Getty Images Aldrich Ames spent nearly a decade selling secret information to the Soviet Union, compromising more than 100 clandestine operations, and leading to the deaths of at least 10 Western intelligence assets. On 28 April 1994, the double agent was jailed for life. In February of that year, the …

Nicholas Barber and Caryn James Yun Sun Park/ BBC (Credit: Yun Sun Park/ BBC) BBC film critics Caryn James and Nicholas Barber pick their cinema highlights of the year so far, from a brutal war epic to an ambitious period vampire drama. Warner Bros Pictures (Credit: Warner Bros Pictures) Companion …

Trustees of the De Morgan Foundation (Credit: Trustees of the De Morgan Foundation) Esoteric and pioneering, the paintings of a lesser-known Pre-Raphaelite, Evelyn De Morgan, explored the trauma and meaning of war – and prefigured current fantasy art. On a rocky beach that glows red with lava, smoke-breathing dragons surround …

Alamy Tragedy Titus Andronicus is the Bard’s goriest work, and a new production is set to be one of the most extreme takes on it yet. It raises the question: why do we watch such brutality? Good theatre has the power to really move us – a statement that’s usually …

Altitude Sister Midnight, Santosh and All We Imagine as Light are part of a new wave of female-centred Indian films challenging the roles of traditional Bollywood heroines. They’re unpredictable, sometimes humorous, sometimes sexually adventurous, and they’re all leading characters, rather than orbiting a man. The heroines of films including Sister …

Getty Images In April 1983, a German magazine, Stern, and a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, claimed to have made one of the century’s most extraordinary historical discoveries. In fact, it was one of the century’s most extraordinary hoaxes – and the scandal that followed cost millions and ruined reputations. …

Lucasfilm Ltd (Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd) It may be set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars series takes a key plot from a real robbery masterminded by Stalin in an Imperial Russian city. And Andor has as much to do with our …

Caryn James and Hugh Montgomery Yun Sun Park/ BBC (Credit: Yun Sun Park/ BBC) From the new season of the dystopian workplace drama to the UK miniseries that got the world talking and an HBO medical show, we pick the year’s greatest programmes to stream right now. Apple TV+ (Credit: …

The National Gallery, London (Credit: The National Gallery, London) As museums around the world celebrate the 250th birthday of JMW Turner, it’s time to reappraise his beloved and celebrated painting, The Fighting Temeraire. JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire became a national celebrity when it was first unveiled in 1839, and …

Serenity Strull/ Getty Images Behind the creation of the festival’s most iconic and outrageous costumes – from wardrobe malfunctions to insider tips and viral sensations. Lisa recently had a broken corset strap. The K-Pop superstar and White Lotus cast member was waiting to greet fans at her Los Angeles hotel, …

Alamy (Credit: Alamy) Seventy years old this year, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s film about two women plotting murder is a masterclass in macabre dread – and inspired Hitchcock’s classic among others. Famous for writing the novel Psycho (1959), the basis for the influential 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, author …

Getty Images Britain in the 1960s was captivated by the daring of the Great Train Robbery, and the sheer scale of the money stolen. But when the accused men stood trial in April 1964, the judge was determined to send a message that such crimes would not be tolerated. Fourteen …

A24 Alex Garland explored the slide into fractious factionalism in Civil War. Now he turns his gaze towards the ferocity of combat in new film Warfare, which stars Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis and Charles Melton. Joseph Quinn’s excruciating howls of pain go on and on, and on and on in …

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection A new exhibition documents American photography’s first 70 years, exploring the US during a period of immense social, geographical and industrial change. Modern culture is indebted to photography. “We can’t be literate in today’s world if we don’t know how to …

Netflix Viewers have been “shattered” by Eulogy, an emotional new episode in the seventh season of Charlie Brooker’s series, starring Paul Giamatti. Since 2011, Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ dystopian anthology series, Black Mirror, has presented 34 stories about the dark side of technology: how computer systems and digital gadgets …

Alamy The Great Gatsby is synonymous with parties, glitz and glamour – but this is just one of many misunderstandings about the book that began with its first publication a century ago, in April 1925. Few characters in literature or indeed life embody an era quite so tenaciously as Jay …

Emmanuel Lafont/ Getty Images 50 years after Monty Python and the Holy Grail redefined comedy, stars Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam look back on the freedoms – and limitations – that shaped the film. An independent British comedy made on a shoestring by a television sketch troupe? It sounds like …

Getty Images (Credit: Getty Images) It’s having a moment with celebrities, fashionistas and Gen Z. But wearing any kind of fur, from vintage to synthetic, poses some difficult questions. Could a new plant-based faux fur be the way forward? From Tory Burch in New York and Simone Rocha in London, …

Fabio Lovino/ HBO Right from the start, season three of Mike White’s Thailand-set one percenter drama was beset by criticism and debate – where will the series go from here? Within seconds of the highly anticipated final episode of The White Lotus’s season three ending on Sunday evening, the reactions …

HBO (Credit: HBO) The video game adaptation won many plaudits for its grim-but-humane first season. Amidst a semblance of civilisation, the second series is an uneven odyssey. Despite all the mush-brained infected creatures roaming around, The Last of Us was never really about the zombies. The series’ first season worked …