Phil de Semlyen

Every time you think you’re finally ready to cancel your Netflix subscription, they pull you back in – and it’s usually not an exclusive Adam Sandler or Lindsay Lohan movie that does it (although maybe sometimes). Most of the time, it’s because of a must-binge new series. Original episodic programming has been the streamer’s calling card ever since it stopped being the DVD rent-to-mail service and went entirely online. It changed the game with House of Cards in 2013 and has continually elevated it since, with the likes of Stranger Things and Russian Doll and the world-dominating Squid Game. Sure, there have been some creatively fallow periods, but then it always seems to bounce back with sometime leftfield, like Beef or One Day. Since it’s continually adding hours of essential content to its catalogue, there’s more high-quality content than you possibly have time for. That’s we’ve put together a list of the 41 Netflix originals series you absolutely have to see before finally deleting your account – and of course, once you think you’ve exhausted all your options, something else will get added just as you’re about to press ‘cancel’.  And before you get all upset about the absence of Black Mirror or Cobra Kai, we’ve left out shows that originated elsewhere before the platform picked them up. We’re also sticking to scripted series – sorry Tiger King and the countless other true-crime docs. That’s a list for another time. Recommended: 🎥 The 35 best movies on Netflix right now🔎 

Television used to be considered one of the lowest forms of entertainment. It was derided as ‘the idiot box’ and ‘the boob tube’. Edward R Murrow referred to it as ‘the opiate of the masses’, and the phrase ‘I don’t even own a TV’ was considered a major bragging right. And for a long time, it was hard to say that television’s poor reputation was undeserved.  A lot has changed. Television is now the dominant medium in basically all of entertainment, to the degree that the only thing separating movies and TV is the screen you’re watching on. Now, if you don’t own a television – or a laptop or a tablet or a phone – you’re basically left out of the cultural conversation completely. The shift in perception is widely credited to the arrival of The Sopranos, which completely reinvented the notion of what a TV show could do. But that doesn’t mean everything that came before is primordial slurry. While this list of the greatest TV shows ever is dominated by 21st century programs, there are many shows that deserve credit for laying the groundwork for this current golden age. Chiseling them down to a neat top 100 is difficult, so we elected to leave off talk shows, variety shows and sketch comedy, focusing on scripted, episodic dramas, comedies and miniseries.  So don’t touch that dial – these are the greatest TV shows of all-time. Recommended: 📺 The best TV and streaming shows of 2023 (so far)🔥The 100 greatest movies of all-time🎬The most bingeable series on Netflix

Last year we bid farewell to Succession, Barry and Top Boy, fell hard for Beef, Colin From Accounts and Blue Lights. The next 12 months should help us move on – the potential impact of 2023’s writers’ strike notwithstanding – as early hits like World War II epic Masters of the Air and Mr and Mrs Smith, Prime Video’s intoxicating mix of witty marital drama and zippy espionage caper, are already proving. Ahead are hotly-anticipated new runs of Bridgerton and Squid Game on Netflix, a third season of Industry, a sci-fi prequel in Dune: Prophecy, HBO’s barbed political satire The Regime, Park Chan-wook spy thriller The Sympathizer, and The Franchise, the latest from telly genius Armando Iannucci – among many other potentially binge-worthy offerings. But there’s only so many hours in the day and you can’t spend all of them on the sofa. Here’s our guide to the shows most worthy of your time.RECOMMENDED: 🔥 The best TV and streaming shows of 2023🎥 The best movies of 2024 (so far)📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge

Comedy has a shorter shelf life than just about any other movie genre. A classic drama will still make hearts swell and eyes water decades down the line, and a truly terrifying horror movie can still scare the bejesus out of viewers no matter how standards for scares change. But humour is highly subjective and dependent on context: what’s funny in 1924 might land with a thud in 2024.  That’s why, when considering the greatest comedy movies of all-time, one of the most important questions is not necessarily how big the laughs are, but how long they can keep audiences laughing. With the help of comedians like Diane Morgan and Russell Howard, actors such as John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker and a small army of Time Out writers, we believe we’ve found the 100 finest, most durable and most broadly appreciable comedies in history. As we said, hilarity is in the gut of the beholder – some like it, silly, others sophisticated or dark or surreal – but if you don’t find something funny on this list, you may want to check your pulse. Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time🥰 The greatest romantic comedies of all time🤯 33 great disaster movies😬 The best thriller films of all-time🌏 The best foreign films of all-time

There’s more to Japanese movies than Kurosawa, Ozu and Miyazaki. That’s not to downplay their contributions to the country’s cinematic history – or cinema in general. All three are potential GOATs. It’s just that there’s much, much more where that exalted triumvirate came from.  Like the trailblazing silent works of Kenji Mizoguchi. Or the off-kilter pop-art crime thrillers of Seijun Suzuki. Or the bizarrely horrifying visions of Takashi Miike. On this list of the greatest Japanese movies of all time, you’ll find them all, alongside, of course, Kurosawa’s feudal epics, Miyazaki’s deeply soulful animations and Ozu’s quietly powerful domestic dramas – oh, and Godzilla too. Reading through, you can trace Japan’s unique filmmaking history, 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. It’s a lot to take in, so consider this list your travel guide to one of the world’s most creative movie cultures.  RECOMMENDED: 🇰🇷 The greatest Korean films of all time🇫🇷 The 100 best French movies ever made🇮🇹 The best Italian movies of all time🌏 The 50 best foreign films of all-time

It’s still early days, but 2024 is already shaping up to be a gala year at the multiplex. Last year was a cracker – thanks to Oppenheimer, Barbie, Past Lives et al – but the next 12 months promise plenty, with Denis Villeneuve delivering a long-awaited Dune sequel, George Miller back at the bullet farm with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a resurrection of the Alien franchise, and a tonne of other big-screen fare to get excited about. So far, we’ve been spoiled rotten, with the achingly lovelorn All of Us Strangers, Yorgos Lanthimos’s riotous Poor Things, and Dev Patel’s eye-wateringly violent debut Monkey Man just a few of the good reasons to get to the cinema. So, the criterion for entry: some of these movies came out in the US at the back end of 2023 – Oscars qualification required it – but we’re basing this list on UK release dates to include the best worldwide releases from between January and December. We’ll be updating it with worthy new releases as we go, so keep this one bookmarked. RECOMMENDED: 📺 The best TV shows of 2024 (so far) you need to stream🎥 The 100 greatest movies ever made🔥 The best movies of 2023

Last year, a genre usually filled with shambling zombies and sentient mounds of carnivorous goo birthed leftfield successes like M3GAN and Skinamarink, low-budget horror hits that elbowed their way to viral status, even amid the giddy fluorescence of Barbie and prestige awardsiness of Oppenheimer.  By contrast, this year’s slate of scares probably won’t catch too many people sleeping. 2024 is loaded with genre prequels, sequels and spin-offs, from MaXXXine, the third instalment of Ti West’s cult-fave franchise, to the alien-invasion terror of A Quiet Place: Day One, to the extremely-long-awaited Beetlejuice 2. But given that horror is historically a genre of small expectations and big surprises, there’s bound to be something that pops up to frighten the bejeepers out of us when we least expect it. Here’s the best of what’s freaked us out so far.  🎃 The 100 best horror films ever made 😱 The scariest movies based on a true story 💀 The best horror movies of 2023

A comédia é um género frequentemente ignorado pelos prémios e pela crítica. Mas produzir uma grande comédia, uma comédia intemporal, é uma das maiores conquistas no cinema. É uma forma de arte em grande parte dependente do contexto: aquilo que faz uma plateia chorar a rir em 2024 pode ser recebido mais tarde com olhares vazios – nem sequer é preciso passar meio século, como é muitas vezes o caso; bastam alguns anos de diferença. Por isso mesmo, aqueles que nos fizeram rir durante décadas são verdadeiramente especiais. Para elaborar esta lista das 100 maiores comédias de sempre, pedimos a comediantes como Diane Morgan e Russell Howard, a actores como John Boyega e Jodie Whittaker e a uma pequena legião de escritores da Time Out sobre os filmes que mais os fazem rir, e por mais tempo. Ao fazê-lo, acreditamos ter encontrado as melhores, mais intemporais e amplamente apreciáveis 100 comédias da história do cinema. Independentemente do seu sentido de humor – disparatado ou sofisticado, leve ou sombrio, surreal ou mais abrangente – vai encontrá-lo representado aqui. Recomendado:🔥 Os 100 melhores filmes de sempre🥰 As melhores comédias românticas de sempre

What did we do before podcasts? Who knows, because now they’re like a right arm to most of us, making journeys seem faster and chores less painful all over the globe. You know the drill. If there’s a market for it, there’s a podcast about it. But with the incredibly vast world of podcasts throwing up new options every day, how does anyone know where to begin? Well, that’s where we come in. We’ve rounded up our favourites, from political podcasts that look behind the news to comedy podcasts with your favourite funny people, and plenty of those all-important investigative whodunnits to keep you up at night. If you’re looking to dig deeper into one genre, we’d recommend trying our specialist lists on for size (you’ll find them below). But for a full list of good, addictive podcasts of every genre, read on.  RECOMMENDED:🎧 The best podcasts on Spotify😂 The best comedy podcasts 🗞️ The best news podcasts💤 The best sleep podcasts🎶 The best music podcasts

In media, a list is a powder keg waiting to explode the moment it’s published, especially if it’s called something like ‘the 100 greatest movies ever made’. If you’re passionate about something, you’re going to feel compelled to fiercely defend your favourites and shout down whatever you think is undeserving. If we’re being honest, inflaming public discussion is one of the reasons anyone decides to do a project like this. Debate gets you thinking, and, when reasoned and civil enough, perhaps even rethinking.   But don’t think of this as an attempt to shove our opinions down your throat. We consider this list more of a reference manual: a jumping off point for anyone looking to fill in the gaps of their movie knowledge – or, for more advanced cinephiles, a way to challenge their own preconceived notions. After all, we cover a lot of ground here: over 100 years, multiple countries, and just about every genre imaginable, from massive blockbusters to cult films, comedies to horror, thrillers to action flicks.  Written by Abbey Bender, Dave Calhoun, Phil de Semlyen, Bilge Ebiri, Ian Freer, Stephen Garrett, Tomris Laffly, Joshua Rothkopf, Anna Smith and Matthew Singer Recommended: 🔥 The best films of 2024 (so far)🏆 The 100 greatest horror films ever made📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge🤣 The best funny films of all-time

In Hollywood, it’s best to approach certain promotional tactics with suspicion, perhaps none more so than any movies that claims to be ‘based on a true story’. In many cases, what that typically means is a filmmaker took a small dollop of truth and stretched it as far as it could possibly go. It’s not a big deal, really – these are narrative films, not documentaries, and sometimes, a liberal sprinkling of creative licence is needed to make a story work on screen.  Every so often, though, a movie comes along that approaches its subject with something close to a journalistic eye, and those are the ones we’ve chosen to highlight here.  Among them are Oscar-winning dramas covering major moments in history, salacious crime stories drawn from magazine articles, bizarre character studies and other wild tales no one would believe if they didn’t actually happen. Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction — and in these specific situations, it makes for a hell of a great picture.  Recommended: 📹 The 65 best documentaries of all-time😱 The 15 scariest horror movies based on true stories🔎 The best true crime documentaries on Netflix🙌 The 25 best biopics of all-time, ranked

This month offers an absolute plethora of big-screen delights, with brutal action flicks and meditative human fables rubbing shoulders with slapstick silliness, dystopian thrills, and even a sexy tennis movie… and there aren’t too many of those (no, ‘Wimbledon’ does not count). Look out for a first movie from Dev Patel, coming of age as a director and action star in ‘Monkey Man’, exciting new offerings from Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Alex Garland, and a real-life musical drama that’s certain to divide opinion. Our advice? Go see them all. After all, it’s probably raining. RECOMMENDED: 📽️ The best movies of 2024 (so far)📺 The best TV shows of 2024 you need to stream🏵️ The 100 greatest movies of all time

Like a man granted possession of his own Time Stone, Alex Garland seems to have glimpsed all of humanity’s possible timelines, and discovered that they’re all bad. Whether it’s eco-catastrophe (Annihilation, Sunshine), the menacing side of A.I. (Ex Machina, Never Let Me Go), Big Tech doing Big Tech things (Devs), or good old-fashioned zombies (28 Days Later), the Londoner is not envisaging a future of levity and joy for us all. The often gripping but ultimately frustrating Civil War sees the Brit casting a penetrating outsider’s glance at the current political divisions in America and drawing similarly bleak conclusions. Nine filmmakers out of ten would open it by clueing in their audience with a few scene-setting title cards: the US President (Nick Offerman), now serving a Constitution-busting third term, has abolished the FBI, California and Texas have seceded and their forces are sweeping across America towards Washington. That kind of thing.  Garland is not that filmmaker. He plunges straight in, leaving you to pick up the situation as you go. It’s deliberately disorientating. What you do know is that Kirsten Dunst’s hard-bitten photojournalist, Lee, and Wagner Moura’s reporter, Joel, are aiming to get from New York to DC before the city falls to score an interview with the President. A dangerous car journey shared with Stephen McKinley Henderson’s veteran newshound and cub snapper (Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny) is the only way to do it.  Alex Garland is not envisaging a fut

Origin-itis, the most irritating habits of biopics, is one of the problems that blights Sam Taylor-Johnson’s genuine effort to honour Amy Winehouse’s (Marisa Abela) life and music. From that trademark beehive to the lyrics to ‘Stronger’, everything in Back to Black gets its own origin story – usually spelled out and double underlined in case you missed it. Not all of these vignettes are duds – Amy’s meet-cute with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell, excellent) over pints and pool in a Camden boozer is genuinely terrific – but they don’t make a script that already feels soft-soaped to get the Winehouse’s estate’s approval, feel any less pedestrian. Abela does solidly with the impossible task of capturing this unique woman’s voice and spirit, but how to tackle Winehouse’s tragic, booze-and-drugs-fuelled death without it feel exploitative? For screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, who did such an affecting job reprising Joy Division singer Ian Curtis’s life and death in Control (2007), the answer is to swerve it altogether via a weirdly abrupt ending. When the film was announced, Twitter threw a collective fit. Turns out Twitter isn’t always wrong. In UK cinemas Fri Apr 12. In US theaters May 17.

Stark social drama meets boy’s own adventure in this strikingly photographed African-set, Oscar-nominated adventure.  It’s a combination that should be very easy to get very wrong. In fact, it’s hard to think of too many filmmakers who have even tried it – at least since Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1951) mashed up neorealist grind and flying kids on broomsticks. But with Io Capitano, De Sica’s fellow Italian Matteo Garrone frames the sorrows and struggles of two African kids as they slog across the continent with steel and sensitivity. It’s wildly exciting in places, horrifying in others, without ever feeling exploitative of a real-world crisis that is claiming the lives of boys just like them. The title literally translates as ‘Me, the captain' – a reference to a moment of heroism on a fateful boat journey that awaits the film’s protagonist, Senegalese teenager Seydou (Seydou Sarr). There are faint echoes of Captain Phillips’ ‘I’m the captain now!’, uttered by Barkhad Abdi’s Somali pirate – although here all the pirates are on land.Seydou is what the western media would call ‘an economic migrant’. With his cousin Moussa (Moustapha Fall), he sets off from Dakar on an African odyssey that points hopefully for Italy, with dreams of a better life and money to send home, but only the vaguest notion of how he’ll achieve it. What he’s leaving behind – a horrified mum, loving siblings and a home – is a source of melancholy that lurks in the fabric of the film.  Newcomer Sey

Boy, whatever happened to that nice kid from Skins and Lion? The new Dev Patel is taking no prisoners in this slice of Mumbai mayhem, announcing himself as a filmmaker with possibly the most ferocious mainstream action movie since The Raid, and as an action star by sticking a knife into a goon’s neck. With his teeth. The John Wick movies are an obvious touchpoint for the kind of revenge mission flick the Londoner is going for – it even namechecks the Keanu Reeves movies at one point – but he applies his own lens of grimy realism to the formula and adds some real political edge. Monkey Man is a gory hero’s journey embroidered with mythical folk traditions and laced with a stark commentary on India’s corrupt cops and seedy super-rich.  It opens with an explainer: Lord Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, is a courageous deity who is robbed of his powers, only to come back stronger than ever. That’s the arc the film charts, only with Patel’s unnamed ‘Kid’ in the role. He’s introduced wearing a monkey mask – an anonymous intro that’s an instant display of confidence, especially in a film with so few familiar faces – and being battered for measly amounts of cash in rigged back alley fights. Sharlto Copley’s sleazy impresario promises a bonus if his human punchbag spills blood. The kid is a long way from the finished killing machine he needs to be to execute his mysterious revenge mission, but he’s got smarts from the get-go, pulling off an intricate con to inveigle his way into a low-le

‘The Father. The Son. The Sydney Sweeney.’ Whoever came up with the unofficial tagline for this nunsploitation horror may have consigned themselves to a spell in purgatory, but they’ve definitely nailed the full-blooded commitment the fast-rising Euphoria star brings to her first ‘final girl’ role. The Suspiria-with-sacrements premise has Sweeney’s devout young American, Cecilia, invited to take the veil at an old monastery outside of Rome. Unbeknownst to her, but thanks to a harrowing prelude that calls back to an iconic European horror movie (you’ll know the one), very much beknownst to us, the picturebook convent hosts the kind of vicious bloodletting of which the Borgias would be proud.  A really charismatic actor can supercharge even the most stolid genre fare, and that’s what Sweeney pulls off as the innocent but fast-learning Cecilia. Her arc from chaste and trusting to blood-caked and severely pissed-off turbocharges this workmanlike horror.Cecilia’s lack of Italian puts her at an immediate disadvantage, distancing her from her fellow nuns, some of whom, like Benedetta Porcaroli’s spiky Sister Gwen, are already rattling the bars of their liturgical jail. Something is off here – and it gets off-er when Cecilia, a virgin, discovers she’s pregnant. An immaculate conception, as the cardinal and mother superior hope, or something more sinister? The seriously charismatic Sweeney turbocharges this workmanlike horror  What follows is a liturgy of classic horror moves: mysteri

Most disaster movies announce themselves with vast tsunamis, spewing volcanoes or cow-flinging twisters. In Senegalese writer-director Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s tough but tender debut, balance with the natural world falls out of kilter in smaller increments – and with it, a love affair and a whole community.  Set in a tight-knit village in rural Senegal that’s baking dangerously in the 50 degree heat, Banel & Adama follows two star-crossed lovers. The fierce-spirited Banel (Khady Mane) and the mellower Adama (Mamadou Diallo) have been brought together by the death of her first husband. Their arranged marriage, fast-tracked by Adama’s status as chief-in-waiting and the community’s need for him to produce an heir, might have produced a loveless union. Instead, the pair are inseparable, spending their spare time excavating an old sand-covered abode as a new home for themselves beyond the village. Their plan, coupled with Adama’s refusal of the chiefdom, hit like an earthquake in their traditional community. It’s a powerful love story with a bruised heart  From sombre Islamic prayers to café-touba-fuelled socialising, Banel & Adama is stitched beautifully together from the fabric of rural Senegalese traditions. But just as Banel’s bright, more modern-feeling clothes offer dazzling bursts of colour in cinematographer Amine Berrada’s washed-out palette, the couple’s quest for emancipation is too confronting for their fellow villagers. The village elders – and fuelled by jealousy, some of

If we’re living in a new golden age of horror, then David Dastmalchian is its Christopher Lee. With his sallow countenance, laconic elegance, and general air of a man who sleeps in a crypt, the actor brings a note of eeriness to everything he does. So often an eye-catching side act in blockbusters like The Suicide Squad, Oppenheimer and Dune, he gets the perfect vehicle in this sinister, wickedly clever found-footage horror that purports to have been a real broadcast in 1977 America. Instead of a creaking coffin, it’s a creaking late-night chat show that’s trapping Dastmalchian’s host, Jack Delroy. Once a relatively successful Johnny Carson wannabe, he’s suffering from plummeting ratings and a lack of fresh ideas. The recent death of his young wife adds a layer of existential despair that he hides behind a forced smile and some lame patter with his band leader. Halloween night, though, may be his salvation. As his fancy-dress-clad audience watches on, he introduces a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and a young Satanic cult survivor suffering – supposedly – from demonic possession. No one’s had a demon on a chat show before – not even prime Carson – so this could be the break he’s been looking for.  A sceptic of the paranormal (Ian Bliss, supremely pompous) is invited on ‘for balance’.  This wonderfully creepy horror is like Alan Partridge by way of The Exorcist The studio itself makes a really effective setting for this one-location horror – a deceptively beige environment w

‘People seem a little aggressive around here,’ notes Jake Gyllenhaal’s taciturn but twinkly-eyed bouncer, Elwood Dalton, of the good people in Florida’s Glass Key. Once a UFC champion, now haunted by guilt and spiritually at odds with his own violent skillset, Dalton is also a master of understatement. The punters at the sunny Florida establishment he’s been hired to manage can’t make it through so much as a quiet beer without smashing each other’s faces in. Even more than the Patrick Swayze cult classic on which Doug Liman’s fun and ferocious update loyally riffs, this Road House is a snarling beast of a thing, full of snapped limbs and faces like hamburger patties. The fight scenes, choreographed by Logan stunt man Garrett Warren, are spectacularly violent. I could swear someone yelped at one point in my screening. It could well have been me. This roadhouse is a thatched, open-plan joint in which a conveyor belt of house bands play behind chicken wire (presumably no one books this place more than once). It makes the Mos Eisley cantina look like a soft play centre. There’s a hospital 20 minutes down the road, Dalton helpfully informs a group of troublemaking biker meatheads, before pulverising them and driving them there.  The cartoonish Conor McGregor is the bad kind of stunt casting The first half is full of similarly knowing touches. Then Conor McGregor strides into the movie, serving both as Dalton’s brawny nemesis and testosterone-fuelled comic relief, and subtlety bec

Do you work to live or live to work? If you’ve got a half-decent job, it might just be the latter. For young millennial Angela, a hard-pressed PA at a Bucharest film production company in Radu Jude’s self-described tale of ‘Cinema and Economics in Two Parts’, it’s barely even the former. She’s a pissed-off but hard-working member of the gig economy, grinding through a 16-hour shift. The ‘Ode to Joy’ on her ringtone feels strictly ironic. Played by Ilinca Manolache with gum-chewing insouciance and a total absence of bullshit, Angela schlepps around the city in her car, blasting out Romanian turbo-folk and hip hop on the radio, flicking V signs at abusive motorists, and generally trying to keep her eyes open as she films victims of industrial accidents sharing their testimonies. The end result will be a corporate video encouraging workers to wear their safety gear – a message that, by implication, makes these broken-down ex-employees culpable in their own misfortune.The hypocrisy in this doesn’t quite lead to a political awakening in Angela as she travels from assignment to assignment. Instead, Jude shows how the demands of this working life turns the smallest gesture of personal autonomy into an act of defiance. Even a quick after-hours shag with an older man puts her behind the clock and scrambling for excuses. Angela’s creative outlet is a TikTok character called Bobita (Manolache’s own lockdown creation), a wildly offensive Andrew Tate-like caricature, complete with bald he

If Aardman hired David Cronenberg to reboot ’80s Plasticine scamp Morph, it might look a bit like this creepy collision of body horror and stop-motion craft. It’s a wildly inventive spurt of bug-eyed British gore that pulls the innards out of the creative process. Quite literally, at some points. Game of Thrones’ Aisling Franciosi was a torrent of female rage in rape revenge thriller The Nightingale. Here, the anguish is channelled inwardly as her stop-motion filmmaker Ella Blake grasps for the inspiration to finish her puppet film, gradually losing her moorings in the process. It doesn’t help Ella’s state of mind that her twisted fairy tale is set in a tangled wood where a trembling puppet is stalked by a grotesque figure called the Ashman. Or that she lives under the shadow of her disapproving mother (Stella Gonet), a legendary animator incapacitated by a stroke and content to sit at her shoulder pointing out what she’s doing wrong. Boyfriend Tom (Tom York) is handsy rather than helpful.  ‘Great artists always put themselves into their work,’ whispers her neighbour, played with impish glee by nine-year-old Caoilinn Springall. She’s a cheery poppet who slowly morphs into a malicious muse, with the unnamed girl soon dishing out the darkest notes imaginable – at least one involving a Stanley knife. It’s a wildly inventive spurt of bug-eyed British gore  The psychological scares stem from the medium itself by debut director Robert Morgan and are underlined by composer Lola de

This clever entry to the things-get-freaky-in-the-woods horror canon – fellow entries: The Blair Witch Project, Dog Soldiers, The Witch, The Ritual – turns the clock back to the misty, starvation-stalked days of early man, where a band of hunter-gatherers find themselves hunted, and in one case, gathered, by something deeply malevolent.  Actually, it’s an early woman who gives the film its spine. Extraordinary’s Safia Oakley-Green plays Beyah, a fierce ‘stray’ reluctantly adopted by a small group of nomads traversing this unpromising country to find sanctuary. She gets a few crumbs of solidarity and welcome from Kit Young’s earnest wannabe-warrior that are noticeably absent from Chuku Modu’s brooding alpha and the rest of the group. Out of Darkness wisely dedicates its early scenes to establishing that tense dynamic. These Paleolithic travellers need each other… but how much? The small fault lines quickly become chasms when the nastiness breaks out. As an outsider, Beyah is the most vulnerable once they step into a forest that seems to hold some kind of demonic presence.  Why not risk death by demon when the exposure will get you anyway? Debut director Andrew Cumming makes full use of landscape and time period. Horror often has a problem with characters’ annoyingly faulty decision-making; here, their hierarchy of needs, with food and shelter to the fore, makes self-endangering choices more than believable. Why not risk death by demon when the exposure and hunger will get you

Beyond its breathtaking battles and galactic machinations, all soundtracked by a Hans Zimmer score in which the German composer seems to have set all the nobs turned to ‘loudest possible’, what’s most impressive about this seriously-impressive blockbuster sequel takes place beneath the surface. And it’s not the colossal sandworms. No, it’s the subtle character shifts that make Dune: Part Two cerebral as well as cacophonous. The plates are always moving in Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novels: today’s heroes are tomorrow’s pile of corpses. Denis Villeneuve, a writer-director who’s been keen to get his teeth into the tough stuff since his early work like Polytechnique (2009) and Incendies (2010), gets all this. And his screenplay, again co-written with Prometheus’s Jon Spaihts, gives us a hero’s journey with real devil in it. As a sequel, it works for the same reasons that make The Empire Strikes Back so many people’s favourite Star Wars film: there’s a darkness, a bleakness, that makes the fist-pumping moments feel all-the-more earned. There’s a sense, too, that the good guys may not win out. If they’re even good.  It opens with just that stark vision of piled corpses. The vanquished Atreides clan lies smoldering on the inhospitable landscape of Arrakis, while the treacherous Harkonnen, spearheaded by Dave Bautista’s thuggish ‘Beast’, set about harvesting the place for its spice reserves. Only Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and his mystical Bene Gesserit mum, Jessica (Rebe

‘This is a true story.’ So begins Netflix’s latest sensation ‘Baby Reindeer’, a true-crime series unlike any other. Richard Gadd’s dramatisation of his own experiences at the hands of a stalker isn’t your average ‘Fatal Attraction’-alike thriller where the man is a poor innocent and the woman is a crazed harpy looking to put some bunnies on simmer. Adapted his own acclaimed one-man show, which debuted at the Edinburgh Festival in 2019 and moved to London’s Bush Theatre a year later, Gadd struggles with a more complicated version of the truth in his depiction of a struggling stand-up comedian drowning under the relentless attentions of a troubled woman. Alongside its painfully candid treatment of sexual abuse, that sets this seven-episode series apart. Here’s what you need to know about it.  Photograph: Ed Miller/NetflixRichard Gadd as stand-up comedian Donny in ‘Baby Reindeer’ What is the true story behind Baby Reindeer?  Writer-star Gadd plays Donny, a version of his own younger self whose ambitions of stand-up stardom in London quickly give way to disappointing gigs, small crowds and a make-do job pulling pints. It’s in the pub that he encounters Martha, an eccentric but enthusiast fantasist who claims to have Tony Blair on speed dial but doesn’t have the money for a Diet Coke. Donny’s pity leads to an awkward, accidental flirtation of sorts, which eventually leads to a barrage of emails, voicemails, texts and Facebook messages. ‘Martha’s voicemails became the podcast of

Season 1 of ‘Blue Lights’ was one of the TV highlights of last year. The BBC cop show offered a ridiculously tense inside track on the dangerous work of Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) cops that was satisfying both as a police procedural and as a gutsy, uncompromising thriller. Co-created by ‘Panorama’ alumni Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, it delivered both an unvarnished look at Belfast’s cultural and political fault lines and a dive into Northern Ireland’s organised crime scene, with the odd off-the-books MI5 op thrown in. All through the eyes of rookie officers Grace Ellis (Siân Brooke), Annie Conlon (Katherine Devlin) and Tommy Foster (Nathan Braniff) at Belfast’s fictional Blackthorn Station.  The second season is landing on the BBC One this month and Lawn and Patterson are promising more of the same – only ‘bigger, bolder and more dramatic’. Drugs and street crime are on the rise this time out, which means more pressure and more perils for our doughty but hard-pressed band of law enforcers. And somewhere out there there are probably more gun-brandishing gangsters ready to get all their leave cancelled. Here’s what you need to know.  Photograph: Christopher Barr/Two Cities TelevisionKatherine Devlin and Nathan Braniff in ‘Blue Lights’ When is season 2 of Blue Lights released?  It all kicks off – figuratively and probably literally – on Monday April 15. What should we expect from season 2?  Time Out’s verdict on season 1 – ‘a gripping and cliché-free police d

Season 2 of ‘Blue Lights’ has just landed on the BBC. With it comes another tense, visceral and meticulously crafted slab of Belfast-set police drama as the cops at Blackthorn police station tackle a new loyalist threat. The handiwork of two Northern Irish journalists-turned-showrunners, Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, both once of BBC investigative news programme ‘Panorama’, it marries characters with depth – fraught, hard-pressed Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers, as well as criminals driven by greed or ideology – and real-world city backdrops that lend authenticity and cultural edge. As Patterson tells Time Out, Belfast is the show’s secret sauce. ‘You do a lot of location shooting in shows like this and it was really important to us to find the real places,’ he says. ‘We’re made a concerted effort to make the city a proper character in the show.’ The first season was set in nationalist West Belfast. The second run moves across the city to loyalist East Belfast. ‘Nobody’s really shown loyalism with this amount of depth before,’ says Patterson. ‘Sometimes it's positive and heartwarming; sometimes it’s dark and dangerous, but that is the world of Northern Ireland.’ Here’s how it came together on screen. Photograph: Adam PattersonBelfast’s Netherleigh House doubled as Blackthorn Station in ‘Blue Lights’ season 2 Blackthorn police station Filmed at: Netherleigh House, Belfast You may not even notice it but ‘Blue Lights’ police station, Blackthorn, has a new

A colourful and sure-to-be-contentious replaying of Amy Winehouse’s triumphant and tragic life, ‘Back to Black’ finally lands on UK cinema screens this month. ‘Industry’s Marisa Abela steps into Winehouse’s ballet flats and ‘Starred Up’s Jack O’Connell is her hubby Blake Fielder-Civil. But it’s London, too, that takes a starring role in a musical biopic that showcases the swinging, seedy, boozy side of the city we all know and love. From Amy’s Camden to Soho by night, via a quick trip to the Big Apple, director Sam Taylor-Johnson took her cameras to the real spots once frequented by the ‘Rehab’ singer. As the filmmaker tells us, it all adds a layer of authenticity to the film that will hit home with anyone who remembers those heady mid-noughties days when every step Winehouse took seemed to appear on the front page of the tabloids. ‘As much as possible, I wanted to be authentic to the places that she loved and feel the spirit of her,’ the director tells Time Out. ‘I feel like we’ve honoured the city.’ Photograph: Alamy Flamin’ Eight Tattoo Studio, Camden Kentish Town’s Flamin’ Eight scores highly on Time Out’s ranking of London’s best tattoo parlours – and it scored highly with Amy Winehouse during her Camden days. It was one of her favourite spots for getting inked – as reflected by several scenes in the film, all filmed at the studio itself. Jeffrey’s Place, Camden  Amy Winehouse’s old home turf in Camden, Jeffrey’s Place, forms a key part of the story. It’s where she’s l

The full line-up for this year’s Cannes has been announced and it’s packed full of exciting new offerings from some of the world’s greatest filmmakers. As usual, it looks to have a few surprises and new discoveries in store, too. And for anyone who things that that the festival is just bunch of film industry types drinking rosé and chin-stroking cineastes using the phrase ‘mise en scène’ a lot, Cannes has re-established its preeminence on the movie calendar in recent years to the extent that it’s become a reliable supplier of Oscar winners. Last year’s festival introduced the world to Jonathan Glazer’s singular vision of the Holocaust, The Zone of Interest​, and Justine Triet’s knotty Alpine murder-mystery Anatomy of a Fall. Not to mention recent Palme d’Or winners like Parasite, Triangle of Sadness and Shoplifters.  But it’s fresh new big-screen releases that get us fired up and the line-up is chock full of movies that will be gracing our local cinemas in the months ahead. Here’s ten to keep a close eye on. What’s the French for ‘we’re so back’?  Photograph: Cannes International Film Festival Kinds of Kindness Yes, it’s another Yorgos Lanthimos joint – the Greek auteur does not rest on his laurels – and another team-up with Poor Things’ Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe. This time Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, The Favourite’s Joe Alwyn and Hong Chau (The Whale) join his ensemble for a ‘triptych’ fable following three characters facing some seriously unusual challenges in thei

Like ‘Escape to the Country’ meets ‘Pacific Heights’, new telly thriller ‘The Cuckoo’ has been gathering plenty of positive word of mouth since it debuted on Channel 5. The story of a cash-strapped family whose move to the country curdles into a nightmare when they take in a proper wrong’un as a lodger, it unfolds over four nights and four hour-long episodes. It’s a semi-realtime domestic drama that promise gripping drama, intrigue and a whole lot of bunnies scurrying for safety. Here’s what you need to know. Photograph: Channel 5Lee Ingleby and Claire Goose as Nick and Jessica Hayes What is The Cuckoo about? As you can guess from the title and the on-the-nose tagline (‘Don’t let her in’), Channel 5’s tense new domestic thriller charts what happens when a malign force is let into a family’s domestic space. It’s a theme that’s fuelled Hollywood thrillers since year dot, from ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ to Hitchcock’s ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, but over four episodes viewed from the family sofa, it promises some seriously uncomfortable, slow burn telly – and deeply moreish with it. You may have taken in your last suspicious lodger.  The lodger in this case is artist Sian, who moves into the Hayes’s – Nick, Jessica and Alice – mid-renovation farmhouse and quickly starts turning things upside down. A bond soon forms between her and the disgruntled Alice, a potential source of poison to drip into an already combustible situation. Alice’s tough situation at her new school isn’t he

Need some tips on telling better jokes? Want a star filmmaker to teach you the basics of filmmaking? Just fancy a bit of a natter with Creed star Tessa Thompson? If the answer to any of those is ‘heck yes’, you’ll want to gather your savings and put a bid in for the latest batch of lot items in the Cinema For Gaza auction.  The auction, which is raising funds to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has seen a host of movie stars and filmmakers offering their time and memorabilia.The latest to join the action are Colman, who will be providing a no-doubt magnificent video message to the highest bidder, Paul Mescal, ditto a signed Aftersun poster, and Tessa Thompson. The Creed and Thor: Ragnarok star will be sharing a virtual beer – and one of her film costumes – with whoever stumps up the most money for charity.  Here’s a few of the latest items to bid for: Personalised video message from Olivia Colman Aftersun poster signed by Paul Mescal Beer on Zoom with Tessa Thompson, plus Sorry to Bother You costume and The Marvels memorabilia Zoom chat about your favourite Susan Sarandon film with Susan SarandonMalcolm X poster signed by Spike Lee Joke workshop with Nish Kumar over Zoom Dinner in Ghent with Close director Lukas Dhont Filmmaker or actor mentorship with Shane Meadows over Zoom Zoom AMA with Harry Potter star Bonnie Wright  Rugby ball signed by Heartstopper star Kit Connor  A map of The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri’s favourite restaurants and a chat about them on Zoom Zoo

Kris Marshall has officially returned to our screens as the lead in ‘Death in Paradise’ spin-off ‘Beyond Paradise’. This time his character, DI Goodman, is solving crimes on UK shores.  The new location has some pretty big boots to fill if it hopes to measure up to the dreamy tropical scenery of the original show. This time around, the Caribbean has been replaced by the fictional seaside town of Shipton Abbot. Here’s everything we know about where the spin-off was filmed. Photograph: Red Planet Pictures/David ApplebySally Bretton and Kris Marshall in ‘Beyond Paradise’ season 2 Where is Shipton Abbot in the show? Shipton Abbot is a fictional town on the Devon coast.  Where is ‘Beyond Paradise’ season 2 filmed? Tim Key, the show’s executive producer, told The i: ‘There were lots of conversations about where we take it but we settled quite quickly on the West Country as we felt that Devon hadn’t had a huge amount of exposure in TV drama, Cornwall often nabs the glory.’ However, despite being set in Devon, the show was actually mostly filmed in Looe, Cornwall. According to Key, the Cornish town met all their criteria after they had searched the West Country looking for a place with a real community feel.  The producer added: ‘It was a beautiful tourist town, but also a thriving community with fishing businesses, so we felt we had found our home.’ The show was also spotted filming in the Tamar Valley in Cornwall and Bere Ferrers and Weir Quay in Devon.   Photograph: Red Planet

クリストファー・ノーランが監督した「オッペンハイマー」が話題だが、彼の前作「TENET テネット」同様、そのタイトルは一部の映画ファンにとって疑問符が付くものかもしれない。 この映画でキリアン・マーフィーが演じるロバート・オッペンハイマーとは何者で、何をした人物なのか？ 幸いなことに、いまだによく分からない「テネット」とは異なり、この象徴的な量子物理学者であり「原爆の父」と呼ばれる彼の人生については、我々が不明な点を補ってくれる人物がいる。 映画の原作で、ピューリッツァー賞を受賞した伝記「オッペンハイマー『原爆の父』と呼ばれた男の栄光と悲劇」を共同執筆した、歴史家のカイ・バードだ。2023年の最もスマートで最も心をつかむ映画の主人公にまつわる大きな疑問について、彼が答えてくれた。 1.「オッペンハイマー」は実話に基づいている？ この映画は記録がよく残されているオッペンハイマーの人生における事実に忠実であるといえる。原作者の一人、伝記作家のバードはこう語り始めた。 「オッペンハイマーは『原爆の父』とみなされている人物。彼はアメリカを代表する物理学者であり、1920代から30年代にかけて量子物理学の最先端にいました」 2.「マンハッタン計画」とは何だったのか？ オッペンハイマーの最大の功績は、ニューメキシコにおけるアメリカの極秘の戦時原爆プロジェクトである「マンハッタン計画」の運営を依頼されたことだろう。そして、そのことはこの映画の主題でもある。バードは、このプロジェクトはナチスの科学者たちとの時間との闘いであり、オッペンハイマーは国のために勝利を収めた、と解説。「彼は2年半で（人類最初の原子爆弾である）『ガジェット』が製造されたロスアラモスの秘密都市の責任者だった」と続けた。 3. 映画はどんな物語？ バードいわく「（戦争時代の）勝利から、マッカーシーの魔女狩りの時代に彼が経験した悲劇までの一連の物語」だという。 1945年、オッペンハイマーは祖国の勝利に貢献した国民的英雄であり、その顔は「タイム」「ライフ」などの雑誌の表紙を飾っていた。しかし、「それからわずか9年後、彼はカンガルー法廷に連行され、屈辱的な扱いを受け、セキュリティ・クリアランスを剥奪された。彼は公的な存在ではなくなってしまったのです」とバードは説明する。  Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures 4. 実際のオッペンハイマーはどんな人物だった？ 「彼は強いカリスマ性があり、女性にとって魅力的。フランス文学やイギリスの詩人、アーネスト・ヘミングウェイの小説を愛し、ヒンドゥー教の神秘主義に魅了されました」とバード。彼は、そんなオッペンハイマーを演じたマーフィーについて次のように絶賛している。 「マーフィーはオッペンハイマーを非常に強烈な個性として演じていますが、まさに正しいです。彼は非常に強烈で思慮深く、もろく繊細でありながら強さも併せ持つ、矛盾に満ちた人物でした。オッペンハイマーという人物の複雑さをよく捉えているといえるでしょう」 5. 彼は「オッピー」と呼ばれるのが好きだったのだろうか？ 「オッピー」とは、オッペンハイマーの親しい友人や学生たちが使っていた彼のニックネームだ。 これについてバードは「そうだったと思います」と述べ、「このニックネームは、彼がケンブリッジからドイツに留学した後につけられたものです。彼がオランダにいたとき、誰かが彼のことを『オッピエ』と呼び始め、それが徐々に『オッピー』に変わっていったのです」

Twenty years ago this week zombies took over London in Edgar Wright’s rom-zom-com classic ‘Shaun of the Dead’. Specifically, on March 29, 2004, when the movie premiered at Vue West End. If you haven’t seen it – and you really, really should – Wright’s second film, co-written with Pegg, follows two slacker Londoners, Shaun (Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost), as they slowly twig that those groaning, shuffling, bloodshot figures outside aren’t commuters. A zombie apocalypse is unfolding and only their favourite pub, The Winchester, offers sanctuary – and possibly a pint or two while they wait for it all the blow over. An endlessly funny, self-aware, affectionate homage to George R Romero’s zombie flicks, it’s also a riff on the London romcom that Pegg and Wright initially pitched as ‘Richard Curtis shot in the head’. Since its release, it’s taken a leaf out of Shaun’s book and matured into a fully fledged member of the film canon, scoring a place on our list of The Greatest Comedies Ever Made and a claim to one of the greatest ever London comedies. Heck, even Tom Cruise is a ‘Shaun’ superfan.  To celebrate its 20th anniversary – and just because we love it a lot – we took a trip back in time to visit its key London locations, where Wright and his cast and crew shot the film in the spring of 2003. Watch it below. Shaun’s house – Weston Park, N8 Shaun’s house in the film, shared, uneasily, with Peter Serafinowicz’s pissed-off Pete, is located at 83 Nelson Road, about ten minutes walk fr

The buzziest show on terrestrial telly, ITV’s ‘Passenger’ is a crime thriller with a supernatural twist. ‘Loki’s Wunmi Mosaku plays ex-Met Police officer, DC Riya Ajunwa, who investigates a series of mysterious goings-on in the fictional Lancashire town of Chadder Vale. The series, conceived and written by ‘Broadchurch’ actor Andrew Buchan, unfolds in the town itself and the wintry, shadowy hills and forests outside.  To create this insular community for the six-part series, the production put together a patchwork of locations in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and on the West Yorkshire border. ‘It was really important for us to film this in the north of England,’ says executive producer Lucy Dyke, ‘to bring in local crews and to support the workforce here’. Here’s where they found their Chadder Vale.  Todmorden, West Yorkshire  The main location for Chadder Vale is in the Upper Calder Valley town of Todmorden, previously a location for Emily Blunt film ‘My Summer of Love’ and legendary BBC drama ‘Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit’. ‘We found our town of Chadder Vale just to the north of Manchester, near a place called Todmorden,’ says Dyke, ‘which is allegedly the place where the most UFOs have ever been seen in the UK.’ Is there a clue there? Photograph: ITVThe Dog & Duck was filmed at The White House in Littleborough The White House pub, Littleborough Chadder Vale’s local, The Dog & Duck, was filmed at two separate locations in the Pennines. Interiors were filmed at The Gle

In ITV’s new six-part crime drama ‘Passenger’, ‘Loki’ star Wunmi Mosaku swaps from the intergalactic Time Variance Authority for the rather more local law enforcement efforts of Chadder Vale’s police force to play DC Riya Ajunwa, a cop investigating a mysterious case in an insular northern community.  The show is written by ‘Broadchurch’ actor Andrew Buchan and it may just boast similar levels of breakout potential to that ITV crime drama. Here’s everything you need to know about the latest labyrinthine crime thriller to hit our tellies. When is the release date for Passenger? The first episode of ‘Passengers’ airs at 9pm, Sunday March 24 on ITV1, with episode two airing at 9pm on March 25, and the remaining four episodes screening in the same Sunday/Monday slots over the following fortnight. The full series drops on ITVX on March 24, and the show will be available to stream via BritBox outside the UK.  Photograph: ITVRowan Robinson as Katie Wells in ‘Passenger’ Who’s in the cast?  ‘His House’ and ‘Loki’ star Wunmi Mosaku plays the show’s lead character, DC Riya Ajunwa, while ‘Shameless’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ star David Threlfall is unpopular outsider Jim Bracknell, the wizened manager of a fracking site near Chadder Vale.  Rowan Robinson – also a mysterious presence in last year’s Poirot movie ‘A Haunting in Venice’ – is the girl, Katie Wells, who vanishes temporarily and inexplicably. Barry Sloane plays Eddie Wells, Katie’s no good, fresh-from-prison dad – who Riya locked up fiv