In-flight entertainment
Tom Cruise returns as Maverick in a sequel to Top Gun that is even better than the original
Creative Sensemaker
Our weekly guide to all that’s best in culture and the arts – movies, streaming, books, music, galleries and much else – exclusively for Tortoise members.
Multiple choice
Everything Everywhere All At Once turns the quantum science of the “multiverse” into a wondrous metaphor for the human condition
Trump treads the boards
The 47th, Mike Bartlett’s new play about the 2024 US election, raises important questions about the future of American democracy
Follow the funny
In the new comic drama series, Gaslit, Julia Roberts excels as Martha Mitchell, the forgotten whistleblower of the Watergate scandal
Believe her
Having said goodbye to Villanelle, Jodie Comer takes to the stage – and addresses the grave injustice of women’s treatment in rape cases
Coming home to roost
The return of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem – and Mark Rylance’s Rooster Byron – to London’s West End could not be more timely
Keep on Rowling
The third film in the Fantastic Beasts series is the first movie inspired by the author’s work since her brave stand on women’s rights
Loser spooks
Gary Oldman excels as Jackson Lamb, chief of MI5’s team of outcasts, as Mick Herron’s spy thrillers are at last brought to the screen
And the winner is…
For all their flaws, the Oscars remain a riveting spectacle. Can any movie stop The Power of the Dog this weekend?
Atticus on trial
Aaron Sorkin’s stage play of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird updates a classic American text – and offers an alternative to Gregory Peck’s iconic performance
Kite gains altitude
The weekend of 10-12 June – and Kite, our new festival of ideas and music – is getting closer. Now, with even more names added to the lineup, it’s the perfect time to book your tickets
Darkness visible
Robert Pattinson is the perfect Batman for our times, in a movie that owes more to classic film noir than blockbuster superhero franchises
The agony of choice
Cat Burglar, Charlie Brooker’s new animated heist, requires the viewer to make choices to progress the storyline. Is it a winning format?
Blinded by love
Netflix’s Love Is Blind, the reality TV show in which contestants aren’t allowed to see each other until they’re engaged, is back for a second season. It plunges into some of the genre’s classic pitfalls, but the series is still a cut above its superficial counterparts
The making of a jeen-yuhs
In its two-decade exploration of Kanye West’s life, Netflix’s new documentary jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy perfectly showcases what makes the rapper so captivating
The art of memory
Joanna Hogg’s masterly sequel to The Souvenir – a meditation on grief, creativity and class – strengthens her claim to be one of the great directors of our time
Animal spirits
The Royal Academy’s remarkable new Francis Bacon exhibition reframes the great modern artist in a fresh, sharply contemporary light
Bright side of the road
Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast succeeds precisely because it juxtaposes the violence of the Troubles with the warm normality of everyday family life
Laughter in the dark
The final season of After Life seals the reputation of Ricky Gervais as a master of comic observation and a valiant defender of irony
It’s about time
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza is a comic masterpiece – and much more than an exercise in cinematic nostalgia
Electric dreams
The new Matrix movie revives a sci-fi saga whose core ideas have moved from the digital counter-culture of geeks, hacks and stoners to the very mainstream of modern life
Something’s coming, something good
Spielberg’s dazzling new version of West Side Story is a homage to the Broadway original – with just the right infusion of modernity
How Buckley and Vidal invented today’s culture wars
A new play by master dramatist James Graham shows how the legendary debates of 1968 between the two US polemicists changed politics forever
Fashion victims
Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci is an irresistible fusion of true crime, in-your-face couture and dynastic feuding
KITE takes flight
Time to book your tickets for our new festival of ideas and music in June 2022
The return of the squid
As season two of Squid Game is announced, the Netflix sensation strengthens its grip on the global imagination as a parable of the age of debt
Welcome to the ABBA metaverse
The release of the supergroup’s first new album in 40 years marks their conquest of the digital age
Going underground
The second season of Temple – in which Mark Strong plays a doctor in an illegal underground clinic – is a gripping parable for our insecure times
A planet ready, at last, for its close-up
More than half a century after Frank Herbert’s Dune was published, Denis Villeneuve has created the movie version it deserves – and a timely parable of today’s environmental crisis
The rich are different
Succession, which returns on Monday, was always much more than a satire on the Murdoch family: it elevates television drama to the status of American myth