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Culture

  • Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne, 1967 by Francis Bacon © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2024. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

    Art
    Francis Bacon: Human Presence – ‘This whirligig of horrors is the best Bacon show I’ve ever seen’

    The hard-living artist’s distorted figures – deformed to reveal mortality, sex and death – often left their subjects feeling injured. But this biting show should leave crowds astonished
  • Slugging it out … Bernal in La Maquina.

    Television
    Return of the Mexican sex bombs: Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna on their boxing comedy La Máquina

    They shot to fame as randy teens in Y Tu Máma También. Now the duo are back in a tale of Botox, boxing and borderline incest. Getting in shape took discipline, they reveal – and lots of broccoli
  • Denis and Margaret Thatcher with her PA, Cynthia Crawford, after the Brighton bomb attack in 1984

    TV review
    Bombing Brighton: The Plot to Kill Thatcher – her shaky post-blast interview says it all

    Guy King’s documentary analyses the politics and history that led to the deadly IRA attack on the Conservative party conference in 1984 with care and intelligence
  • Rivals.

    TV review
    Rivals – an eye-popping explosion of sex, more sex and bad wigs

    Like a perfect cross between Carry On and Eurotrash, the Jilly Cooper classic starts with a couple bonking on a Concorde – and only ramps up from there. Brace yourself for a supremely fun time
    • Nice touch … Boombass performing during the Paris 2024 Paralympics closing ceremony.

      Music
      ‘Look at this. We are back’: the impossible return of French touch titans Cassius

    • Mire Lee’s Open Wound at Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

      Art and design
      Mire Lee’s Turbine Hall – as kitsch as tatty Halloween decorations

    • Jennifer Salke in a red suit poses seated for a photograph

      Film
      ‘Bond’s audience will be patient’: Amazon MGM Studios’ boss on the hunt for a new 007

    • Satisfactory, game, screenshot, a first-person open-world factory building game

      Satisfactory, the factory-building game so compelling it has invaded my dreams

      Patrick Lum
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News

  • Heath Ledger as the Joker

    Art and design
    Heath Ledger’s Joker was based on a Francis Bacon painting, says Christopher Nolan

    Hollywood director is one of several leading creatives to speak of Bacon’s influence ahead of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery
  • The Southern River Band performing at the Great Escape festival in May 2024.

    Music
    The Great Escape festival no longer sponsored by Barclays, after criticism of Israel links

  • A man pushes a trolley by high shelves of stone objects

    English Heritage
    Wellington’s false teeth and wolf bones: English Heritage seeks help to record vast collection

  • Art and design
    Outside Frieze’s big tent, the London art world faces severe headwinds

  • Media
    Veteran DJ Johnnie Walker to retire from radio after 58 years

  • Books
    Salman Rushdie to publish first work of fiction since 2022 stabbing

  • Film
    Motherboard to Nightbitch: maternity in spotlight at London film festival

  • Music
    ‘Stay away from gangsterism’: freed dancehall star Vybz Kartel on his regrets after 13 years in jail

  • Film
    Traffic wardens issue tickets for vehicles on Daniel Day-Lewis film set

Reviews

  • The Cat and the Canary at Minerva theatre, Chichester.

    Stage
    The Cat and the Canary – 1920s mystery stuffed with preposterous pleasures

  • Stephen Tung (left) and Terrance Lau in Stuntman.

    Film
    Stuntman – spirited love letter to golden age of Hong Kong’s action movies

    Stephen Tung plays a former 80s director-stuntman drawn back into the present-day action-film industry as it faces an identity crisis
  • Manifestation of pain … (L to r), Rupert Turnbull (Isaac) and Julia Brown (Laura) in Daddy’s Head.

    Film
    Daddy’s Head – a creature emerges from grief in clever British psychological horror

    Director Benjamin Barfoot explores how heartbreak connects with darkness as pre-teen Isaac sees his dead father return
  • Mother and adult daughter sit on a bed, with childhood toys visible

    Film
    A Long Journey Home – family pressures reach boiling point in a shocking documentary

  • Rumaan Alam posing for a portrait

    Fiction
    Entitlement by Rumaan Alam – meandering study of money’s corrupting influence

  • Reagan at a 1984 debate against Democrat Walter Mondale.

    Books
    Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot review – a head of state lost without a script

  • She sits at a typewriter in a wood-panelled office, looking contemplative

    Film
    In Her Place – true-crime drama of a court worker fascinated by author in the dock

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Regulars

  • ‘The moments he improvised were unexpected gifts’ … Hauer and C Thomas Howell with pennies on his eyes, in the 1986 cult hit.

    Film
    ‘Rutger Hauer said he didn’t play bad guys’: how we made chiller classic The Hitcher

    ‘Rutger seemed to terrify everyone on the set and was pretty much left alone. I once went to his trailer for lunch and we sat in dead silence as he chain-smoked’
  • James Blunt

    Honest playlist
    ‘I can’t listen to Angels – Robbie Williams stole my drummer’: James Blunt’s honest playlist

  • Armando Iannucci.

    On my radar
    On my radar: Armando Iannucci’s cultural highlights

  • David Gilmour
    David Gilmour: ‘The rich and powerful have siphoned off the majority of music industry money’

  • Film
    Time tunnels, bathing in blood and wonton soup: movies about the search for eternal youth – ranked!

  • My best shot
    Noel Fielding and an exposed bellybutton: Dave Brown’s best photograph

  • How we made
    ‘It was a really lonely time’: Alison Moyet and Dave Stewart on making Is This Love?

Staying in

  • The Grand hotel, Brighton at night after the bomb attack on 12 October 1984.

    What's on tonight
    TV tonight: the Brighton bomb plot to kill Margaret Thatcher

  • The Boy and the Heron.

    The seven best films to watch on TV this week
    The Boy and the Heron to Knox Goes Away: the seven best films to watch on TV this week

    A mind-bending masterpiece from Studio Ghibli, and Michael Keaton at his all-time best. Plus: a beautiful documentary that will surely win Oscars
  • Cate Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft and Sacha Baron Cohen as Robert Ravenscroft in Disclaimer.

    The seven best shows to stream this week
    Disclaimer to La Máquina: the seven best shows to stream this week

    Cate Blanchett and Alfonso Cuarón’s gripping, tricksy and startlingly sexually explicit drama lands, along with Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna’s lively tale of an ageing boxer. Plus: vomiting cakes!
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Pictures & video

  • An overhead shot of a circular human tower surrounded by a wider circle of watchers

    The human towers of Tarragona – in pictures

    Tarragona hosts a biannual competition to form the tallest human tower
  • ‘Something magic happens when they get together’ … Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt.

    On set
    ‘Noel and Julian were possibly aroused’: The Mighty Boosh turns 20 – in pictures

  • Scraps of genius … The Drift by Maeve Brennan, 2017

    Jarman award
    A wild ride! Prize nominees go on tour – in pictures

  • Travel photography
    Lost highways: an offbeat road trip through forgotten America – in pictures

  • Photography
    Bodybuilders, gravediggers and a pile-up of pugs! Group outings – in pictures

  • Photography
    Association of Photographers Awards – winners

  • Art and design
    Salons, strippers and sexy beach kisses: American street life – in pictures

  • Art and design
    ‘How would I ever make sense of this place?’: new eyes on New York – in pictures

  • Travel photography
    Subversive holiday snaps: the travels of Luigi Ghirri – in pictures

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You may have missed

  • Dancing columns … Peckham Library, designed by Will Alsop.

    Architecture
    ‘I make dreams come true’: Hanif Kara, the magician who makes impossible buildings stay up

    He has had a hand in some of the 21st-century’s most daring structures – including Zaha Hadid’s Phaeno science centre. We meet the Uganda-born engineer, who has just won architecture’s prestigious Soane medal
  • illustration of crime scene

    True crime
    ‘The facts of the case were so disturbing’: Kate Summerscale on our obsession with true crime

  • Barbara Kingsolver photographed at her home in Virginia by Ian Curcio for the Observer New Review, August 2024.

    Books
    ‘I’ve dealt with anti-hillbilly bigotry all my life’: Barbara Kingsolver on why Demon Copperhead was such a hit

  • A portrait of Joe Locke, with short dark curly hair and wearing a dark red jacket, against a bright blue background

    Television
    ‘I want to get hate-tweeted by Donald Trump!’: Heartstopper’s Joe Locke on trolls, typecasting and turning to the dark side

  • “People think I must be really messed up. but I swear I’m a happy, well-adjusted human”, says Ella Purnell.

    Television
    ‘I can’t do gore and I’m not a gamer’: Ella Purnell on being an unlikely scream queen

  • 'Rising Damp' TV Programme. - 1974<br>Editorial use only Mandatory Credit: Photo by ITV/Shutterstock (4270944a) Leonard Rossiter with his cat Vienna 'Rising Damp' TV Programme. - 1974

    Culture
    ‘It was hard not to stare at him all the time’: inside the remarkable rise and shocking loss of Leonard Rossiter

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