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Fri 18 Sept 2026

Spotlight

‘The damage was much worse than I had imagined’

The shocking inside story of Salman Rushdie’s survival

After ​the writer was stabbed in a horrific attack, his wife started making a video diary of his recovery. The clips are featured in a new film from Alex Gibney, who drew on Dennis Potter to create a powerful portrait of Rushdie’s tumultuous life
Salman sitting down, with Eliza and Alex stood behind him
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Picks of the week

Two rows of female dancers wearing headscarves and short skirts are lined up opposite each other holding giant bananas above their heads to form a tunnel
The 20 best Busby Berkeley dance routines – ranked!
Human harps, massive bananas and dogging
Benedict Cumberbatch sits on grand stone steps in the Natural History Museum, gazing upward
‘We are in the last grab of the extraction era’
Benedict Cumberbatch on his Earth-saving eco film
Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell raises both arms while speaking in a domed courtroom filled with onlookers
Tom Cruise
"Your mission is to improve at interviews. And please keep sending the cakes"
Nicolas Winding Refn, in glasses and a dark blazer, adjusts his glasses frame
‘I thank God for killing me and bringing me back’:
Nicolas Winding Refn on the heart surgery that inspired his new sci-fi horror
Mina Dale gently cups Chirag Lobo's face as they stand close, gazing into each other's eyes
‘When you tell people the story, it’s almost too good to be true’
The incredible journey behind The Cycle of Love
Screengrab from the trailer for Wuthering Heights: House of the Damned (2026)
quote  Why stop at Wuthering Heights: House of the Damned? Bring on Mrs Dalloway’s Rampage!
Stuart Heritage
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Peter Bradshaw's film of the week

Queen at Sea

Crushingly sad dementia drama offers a startling portrait of intimacy

★★★★★
Driven by fine performances from Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall, Lance Hammer’s comeback is unbearable in its tragic candour and essential in its moral questioning
Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall in Lance Hammer’s Queen at Sea.
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Make a Feast out of anything

The Feast app: your most useful kitchen utensil
Get inspired with more than 7,000 recipes from our world-class cooks and smart, exclusive features to make cooking a breeze.

 

This week's reviews

Film still from Bad Apples, showing a teacher, played by Saoirse Ronan, in a classroom wearing a grey hoodie and holding a drink in a plastic container.
Bad Apples
Saoirse Ronan’s suffering teacher best thing about school horror-satire
★★☆☆☆
Simon Abkarian as De Gaulle (left) and Campbell Scott as Roosevelt (right) in De Gaulle: Liberté.
De Gaulle: Liberté
Biopic of conquering French war hero reaches his imperial era
★★★★☆
A family in the Mexican town of El Alberto, featured in the documentary Night of the Coyotes
Night of the Coyotes
Border-crossing role-play is tourist attraction in struggling Mexican town
★★★☆☆
A woman and a man sit side by side, the woman smiling and looking at him, while he looks a bit confused
Premature
Sunny charm provides screwball energy for surprise-pregnancy comedy
★★★☆☆
A young man sits on a rooftop ledge holding a machete, overlooking Barrio Triste at dusk
Barrio Triste
Raw and dynamic portrait of anarchic slum life in 1980s Medellín
★★★☆☆
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We recommend

Only God Forgives – Nicolas Refn takes Ryan Gosling through the Bangkok underworld

★★★★★
It’s a brilliant, macabre and ultraviolent anti-revenge movie – but not quite how you expect
Ryan Gosling, as Julian in Only God Forgives, leans forward in a dimly lit orange hallway