Phil de Semlyen

The cinematic year started off like a train, with Tár, The Fabelmans and EO all staggering into our cinemas laden with awards, and A.I. doll meme-athon M3GAN entertaining the crowds with its irresistibly malicious brand of horror-comedy. March delivered the surprisingly excellent Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, ace London romcom Rye Lane and a pair of worthy French dramas in The Night Of The 12th and The Beasts. Fast forward to the summer months, and Barbenheimer was the double-bill absolutely no one saw coming, a true 50-year box-office storm of ridiculous proportions ($2.3 billion and counting) and then… nothing. Nada. Zilch. August turned out to be the dampest of post-storm squibs, with only a pair of loveable indies – Theater Camp and Scrapper – to distract from the existential doom of Hollywood’s ongoing civil war. But it takes more than a total shutdown of all Hollywood movie productions to get us down, especially with so much more to come this year. Because despite the current doldrums, this list will continue to grow as we head into awards season. The Venice-winning Poor Things, Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall, Ridley Scott’s supersized Napoleon and our top pick, WWE family drama Iron Claw, all lie ahead. But for now, here are the best movies worth leaving your house for so far in 2023. RECOMMENDED: 📺 The best TV and streaming shows of 2023 (so far)🔥 The 11 scariest horror movies of 2023😂 The best comedies of 2023 (so far)🎥 The 100 greatest movies ev

It costs a lot to be entertained these days. Just a few years ago ‘cord-cutting’ seemed like a life hack that’d save TV watchers a tonne of cash. Once the streaming revolution truly kicked in, though, the subscriptions piled up, and with recent price increases and crackdowns on password sharing – not to mention sheer overload of choice – it’s making some of us gaze at our old cable bills with wistful longing.   But what if we told you there was an easily accessible website out there with a trove of legitimately awesome movies available to stream 24/7, and entirely for free? It’s called YouTube. Yes, the site known primarily for instructional videos about how to install a new sink and use an air fryer is hiding an impressive library of classic cinema of the sort many other streamers don’t bother with – from silent era milestones to essential deep cuts. If you don’t mind sitting through a bunch of commercials, YouTube has a full channel of ad-supported modern films as well. But for true movie buffs looking to fill some knowledge gaps, check out the 30 flicks below – with links included.   Recommended: 🎬 100 Best Movies of All Time.💣 The greatest thrillers ever made.

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 WWII 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 101 best action movies of all-time🇺🇸 The 20 best Memorial Day movies

Si ja és difícil estar al dia de tot el que es pot fer a Barcelona, imagineu estar al dia de tot el cinema que es pot veure a la nostra cartellera! Per això en aquesta llista trobareu les nostres cinc pel·lícules favorites, algunes que s'estan a punt d'estrenar i també aquelles imperdibles que no podeu deixar escapar abans que desapareguin dels cinemes (i no us oblideu de consultar la llista de les estrenes del mes). NO T'HO PERDIS: Les 51 millors pel·lícules per veure en família

Si ya es difícil estar al día de todo lo que se puede hacer en Barcelona, imaginad estar al día de todo el cine que se puede ver en nuestra cartelera. Por eso en esta lista encontraréis nuestras cinco películas favoritas, algunas que están a punto de estrenarse y también aquellas imperdibles que no podéis dejar escapar antes de que desaparezcan de los cines (y no olvidéis consultar la lista de los estrenos del mes). NO TE LO PIERDAS: Las 51 mejores películas para ver en familia  

Over the past decade and a half, it’s often seemed like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, well, the only cinematic universe. Since officially kicking off in 2008 with the introduction of Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man – apologies to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Ang Lee’s Hulk – new instalments arrive like dandelion spores, and the whole planet lines up to consume each one. It’s a testament to the obsessively detailed world-building within the franchise – and, of course, the inescapable branding that goes along with it. But that doesn’t mean all MCU flicks are created equal. Far from it, in fact. For every monolithic, box-office-shattering event picture, there’s an Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love and Thunder – inessential space-fillers that seemingly exist only to fill a quota on a studio’s release slate. And frankly, the latter seems to be occurring more frequently than the former these days. Against that complicated backdrop The Marvels has arrived and the picture looks no less muddy for the Marvelverse. With rumours of a return for Robert Downey Jr and one or two other OG Avengers, is Kevin Feige on the verge of hitting the big reset button? As our ranking of the 32 MCU flicks released so far demonstrates, the glory days are still where the gold/vibranium lies. Recommended: 🦸🏿 The 50 best comic book movies of all time💣 The 101 best action movies ever made🕵️ 40 murder mysteries to test your sleuthing skills to the max

It wasn’t long after the guns fell silent that the cameras started whirring on dramatising the Great War. For cinema, it was both an opportunity to take stories of the war to massive audiences and a kind of coming-of-age challenge: could the unfathomable scale and horror of what had just happened be captured with cameras and sound equipment that were all still in their infancy? As it happened, they could – and then some. Just as the war had driven leaps in technology, medicine, psychology and other fields, so World War 1 films drove cinema forward in ways that are still remarkable. Witness the battle sequences in Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front, the sheer scale of King Vidor’s The Big Parade and the realism of GW Pabst’s Westfront 1918. And here’s the rub: they’re still doing it. Nothing speaks louder for the grip the war still has on the public consciousness than big-budget movies like 1917 and Netflix’s 2022 All Quiet on the Western Front dominating at the Oscars more than a century on. Both films demonstrate the strength of the conflict’s filmography, with a high proportion of straight-up masterpieces on our list below. As military historian and host of the Old Front Line podcast Paul Reed explains, they’re often good on the history and detail, too. We asked him to dig into the most realistic depictions of the war on the big screen. 💥 The 50 best World War II movies🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time

When it comes to Japanese cinema, three names dominate the conversation, at least in the English-speaking world: Akira Kurosawa, Yasujirō Ozu and Hayao Miyazaki. It’s with good reason – all three are in GOAT contention. But there is so much more to this gold mine of quality moviemaking than that holy trio. In truth, Japan’s filmmaking history is uniquely creative, moving from the silent era to its post-war golden age to the 1960s New Wave to the anime explosion of the ‘80s, all the way up to the current renaissance spearheaded by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Mamoru Hosoda. Among this list of the greatest Japanese movies of all-time, you’ll find those films most associated with the country: Kurosawa’s feudal epics, Miyazaki’s deeply soulful animations and Ozu’s quietly powerful domestic dramas. But there’s also Kenji Mizoguchi’s pioneering silent works, Seijun Suzuki’s pop-art Yakuza thrillers, spine-chilling ghost stories like Ringu, boundary-pushing social satires like Battle Royale, sensual romances like In the Realm of the Senses and, of course, Godzilla.   There’s a lot to experience, so let this list guide you. Here are the best Japanese movies ever. RECOMMENDED: 🇰🇷 The greatest Korean films of all time🇫🇷 The 100 best French movies ever made🇯🇵 The best anime movies of all-time, ranked🌏 The 50 best foreign films of all-time

When it comes to gleefully goofy Christmas movies, Netflix is starting to give the Hallmark Channel a run for its candy canes. Over the last decade, the streaming giant has made a concerted effort to churn out a yearly batch of seasonal fluff – corny yet irresistible peppermint-scented romcoms, usually involving a C-list celebrity finding love around the holidays and possibly learning a thing or two about the true meaning of yuletide cheer, to go along with a roster of classic Christmas fare. And bless them for it.    No, none of these movies are going to win awards. But that’s not what matters this time of year. If you’re looking for emotionally complex dramas, you’re just going to have to wait until the pine trees hit the curb and the New Year hangovers dissipate. Right now, it’s all about throwing on your most garish knit sweater, picking the cheesiest-looking title scrolls across your screen, and letting that comforting Christmas corn wash over you like a hot cocoa bath. To that end, here are the best Christmas movies currently streaming on Netflix in the UK. Recommended: 🎅 The 50 best Christmas movies of all-time🎄 The best kids Christmas movies to watch this year🤶 The best Disney Christmas movies to stream for the holidays😱 The 18 best scary Christmas horror movies

What makes a great movie? It’s a debate we’ll all still be having until we’re old and grey. Despite the best efforts of film sages down the decades – from Pauline Kael to the journos-turned-auteurs at Cahiers du Cinéma to that Marvel nerd you follow on Twitter –  there’s no hard and fast rule for what’s worthy of a place on a list like this and what isn’t. For one thing, cultural shifts have a tendency to propel certain works up (or down) the canon. As influential as it was in pure filmmaking terms, you won’t find DW Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation taking pride of place among the following century of greats. What you will find are representatives of every genre: from timeless thrillers like North by Northwest, to much-homaged westerns like The Searchers, to neorealist dramas, thinky sci-fis, space operas, war films, musicals and New Wave trailblazers. There’s even the odd superhero movie, horror film and comedy to celebrate – corners of cinema too often dismissed by cultural gatekeepers as a bit, well, low-brow. Not here, though. Not with This is Spinal Tap and Airplane!, John Carpenter and Jordan Peele all demanding inclusion. The only criteria we’re applying are: ‘Do they leave you shaken to the core or lifted to the heavens?’ and ‘Will they change your movie-watching life forever?’ The following 100 classics clear those high bars with ease.  Written by Abbey Bender, Dave Calhoun, Phil de Semlyen, Bilge Ebiri, Ian Freer, Stephen Garrett, Tomris Laffly, Joshua Rothkopf, Ann

Some film buffs may scoff at their explosions, overblown stakes and corny dialogue, but action movies offer some of the most visceral filmgoing experiences out there. Because, as provocative as a chewy three-hour character study can be, sometimes you just want to watch some stuff blow up – and there’s absolutely no shame in that. It’s okay to want to take in the odd scrappy, bare-knuckle brawl or a high-speed car chase through the back streets of some crowded European city on the biggest screen possible. As an escape from the nine-to-five routine of life, action movies are always there for us. But reducing them solely to brawn-over-brains entertainment shortchanges the entire genre. Brilliantly choreographed, well-scripted action can make you think, think and feel as much as any drama or thriller, and a flawlessly orchestrated set-piece can conjure up emotions that even romances or horrors struggle to match. Some of our 100 Greatest Action Movies deliver subtext in abundance; others, weighty political undertones. But even when they’re just dumb fun, they do what films are meant to do best: to entertain and astonish. To put together this list we polled over 50 experts in the field, from Die Hard director John McTiernan to Machete himself, Danny Trejo, along with our Time Out writers. The results reveal a genre as elastic and versatile as any – and in many cases, way more fun. Get ready, because we’re about to bring the boom. Written by Eddy Frankel, Eddy Frankel, Yu An Su, Jos

You probably don’t have to be told that there’s a lot of TV out there right now – your monthly streaming budget says it plainly enough. It seems like every few weeks, another must-see show is dropping on some brand new platform, and somehow you get roped into yet another subscription just so you don’t find yourself left out of the cultural loop. And then, inevitably, you never end up watching the new thing, because you’re already watching a half-dozen other shows you’re still trying to finish. Allow us to help you prioritise. To help you figure out how best to focus your telly time, we’re conducting an ongoing ranking of the most elite television series of 2023. Certainly some you’re well aware of, like Succession, Top Boy, The Last of Us and The Bear. Others may have slipped under your radar, such as Amazon’s surreal I’m a Virgo, Fox’s hilarious Colin From Accounts or Jury Duty on [checks notes]... something called FreeVee? All are totally binge-worthy. But binge them fast, because in 2023, the shows never stop coming, and this list is sure to grow.  RECOMMENDED:🔥 The best movies of 2023 (so far)📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge😂 The best comedies of 2023 (so far)🎞️ The best movies to catch at the cinema this month

Like a Michelin-starred meal that someone forgot to season, Ridley Scott’s beefy account of Napoleon’s rise to power looks great, is served with some panache, but crucially lacks flavour. The legendary Brit – who kicked off his career with a more bite-sized but much saltier Napoleonic tale in The Duellists – is already promising a four-hour director’s cut. This might be one of those rare occasions where another 80 minutes makes all the difference. Napoleon has too much history and not enough story. In a performance that lacks dynamism, Joaquin Phoenix gets 32 years of Napoleon Bonaparte’s life to embody, from witnessing Marie Antoinette’s execution to dying in exile in the South Atlantic. But by prioritising a conveyor belt of battles, coups and revolutions over a more forensic investigation of its subject, the film too often leaves him feeling more like a passenger than instigator. Aristocratic beauty Josephine de Beauharnais is Napoleon’s – man and movie – main preoccupation. Played with a feline purr by Vanessa Kirby, her poise and elegance reduces the great man to gawkiness, then boyish jealousy, and finally frustration at her inability to provide him with a son. Napoleon has great fun with Boney’s frisky bedchamber antics – he signals his desire like a pig hunting for truffles – but doesn’t give Josephine much inner life as a reward for putting up with all the amateurish thrusting. There are lots of enjoyable historical details here – some of which may have happened; oth

Loneliness, Vietnam-era alienation and a sourpuss Paul Giamatti aren’t, on paper, the things of which cockle-warming yuletide classics are typically made – any more than teams of hi-tech thieves sticking up Japanese corporations. But like Die Hard, Alexander Payne’s wintry story of human connection is an unexpected Christmas gem. It even plays a tiny bit like a 1970-set version of ‘A Christmas Carol’, with Giamatti’s cranky ancient history teacher learning uncomfortable truths about himself on the path to a redemption gives the film a genuine glow.  Payne’s old Sideways star is, as ever, a curmudgeonly delight as Paul Hunham, a universally unpopular member of the teaching staff at New England’s Barton Academy. In fact, his outsider status at the prep school is such that he’s given up trying to charm his students or colleagues, instead embracing his own pain-in-the-arse misanthropy, self-parody (he’s always ready with an Aeneas reference) and self-limiting horizons. ‘You can’t even dream a whole dream, can you?’ chides a colleague.  So when someone is needed to babysit a handful of ‘holdovers’ over the holidays, pupils whose parents have more or less abandoned them during Christmas, it’s Paul who is stuck with the job. Spending the festive period with the gawky, sharp-tongued and inwardly raging Tully (Dominic Sessa), a young man abandoned by his mum and grieving his dad, immediately feels like hell for all concerned. What follows is a coming-of-age story for Tully and Paul, a

Welcome to Brideshead Uninhibited. An orgy of rich people throwing big parties, lazing in the sun and doing unexpected things with bodily fluids, Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her revenge thriller Promising Young Woman does an elegant yet enjoyably rowdy line in blue-blooded chaos. A caviar-black comedy, it borrows from Evelyn Waugh, LP Hartley and Patricia Highsmith – with a twist of Ealing Comedy chutzpah – and makes an intoxicating modern cocktail from them.  As with her Oscar-winning debut, Fennell has a kind of revenge in mind here – although on a grander scale and perhaps on behalf of a country rapidly tiring of Bullingdon types. Her fizzy, sharp-witted script, set in Oxford and at the titular Lincolnshire pile circa 2007, does for the English aristocracy what Succession did for the offspring of capitalist tycoons, lampooning them as being cosseted by their wealth to the point of becoming a bit bovine. And as an Oxford grad who has presumably been to a few of these parties herself, she knows this milieu better than most.The movie’s centrifugal force is Barry Keoghan’s Oxford Uni fresher-turned-social climber Oliver Quick. A Liverpudlian with a tragic backstory, he’s gauche enough to have done his prep reading ahead of term – ‘What, all of it?’ enquires his baffled tutor – but it soon dawns on him that it’s who and not what you know that counts in this stratified world. Quickly, he’s shaking off his intense fellow outsider Michael (House of the Dragon’s Ewan Mitchell) a

There’s an old joke that cave divers grow their hair long to cover the scar from where their brains were removed. You can probably apply it to big-wave riders too. Like leaping off a multi-storey car park on a dinner tray, these daredevils play chicken with the ocean as they cascade down 60-foot swells, with one misjudgment condemning them to serious injury, or worse. Forever in pursuit of the next colossal, unsurfed break, legendary big-wave surfer Andrew Cotton is a chilled dude ever so slightly on the edge in this free-spirited and quietly touching doc – a kind of west country Bodhi from Point Break (albeit his side hustle is plumbing not bank robbing). Aerial footage of the man riding the epic seas of Nazaré in Portugal offer a reminder of the enduring appeal of dry land. Cotton is one of the two contrasting poles in Mikey Corker’s cleverly constructed, bracingly told story. The other, English sailor and modern adventurer Matt Knight, is his partner on a quixotic mission to find that perfect wave. A journal written by a 19th-century treasure hunter called E F Knight serves as a kind of treasure map to their destination – a handful of rocky atolls in the Atlantic called the Savage Islands – and Charles Dance’s narration of the text is every bit as eloquent and evocative as you’d imagine. (‘The uneventful days passed by and I grew stout on laziness, salt beef and duff,’ recites Dance of a particularly glum moment for the mariner.) The spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson and s

The national cinema of Jiří Menzel, Miloš Forman and Věra Chytilová always has exciting new voices to celebrate and worthy new films to cheer about – which is where Made in Prague, a month-long film fest organised by the Czech Centre, comes in. It spans cinemas across London, from BFI IMAX to the Prince Charles, and offers a curated selection of 14 Czech films, from classics to animations to brand-new dramas. This year’s four galas include ‘Il Boemo’, a biopic of Mozart-acclaimed composer Josef Mysliveček; ‘Restore Point’, Robert Hloz’s Czech answer to ‘Blade Runner’; and kindertransport drama ‘One Life’ starring Anthony Hopkins.

After some fallow years, film lovers in west London are blessed with a sudden wealth of cinema-going options, with the opening of Ealing Picturehouse adding to recent openings for ActOne Cinema and community hub, Ealing Project. And the area has its own short film festival, now in its fourth year and showcasing new talent from around the world. Hosting the meaty line-up of shorts is ActOne and Ealing Project, as well as the grand Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery on Ealing Green. Take a chance on some new names and be rewarded with a warm welcome and maybe even an early glimpse at a star of the future.

After some fallow years, film lovers in west London are blessed with a sudden wealth of cinema-going options, with the opening of Ealing Picturehouse adding to recent openings for ActOne Cinema and community hub, Ealing Project. And the area has its own short film festival, now in its fourth year and showcasing new talent from around the world. Hosting the meaty line-up of shorts is ActOne and Ealing Project, as well as the grand Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery on Ealing Green. Take a chance on some new names and be rewarded with a warm welcome and maybe even an early glimpse at a star of the future.

Stellar films, impressive names and a touch of French je ne sais quoi are the hallmarks of this annual gallic film fest hosted at South Kensington’s cultural hub, Ciné Lumière. This year, director Justine Triet will be there to introduce her gripping Palme d’Or crime mystery ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ in person, Trần Anh Hùng’s enchanting ‘The Taste of Things’ will be casting its culinary spell over audiences and ‘Être et Evoir’s Nicolas Philibert is back with his new documentary ‘On the Adamant’. There are more than 40 screenings, Q&As and premieres in store for fest-goers. Marcher, ne pas courir.

It’s not every writer who gets a film made about them, let alone by legendary documentarian Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line). But then, not every novelist has had the cultural impact of bestselling espionage novelist John le Carré – real name David Cornwell – one-time spy and full-time cartographer of the Cold War’s shadowiest nooks and crannies.  Before his death in 2020, the man behind ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, ‘The Constant Gardener’ and ‘The Night Manager’ – and, indirectly, some of the greatest TV thrillers ever made – subjected himself to a series of interviews by the American filmmaker. On the table is, well, everything, as this formerly elusive man opens up about his disillusionment with the stuffy complacency of the British establishment, childhood abandonment, the cloak-and-dagger business of spycraft, and the imprint left by his roguish conman dad. With le Carré at one end of a grand table in an even grander library and Morris off-camera, there’s a delicious sense of two expert interrogators jousting, occasionally taking pause to explore the very nature of their conversation. Is Morris probing in the right areas? Can he win the trust of a man who knows all the tricks for extracting info from unwilling subjects?  Happily, this subject is here to talk. Like Morris’s The Fog of War, in which former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara took himself to task for the mistakes of the Vietnam War, The Pigeon Tunnel is a soul-searching confessional as much as a look b

If a mysterious man knocked on your door in the dead of night and told you you’d be selected to leave your partner for an indeterminate length of time to complete an unspecified task ‘for the good of humanity’, the chances are you’d have one or two questions. That’s the scenario faced by Junior (Paul Mescal) and Hen (Saoirse Ronan), a fracturing Midwestern couple in this nearish-future sci-fi from Lion director Garth Davis. The late-night visitor, a corporate functionary with a faintly sinister bedside manner (Underground Railroad’s Aaron Pierre), explains that Junior is on a list to travel into space. The upside is that he’ll be replaced by a fully-functioning A.I. Mescal-bot to keep her company in his absence. Which, of course, is also the downside.Based on Iain Reid’s 2018 novel, Foe is coy in its sci-fi-ness, with cursory world-building and bare-bones context (there’s been a climate catastrophe, everyone’s sweaty). Davis extracts overheated performances and not a lot of chemistry from his ultra-charismatic leads, despite filming enough beefy Mescal bod to give Normal People fans a coronary.  A cannily-executed final-act twist aside, his film is stronger on the psychology of dying relationships, where sex feels less than an act of connection than a final spin of the roulette wheel, than the likely impact A.I. will have on our sense of our own humanity. Then again, 40 years after Blade Runner, this may not be the box-fresh topic many filmmakers seem to think. In UK cinemas

The word ‘defector’ conjures up visions of atomic scientists and Cold War spies waiting for the moment to tiptoe through a border minefield and make a dash for freedom. But as this pulse-raising doc charts, for North Koreans, defection is less a political act than a bid for survival – an escape attempt where the price of failure is often death. American filmmaker Madeleine Gavin follows the stories of two escape bids: one by the five-person Ro family, including two young girls and an elderly grandma, who are hoping to reunite with relatives in Seoul; the other, the young son of a defector called Soyeon Lee, is also attempting to cross the Yalu River and begin the long journey to join his mum in South Korea.The film’s greatest asset is incredible iPhone and flip-phone shakycam footage of the Ro family’s perilous flight, most of it captured by the so-called ‘brokers’ who run the escape networks for profit. And it is seriously perilous: the so-called ‘underground railroad’ spiriting North Koreans to freedom involves two major river crossings, almost impenetrable jungle, several mountains, and a seriously stealthy journey through China, Vietnam and Laos. Only in Thailand will they be free from the threat of arrest and a forceable return to Pyongyang, where torture and the gulag await.  The more uncertain progress of Soyeon Lee’s son, meanwhile, is captured through the fretful prism of a mum fearing for her boy’s life. Her hope that he’ll join her south of the border slowly curdle

It’s all about gathering together and amplifying diverse, female and LGBTQ+ voices at this boutique west London indie fest – on-screen and in front of it. That ethos extends to the free tickets, and a range of screenings for disabled, deaf and neurodivergent viewers. Look out for ‘Coda’s Oscar-winning star Troy Kotsur intro’ing his autobiographical doc ‘To My Father’ at the Electric Cinema (Oct 24). There’s some cool venues on the cards, too, including an invite-only screening of ‘Scrapper’ in Maida Vale tube station – a first – and an afternoon of Ukrainian films at Little Venice’s 60-seat Canal Cafe Theatre (Oct 22), as well as Paddington’s St Mary Magdalene Church  Curzon Mayfair is the festival hub and hosts an awards night on October 27 in support of the ‘Save the Curzon Mayfair’ campaign. And as a treat for lovers of golden oldies, Basil Dearden’s classic London police drama 'The Blue Lamp' is getting a special screening at Maida Vale’s The Prince Alfred Pub on October 23.

The Crown is back for one last huzzah. Netflix’s royal blockbuster has kept us gripped for seven years as it’s charted the triumphs and tribulations of Britain’s first family, and season 6 plays them out with the discordant storyline of them all: the death of Diana and the subsequent crisis in the monarchy. What happens in The Crown season 6? Elizabeth Debicki returns to play Princess Diana as she begins an affair with Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), while Dominic West’s Prince Charles begins to go steady with Camilla Parker Bowles (Olivia Williams). A publicity war breaks out, with Britain’s voracious tabloids its main battleground. Princes William (Rufus Kampa in part 1 and Ed McVey in part 2) and Harry (Fflyn Edwards and Luther Ford) are caught in the crossfire, and a disapproving Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) frets over the collateral damage to the monarchy. The final run is split into two parts – the first four episodes are streaming now and the rest landing on December 14 – and it takes in more spectacular locations, as well as some sunny new climes. Here’s where to find the show’s final batch of glamorous palaces, castles and country piles – and how to visit them. Photograph: Netflix St Andrews, Scotland The Scottish uni, the best in Britain according to a new guide, will have a starring role in the final episodes of season 6, when Prince William meets Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) and lived together at 13A Hope Street (The Crown filmed at flat 9B, according to st

Si 'Elvis', de Baz Luhrmann, presentó al rey del rock and roll como un hombre abrumado por su talento, las responsabilidades y, por supuesto, las extrañas y malas decisiones en la vida, el drama biográfico de Sofia Coppola es una réplica ácida de esa visión. Centrado en su esposa, Priscilla (la actriz Cailee Spaeny), presenta una imagen muy distinta de El Rey. Basada en las memorias de Priscilla de 1985 sobre su matrimonio, 'Elvis and Me', y con su total aceptación, Coppola nos ofrece "la cara de la historia de Cilla". Priscilla abarca diez años de su relación con Elvis (el actor australiano Jacob Elordi): desde la castidad, aunque la relación fuera completamente inadecuada por la edad (él tenía 24 años, ella 14) en una base de la Fuerza Aérea de EE.UU. en Alemania Occidental en 1959, hasta el final de su relación, cuando él tomaba pastillas y movía las caderas en Las Vegas, mientras ella criaba a su hija sola en Graceland, consumida por la negligencia y la naturaleza controladora de Elvis. La película es un cuento de hadas retorcido que empieza con un beso en un dormitorio y termina con Priscilla encerrada en una especie de torre, contado con el estilo discreto que caracteriza a Coppola. Podríamos describir el filme como una versión hiperestilizada, ambientada en los años 60, de 'Maria Antonieta', la producción que dio a conocer la cineasta. Aunque los propietarios de la música de Elvis no dieron permiso para utilizar sus canciones, la banda sonora y la partitura de Phoenix

Whether it’s studio pressures, generic material or just risk aversion, sometimes it’s tough to spot a filmmaker’s voice in their own movie. Not Emerald Fennell. ‘Promising Young Woman’ and now her new black comedy ‘Saltburn’ are Fennell-ery right down to their britches. Her Oscar-winning debut, a revenge thriller with a serious sting in the tail, is an uncompromising vision of rapacious male sexuality getting its comeuppance. Now she’s back with a poshos-in-their-pomp black comedy set at Oxford University and over a sticky (in every sense) summer at a grand country pile. It follows Barry Keoghan’s working class Liverpudlian undergrad, Oliver Quick, who gets adopted as short-term bestie by Jacob Elordi’s charming but flighty aristocrat Felix Catton.  ‘The hope with anything you make is that you tease open something a little bit and put your finger in,’ Fennell says of its more subversive elements, unleashing one of her throatiest laughs (there’s a whole spectrum). At the time of our interview at a Soho hotel, the actors’ strike has yet to end, so she’s doing ‘Saltburn’ publicity without Keoghan, Elordi, Rosamund Pike and co to share the load. ‘I’m having a slight existential crisis,’ she jokes. Luckily, it’s an easy film to chat about. ‘Saltburn’ is a riot – a sharply observed class satire, twisty thriller, and gross-out guilty pleasure all wrapped up in one champagne-soaked package – and full of the kind of authenticity the not-exactly-unposh writer-director (an Oxford grad h

Si 'Elvis', de Baz Luhrmann, va presentar el rei del rock and roll com un home aclaparat pel seu talent, les responsabilitats i, per descomptat, les estranyes i males decisions a la vida, el drama biogràfic de Sofia Coppola és una rèplica àcida d'aquesta visió. Centrat en la seva dona, Priscilla (l'actriu Cailee Spaeny), presenta una imatge molt diferent d'El Rei. Basada en les memòries de Priscilla de 1985 sobre el seu matrimoni, 'Elvis and Me', i amb la seva total acceptació, Coppola ens ofereix "la cara de la història de Cilla". Priscilla abasta deu anys de la seva relació amb Elvis (l'actor australià Jacob Elordi): des de la castedat, encara que la relació fos completament inadequada per l'edat (ell tenia 24 anys, ella en tenia 14) en una base de la Força Aèria dels EUA a Alemanya Occidental el 1959, fins al final de la seva relació, quan ell prenia pastilles i remenava els malucs a Las Vegas, mentre ella criava la seva filla sola a Graceland, consumida per la negligència i la naturalesa controladora d'Elvis. La pel·lícula és un conte de fades retorçat que comença amb un petó en un dormitori i acaba amb Priscilla tancada en una mena de torre, tot explicat amb l'estil discret que caracteritza a Coppola. Podríem descriure el film com una versió hiperestilitzada, ambientada en els anys 60, de 'Maria Antonieta', el film que va donar a conèixer la cineasta. Malgrat que els propietaris de la música d'Elvis no van donar permís per utilitzar les seves cançons, la banda sonora i l

We don’t know a lot about movie marketing but it would seem that as a basic rule of thumb ‘your mother’ is a phrase to avoid in a film slug line. Life is always so much simpler when you leave other people’s mothers out of it. Only, not for the brains trust over Mean Girls HQ. In a bid to carve a fresh space in the zeitgeist for January’s new, musical reimagining of the 2004 high-school classic, the movie’s new trailer is stressing – and you won’t find this in any marketing text books – that ‘this is not your mother’s Mean Girls’. Inevitably, the internet did not like having its mum dragged into it and the Twitter/X has been awash with peppery rejoinders and mum-adjacent horror gifs. Take a scroll through the ’WTF?!’ of it all below. I cannot tell you how triggered I am by the "this isn't your mother's mean girls." YOUR MOTHER???? YOUR MOTHER???!!!! https://t.co/FDJhz13YAe — Kimberly Nicole Foster (@KimberlyNFoster) November 8, 2023 From there, it turns to body horror surprisingly quickly with a gif of Cocoon’s shrivelled up alien. Me after reading the sentence “This isn’t your Mother’s Mean Girls” pic.twitter.com/GQTmRtpmrC — Jon (@prasejeebus) November 8, 2023 And the elderly, terrifying Pearl from Ti West’s Pearl. “this isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls” pic.twitter.com/kRVYG3PSt5 — Jill Gutowitz (@jillboard) November 8, 2023 Was George Cukor’s classic comedy The Women the Mean Girls of the late ’30s? Did Joan

Season 2 of ‘Loki’ has a double-decker bus’s worth of London connections. Three of the main cast – Wunmi Mosaku, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and star Tom Hiddleston himself – cut their teeth at RADA, while the show was filmed in and around Covent Garden and Kent’s Historic Dockyard Chatham in 2022. Also on the MCU location roster, it turns out, is legendary Kingston rock pub The Fighting Cocks, which pops up in a key scene in the latest episode of ‘Loki’.  In it, Hiddleston’s Loki catches up with his old star-crossed lover Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) to discuss a return to the Time Variance Agency. Regulars might be perplexed by the décor: the pub is actually standing in for a watering hole in 1980s Oklahoma – though the leopard print and pool table will ring some definite bells.    Photograph: Marvel Studios ‘As huge Marvel fans, we were over the moon to welcome the team to film at the pub,’ says the pub’s co-owner Ali Barnwell. ‘Keeping the secret has been so tough, but now we can proudly say that The Fighting Cocks is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.’ Photograph: The Fighting Cocks The pub has even put a plaque down to mark where the God of Mischief once propped up the bar and sipped a bourbon. Our advice? Pop in and see if they’ve got Asgardian Ale on tap. Every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ranked from worst to best. The best TV series of 2023 (so far).

Back in 2009, the set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was hit by a terrible accident. During rehearsals, Daniel Radcliffe’s long-time Harry Potter stunt double, David Holmes, sustained a spinal injury that left him paralysed. Nearly 15 years on, that story is getting a unique telling in a documentary that will reunite actor and stuntman.  The HBO doc, The Boy Who Lived, will bring Radcliffe and Holmes together for an emotional reunion, showcasing the latter’s stunt work and interviewing both about life before and since the accident.It’s a coming-of-age tale of sorts, too, telling the story of how Holmes went from a gifted young gymnastic to working as Radcliffe’s stunt double from The Philosopher’s Stone onwards. The pair remain firm friends, with Radcliffe helping Holmes launch his podcast Cunning Stunts back in 2020. The Boy Who Lived will show how the actor and Holmes’s fellow stunt people rallied around him in the wake of his accident. ‘Being a stuntman was my calling in life, and doubling Harry was the best job in the world,’ Holmes wrote on Instagram. ‘This film tells the story of not just my achievements in front of camera, but also the challenges I face every day, and my overall attitude to life after suffering a broken neck,’ said the stuntman of a documentary four years in the making. ‘In the turbulent world we find ourselves living in right now, I would like to quote Harry: “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”’ Expect lots of

私はマイケル・ケインの映画とともに育った。「ズール戦争」「国際諜報用字秘密情報局」「遠すぎた橋」「王になろうとした男」「ハンナとその姉妹」「リタと大学教授」、そして「ミニミニ大作戦」。大学では「狙撃者」をVHSが擦り切れるまで観たものだ。 良い作品も悪い作品も、全て好きである。ケインの作品を前にすると、私の批評能力は冷え切ってしまうほどだ。特に「勝利への脱出」は、素人には出演者全員が演技に不慣れなように見えるかもしれないが、誤解された傑作だと主張したい。あなたの人生にも、そんな俳優がいるのではないだろうか。私にとってそれがケインで、彼が出演した映画の数々だ。 「憧れるヒーローには決して会うな」というが、私は彼に2回ほどインタビューをしたことがある。愉快で、遊び心たっぷり、チャーミングでありながらも自意識過剰であった。そして俳優活動を開始して半世紀がたった今でも、彼の人生がもたらしたものとは何かを、自らに問いかけているようだった。 最初のインタビューはクライムアクション映画「狼たちの処刑台」のプロモーションのためのものだった。その日はちょうどインタビューを行ったホテルで、映画「アントラージュ★オレたちのハリウッド」のプレスが行われていた。 そのことをケインに話すと、「何それ？」と尋ねてくるので、「HBOの番組で新進俳優がハリウッドで仲間たちとつるみながら、モデルたちとデートする話だよ」と説明した。ニヤニヤと思い出にふけりながら「そうそう知ってるよ、若い頃を思い出すなあ」とコメントしたケインの顔が、今でも忘れられない。 小生意気なコックニーとして、または1960年代のスウィンギングの申し子として知られる彼は、オスカーに6回ノミネート。素晴らしい俳優であることは、多くの人が認めている。しかし最新作であり、最後の出演作となった「The Great Escaper（原題）」は、まったくもって不愉快な作品だ。 ケインは、2023年に亡くなったグレンダ・ジャクソン演じるアイリーンの相手役の退役軍人を演じた。荒波を生き抜いた夫婦を題材にした本作は、イギリス映画の一つの時代に幕が下されるのを感じさせるような作品だ。ついにこの時代が終わったと思うと、感慨深いものである。 ここでは時代の終わりを記念して、ケインが登場する私のお気に入りの名シーン（セリフ）を紹介しよう。 「タンジェリンサイズのルビー」／「ダークナイト」（2008年） 彼のキャリア後期の活躍は実に楽しいものだ。イギリス人監督クリストファー・ノーランによる映画「バットマン」3部作で演じたバットマンの執事、アルフレッド・ペニーワースは最高の表現である。 ブルース・ウェイン（クリスチャン・ベール）の敵、ジョーカーの本性を警告する不朽の名ぜりふ「世界が燃えるのを見たいだけの男もいるんだ」。そして、「ある日、子どもがタンジェリンサイズのルビーで遊んでいるのを見た」という台詞の中の 「タンジェリン（ミカン）」 という言葉に込められた重厚な雰囲気は、私にとってはオールタイマーだ。 「もう少し厳しいことをやってみなければならないね」／「ペテン師とサギ師/だまされてリビエラ」（1988年） 「ケインがコメディーをやらない」というのは正確ではない。本作は、スティーヴ・マーティン演じるアメリカ人の詐欺師フレディ・ベンソンと、ケインが演じる地元のサギ師ローレンス・ジェイミソンの2人が、大資産家の女相続人（グレン・ヘッド

London’s newest cinema, Ealing Picturehouse, is throwing open its doors for the first time this weekend and we have a taster of what to expect when you head inside this gleaming new eight-screen complex in W5. Located in the new Filmworks development on Ealing Broadway, the cinema boasts 900 seats, a bar, café and a host of thoughtful touches. It’s situated in the spot occupied by the Forum Cinema from 1934, which went on to become The ABC and later, a UCG. Some of the new cinema’s light fittings are even reclaimed from the Forum.  Photograph: Laura Gallant/Time Out ‘Ealing Picturehouse has been a long time coming,’ says Picturehouse MD Clare Binns, ‘but we’re thrilled that the moment is here and we can open our doors to this wonderful palace of film. To open in Ealing, which has such a rich history of film production, is so exciting.’ That history is reflected inside the cinema, with stills and behind-the-scenes photos of the classic Ealing Comedies that were filmed around the corner back in the post-War years, and plenty of reminders that this was once home turf for Gracie Fields, Googie Withers, Stanley Holloway and the like. There’s even a screening of ‘The Ladykillers’ on Sunday, October 22 to get the ball rolling on a series of older classics. Photograph: Laura Gallant/Time Out Younger moviegoers will be excited to hear that the bathrooms are dedicated to individual filmmakers. Currently Greta Gerwig’s dulcet tones are on the PA, which is handy for anyone keen to pi

Were you scared witless when the T-Rex made his first appearance in Jurassic Park? Candyman director Nia DaCosta was right there with you. Did Michael Rooker’s definitive portrait of a killer stick with you at the end of Henry? It also haunted Luca Guadagnino and that man turned a body into a bramble of crushed bones in Suspiria. The cinema is a place of vulnerability, and great horror films burrow under everyone’s skin, including the coolest filmmakers in the world.  From horror maestros to arthouse auteurs, we asked the honorees of our coolest filmmakers list what cinematic moment scared them most. And they delivered: Cinematic minds such as The Witch’s Robert Eggers and The Babadook mastermind Jennifer Kent told us what gave them nightmares while they were doing the same to us, while Rian Johnson, Edgar Wright, Lynne Ramsay, Sean Baker and others told us what chilled them to the bone. You’ll find serial killers and classic slashers. But you’ll also find more than one Disney film, too. Don’t worry, you're in a safe space here.   Read on: The 50 coolest filmmakers in the world right now Photograph: StudioCanalIrréversible Irréversible – picked by Robert Eggers (The Witch) ‘Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, Gerald Kargl’s Angst, Michael Haneke’s Piano Teacher and Bruno Dumont’s Twentynine Palms all left me pretty shaken after my first viewing.’’  Photograph: DisneySnow White and the Seven Dwarfs The Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – picked by Tomm Moore (The Secr

The news that Michael Caine is retiring from acting has hit me like a tonne of gold bars. I grew up with his films – usually watched on the sofa with my dad – and they’re like old friends: ‘Zulu’, ‘The Ipcress File’, ‘A Bridge Too Far’, ‘The Man Who Would Be King’, ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’, ‘Educating Rita’. ‘The Italian Job’, naturally. At uni, I watched ‘Get Carter’ so often I wore out the VHS. Good, bad or ‘The Swarm’, I love them all. My critical faculties go into cold storage when it comes to his work. I am willing to argue that ‘Escape to Victory’ is a misunderstood masterpiece, even if to the untrained eye it seems that everyone involved is new to acting. You probably have actors like that in your life: they can pitch up in an absolute turkey and it’s basically Christmas. That’s Caine – and his films – to me.  And they say never meet your heroes but I’ve interviewed the man twice and he was a delight on both occasions, playfully self-aware (he told me that daughter had got him to record her voicemail: ‘You’re only supposed to leave a bloody message’) and clearly still having to pinch himself at what his life delivered for him – even half a century on. On the first occasion, he was promoting the ropey vigilante thriller ‘Harry Brown’ (one of the few exceptions to my turkey rule). As it happened, there was a press junket for the ‘Entourage’ movie taking place in the same hotel at the same time. ‘What’s that?’ he asked when I mentioned it. I explained that it was an HBO s

Se acerca cada vez más el terrible día en que Martin Scorsese, de 80 años, colgará definitivamente la claqueta, pero el cineasta no se irá tranquilamente sin hacer ruido. Su último film, absolutamente apasionante, de construcción impecable y cargado de política, quita el polvo de un rincón abandonado de la historia indígena estadounidense –los asesinatos en serie de los nativos americanos osage en el Oklahoma de los años 20– para contar una historia de avaricia, violencia e injusticia sistémica a la altura de sus mejores trabajos. Tres horas y 26 minutos que pasan volando A principios del siglo XX, el pueblo osage encontró petróleo. Esto le enriqueció, pero también atrajo a hordas de charlatanes, extorsionadores y estafadores blancos como abejas a un bote de miel. 'Los asesinos de la luna' recrea este mundo al estilo vérité, un lugar donde la cruda jerarquía racial estadounidense se ha dado la vuelta. Y es entonces cuando los cadáveres comienzan a acumularse. El guion apunta al magnate ganadero William Hale (Robert De Niro) como el hombre detrás de los crímenes. Para acelerar el proceso de obtener los derechos del petróleo, necesita que su sobrino Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) se case con Mollie (Lily Gladstone), heredera osage, pero lo que no se espera es que el sobrino se enamore de ella. Mejorando con la edad, DiCaprio humaniza este hombre irresponsable, pero es Gladstone quien vende la idea de que hay algo en Burkhart que vale la pena amar, y con ello, vende toda un