The star is “captivating”, alongside an “impeccable” Gwyneth Paltrow, in this “madcap” film about a young man who scams and steals his way to becoming a table-tennis champion. Quite apart from his on-screen characters, Timothée Chalamet is one of the most performative actors around, especially when promoting a film. For …

Garcia told Denselow that the times might have changed but the scene remained just as vital all those years later. “[Haight-Ashbury’s hippies] are still pretty much doing what they were doing then, but… the difference is now they have 15 years of experience under their belts and have gotten to …

Curtis saw his mission as “documenting what he thought of as ‘a dying race’,” Cross tells the BBC. He cropped out from his photos “signs of modernity” such as clocks, she says, serving the illusion that Indigenous people remain stopped in time, living only in the past. In perpetuating the myth …

Released on 25 December in the UK and 26 December in the UK Searchlight PIctures 11. The Testament of Ann Lee One of the last year’s most acclaimed films was The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet and co-written by him and his partner, Mona Fastvold. The Testament of Ann Lee …

The Shakespeare drama starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley has a stellar cast but is “exploitative” and lacks subtlety – “it tugs the heartstrings and targets the tear ducts with absolute ruthlessness”. There’s no doubt that, in many people’s eyes, Hamnet will be one of the films of the year. …

It has also led to a whole franchise of spin-offs and tie-ins, including a prequel theatre show (Stranger Things: The First Shadow) and an upcoming animated series (Stranger Things: Tales from ’85), plus board games, comics and clothing lines. On top of that, it has made superstars of its young …

“Throughout the years before I made this, I kept on telling Sean that I really want to tell a story about women. The way I grew up in Taiwan, there’s a lot of expectations, a lot of limitations that we put on girls. You have to be a certain way, …

7. Amadeus The 1984 film Amadeus, in which the composer Antonio Salieri admits to jealously (and fictionally) causing the death of his far more gifted rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, won the Oscar for best picture and is now considered a classic. But there is a lot to be said for …

The Little People concept had quickly attracted wider attention well beyond rural Georgia. Babyland even got a mention in the UK’s Daily Express as early as 1980, albeit as “the kind of lunatic scheme that appeals to Americans”. Still, as cynics might say, there’s one born every minute, and the …

Oscar-tipped new film Hamnet imagines the home life of William and Agnes Shakespeare – and the “soul-crushing” loss of their child. It’s a powerful story that fills in many blanks. In Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell’s eloquent 2020 novel and the deeply moving new film based on it – Shakespeare’s wife, …

With Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked, on which the successful Broadway musical and now duo of feature films are based, The Wicked Witch of the West was given a name – Elphaba – and a backstory that elicits empathy for an outcast who was branded a villain for standing up …

Hidden for decades from public view, the artist’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer has now sold at auction for a record sum. Why is it so valuable? A mysterious and relatively little-known painting by Gustav Klimt is now the most expensive work of modern art ever to sell at auction and …

Grande really gets her moments to shine in this instalment and makes the most of them. She was always ideal in the role, giving Glinda just the right little giggle and hair flip. She has a stronger narrative arc here as Glinda becomes disappointed and disillusioned. When she sings the …

Meanwhile, President Reagan’s criminal justice reforms – tougher punishments, expanded law enforcement powers, and increased incarceration – came wrapped in uncompromising rhetoric. ”The American people want their government to get tough and go on the offensive,” the president said in 1986, as he signed an anti-drug bill into law. “And …

Although Sir Geoffrey had been a close ally of Thatcher in her early years in power, their relationship had soured. When she reshuffled her cabinet in July 1989, he was replaced in his role as foreign secretary by John Major, the up-and-coming party star. Cabinet colleague Kenneth Baker recalled to …

Warner Bros Pictures(Credit: Warner Bros Pictures) One Battle After Another How could you not love a film that has Leonardo DiCaprio running around in a bathrobe, hilariously trying to remember the password that would allow a revolutionary group to save his kidnapped daughter? A comic-action-drama with a pointed political theme, …

Hitherto, K-dramas generally fell into one of two camps: highly-rated series that catered to older viewers but had little impact online, and more niche dramas aimed at younger viewers that thrived through memes and virality. However, Reply 1988 proved to be a show for everyone. As South Korean culture critic …

And while air pumps had been devised way back in 1650, the spirit of sharing scientific truths democratically was modern. “The dissemination of knowledge,” Riding tells the BBC, “was a new thing to the 18th Century.” Depictions of modern life And this brings us to the second ingredient of modern …

The 16th-Century aristocrat Jane Boleyn faced explosive accusations: she was blamed for a shocking betrayal of her husband, as well as two of Henry VIII’s wives, her sister-in-law Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Was she a “sex-mad” spy, guilty-as-charged – or a convenient scapegoat for a tyrant’s brutality? A new …

On 12 November 1964, the would-be pop star told the BBC that cruelty to hirsute men “just has to stop”. It was a cheeky stunt, but it hinted at the unconventional spirit that Bowie carried into a career of fearless reinvention. We’re used to seeing awkward high-school yearbook photos of …