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The 20 best films of 2022

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19. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

It might not be the year’s best science-fiction extravaganza about alternate realities – that honour goes to Everything, Everywhere, All at Once – but Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is deliriously entertaining in its own right. The weirdest and scariest of Marvel’s blockbusters, it was directed by Sam Raimi, who made both the Evil Dead and the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy, and he fills the screen with his love of classic superhero comics and horror movies. The film isn’t just an exuberant celebration of pulp fantasy, though. There are some poignant musings on family, faith and sacrifice in among the flying zombies and green-furred minotaurs. (NB)

20. Corsage

Vicky Krieps’ (Phantom Thread) quietly fierce performance as Empress Elisabeth of Austria is a perfect match for this sumptuous period piece with a brash contemporary soul. The story is set in 1877, when Elisabeth is turning 40, no longer the popular beauty she once was. Her palaces, stables and grounds have become a prison. Marie Kreutzer’s film presents its heroine as an independent-minded woman in an era that is not yet on the cusp of modernity, signalling that paradox with a soundtrack of pop songs. Such bold moves give Corsage a bracing energy as it captures the inner struggles of a woman trying to escape the confines of social expectations and of time itself. The story departs from the facts most radically in creating a new final act for Elisabeth, one that is not necessarily happier but is true to her wilful nature and to this audacious film’s savvy sense of invention. (CJ)

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December 15, 2022
1923 and the rise of the latest divisive TV ‘universe’

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How Taylor Sheridan’s midwestern dramas became a small-screen phenomenon

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December 13, 2022
The 50 best books of the year 2022

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The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Frida Liu is a working single mother in a near future who makes the mistake of leaving her child alone at home for a couple of hours one afternoon. Authorities are summoned by the neighbours, and her daughter Harriet is taken from her. Frida is given the choice to either lose her child permanently, or to spend a year at a state-run re-education camp for mothers where inmates must care for eerily lifelike robot children, equipped with surveillance cameras. Calling this novel “dystopian” doesn’t feel quite right, says Wired. “Near-dystopian, maybe? Ever-so-slightly speculative? This closeness to reality is what turns the book’s emotional gut punch into a full knockout wallop.” The School for Good Mothers is, says the New York Times, “a chilling debut”. (LB)

The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson

The Hanrahan family gather for a weekend as the patriarch Ray – artist and notorious egoist – prepares for a new exhibition of his art. Ray’s three grown-up children and steadfast wife, Lucia, all have their own choices to make. This fifth novel by Mendelson has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize, and has been highly praised. The Guardian points to the author’s “succinct specificity of detail,” and “a precision of observation that made me laugh frequently and smile when I wasn’t laughing”. According to the Spectator, Mendelson excels at “vivid, drily hilarious tales about messy families”. The Exhibitionist is “a glorious ride. Mendelson observes the minutiae of human behaviour like a comic anthropologist.” (LB)

Free Love by Tessa Hadley

Described by The Guardian in 2015 as “one of this country’s great contemporary novelists,” British writer and academic Hadley has been quietly producing works of subtly powerful prose for two decades. Like her recent novels, The Past (2015) and Late in the Day (2019), Free Love – Hadley’s eighth – explores intimate relationships, sexuality, memory and grief, through an apparently ordinary-looking suburban family. But, Hadley writes, “under the placid surface of suburbia, something was unhinged.” Set amid the culture clash of the late 1960s, the novel interrogates the counterculture’s idealistic vision of sexual freedom, in, writes the i newspaper, “a complex tale of personal awakening and a snapshot of a moment in time when the survivors of war were suddenly painted as relics by a new generation determined not to live under their dour and hesitant shadow.” NPR writes, “Free Love is a fresh, moving evocation of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” (RL)

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

A debut novel, Black Cake tells the backstory of an African-American family of Caribbean origin, and two siblings who are reunited after eight years of estrangement at their mother’s funeral where they discover their unusual inheritance. The plot is driven by an omniscient narrator, dialogue and flashbacks. It is, says the New York Times, full of “family secrets, big lies, great loves, bright colours and strong smells”. The themes of race , identity and family love are all incorporated, says the Independent, “but the fun is in the reading… Black Cake is a satisfying literary meal, heralding the arrival of a new novelist to watch.” (LB)

Auē by Becky Manawatu

Told through several viewpoints, Auē tells the story of Māori siblings who have lost their parents, with each sibling telling their tale, and later their mother, Aroha, also telling hers from the afterlife. The novel has already won two awards in New Zealand, and is now gaining wider praise. “The plot reveals are masterful,” says The Guardian. “Auē has done well because it is expertly crafted, but also because it has something indefinable: enthralling, puzzling, gripping and familiar, yet otherworldly.” (LB)

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December 13, 2022
Monster: Jeffrey Dahmer: Did TV go too far in 2022?

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Why Netflix’s drama about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer raised such debate

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December 13, 2022
Babylon: the truth about the scandals of the silent film era

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The real stories behind Babylon, the outrageous epic about the silent film era

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December 13, 2022
Avatar: The Way of Water is a ‘damp squib’

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It’s nice and scenic, of course, and all of Cameron’s technological obsessions are on show. There is cutting-edge CGI and performance capture, digital 3D, hyper-real clarity and so on, but these gimmicks tend to take you out of the film rather than drawing you in: as impressive as the visuals are, the action never feels real because it’s always halfway between a cartoon and a live-action film. Nor does The Way of Water look significantly better than Avatar, which was genuinely startling back in 2009. And in terms of the design, it’s nowhere near as magical as those Roger Dean-inspired landscapes were when we first landed on Pandora. One issue is the shift from the rainforest to the sea. In reality, the Earth’s oceans are already so full of such jaw-droppingly weird creatures that the ones dreamt up by Cameron and his team aren’t much weirder. It’s fun, in a Little Mermaid sort of way, to see a school of tattooed, four-eyed whales stage an underwater ballet; but it’s not as awesome as actual footage of an actual whale.

Such spectacular interludes also contribute to the film’s numbing, leisurely slowness. The Way of Water clocks in at 192 minutes, which is half an hour more than the first Avatar, but after the opening scenes, when the humans land on Pandora, the story is barely moved on at all. In three hours, the plot amounts to the Sullys going off on their family vacation, Quaritch finding them, and everyone having a climactic, yet small-scale sea battle. And that’s it. There are no complicated military strategies or challenging conversations or nuanced characters: the Terminator had more personality than anyone in The Way of Water. And any non-whale-related storylines are left unfinished. One of Jake’s children, for instance, is somehow the biological daughter of Grace (Sigourney Weaver), who was killed in the last film. But who is her biological father? And how can she communicate telepathically with the wildlife of Pandora? You won’t find out here, because The Way of Water is now officially part of a Lord of the Rings-style continuing franchise, so it doesn’t bother to stand up on its own.

Yes, we may have had a 13-year wait for the first Avatar sequel, but apparently there are three more due to come out in 2024, 2026 and 2028. If The Way of Water is anything to go by, that’s not a prospect to relish, but let’s hope Cameron uses those sequels to address one key point, at least. How is it that 22nd-Century humans can travel all the way to Alpha Centauri in spaceships packed with robots and clones – but they still haven’t developed glass which is strong enough to withstand a wooden arrow?

★★☆☆☆

Avatar: The Way of Water is released on 16 December

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December 13, 2022
The ultimate 1970s party pad – and its enduring influence

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The apartment’s interior was created in the Art Deco style by French architect Jean-Michel in the 1920s, reflecting Saint Laurent’s obsession with the Jazz Age, which was also echoed in his ready-to-wear collections of the time. The designer was in thrall then to the streamlined yet luxurious aesthetic of high-end Art Deco, and the apartment housed Eileen Gray’s Dragon armchair, stools by Pierre Legrain, vases by Jean Dunand, Gustave Miklos’s stools with a red lacquer frame and opulent pieces bought at a 1972 sale of early 20th-Century couturier Jacques Doucet’s collection of modern art and furniture.

A new book, Yves Saint Laurent at Home – Life with Yves and Pierre, written by their friend, the interior designer Jacques Grange, showcases the couple’s 1970s homes. Their other key 70s residence was Dar es Saada, a pink mansion in a secluded spot in Marrakech, acquired in 1974, whose interiors were redesigned by Bill Willis. For Saint Laurent, who was born in French Algeria, their Moroccan villa – surrounded by the paradisiacal Jardin Majorelle created by French “Orientalist” painter Jacques Majorelle – offered an escape from the commercial pressures of Paris.

“As the first celebrities to allow their homes to be photographed for interior design magazines, Saint Laurent and Bergé practically transformed Marrakech into Paris’s 21st arrondissement,” writes journalist Laurence Benaïm in the book. The openly gay couple had holidayed in Marrakech in 1967, and mingled with bohemian Americans Talitha and Paul Getty. The young, epicene Saint Laurent grew his hair, adopted a more relaxed hippy look, and smoked kief (hashish, common in North Africa), with his other main muse, Loulou de la Falaise. In the mid-1970s, he donned loose kaftans there and in 1976 designed a Moroccan-inspired, vibrantly coloured womenswear collection – simple tunics and harem pants in purples and oranges.

Better known as a fashion designer, Saint Laurent is nevertheless admired by many for his taste in interiors, says Martina Mondadori, editor of Cabana magazine and co-author of the book, YSL Lexicon: An ABC of the Fashion, Life and Inspirations of Yves Saint Laurent: “There isn’t a fashion designer or interior decorator in the past 15 years who hasn’t been inspired in some capacity by Saint Laurent’s vision. Dar Es Saada was an ode to the versatile, sophisticated world he lived in. The flow of rooms on the ground floor is the perfect set design for any party. It’s as decadent as it gets, and the velvets, the colours and tiles make the whole house feel very intimate – ultimately the secret to making everyone feel at home.”

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December 12, 2022
‘The most important painting of the 21st Century’

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‘The most important painting of the 21st Century’

(Image credit: Amy Sherald/ Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth/ photo by Joseph Hyde)

Her painting of the late Breonna Taylor was hailed as groundbreaking, and artist Amy Sherald has blazed a trail with her portraits depicting black America. She talks to Precious Adesina about history, storytelling and the possibility of a new art canon.

I

In 2016, the Georgia-born artist Amy Sherald was chosen to paint Michelle Obama for The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The portrait, which was completed in 2018, sees the former first lady portrayed in Sherald’s signature style: a grey skin tone, a simple backdrop (in this case a plain blue one) and a fashionable outfit that exemplifies the sitter’s character. The US fashion designer Michelle Smith created the high-neck maxi dress that Obama wears for the painting, with an abstract print that echoes Piet Mondrian’s geometric paintings. Discussing her Smithsonian piece in a recent interview, Sherald called Obama an icon. “She represents for me and a lot of women what 21st-Century womanhood looks like,” she says. The painting catapulted the artist into a new realm.

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While the 49-year-old is often seen as an overnight success, in actuality, her star status has come from decades of perfecting her craft. “People think it’s this meteoric rise, but in fact, she’s been working for 20 plus years,” says US art historian Jenni Sorkin, who has written an essay on the artist for the catalogue of Sherald’s first European show – at Hauser & Wirth in London titled Amy Sherald: The World We Make.

Sherald was commissioned by the Whitehouse to create the official portrait of then First Lady Michelle Obama (Credit: Courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery)

Sorkin notes that Sherald is also known for her posthumous portrait of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, created in 2020 for the cover of the September issue of Vanity Fair, and which Forbes called “the most important painting of the 21st Century”. Taylor was killed in her home in Kentucky by police officers, a tragic story that partially fuelled the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests that same year. “Sherald gained extreme prominence with these two major commissions, but the first was the Michelle Obama one,” Sorkin adds. “Being chosen for that put her on a national stage in a different way than she might have been otherwise.”

Sherald plays with photography and portraiture, a technique that has been a core part of her practice. Instead of painting from life, the now New York-based artist photographs her subjects, and depicts them from the imagery she collates. “When you’re painting from a photograph, there is a level of autonomy,” says Sorkin. Creating paintings in this way often allows Sherald to easily make minute changes to enhance the portrayal of her subjects. “The shadowing, profile and accessories can be fixed by the painter. Often Amy photographs the model, and swaps clothing choices out later.”

Sherald herself is very stylishly dressed. Talking at London’s Hauser & Wirth gallery in early October, she is wearing a white turtleneck, long khaki skirt, and thick black boots with her hair slicked back in a low bun. The use of trendy clothes to dress her subjects is integral to her practice. Still, despite this and her interest in photography, Sherald doesn’t associate her work with fashion photography. “Fashion photography is a combination of product, portrait and even fine art photography, as a genre where art and commerce meet,” she tells BBC Culture via email. “I am interested in creating images within and beyond those contextual structures to anchor them in a timeless historical lineage.”

Sherald’s For Love and Country, 2022, recreates the famous 1945 photograph V-J Day in Times Square (Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth/ photo by Joseph Hyde)

Instead, Sherald uses her understanding of the digital medium to create works that naturally embody and uplift black people. In the painting For Love, and for Country (2022) in The World We Make exhibition, Sherald uses the positioning and attire of the two black men in her painting to recreate the famous photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, first published in Life magazine in 1945. The image shows a US sailor embracing and kissing a woman on Victory over Japan Day (“V-J Day”) in New York City’s Times Square on 14 August, 1945. In Sherald’s painting, two black men dressed as sailors also passionately kiss in the same way. “I feel like right now was the perfect time to make this more visible,” she says of queer relationships. According to CNN, LGBTQ+ rights are being threatened by a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the US, with state lawmakers introducing at least 162 bills targeting LGBTQ+ Americans this year. Sherald also adds that images like Eistenstaedt’s are what we immediately associate with art history. “My work offers another narrative of what that canon might look like, and how it can take shape through new, expansive storytelling.”

Shades of grey

A crucial part of Sherald’s work is her use of grisaille, a technique in which an image is created entirely in shades of grey. “When I first started painting the black figure, I recognised that we are a political statement in and of ourselves,” she says. “I didn’t want the work to be marginalised and for the conversation around it to solely focus on identity or politics.” Sherald uses grisaille in place of skin tone, which she says has a “universal quality” that allows her to “subversively comment on race”.

“It also calls on the influence of photography, specifically daguerreotypes which, through the work of Frederick Douglass, allowed [black people] to become authors of [their] own narratives.” Douglass was a US abolitionist who wrote about the power of photography to provide black people with representation free from racist stereotypes, and encouraged people to take images of themselves.

Sherald’s posthumous portrait of Breonna Taylor, 2020, depicts the subject in a future she was denied (Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth/ photo by Joseph Hyde)

With Sherald’s expansive and consistent oeuvre in mind, it is no surprise that she was chosen to portray both Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor in recent years. Historically, White House portraiture has been very white, both behind and in front of the canvas or camera. “The Obamas were the first black president and first lady to inhabit the White House, and they themselves were under a magnifying glass for the entirety of the administration,” says Sorkin, explaining that the Obama family were scrutinised more intensely than their white counterparts, and subject to extreme racism. “Selecting a black female portrait painter to represent Michelle Obama, a black woman in the White House, is a huge boon in terms of showcasing representation that previously didn’t exist.”

In contrast, Sherald’s painting of Taylor was the first portrait she had painted after a subject’s death. “When Ta-Nehisi Coates came to me with the invitation, I had never considered painting someone posthumously. My practice is based on finding live models,” she says. Coates is a US journalist and author who was guest editing Vanity Fair’s September issue at the time. “I began to do research looking for any images I could find that had not already been used.” Sherald portrayed Taylor in a long green dress with high slits against a similarly-coloured background. “When I asked her mom to describe Breonna, she sweetly said that she was a diva in the best sense of the word. She loved getting dressed up. She was always put together,” Sherald explains. “I painted her how I thought her family would want to remember her.”

According to Allison Glenn, who curated the 2021 exhibition commemorating Taylor at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, what makes Sherald’s painting stand out is its symbolism. “She could be anybody. She could be your sister, your cousin, your friend, your aunt, your mother, your granddaughter, your daughter, your wife,” Glenn tells BBC Culture, adding that Sherald appears to have depicted Taylor in the future. “She included the engagement ring that her fiancé was going to give to her, and imagined how she might want to be represented.”

The artist Amy Sherald pictured at the opening of her show, The World We Make, at Hauser & Wirth, London (Credit: Olivia Lifungula)

When Sherald looks back at her older works, she feels a sense of nostalgia. “Growing a practice is about the journey, and there are some sweet moments in some paintings that remind me of how far I’ve come,” the artist says. “It’s like looking back at a diary.” But her new work is beginning to reflect some more personal touches. In her show at Hauser & Wirth, Sherald revealed the first painting she has made of a family member, titled He was Meant for All Things to Meet (2022). It shows her lacrosse-playing nephew (her partner’s twin’s son) in a lime-green jumper and denim trousers in front of a lighter green background. “My partner and his brothers grew up in Bedstuy and Flatbush in the 80s,” Sherald says, explaining that they were raised in a difficult setting. “Families living in urban environments [at the time] had to be concerned with public safety and the crack cocaine epidemic.”

Now Sherald’s three nephews attend an elite private school, and the one depicted in her painting is the school’s first black student-body president. “When I look at my nephew, I see a young man with a big future. Hence the title, He was Meant for All Things to Meet.” Glenn suggests Sherald will continue to break new ground. “I’ve seen Amy’s practice growing in really strong, subtle ways over the years. But she could completely surprise us. The painting of the embrace of the two men was such a surprise.”

Amy Sherald: The World We Make is at Hauser & Wirth, London, until 23 December

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December 11, 2022
The Muppet Christmas Carol: A festive classic’s dark backdrop

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“Michael was the first actor we approached,” says Henson. “I knew I wanted a British actor, and he had to have a certain standing. That limited the field in a healthy way.”

Whitmire remembers that Caine knew exactly how to approach his role opposite the Muppets, too. “He just said he wasn’t going to ever try to be funny in the film. He played it as though he was onstage in a Royal Shakespeare production. If an actor tries to compete with the silliness and upstage the Muppets, it doesn’t work. Michael gave the characters a real nemesis in the film.”

There was one awkward moment between Caine and a member of The Muppet Christmas Carol’s creative team, though. Unfortunately, when he introduced himself, Williams’ decade-long amnesia made him forget that he’d actually already met the legendary actor.

“I walked into the recording studio and went straight up to Caine and said, ‘It’s so wonderful to meet you’,” recalls Williams. “He turned to me and said, ‘You know, we spent a whole weekend together.’ I just went, ‘Oh my God! You’re right.’”

Soundtrack to a festive hit

That didn’t stop the pair from having a fruitful creative relationship, though. “I was in the studio directing him. Which is me just making faces, singing along with him and doing gestures,” exclaims Williams. “But he was so completely present. He doesn’t just perform the song. He experiences the song. That’s everything you could want.”

One of Williams’s most cherished memories of this process was the song When Love Is Gone, sung by Meredith Braun. “I felt like my greatest success as a songwriter for The Muppet Christmas Carol was When Love Is Gone. Because, emotionally, you see what grief and loss did to Scrooge and his behaviour.”

Unfortunately, when Disney saw the finished film, they asked for When Love Is Gone to be cut out. “Evidently the head of the studio thought it was too sad for kids. Or too boring,” remarks Williams. “I’m not going to try to pretend that I understand what he was thinking.”

The video master of the cut scene was then believed to have been lost for more than 25 years, too, meaning that it wasn’t included in the DVDs or streaming versions. That was until December 2020, when the footage was found again, and it has now been included in The Muppet Christmas Carol’s recent UK re-release to mark its anniversary.

It only feels right that the United Kingdom gets to see The Muppet Christmas Carol in its correct form, as Henson credits the British audience with building its legacy. “The following year after its release, when it was sold on videotape, so many people watched it in the UK. It broke all sorts of records. It was a small-screen hit,” remarks Henson. “It was the British that really forced the reintroduction of the film to the American market. Now, every year audiences just gets bigger and bigger, too.”

The Muppet Christmas Carol’s popularity is so immense that it has become a focal point of the festive season for many friends and families, who insist that Christmas hasn’t really begun until they’ve belted out, “There goes Mr Humbug, There goes Mr Grim,” in unison at full volume.

“A lot of fans talk about it being their favourite holiday film. They watch it with their families every year,” says Whitmire, who insists that its legacy is more important than one film, though. “We were all very motivated on Muppet Christmas Carol. We wanted it to work. Everything came together and it introduced a new generation to the Muppets. It started a new chapter for us.”

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December 9, 2022
Pinocchio: The scariest children’s story ever written

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What unites every re-telling is Collodi’s indelible images: a wooden boy; a talking cricket; a nose that gets longer when you lie. But running alongside all of those is a powerful truth. “I think it’s fear of the adult world,” says del Toro, “this idea that you are thrown into a world of adult values that are not only hard to understand but eventually prove false. That’s how I came to feel as a kid. All the things adults told you, they didn’t understand themselves.” In the first half of the book, it’s a few villains who cause trouble for Pinocchio. In the second half, four black rabbits carry a coffin into his room to take him away while he is still alive, and a judge (who happens to be a gorilla) throws him in jail because he is the victim of a theft. As fantastical as these episodes are, the fear they evoke, the feeling of being lost and powerless in a grown-up society where nothing makes sense, is more recognisable than the relatively orderly and logical yarns in most children’s books.

The same goes for the central character. Everyone knows that Pinocchio wants to be a real boy, but a key reason why he has been so adored for almost 150 years is that he is always as real as anyone in literature. Rather than being an intrepid, noble hero, Pinocchio is rude, selfish, naive, curious, forgetful, easily swayed by temptation, slow to learn from his mistakes, upset when things go wrong, but kind, well-meaning, and capable of bravery. Wooden or not, he couldn’t be much more human than that.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is released on Netflix on 9 December.

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December 7, 2022
The 21 best TV shows of 2022

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20. Top Boy

Netflix may be facing a reckoning at the moment, financial, critical and otherwise, but among its few 2022 highpoints is undoubtedly the return of this brilliant British drama, which was cancelled by its original UK broadcaster Channel 4 but then picked up by the streamer (via the rapper Drake, who pushed for its revival and these days is the show’s executive producer). Now in its second Netflix series, or fourth series overall, it tells an at-once densely detailed yet narratively propulsive story of East London life, which deftly covers everything from gang crime and drug deals to gentrification, coercive relationships and immigration policy, and has only got better and better. The way it films East London is both harsh and beautiful, capturing its vibe in a way that feels truer than any other film or show in recent memory, while the performances are remarkable in their naturalism – among them rapper Kano as the brooding Sully, now living on a canal boat, and Jasmine Jobson as the hard-edged Jaq. (HM)

Available on Netflix internationally

21. This is Going to Hurt

A harrowing, deeply important and, most of all, funny portrait of the British healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS), This is Going to Hurt is based on the memoir of the same name by former doctor Adam Kay. Having been a junior doctor in a busy London hospital’s obstetrics and gynaecology ward, Kay paints a nuanced portrait of the working conditions he and many others endured, and the serious toll that long hours and intense pressure takes on your life. Ben Whishaw’s performance as Kay is a tour de force, delineating the inner turmoil of a man determined to at least try to do the right thing, but who doesn’t always pull it off. What’s so special about this show is that Kay isn’t a likeable character, but you continually root for his success, desperately wishing him, his patients and his colleagues well. It’s not a rosy portrait of the realities of life in British hospitals, and there are some truly devastating moments throughout, but the show steadfastly keeps going with humanity and gallows humour, despite the horrors: just as healthcare professionals do every day. (AC)

Available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and AMC in the US

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December 7, 2022
Five of Japan’s most Zen-like, minimalist interiors

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Five of Japan’s most Zen-like, minimalist interiors

(Image credit: Daica Ano/ Kengo Kuma & Associates)

Beautifully minimalist and close to nature, the homes featured in a new book offer a glimpse inside the Japanese mindset.

“The home – before it is a place of beauty – is a place for safety, and assessed according to its alignment with its natural surroundings,” says Mihoko Iida, whose new book Japanese Interiors takes a look inside some of Japan’s most interesting private homes. From urban apartments to mountain and seaside escapes, the spaces featured in the book all share this idea of what home interiors mean in Japan, and how they are informed by a sense of harmony and balance with their surrounding environment.

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Alongside the homes’ proximity to nature is the pared-back simplicity for which Japanese design has become known. “Minimalism has a long history in Japan,” explains author Iida, “rooted in the teachings of Zen Buddhism that came to our country via China, and found a foothold beginning around the 12th Century.”

In the book, Iida explains how these ideas aligned with Japan’s existing religion, Shintoism, “a nature religion that does not worship a central figure but rather considers all things – man-made and natural – to possess a spiritual essence.” Interpretations of this vary, she explains. “A simplified explanation is that nothing should be treated poorly, and therefore it is better to have nothing. Or as Buddha said, ‘The less you have, the less you have to worry about’.” Many modern minimalist homes in Japan are influenced by shrines and temples as a result. Here are some of the most beautiful and most intriguing.

Peninsula House (Credit: Kenichi Suzuki)

Set among the rocks, sea, wind and sky of the Kanto region, Peninsula House is a monolithic structure that seems to rise up from its surroundings. It was designed by Mount Fuji Architects Studio, and has an arresting, Brutalist simplicity. The spaces of the structure are flooded with light on the ocean side, with double-height walls of windows offering epic views of sea and sky. Iida elaborates: “The scene evokes a contemporary take on shakkei, the Japanese concept of scenery borrowed from nature, as is often seen in traditional garden design – with the seascape surrounding the residence, stealing the show as its most defining interior feature.”

Lotus House (Credit: Daici Ano)

The striking Lotus House was created by award-winning architect Kengo Kuma, and with its innovative, bold checkboard-style walls, it nevertheless blends in with its natural surroundings. The airy home in Eastern Japan faces a pond planted with lotus plants, and is surrounded by dense forest. The residence has, says Iida, “an unusual sense of structural lightness, as though every stone panel… is hovering in the air”. Shafts of sunlight, light breezes and forest aromas all seep through the property as a result of this innovative structure.

Lotus House (Credit: Daici Ano)

At Lotus House there is a floating staircase on the rear wall, and the living room overlooks the lotus pond. As the architect Kuma puts it: “The lightness of the stone is an expression of the gentle lotus petals.” According to Iida, the term ‘interiors’ is defined rather differently in Japan. “When Japanese people talk about interiors, it’s more about where the sunlight enters a room, how the wind travels through the entrance,” she explains. “Or creating a space to withstand the natural elements in the mountains or along the coast.”

Stairway House (Credit: Shigeo Ogawa)

Another defining element of interiors in Japan is, says Iida, “how limited space is used efficiently within the urban confines of a thriving city such as Tokyo”. Function, playfulness and a quiet minimalism are combined in Stairway House in Tokyo, created by young design studio nendo to accommodate an extended family of various generations. Central to its structure is a vast stairway-like structure starting in the gravel garden and cutting through the whole interior, rising up to the skylight on the ceiling. “As functional as it is surreally playful, the role of the staircase is clear,” writes Iida, “to connect the family members within a single yet private series of spaces.” The interior is monochromatic and simple, with plants placed across the steps offering greenery. The result, architects nendo explain, is “a space where all three generations could take comfort in each other’s subtle presence.”

Polygon House (Credit: Makoto Yarnaguchi Architects)

With a futuristic edge, Polygon House sits on a hillside surrounded by forests in Karuizawa, outside Tokyo, and was designed by Makoto Yamaguchi. “Boundaries between inside and out are nearly invisible,” explains Iida. “Large south-facing glass windows invite inside charismatic vistas of the changing seasons – from blazing autumnal leaves and leafy summer greens to serene wintertime snowfall.” The place, she says, is “imbued with an almost Zen-like minimalist serenity”.

House S (Credit: Ben Richards)

With walls of glass framing lush garden views, House S feels close to the natural world, despite its central Tokyo location. A roomy family home, the residence was designed by Keiji Ashizawa. A bold open staircase connects all three floors, and a long wall of glass spans an entire side of the building. The whole structure is designed to make the most of the proximity to nature.

Garden House (Credit: Ben Richards)

Alongside House A, the owners recently added a garden house, a contemporary tea-house-like building surrounded by trees. A simple, one-room structure, it has a tiled roof of steel, underlined with cedar, reflecting its closeness to nature, and giving the interior a textured warmth. Inside there is a blend of traditional touches and sleek modernism. An iconic white paper lantern by master designer Isamu Noguchi is among the classic touches. Surrounded by the stunning garden, it is, says Iida, “the perfect natural escape in the midst of the city”.

Japanese Interiors by Mihoko Iida is published by Phaidon.

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December 6, 2022
What it’s like to read without sight

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“Surely the part of my brain that I used to read with must have shut down at the same time as my sight?” asks Red Szell in this video. The 53-year-old Londoner lost his sight several years ago due to the degenerative eye condition Retinitis pigmentosa – and has used audiobooks ever since.

But earlier this year, Szell decided to learn Braille, with unexpected results – as he outlines in this video for BBC Culture’s A Sensory World series. In it, he interviews a brain scientist whose studies have revealed surprising findings.

Video written and presented by Red Szell; filmed and edited by Chris Griffiths; animation by Archie Crofton.

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December 6, 2022
‘Soft Girl’: The radical trend millennials love

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Softness as resistance also informs the work of Nadine Ijewere, an award winning south-east London-born fashion photographer who was the first woman of colour to shoot the cover of any Vogue edition. Informed by her own Nigerian-Jamaican identity, Ijewere’s work showcases a new standard of beauty, and aims to give life to the uniqueness of disparate cultures. It is currently exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery as part of The New Black Vanguard exhibition. Works such as Joy as an Act of Resistance – a joyous smile amidst an explosion of orange tulle – or images from her recent Nina Ricci campaign – four black women, draped in pastel, resting on each other’s strength – capture softness in action.

In an interview with Bricks magazine earlier this year, Ijewere discusses her creative process for the campaign, and how the freedom to ensure representation in front of and behind the camera was an act of both self and community care. “I went to the Dominican Republic, which was somewhere I had never been before. On arrival and throughout the trip, despite being so far away from home, I felt like I was at home the entire time. That familiar feeling of love within the communities was so powerful,” she says. “I shot a mixture of models and street-cast people all from the Dominican Republic. I had so much creative freedom with this project, so I just immersed myself in it and found my references along the way. I wanted to translate the love and energy within the community while also focusing on the fashion.”

For a social media trend to have nurtured a movement of black women – pioneers leading the way in redefining strength as softness, and reclaiming a life of joy and healing – is something of a quiet revolution. So, snuggle up in your comfiest outfit, take yourself on a walk, or curl up by the fire, and be prepared to allow yourself vulnerability. Be gentle with yourself as you battle with an internal dialogue that requires repetitive self-talk, self-questioning and ultimately, self-love. Feel the liberating sense of freedom as habits, patterns and expectations are discarded, then melt into the creative, imaginative, possibilities of what a soft life could look like, for you.

The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion is at the Saatchi Gallery, London, until 23 January 2023.

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December 4, 2022
Vermeer’s secrets: Why we’re fascinated by art fakes

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One of the most prolific forgers in US history, Mark Landis, spent 20 years posing as a philanthropist and donating fakes he’d created to over 50 museums, while never profiteering. “I’d never been treated before in my life with so much respect and deference,” he said. “I got addicted to it.” Despite the deception, Landis never made any money from it, so it wasn’t seen as a crime.

Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi profited handsomely from their crimes – passing off their own creations as works by artists such as Max Ernst and Fernand Léger, and selling them for millions, before getting caught out by the wrong pigment. They both served lengthy prison sentences. But when interviewed for an upcoming book they said they “got a kick” out of fooling a “fraudulent” art world. “For some forgers, I think it’s a kind of pathological behaviour,” says Wieseman. “It is a fascinating subculture.”

Tricks of the trade

Crime writer Peter James interviewed real-life art forgers to research his latest book, Picture You Dead, which revealed secrets such as sourcing a genuine artist’s smock from the period so that any fabric fibres that made it onto the paintwork would date it correctly.

Forgers are wily, agrees Fletcher. “Good forgers will have done their research. They’ll know not to use pigments that were made after the supposed date of the creation of the work. That’s the kind of stuff that tripped up forgers 50 years ago.” He’s heard of forgers sending test pieces to laboratories dedicated to determining authenticity to see if they’re along the right lines. Forgers will likely target artists where there is speculation or uncertainty over exactly how many works they created in their lifetime – so to cause less suspicion when a “new”, uncatalogued work suddenly appears on the market.

But if the forgers are getting better, so is the technology that catches them out. “I would hate to be a forger now because I think that the scientific techniques and the imaging techniques have become so sophisticated,” says Wieseman. “It’s possible to pinpoint the location where a particular mineral pigment comes from, for example a region in Afghanistan.”

Scandals like the Knoedler one make the art world extra cautious. “It kind of laid bare that the biggest names in this trade are just as exposed to getting it wrong,” says Fletcher. “And some galleries and auction houses have a lot more reputation at risk than others.”

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November 30, 2022
How Top Gun: Maverick shocked the world

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Expectations weren’t exactly sky high, then, when Top Gun: Maverick eventually opened in May 2022 – but that may have worked in its favour. Viewers were hoping for a nostalgic guilty pleasure. What they got was one of the best Hollywood movies in years – a film that earnt a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96% from critics, and 99% from audiences.

As written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Cruise’s regular Mission: Impossible collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie, Top Gun: Maverick accomplishes an almost impossible mission itself. It continues a story that began in 1986, but it delivers as a stand-alone story, too. It keeps the structure and setting of the original by having a group of cocky pilots training (and playing beach games) at a US Navy jet-fighter school, but it improves on the original in every respect. The plotting, the acting, the dialogue, the head-spinning aerial sequences – all of them are polished until they gleam. And, of course, the film’s exemplary skill and efficiency are embodied by its leading man, back in the cockpit as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, doing more of his own stunts than ever, and looking better than he did in 1986.

The poignancy of time passing

Crucially, though, Cruise isn’t just showing off his teeth, his hair and his daredevil piloting in Top Gun: Maverick. He also turns in the best dramatic performance of the second half of his 40-year career, largely because he is growing old gracefully – or growing middle-aged gracefully, anyway. As recently as 2017, The Mummy presented him as a rascally, rebellious youngster, but in Top Gun: Maverick, he finally accepts that he is over 40 – maybe even over 50 – and this acceptance brings poignancy to Pete’s second-chance romance with his bar-owning ex (Jennifer Connelly). It’s rare indeed for Cruise to have an involving love story in a film – but Top Gun: Maverick gives him two. Val Kilmer’s character, “Iceman”, had been treated for throat cancer, as had the actor himself, so his friendship with Pete is far more touching than anything in the original film.

None of this emotional heft would have been there if other Top Gun sequels and reboots had been made already. The 36-year gap ensured that Top Gun: Maverick was about more than just a nifty fighter pilot with a killer smile. It was about ageing and mortality, memories and regrets, holding on and letting go. It was about time passing – not just for Pete, or for us, but for cinema.

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November 30, 2022
Britney Spears: Is it time to reconsider the singer’s legacy?

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Because she broke through in the late 1990s, at the tail end of an era dominated by powerhouse vocalists like Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, Spears’ distinctive singing voice was often woefully undervalued. Kheraj points to her more mature third album, 2001’s Britney, which saw her embrace R&B on I’m A Slave 4 U and soft rock on I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman, as the point at which she really honed her vocal style. “She pushes her voice into more whispery textures, playing with the different sounds that she’s able to create in order to elevate a song,” Kheraj says, comparing her to Kylie Minogue and Janet Jackson in this respect. “Though in my opinion,” he adds, “Spears’ ability to be an actress with her own voice, taking on different tones, timbres and vibrations, is second to none.” This assessment of Spears’ vocal technique is echoed by Andrew Watt, a producer who worked with her on this year’s Elton John duet Hold Me Closer. “She’s unbelievable at layering her voice and doubling, which is one of the hardest things to do,” he told The Guardian in August, adding: “She’s so good at knowing when she got the right take. She took complete control.”

Finding her voice

As Spears’ career progressed, she also took more control of her music from the very start of the creative process. Kheraj says she had a predilection for finding collaborators who “would disrupt the status quo of pop” – like envelope-pushing R&B duo the Neptunes, who produced her early 2000s hits I’m a Slave 4 U and Boys, and Moby, who worked on her trance-influenced track Early Mornin’. The latter appeared on Spears’ 2003 album In the Zone, her fourth, on which she co-wrote eight of 12 songs including the beautifully subdued ballad Everytime. “The video was always on MTV when I was about 11, and I remember feeling so sad for her,” says Styrke, referring to the song’s regretful lyrics as well as its video depicting the dark side of fame. “Hearing it [now] still makes me really feel for her.”

In the Zone was another step up for Spears, but her magnum opus came four years later with 2007’s Blackout, an incredibly innovative album that she executive produced. Home to the huge hits Gimme More and Piece of Me, Blackout didn’t just feature cutting-edge production blending elements of techno, EDM and dubstep (then a very new genre); it also underlined Spears’ fearlessness. Piece of Me, a song that savagely sends up negative perceptions of her at the time, is as self-referential as pop music gets. “Guess I can’t see the harm in working and being a mama,” Spears sings. “And with a kid on my arm, I’m still an exceptional earner.” It doesn’t matter that Spears didn’t write it; she said everything she needed to just by putting it out. Blackout was a high-water mark, but Spears has displayed a knack for picking winning material throughout her career. “Have you heard her albums? They’re so intelligent,” avant-garde singer-songwriter Charli XCX said in 2014. “The way her songs are crafted is really amazing. I think that [her] music is really interesting and clever.”

In February 2008, just three months after Blackout came out, Spears was involuntarily placed under a conservatorship that would last for 13 years. She released four albums during this period, 2008’s Circus, 2011’s Femme Fatale, 2013’s Britney Jean and 2016’s Glory. Though Femme Fatale was sonically spectacular and spawned the stunning singles Hold It Against Me and Till the World Ends, it’s arguable that only Glory was the work of a fully invested Spears. “I was really specific about who I worked with and I’ve been learning to say no,” she told NME shortly after Glory’s release. “I’m a people-pleaser, so that’s hard for me – even if I don’t like something, I’ll do it just to make a person happy. I made sure this album was everything I wanted it to be. I was really selfish with it.”

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November 29, 2022
10 of the best TV shows to watch this December

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10 The Witcher: Blood Origin

A Christmas treat for fantasy fans comes in the form of this prequel series to Netflix hit The Witcher, set 1,200 years before the original series, which fortuitously stars the wonderful Michelle Yeoh, who may well soon be an Oscar- winner, thanks to her performance in dazzling multiverse drama Everything Everywhere All At Once. Here, she plays a character Scian, who is the last in the line of so-called sword-elves (ie she can do nifty things with a blade), and is on a mission to hunt down a stolen sacred sword. Expect Yeoh to put her action skills to good use, and lots of bone-crunching violence – so you may want to make sure you’ve fully digested your Christmas dinner before starting a binge.

The Witcher: Blood Origin premieres on 25 December on Netflix internationally

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November 28, 2022
Weinstein drama She Said and the films taking on abusive men

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Michaela Coel’s 2020 HBO/BBC series I May Destroy You – a semi-autobiographical account of a woman trying to solve the puzzle of her rape while navigating a publishing industry not designed for people of her race or class to feel supported – was a striking exception. Among other things, it provided complex representation of both a black female and queer experience of assault to which people from any background could viscerally relate. Li calls it the “gold standard” of these types of stories, where the victim doesn’t have to be perfect. “Arabella makes all these bad decisions, which I’ve always felt is more representative of being in a traumatic state,” the author says. “If you’ve been through that kind of trauma, you’re going to have that struggle to want to tell your own story on your own terms. I felt it was much more authentic.”

Documentaries like On the Record, Surviving R Kelly and Athlete A have shared the stories of black women abused in the entertainment industry and US gymnastics, but, when it comes to fictionalised feature films and TV shows, far more room could be made for intersectional stories of survival beyond the white norm in order to empower women of all backgrounds to speak up for themselves and others. “The East Asia and Southeast Asian communities tend to be very hesitant to speak out about sexual assault so She Said bears a pretty heavy burden in terms of representing a diversity story in a movement that has largely centred on white narratives,” says Chiu.

“There’s still a lot more space to understand the complexity and nuance of power dynamics, abuse, how abuse can happen and what the experience of abuse is like, in all its diversity across the spectrum,” adds Yeoh. “Also, what the healing journey is to come out of that because everyone’s different.”

Despite the Oscar buzz, She Said was released in the US and its opening box office did not light up – it grossed $2.25 million (£1.86 million) from 2,022 theatres. Its slow start could be simply a reminder that a lot of critical favourites fail to stimulate audience interest before award season. Or it might be a sign of fatigue over #MeToo storylines. Li certainly believes there is a backlash in terms of how people are reacting to the movement now. “Some people are rolling their eyes but the irony is that the #MeToo fight, ultimately, is about gender inequality, and that’s been going on for all of human history, since the beginning of the film industry, and only recently have big names been called out,” she says.

“It’s an incredibly short-sighted backlash for people who are, like, ‘it’s no longer hip and trendy to be doing #MeToo narratives,’” says Li. “Because it still speaks to a lived reality that many women and people of other gender experiences have to go through.”

The story didn’t end when Kantor and Twohey clicked publish in 2017; rather, it had only just begun, and while the past five years have empowered women to speak up and speak out about the systemic patriarchal abuses we face, it’s not always been easy, or welcomed. But cinema will continue to be a vital forum to confront and examine the myriad ways in which a post-#MeToo/Weinstein society succeeds or fails in protecting women. “It’s important that we keep having this conversation,” says Baughan, “[that] we keep the focus on victims of abuse and allow them to have a voice.”

She Said is out now in US and UK cinemas. Women Talking is released in US cinemas on 2 December and UK cinemas on 10 February 2023.

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November 25, 2022
11 films to watch this December

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11 films to watch this December

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Including Brendan Fraser’s Oscar-tipped performance in The Whale, James Cameron’s Avatar sequel and “a cross between Die Hard and Miracle On 34th Street” – Nicholas Barber lists this month’s unmissable releases.

(Credit: Picturehouse Entertainment)

1 Tori and Lokita

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have always written and directed urgent dramas about social injustice, but Tori and Lokita is “the angriest movie the Dardenne brothers have ever made”, says David Ehrlich at IndieWire. The film’s teenage heroes, played by Pablo Schils and Joely Mbundu, are African immigrants who live in a shelter in Belgium. They’re battling to avoid being deported, and they have to deliver drugs to pay off a gang of people traffickers, but they are sustained by their bravery, their quick wits, and their unbreakable friendship – for a while, anyway. “Never before have these implicitly political filmmakers so nakedly allowed a moral parable to burn into the stuff of mad-hot polemic,” says Ehrlich. “Its premise pulls tighter until even the simplest actions are endowed with breathless intensity.”

Released on 2 December in the UK

(Credit: Paramount Pictures)

2 Babylon

Damien Chazelle’s fascination with the golden age of Hollywood shone through his biggest film, La La Land, but the writer-director goes further in Babylon, a sprawling comedy drama that gives the film business of the 1920s and 1930s the full Boogie Nights treatment. It’s a wild cavalcade of sex-and-drugs-fuelled orgies featuring Brad Pitt as a boozy movie star, Margot Robbie as a cocaine-addled starlet, Diego Calva as a studio assistant, Jovan Adepo as a jazz trumpeter, and Jean Smart as a ruthless gossip columnist. They are all fighting for a place in “this makeshift society that had been built up really fast, in this kind of unbridled, reckless way,” Chazelle told Lauren Huff at Entertainment Weekly. “[Babylon] was a name used to describe Hollywood in those days – the idea of a sinful place, a city of decadence and depravity that was heading to ruin.”

Released on 23 December in the US and Canada, and 20 January in the UK and Ireland

3 I Wanna Dance with Somebody

In the decade since her death in 2012, Whitney Houston has been the subject of a Nick Broomfield documentary, a Kevin Macdonald documentary and a TV movie directed by Angela Bassett (who starred alongside Houston in Waiting to Exhale). All of these films focused on the singer’s relationship crises and battles with drug addiction, but the makers of I Wanna Dance with Somebody promise that their biopic, starring Naomi Ackie, is “a powerful and triumphant celebration… an inspirational, poignant – and so emotional – journey through Houston’s trailblazing life and career”. The director is Kasi Lemmons, who made 2019’s Harriet Tubman drama, Harriet, and the screenwriter/producer is Anthony McCarten, who scripted Bohemian Rhapsody, so they both know a thing or two about “powerful and triumphant” biopics.

Released on 23 December in the US and Canada, and 26 December in the UK and Ireland

(Credit: Mary McCartney/Disney+)

4 If These Walls Could Sing

The Beatles made it world-famous by naming an album after it. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page played the guitar there on the title song of Goldfinger. John Williams conducted his score for Raiders of the Lost Ark there. And those are just three of the many reasons why London’s Abbey Road Studios deserve a documentary to celebrate their 90th anniversary. If These Walls Could Sing features the affectionate reminiscences of Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Elton John, George Lucas and crowds of other devotees. It’s a stellar line-up, but then, the director is Mary McCartney, a photographer who happens to be Paul McCartney’s daughter. She has “a hell of a shared Rolodex to draw upon in gathering the firsthand rock ‘n’ roll anecdotes you expect and want in a film like this,” says Chris Willman in Variety. “She’s also savvy enough to know that the guy working in the back gluing irreplaceable mid-century microphones back together deserves a few seconds of screen time, too.”

Released on 16 December on Disney+

(Credit: DreamWorks Animation)

5 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Puss in Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas) was a swashbuckling, sword-swishing daredevil in the Shrek cartoons, and in his own solo film in 2011, but now the feline Errol Flynn has used up eight of his nine lives. The only way for him to restock is to find a magical wishing star, with the help of his love interest, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek), while dodging the Big Bad Wolf (Wagner Moura). “He never experiences fear because he’s always so cool in every situation,” the cartoon’s director, Joel Crawford, told Total Film. “But now, he’s down to his last life, and there’s a lot of comedy that comes from him being on his back foot.” The animation has been updated to include 2D and 3D elements, much like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But the really enticing part is that Goldilocks and the Three Bears are now Cockney gangsters voiced by Florence Pugh, Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman and Samson Kayo.

Released on 23 December in the US and Canada, and 3 February in the UK

(Credit: Universal Pictures)

6 Violent Night

If you’ve ever wanted to see Santa Claus snarling, “Time for some season’s beatings,” and stabbing a baddie in the eye with a star-shaped ornament, then this is the year when your Christmas wish comes true. Violent Night is an aptly titled action comedy produced by David Leitch, one of the makers of Nobody, John Wick and Atomic Blonde. David Harbour (Stranger Things, Black Widow) plays a not-so-jolly old Saint Nick. One Christmas Eve, Santa is delivering presents to a multi-millionaire’s family when a criminal mastermind (John Leguizamo) and his mercenary gang break into their mansion and take them hostage. Cue lots of over-the-top fight scenes, explosions, and jokes about who’s on the naughty list. Harbour describes the film as a cross between Die Hard and Miracle On 34th Street. Let’s ho-ho-hope he’s right.

Released on 2 December internationally

(Credit: 20th Century Studios)

7 Avatar: The Way of Water

It’s been 13 years since James Cameron’s Avatar was released, but at last it’s time to return to the planet Pandora, where Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) has been living with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and the rest of the blue-skinned Na’vi. Why the long wait? Cameron says that he has been writing not just one sequel but four: Avatars parts three to five are due to be released between now and 2028. Overall, he promises an epic science-fiction saga of a family’s growth through the decades. “It will be a natural extension of all the themes, and the characters, and the spiritual undercurrents [of the original Avatar],” Cameron told Rebecca Keegan at Vanity Fair. “Basically, if you loved the first movie, you’re gonna love these movies, and if you hated it, you’re probably gonna hate these. If you loved it at the time, and you said later you hated it, you’re probably gonna love these.”

Released internationally from 14 to 16 December

(Credit: Felix Vratny/IFC Films)

8 Corsage

The “corsage” of the title doesn’t refer to the flowers pinned to a prom dress, but the corsetry that squeezes Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps) ever more tightly. The year is 1877, and the Empress has just turned 40. Can she retain her status as a renowned beauty and fashion icon, or should she rebel against society’s constricting expectations? Maria Kreutzer’s playfully postmodern drama recalls Spencer, Pablo Larrain’s film about Princess Diana. “The Favourite and Marie Antoinette also spring to mind when watching this formally unconventional story of an unhappy royal,” says Anna Smith at Time Out. “But Kreutzer has her own style of revisionist feminist history, and aided by Krieps’s bold and brilliant turn, it’s riveting stuff.”

Released on 23 December in the US and 30 December in the UK

9 Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

At the moment, directors love to make films that are blatantly about their own lives: Roma, The Fabelmans, Belfast, The Hand of God and The Souvenir are all part of the trend. Now Alejandro G Iñárritu is taking his turn. The director of Birdman and The Revenant has made a Fellini-esque comedy drama that dives into the memories and dreams of a lauded Mexican filmmaker (Daniel Giménez Cacho) as he prepares to accept a prestigious award. Three hours of navel-gazing will be too much for some viewers, but there are enough stunning, surreal sequences to make it all worthwhile. “This is deeply personal, immersive cinema,” says David Rooney at The Hollywood Reporter, “that evinces much soul-searching, about both individual and national cultural identity, creeping mortality, the price of acclaim, the conflicted heart of the returning expatriate, the porousness of time and the seductive labyrinth of memory.”

Released on 16 December on Netflix

(Credit: Searchlight Pictures)

10 Empire of Light

After two Bond movies and one all-action war thriller, 1917, Sam Mendes changes pace with a gentler, more personal project: Empire of Light is the first film he has scripted himself, without any co-writers. Set in and around a fading cinema in an English seaside town in the early 1980s, Mendes’s bittersweet comedy drama tells the stories of its troubled deputy manager (Olivia Colman), her lecherous boss (Colin Firth), and a handsome new recruit (Micheal Ward) who has to deal with racist abuse. “Sam Mendes’ beautifully old-fashioned, emotional ode to cinema, and the cinemas of his youth… is a treasure worthy of its own magnificently crumbling Art Deco Screens 1 and 2,” says Fionnuala Halligan in Screen International. “Its message of love, tolerance and finding family wherever you can should make an impact in darkened rooms wherever it plays.”

Released on 9 December in the US and Canada, and 13 January in the UK and Ireland

11 The Whale

You never know what’s going to happen at the Oscars, but it would be a major upset if Brendan Fraser didn’t snag a best actor nomination for his touching performance in The Whale, a chamber piece directed by Darren Aronofsky, and adapted from the play by Samuel D Hunter. Fraser plays Charlie, an English lecturer who is so obese that he can barely get out of his chair, let alone his apartment. Various visitors, including his loyal carer (Hong Chau) and his bitter estranged daughter (Sadie Sink), realise that if he doesn’t change his life, he will die within the week. “Fraser – in his first major role for almost a decade – imbues Charlie with warmth and optimism despite the layers of make-up, prosthetics, and video effects,” says Hannah Strong at Little White Lies. “He captures Charlie’s deep guilt and sadness around how he has lived his life, and an aching desire to love and be loved.”

Released on 9 December in the US and Canada, and on 3 February in the UK and Ireland

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November 24, 2022