão ao cinema: este é o vosso momento. O Monte dos Vendavais A adaptação literária de Emerald Fennell promete lançar um verdadeiro cocktail Molotov sobre o debate cultural do início de 2026. A tórrida história de amor de Emily Brontë vai receber uma versão bem à maneira de Fennell, com músicas de Charli XCX, um elenco de fazer correr tinta (Margot Robbie e Jacob Elordi) e até aspas provocatórias no título do cartaz, como se fosse suposto dizê-lo com ironia. O Monte dos Vendavais pode ser um marco do romantismo literário, mas está longe de ser propriamente romântico, pelo que o slogan “a maior história de amor de todos os tempos” poderá deixar os puristas algo confusos.Estreia: 12 de Fevereiro Abaixo de Zero David Koepp adaptou Parque Jurássico, de Michael Crichton, mas aqui assume o papel de autor-realizador de uma história muito ao estilo do próprio Crichton. O romance, publicado em 2019 (e dois anos depois em Portugal), parte de uma premi

Book lovers have a year to savour in store for them at the movie theatre and on streaming. Among the literary giants having their work adapted are Emily Brontë, Margaret Atwood, Enid Blyton, Albert Camus and Don Winslow. Most excitingly, the big dog of epic storytelling, Homer, is getting the IMAX-enhanced Christopher Nolan treatment with this summer’s adaption of The Odyssey. BookTokers, this is your moment. Photograph: Penguin Classics Wuthering Heights Emerald Fennell’s literary adaptation is sure to lob a Molotov cocktail in the general direction of early 2026’s cultural discourse. Emily Brontë’s toxic love story is getting a proper Fennelling, with Charlie XCX songs, a buzz-worthy cast (Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi) and provocative quote marks around the title on the poster like you’re supposed to say it in a sarcastic way. Wuthering Heights may be a landmark Romantic novel but it’s not exactly small ’r’ romantic, so that ‘the greatest love story of all time’ tagline may mystify literary types. In cinemas worldwide Feb 13 Photograph: HarperCollins Cold Storage David Koepp adapted Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, but the writer-director has his own Crichton-esque monster tale in the shape of his 2019 novel. It delivers a Cold War-era sci-fi premise in a modern setting, with a military facility breach unleashing a parasitic fungus on employees at a self-storage facility. Liam Neeson, Stranger Things’ Joe Keery and Sosie Bacon will be hoping to swerve the blob. The lat

It’s farewell to bustling Borough, hello to leafy Hampstead for Bridget Jones and her two sprogs, Billy and Mabel, in the delightful, fourth-in-the-series sequel Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.Loads has changed since 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby: Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy is now a much-mourned absence after his death in Somalia, and the prospect of new romantic entanglements – in the studly shape of Leo Woodall’s twentysomething Roxster and Chiwitel Ejiofor’s head teacher Mr Wallaker – is almost as challenging for the now fifty-something Bridget as remembering her Netflix password. Heck, even the ciggies have gone (v v tough).The movie’s biggest change, though, is a subtler one. Under the eye of new director Michael Morris and via a screenplay co-written by Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding, Mad About the Boy shifts the whole geographic locus of the series. Where? Well, about a £25 cab fare northwest from Southwark, once home to younger Bridge’s cosy flat, to a des res in Hampstead round the corner from her kids’ school.  Morris is braced for the backlash from salty south Londoners. ‘I'm sure there will be hell to pay,’ he jokes. ‘But anyone who is a Borough loyalist, they've moved out, let's be honest.’ Where does he think a young Bridget live now? ‘Peckham, probably.’ Photograph: Universal PicturesDirector Michael Morris and Renée Zellweger on set Where was Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy filmed? Inspired by films like Manhattan, the romantic-comedy is a true love le

Christmas is here and with it, an array of classic movies to watch the old-fashioned way: live on the telly. And this year, those wise TV elves have delivered a bumper sack of big-screen magic from their cosy cabin in the North Pole. Seriously, isn’t is nice to let somewhere else pick the film for you once in a while? On the schedule this month are perennial favourites (Die Hard, Jaws) and recent hits (Oppenheimer, Across the Spider-Verse) that have finally made their way onto terrestrial TV. But we’ve taken a magnifying glass through the listings to find a few deeper cuts too. Have that remote handy... 🎄 The best Christmas films of all time Photograph: Sony Pictures Releasing Sense and Sensibility Emma Thompson’s Oscar winning screenplay brings all the wit and wisdom of Jane Austen’s great novel to this Ang Lee masterpiece. With Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet all in top form, it’s guaranteed bliss on a frosty afternoon in.  2.50pm, Dec 20. BBC Two Photograph: 20th Century StudiosDie Hard Die Hard Yes, it is. Merry Christmas! 9.10pm, Dec 20. Channel 4 Photograph: United Artists‘Apocalypse Now‘ Apocalypse Now: Final Cut The definitive version of Francis Ford Coppola’s trippy Vietnam War classic? Discover it afresh with the final edit the auteur put together for the film’s 40th anniversary in 2019. War is hell; this is film heaven.11.50pm, Dec 20. Channel 4  Photograph: Disney The Little Mermaid (2023) This hit live action redo of Disney’s Hans Christian A

One of the UK’s oldest cinemas has reopened for the first time in five years.Liverpool’s historic Woolton Picture House is back up and running with a special run of Christmas movies after closing during the pandemic, reports the BBC.  It’s only a temporary revival – the cinema reopened last Friday and will close again after Christmas eve – but the hope is to raise funding to reopen the 1927 venue on a permanent basis.  The campaign is being led by Kevin Fearon and his partner Gillian Miller, who co-manage Liverpool’s Royal Court theatre together. The pair aim to raise £700,000 to buy and refurbish the venue. They’ve raised £150,000 so far. ‘I think this should be funded by people who want this cinema to be open, so we shouldn’t be taking out of the public purse,’ says Mr Fearon. The old picture palace has had a bumpy ride since the turn of the century. The shutters went up in 2006 before a local entrepreneur came to the rescue, reopening the single-screen cinema less than a year later in time for its 80th birthday. It was used in 2009 John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy – John gets taken to the cinema by his mum to watch an Elvis Presley newsreel. The pandemic led to its closure on a more permanent basis in 2020, but this month’s reopening, and the campaign to save it, is cause for optimism. With its classic interiors and trademark intermission during every screening for punters to re-up at the ice-cream kiosk, it’s easy to see why it’s so cherished by Liverpudlians.Head to the of

Paul Thomas Anderson’s countercultural thriller One Battle After Another, already tipped for Oscars, has dominated the nominations for this year’s London Critics’ Circle Film Awards. The critically acclaimed political epic picked up nine nominations, including Film of the Year, Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and Director of the Year for Anderson, while Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn will go head-to-head in the Best Supporting Actor category.   Hamnet also scored highly with the UK critics’ body, picking up eight nods, including Film of the Year. Jessie Buckley was nominated for Actress of the Year and Chloé Zhao collected a Director of the Year nomination, although Paul Mescal missed out in the Actor of the Year bracket. Ryan Coogler’s musically-charged vampire horror Sinners was another favourite with voters, collecting seven nominations, while Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme picked up six.  Other notable nominees include an Actor of the Year nod for Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme, and four nominations each for Oliver Laxe’s Sirāt, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind.  Photograph: BBC Film‘Sentimental Value’ ‘At a time when A.I. and homogeny seems to be the shorthand answer to everything, it’s encouraging to see the films that our members voted for are teeming with human life, creativity and unique perspectives,’ says Jane Crowther, London Critics’ Circle film section chair. ‘Boasting bold, vital stories, real experiences and artistry,

The world’s brickiest toy manufacturer has gone dark with its newest set. LEGO’s newly announced ‘Stranger Things: The Creel House’ is a detailed diorama of TV’s creepiest house: Henry ’Vecna’ Creel’s ’50s mansion. The perfect expansion pack for anyone mourning the end of the hit show in the new year, it’s 2,593 pieces worth of Easter eggs like Steve’s BMW, the WSQK van and Will’s bike, as well as tinier items like Max’s cassette tape and Henry’s Mind Flayer sketch  The Stranger Things set goes on sale priced £249.99 ($299.99) on January 4, four days after the finale of the hit Netflix horror series lands on the platform. Photograph: DANIEL STERNERUD/NetflixThe Duffer brothers with the LEGO Creel House In other Stranger Things news, an immersive – and highly mysterious – experience is coming to London on Saturday, December 20. Details are still under wraps but you can sign up for tickets here. And if you’re looking for more Hawkins-adjacent content, this time with a festive flavour, head for Waterloo Station (or Manchester Piccadilly) for an Upside Down Christmas tree at Waterloo Station. A real-life version of Hawkins’ radio station, WSQK ‘The Squawk’, will be broadcasting ’80s tunes night and day until January 1 (listen on the Global Player or tell your smart speaker to ‘play the Squawk’). Volume 1 of Stranger Things’ fifth season is streaming now, Volume 2 drops on Christmas Day and the finale arrives on New Year’s Eve. A huge immersive Stranger Things event is coming t