In Jonah Hill's latest comedy, a Hollywood megastar relies on his friends to help get his life back on track. So, how do Outcome stars Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer balance fame, family and friendship?
Add Outcome to your watchlist In a converted aircraft hangar in Santa Monica, Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer are in front of assembled journalists and influencers. Part of Apple TV’s lavish 2026 showcase, they’re in town to promote Outcome, a scabrous new comedy co-written, co-produced and directed by Jonah Hill. On stage, the trio pretend that Hill – the Oscar-nominated star of The Wolf of Wall Street – has scripted their words, announcing he’s “Meryl Streep versatile” and has “the charisma of Timothée Chalamet”. In truth, it’s hard to imagine Hill penning this softball spiel. On set, “Jonah would love to give everybody lines to say that are quite funny or challenging or ridiculous or extreme,” Reeves tells me the next day, tucked away in a discreet LA hotel. He’s not wrong: Outcome is a prickly Hollywood satire that bites the hand that feeds. Reeves plays Reef Hawk, an Oscar-winning Hollywood megastar, recovering drug addict and all-round douchebag, who ducked out of the business for five years to get clean from heroin – only to return just as a blackmailer threatens to leak a career-crushing video. “I just was like, poor Reef, poor guy,” says Reeves, dressed today in limo-black. “He’s not really a bad guy. But he’s kind of an asshole. F***ed up a lot.” Like his character, Reeves is one of the biggest stars on the planet, thanks to action films like Speed, The Matrix and John Wick. But mellow-voiced and ultra laid-back, Reeves does feel far removed from the anxious, addiction-grappling Reef. “I could understand some of the parameters,” he admits, “but I didn’t really have the experience of that character. I could draw from my life, but it wasn’t biographical.” View Green Video on the source website When we meet, Reeves has just come off a Broadway run of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, co-starring Alex Winter, his cohort from the Bill & Ted’s… comedy films. But more often his comic talents have been overlooked. “Comedy is hard!” he exclaims, “especially when you’re not trying to be funny.” Was it a case of, at 61, turning to the lighter side of the film industry because his knees could no longer take the impact of a gruelling action shoot? “I don’t know if it was a reaction to anything,” he says. “I mean, I do love being in comedies.” Despite being a comedy, Outcome shows how lonely it can be at the top. As Reef reunites with people from his past amid his search for the blackmailer, the film is really asking: how can facing who we were, shape who we are today? “I guess it depends on what you’re looking at and what you can see and can’t see, right?” says Reeves. Born in Beirut, Reeves’s school years were in Toronto, a “down-to-earth” environment to grow up in. “The grade school that I went to… I always look back fondly on my earlier childhood there,” he says. “It was multiracial. People with money, people without money – there was a real mix of people and it was great. I wasn’t exposed to racism or anything like that. If there were fights, it’s because you didn’t get along. It wasn’t because of where you came from or who you were.And I think in this film, part of it is getting a reflection of self through your friendships – people who’ve known you for a while.” The people Reef has in his court are best friends Kyle (Diaz) and Xander (Bomer), and Ira (Hill) an unctuous, fast-talking crisis lawyer who firefights high-profile scandals (“Tom Hanks body-slammed his housekeeper,” he yells at one point). Diaz has known fame for almost as long as Reeves, debuting in 1994’s The Mask opposite Jim Carrey when she was 21 – and turning into one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, thanks to films like Charlie’s Angels, Vanilla Sky and Gangs of New York. Then, in 2015, she took a step back, marrying musician Benji Madden, becoming a mother and investing in everything from organic wine to wellness (she wrote The Longevity Book, about the art of growing older). A year ago, she returned from her Hollywood hiatus with the Netflix comedy Back in Action. “You just do what you love and prioritise,” she says, fizzing with energy. “A friend of mine said many years ago, you only have 100 per cent in life to give, and you have to figure out how you’re going to divide up that 100 per cent and what percentage you’re going to put in each bucket of your life. And I think at best, you try to split it as evenly as possible. But there’s always a priority. And for me, it’s my family. So even when I’m doing all these other things, my family is first and foremost.” Outcome is a sharp reminder of the perils of success. “For me, it was about understanding proximity to fame and public notoriety,” says Bomer, 48 – a Golden Globe winner for his role in Ryan Murphy’s TV drama The Normal Heart, who has yet to achieve the levels of fame that Diaz or Reeves has. “For better or worse, I had a lot of friends who achieved a certain level of success long before I did. So I understood what it was like to watch a friend go through that, and all the trials and errors that we all make when that happens. And so, I think I tried to draw from that.” Hill has claimed Outcome “uses fame as a metaphor for what we all go through on social media”. Diaz – who has over 12 million followers on Instagram – elaborates. “Social media makes everybody famous,” she says. “Depending on how many likes you have, you can be famous wherever you go. Everybody thinks they are reaching for it. But maybe this reveals a little bit what it feels like on the inside of the extreme circumstance.” Just as Reef has support from his oldest friends, keeping in contact with those you met before you were famous is crucial. “Childhood friends... I’m still close with a lot of them,” nods Bomer, who grew up in Missouri (and is a distant cousin of Justin Timberlake). The San Diego-born Diaz is another who makes it a point to keep in touch. “I don’t talk to my friends all the time, but we connect when we can,” she says. “[I’ll often say], ‘I’m sorry I didn’t text you for two weeks. I meant to write you back!’” But perhaps the most wince-inducing moment in Outcome is when Reef confronts his mother (All My Children soap star Susan Lucci), finally realising that she’s a person herself as well as the woman that raised him. “That’s one of the journeys of life, isn’t it?” says Reeves, whose own mother Patricia, a costume designer, raised him after divorcing his father. “You start off screaming for air. Maybe you don’t scream, but as a child you can’t see.” Since becoming a mother – to daughter Raddix, 6, and son, Cardinal, 2 – Diaz has been struck by this. “As a parent, you go, ‘Oh, I have to wait until they’re 40 for them to see I’m a human being!’” Whatever the outcome – Hollywood star or not – success can’t be a person’s sole pursuit. “It’s about growth, it’s about self-awareness,” says Diaz. “It’s about going, ‘Who am I and what do I want out of life? What do I have to do? What do I have to give up?’”
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie review: Animated sequel is vibrant but paper-thin
The ‘family is forever’ theme looms large, but never once feels sincere or authentic.
Nintendo’s colourful characters, Mario and Luigi, are back for Level 2. In 2023, The Super Mario Bros Movie powered up in cinemas, grossing $1.361 billion and gaining three Oscar nods. Created by Illumination, the animation company behind the Minions, this wild adventure plunged audiences into a 3D-realised world that was instantly familiar to anyone who has played any of the video games fronted by everyone’s favourite moustachioed, dungarees-wearing Brooklyn plumbers. Returning us to the lurid, trippy Mushroom Kingdom, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is equally barmy, if not quite as fresh or funny as its predecessor. Loosely based on the 2007 game Super Mario Galaxy and its 2010 sequel, this new film introduces fan-favourite character Yoshi, the cuddly-ish green dinosaur – here voiced by Donald Glover – who has a rapacious appetite. Like in the game, he consumes things, even people, and turns them into eggs. He soon meets with Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), in an adventure that starts as Princess Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson) is captured by a giant flying saucer, leaving her ‘babies’, the star-shaped, glowing Luma, at a loss for what to do. Behind this abduction is the evil Bowser Jr (Benny Safdie) who is building a super weapon and needs her magic to power it. His father Bowser (Jack Black) remains shrunken to the size of a doll – all thanks to Mario’s actions at the end of the last movie. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Mario movie without Princess Peach (Anna Taylor-Joy), the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), who become instrumental in mounting the mission to save Rosalina. As plots go, it’s standard fare, although Nintendo fans will surely get a kick out an appearance by Fox McCloud, the protagonist from the Star Fox series and here voiced by Glen Powell (even if the character looks a little too much like Nick Wilde, the foxy lead in Disney’s Zootopia). Like its predecessor, the movie is at its best when it integrates classic Mario game-play styles into the narrative. There’s a lovely platform-like interlude where characters are ducking and diving through a security system built by Bowser Jr – who, amusingly, is controlling the boobytraps as if he’s playing a video game, with his monitor even displaying the action in rudimentary 8-bit graphics. There’s also a charming appearance by Honey Queen (Issa Rae), a regal character from the Mario-verse. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of these moments. Co-directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, who return after helming the earlier Mario movie, the animation is vibrant, with each frame lovingly filled with detail. It’s just a shame the formulaic story feels about as paper-thin as you might expect from an adaptation of a ladders-and-levels video game. As is so common in these Hollywood animations, the ‘family is forever’ theme looms large, but never once feels sincere or authentic. View Green Video on the source website From the voice cast, Benny Safdie (the recent director of The Smashing Machine and soon to be seen in Chris Nolan’s The Odyssey) has a blast as Bowser Jr, as does Glover as the lovable Yoshi, but there aren’t too many others who reach their level. Pratt, Day and Black all feel a little subdued, perhaps because the script by Matthew Fogel doesn’t exactly come armed with zingers. While it’s likely that retro gamers won’t find anything here that wasn’t in the first movie – Yoshi and one or two others aside – it’s no doubt got enough for kids to enjoy, which will surely come as a relief for parents looking to entertain their offspring over the Easter holidays. You never know – it might even convince them to put down their controllers, or their phones, for ninety-odd minutes. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is released in UK cinemas on Wednesday 1 April. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Cameron Diaz, Keanu Reeves and Matt Bomer talk new comedy Outcome: "Social media makes everybody famous"
In Jonah Hill’s latest comedy, a Hollywood megastar relies on his friends to help get his life back on track. So, how do Outcome stars Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer balance fame, family and friendship?
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. In a converted aircraft hangar in Santa Monica, Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer are in front of assembled journalists and influencers. Part of Apple TV’s lavish 2026 showcase, they’re in town to promote Outcome, a scabrous new comedy co-written, co-produced and directed by Jonah Hill. On stage, the trio pretend that Hill – the Oscar-nominated star of The Wolf of Wall Street – has scripted their words, announcing he’s “Meryl Streep versatile” and has “the charisma of Timothée Chalamet”. In truth, it’s hard to imagine Hill penning this softball spiel. On set, “Jonah would love to give everybody lines to say that are quite funny or challenging or ridiculous or extreme,” Reeves tells me the next day, tucked away in a discreet LA hotel. He’s not wrong: Outcome is a prickly Hollywood satire that bites the hand that feeds. Reeves plays Reef Hawk, an Oscar-winning Hollywood megastar, recovering drug addict and all-round douchebag, who ducked out of the business for five years to get clean from heroin – only to return just as a blackmailer threatens to leak a career-crushing video. “I just was like, poor Reef, poor guy,” says Reeves, dressed today in limo-black. “He’s not really a bad guy. But he’s kind of an asshole. F**ked up a lot.” Like his character, Reeves is one of the biggest stars on the planet, thanks to action films like Speed, The Matrix and John Wick. But mellow-voiced and ultra laid-back, Reeves does feel far removed from the anxious, addiction-grappling Reef. “I could understand some of the parameters,” he admits, “but I didn’t really have the experience of that character. I could draw from my life, but it wasn’t biographical.” View Green Video on the source website When we meet, Reeves has just come off a Broadway run of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, co-starring Alex Winter, his cohort from the Bill & Ted’s… comedy films. But more often his comic talents have been overlooked. “Comedy is hard!” he exclaims, “especially when you’re not trying to be funny.” Was it a case of, at 61, turning to the lighter side of the film industry because his knees could no longer take the impact of a gruelling action shoot? “I don’t know if it was a reaction to anything,” he says. “I mean, I do love being in comedies.” Despite being a comedy, Outcome shows how lonely it can be at the top. As Reef reunites with people from his past amid his search for the blackmailer, the film is really asking: how can facing who we were, shape who we are today? “I guess it depends on what you’re looking at and what you can see and can’t see, right?” says Reeves. Born in Beirut, Reeves’s school years were in Toronto, a “down-to-earth” environment to grow up in. “The grade school that I went to… I always look back fondly on my earlier childhood there,” he says. “It was multiracial. People with money, people without money – there was a real mix of people and it was great. I wasn’t exposed to racism or anything like that. If there were fights, it’s because you didn’t get along. It wasn’t because of where you came from or who you were.And I think in this film, part of it is getting a reflection of self through your friendships – people who’ve known you for a while.” The people Reef has in his court are best friends Kyle (Diaz) and Xander (Bomer), and Ira (Hill) an unctuous, fast-talking crisis lawyer who firefights high-profile scandals (“Tom Hanks body-slammed his housekeeper,” he yells at one point). Diaz has known fame for almost as long as Reeves, debuting in 1994’s The Mask opposite Jim Carrey when she was 21 – and turning into one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, thanks to films like Charlie’s Angels, Vanilla Sky and Gangs of New York. Then, in 2015, she took a step back, marrying musician Benji Madden, becoming a mother and investing in everything from organic wine to wellness (she wrote The Longevity Book, about the art of growing older). A year ago, she returned from her Hollywood hiatus with the Netflix comedy Back in Action. “You just do what you love and prioritise,” she says, fizzing with energy. “A friend of mine said many years ago, you only have 100 per cent in life to give, and you have to figure out how you’re going to divide up that 100 per cent and what percentage you’re going to put in each bucket of your life. And I think at best, you try to split it as evenly as possible. But there’s always a priority. And for me, it’s my family. So even when I’m doing all these other things, my family is first and foremost.” Outcome is a sharp reminder of the perils of success. “For me, it was about understanding proximity to fame and public notoriety,” says Bomer, 48 – a Golden Globe winner for his role in Ryan Murphy’s TV drama The Normal Heart, who has yet to achieve the levels of fame that Diaz or Reeves has. “For better or worse, I had a lot of friends who achieved a certain level of success long before I did. So I understood what it was like to watch a friend go through that, and all the trials and errors that we all make when that happens. And so, I think I tried to draw from that.” Hill has claimed Outcome “uses fame as a metaphor for what we all go through on social media”. Diaz – who has over 12 million followers on Instagram – elaborates. “Social media makes everybody famous,” she says. “Depending on how many likes you have, you can be famous wherever you go. Everybody thinks they are reaching for it. But maybe this reveals a little bit what it feels like on the inside of the extreme circumstance.” Just as Reef has support from his oldest friends, keeping in contact with those you met before you were famous is crucial. “Childhood friends... I’m still close with a lot of them,” nods Bomer, who grew up in Missouri (and is a distant cousin of Justin Timberlake). The San Diego-born Diaz is another who makes it a point to keep in touch. “I don’t talk to my friends all the time, but we connect when we can,” she says. “[I’ll often say], ‘I’m sorry I didn’t text you for two weeks. I meant to write you back!’” But perhaps the most wince-inducing moment in Outcome is when Reef confronts his mother (All My Children soap star Susan Lucci), finally realising that she’s a person herself as well as the woman that raised him. “That’s one of the journeys of life, isn’t it?” says Reeves, whose own mother Patricia, a costume designer, raised him after divorcing his father. “You start off screaming for air. Maybe you don’t scream, but as a child you can’t see.” Since becoming a mother – to daughter Raddix, six, and son, Cardinal, two – Diaz has been struck by this. “As a parent, you go, ‘Oh, I have to wait until they’re 40 for them to see I’m a human being!’” Whatever the outcome – Hollywood star or not – success can’t be a person’s sole pursuit. “It’s about growth, it’s about self-awareness,” says Diaz. “It’s about going, ‘Who am I and what do I want out of life? What do I have to do? What do I have to give up?’” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Mother's Pride review: Like an inoffensive light ale, slips down more pleasantly than you might expect
Martin Clunes, Mark Addy and James Buckley star in this feel-good comedy set in a British pub.
From Local Hero to The Full Monty and Fisherman’s Friends, the feel-good comedy has always been a staple of British cinemas. Mother’s Pride fits neatly alongside these and others. Set in Somerset, it’s the sort of movie designed to appeal to the real ale crowd, with its story of a small, independent pub going up against a successful chain and brewing its way to success. The film stars Martin Clunes as Mick, the curmudgeonly landlord of The Drovers Arms, an ale house on its last legs. It’s not hard to see why. Mick is still grief-stricken over the loss of his wife. Living with son Jake (James Buckley), a single parent, he’s also cut up about the disappearance of his other son Cal (Jonno Davies), who took off to become a musician and never even returned for his mother’s funeral. But this failed pop star with just one hit to his name, ‘Guiding Light’, now returns, broke and with his tail between his legs. Mick hardly welcomes him with open arms. With bills mounting up and the bailiffs hovering, the pub is facing repossession – until Cal takes it upon himself to dive into his grandfather’s recipe book and start concocting a mild ale. “Brewing’s in our blood,” he says, and despite an early cock-up – way too much sugar in the mix gives them all a blinding hangover – they come up with a brew that might yet save the pub. The plan is to enter it into a regional competition before heading to the finals in London, in the hope that a high-profile win might give the pub a blaze of much-needed publicity. Director Nick Moorcroft knows exactly how to chisel out these family-friendly regional comedies. With Meg Leonard, he co-wrote Cornish male choir tale Fisherman’s Friends and its 2022 sequel Fisherman’s Friends: One And All, which he directed, and he and Leonard re-team here. Much like the Fisherman’s Friends films, this offers few surprises but plenty of charm. The script is a little too over-stuffed – family grief, mental health, and single parenthood are all squeezed in – and the innuendo in some scenes gets a bit tiresome (jokes about dogging don’t fit). Still, Moorcroft casts this cosy charmer with some familiar faces: Mark Addy as a barfly; Whose Line Is It Anyway? staple Josie Lawrence as a saucy local; and Luke Treadaway, as rival brewer Pritchard, whose family owns a string of pubs and is the two-time winner of the brewing competition that The Drovers Arms is entering. Then there’s Gabriella Wilde as schoolteacher Abi, the local girl left behind by Cal, who has since hooked up with Prichard, against her better judgement. View Green Video on the source website Clunes’s misery act is fun, furthering his recent renaissance after his sublime turn in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, while the talented Davies gets to show us his more human side – following his CG-monkey in the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man. The shaggy-haired Buckley also shows how he’s matured as an actor, far removed from his puerile pupil Jay in The Inbetweeners. Fear not, though, for he does deliver the occasional zinger (“like something Keith Richards coughed up,” he says, after a night on the homebrew). Along the way, there are some amusing scenes, especially when Addy’s Paxman and Buckley’s Jake go Morris Dancing to ’70s funk like ‘Daddy Cool’ and ‘DISCO’, and Moorcroft even manages to shoehorn in a nod to how many pubs are closing down every month in Britain, suggesting we guard against old traditions from disappearing and being swallowed up by corporate greed. Like an inoffensive light ale, the result slips down more pleasantly than you might expect. Mother's Pride is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Moment review: A perfect way to finally bang a nail in the Brat coffin
Charli xcx plays herself in this amusing-if-not-always-merciless mock-documentary.
"Are you doin' a Joaquin Phoenix-like thing?" With a handheld camera capturing her in uncomfortable close-up, it’s a question British dance-pop sensation Charli xcx is asked in The Moment, an amusing-if-not-always-merciless mock-documentary that never quite goes to the extremes of Phoenix's piss-taking 2010 film I’m Still Here, where he – fairly convincingly – fooled the world that he was having a meltdown. The Moment is all set around Brat, the album that sent Charli stratospheric, with its distinct slime-green branding and don’t-give-a-f**k attitude. "How do we keep this 'Brat' thing going?" asks Rosanna Arquette’s spiky record executive Tammy Pitman, surrounded by a phalanx of useless 'yes' men. It’s no doubt an echo of conversations Charli faced for real, as the corporate machine looked to squeeze every last bit of juice out of 2024’s 'Brat summer'. The answer to Pitman’s question is twofold. As Charli prepares for a huge O2 gig, she’s pushed into doing a concert film, directed by the slightly sketchy Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård), who immediately starts throwing "creative" ideas around – the worst of which sees Charli put inside a giant cigarette lighter on stage that shoots flames out of the top. At the same time, Charli’s endorsing a new green-coloured 'Brat' credit card aimed at the LGBTQ community. On Charli’s side, she has ineffectual manager Tim (Jamie Demetriou) and her stage designer Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates), but as the gig gets closer, tempers fray, egos swell and Charli's artistic juices run dry. "Everybody’s so desperate for me to be so f**king innovative," she cries. Maybe she should’ve paid more attention to the bird that is living in the rafters of the O2 and dropping excrement all over the floor – surly an omen if ever there was one. A particularly amusing segment sees her escape to a spa hotel, only to be left further frazzled after an encounter with Kylie Jenner, playing herself in a wince-inducing exchange of fake pleasantries. There are plenty of other cameo 'as herself' appearances, including Julia Fox and Rachel Sennott, although most are blink-and-you’ll-miss-them, as they pass through the vortex that is Charli's world of hedonistic parties and Instagram-fuelled promotions. View oEmbed on the source website Scripted by Bertie Brandes and co-written and directed by Scottish debutant Aidan Zamiri, The Moment aims to replicate the typical mock-doc style, with frantic, stomach-flipping handheld camerawork, coupled with brightly-coloured visuals that mirror the 'Brat' branding. That’s all very well, but it gets a little tiresome over the film’s slim 103 minutes. And there are segments, when Charli is enjoying some downtime, where it’s hard to imagine a documentary crew would intrude. Where the film scores is its skewering of the music industry, and the way artists are frequently forced to either compromise or repeat past successes for the sake of the bottom line. The outcome of the 'Brat' bank card debacle is particularly funny (as is the fact that sandwich chain Pret adopt a similar green colour for their rebranded logo). Turning away from Charli's music for the final scene, the choice of The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony feels very apt indeed. At its heart, Charli is an able performer, capable of playing herself without ever feeling self-conscious. It’s an impressive rendering of the craziness she knows all too well, when everyone wants a piece of you. Dangling from a wire and hovering high over the stage in one scene, you also suspect that she’s having a sly dig at her fellow performers – Taylor Swift being an obvious example – with the slickly produced shows and tour films cranked out to feed the fan frenzy. Whatever the case, The Moment feels a perfect way to finally bang a nail in the ‘Brat’ coffin. The Moment is released in UK cinemas on Friday 20 February 2026. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Animol review: Adolescence star Ashley Walters makes an impressive, confident directorial debut
This prison drama exploring the hardcore complexities that come with incarceration is led by brilliant young star Tut Nyuot.
It’s a good year for fans of the British prison drama. Hot on the heels of Wasteman – due out in UK cinemas this week – we have Animol. Receiving its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, in the Perspectives strand, this tense tale marks the feature directorial debut of Ashley Walters. The star of shows like Top Boy and, more recently, Adolescence and A Thousand Blows, of which he directed three episodes, Walters showcases some serious young talent here, notably Tut Nyuot, who previously featured in The Long Walk, and Netflix drama Steve, alongside Cillian Murphy. Here, he plays Troy, brought into a young offender institution on remand as he faces grave charges: conspiracy to commit murder. Arriving the same day as the Polish-born Krystian (Vladislav Baliuk), with whom he soon forms a tight bond, he also runs into the very dangerous Dion (Sekou Diaby). Either Troy smuggles in a phone or D – as he calls himself – is going to make life very difficult for him. Thankfully, Krystian causes a distraction to help Troy sneak the burner past the guards, but it won’t be the last time D calls upon him. Placed in a cell with the highly unstable Mason (Ryan Dean), Troy is soon told by D to cut his cellmate, using a homemade weapon, a razor blade implanted in a toothbrush head. “It’s either you or it's him,” he’s told. After confronting Mason in front of others, he can’t bring himself to deliver this most vicious of warning signs. He’s not a violent lad by nature; all he’s trying to do is survive any way he can, something the script shows very well, as it ticks off the days he’s inside. Scripted by Nick Love, with whom Walters collaborated on TV show Bulletproof, this feels like a million miles away from the excessive, boyish tone of Love’s own movies as a director (most recently, the Danny Dyer-starring Marching Powder). Of course, Animol comes nowhere near the brutal nature of Alan Clarke’s Scum – still the Daddy of all Brit prison flicks – but, like Wasteman, it shows a very real side to modern-day prison life. From drones used by unseen outsiders to drop contraband over the walls to the way drugs and violence are commonplace, it paints a grim-but-convincing picture. View oEmbed on the source website Crucially, it also has a strong and moving emotional arc, as the vulnerable Troy finds pockets of support – whether it be his recovering addict mother (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), a regular visitor desperate to repair their relationship, or a prison official (Walters’ Adolescence and A Thousand Blows co-star Stephen Graham, in a small but potent role), who yearns to steer Troy on a path towards a better life. Graham’s character Claypole even provides one of the most surprising moments, when he convinces the inmates to drop their egos and join him in a bit of free-form dance. It might look a bit like the ‘Rainbow Rhythms’ episode of sitcom Peep Show, but it’s a touching scene, and one that helps Animol stand out from other prison films, which are so frequently filled with relentless and unforgiving despair. Slivers of humour also worm their way into the story (like the inmates being taught how to iron shirts). But largely, it’s a film that explores the hardcore complexities that come with incarceration. “You are not an animol,” reads some misspelt graffiti, courtesy of Dion, on the wall. But in the jungle that is prison, you have no choice but to act like one. Survival of the toughest is, sadly, often the only option, in a world where showing even the slightest weakness leaves you exposed. An impressive, confident debut from Walters. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Is This Thing On? review: Bradley Cooper turns John Bishop's life into sweet but indulgent comedy-drama
This is a good exercise for Cooper in creating something more low-key than his previous directorial efforts, even if it doesn’t quite come off.
★★★☆☆ Is This Thing On? is in cinemas on Friday 30 January. Did you hear the one about the lonely husband who went into a bar? That’s the set up for Bradley Cooper’s third film as director, Is This Thing On?, a shaggy-dog movie that feels a world away from his musically-themed, Oscar-nominated earlier directorial efforts, the A Star Is Born remake and Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Those films played out on a grand scale – featuring concerts where the world was watching. Here, the feeling is more intimate. A man on stage, alone, with a mic, pouring his heart out. Scripted by Cooper, star Will Arnett and British writer Mark Chappell (who penned the delightful murder-mystery from 2022, See How They Run), the film comes loosely inspired by the life of comedian John Bishop. The Scouser stand-up, so the story goes, got into comedy after being at a low-ebb in his personal life. Cooper et al simply transpose this idea to New York. Father-of-two Alex (Arnett) has quietly separated from his wife Tess (Laura Dern), a former volleyball player who gave up her dreams to raise kids. The couple are still socialising with mutual friends, long-term husband and wife Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Cooper), and gay newlyweds Stephen (Sean Hayes) and Geoffrey (Scott Icenogle). But they no longer live together, a fact that has spun Alex out. One night, unwilling to go home to his empty apartment, he walks into a bar in the West Village. Rather than pay for the $15 cover charge to get in, he signs up for an open mic stand-up night in the basement downstairs. At first, it’s excruciating as he stands there, like a rabbit in the headlights. But then he starts talking about his impending divorce, poignant material that gets unexpected laughs. It’s a brave and exposing act, one that offers him a much-needed catharsis, so it’s no surprise when he returns for another bash. Around him are experienced comics (played by real strand-ups, including Chloe Radcliffe), willing to offer him advice and a bit of a roasting because, hey, that’s what they do. View Green Video on the source website Gradually, as he finds his feet on stage, Alex regains equilibrium, but it’s always going to be a danger, pulling your act from real life. Arnett delivers his lines with a hangdog face that treads a fine line between pain and humour, dialling down the more outlandish comic stylings he’s known for in shows like Arrested Development and even his lead turn in The LEGO Batman Movie. It’s a rare sidestep into drama for the actor, albeit with a syringe-injected shot of comedy, but a pleasing one. Meanwhile, Dern yet again offers up a very real, fully fleshed-out and classy turn in a film that feels like a more low-key take on Marriage Story, the Noah Baumbach film that won her an Oscar for her shark-like divorce lawyer. Cooper, meanwhile, feels like a distraction in his role, an oafish character who causes mayhem in the very first scene due to his clumsiness. It never quite works as a bit of casting, even if there must’ve been the temptation to self-cast in the way Woody Allen once did. Certainly, Is This Thing On? feels like an early Allen movie, a rambling, slightly indulgent but nevertheless sweet New York story. With some fine actors fleshing out the cast, including Ciarán Hinds, who plays Alex’s father, it’s a good exercise for Cooper in creating something more low-key, even if it doesn’t quite come off. Still, in the days where adult-skewing dramas are becoming an endangered species in movie theatres, this should be applauded for attempting the subject of divorce with a level head.
Is This Thing On? review: Bradley Cooper turns John Bishop's life story into sweet but indulgent comedy-drama
Did you hear the one about the lonely husband who went into a bar? That’s the set up for Bradley Cooper’s third film as director, Is This Thing On?, a shaggy-dog movie that feels a world away from his musically-themed, Oscar-nominated earlier directorial efforts, the A Star Is Born remake and Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Those films played out on a grand scale – featuring concerts where the world was watching. Here, the feeling is more intimate. A man on stage, alone, with a mic, pouring his heart out. Scripted by Cooper, star Will Arnett and British writer Mark Chappell (who penned the delightful murder-mystery from 2022, See How They Run), the film comes loosely inspired by the life of comedian John Bishop. The Scouser stand-up, so the story goes, got into comedy after being at a low-ebb in his personal life. Cooper et al simply transpose this idea to New York. Father-of-two Alex (Arnett) has quietly separated from his wife Tess (Laura Dern), a former volleyball player who gave up her dreams to raise kids. The couple are still socialising with mutual friends, long-term husband and wife Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Cooper), and gay newlyweds Stephen (Sean Hayes) and Geoffrey (Scott Icenogle). But they no longer live together, a fact that has spun Alex out. One night, unwilling to go home to his empty apartment, he walks into a bar in the West Village. Rather than pay for the $15 cover charge to get in, he signs up for an open mic stand-up night in the basement downstairs. At first, it’s excruciating as he stands there, like a rabbit in the headlights. But then he starts talking about his impending divorce, poignant material that gets unexpected laughs. It’s a brave and exposing act, one that offers him a much-needed catharsis, so it’s no surprise when he returns for another bash. Around him are experienced comics (played by real strand-ups, including Chloe Radcliffe), willing to offer him advice and a bit of a roasting because, hey, that’s what they do. View Green Video on the source website Gradually, as he finds his feet on stage, Alex regains equilibrium, but it’s always going to be a danger, pulling your act from real life. Arnett delivers his lines with a hangdog face that treads a fine line between pain and humour, dialling down the more outlandish comic stylings he’s known for in shows like Arrested Development and even his lead turn in The LEGO Batman Movie. It’s a rare sidestep into drama for the actor, albeit with a syringe-injected shot of comedy, but a pleasing one. Meanwhile, Dern yet again offers up a very real, fully fleshed-out and classy turn in a film that feels like a more low-key take on Marriage Story, the Noah Baumbach film that won her an Oscar for her shark-like divorce lawyer. Cooper, meanwhile, feels like a distraction in his role, an oafish character who causes mayhem in the very first scene due to his clumsiness. It never quite works as a bit of casting, even if there must’ve been the temptation to self-cast in the way Woody Allen once did. Certainly, Is This Thing On? feels like an early Allen movie, a rambling, slightly indulgent but nevertheless sweet New York story. With some fine actors fleshing out the cast, including Ciarán Hinds, who plays Alex’s father, it’s a good exercise for Cooper in creating something more low-key, even if it doesn’t quite come off. Still, in the days where adult-skewing dramas are becoming an endangered species in movie theatres, this should be applauded for attempting the subject of divorce with a level head. Is This Thing On? is released in UK cinemas on Friday 30th January 2026. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
No Other Choice review: Park Chan-wook's killer comedy is more than paper thin
Director Park's latest is broader than many of his works, but still hugely inventive.
“Losing my job is not my choice.” It’s a phrase spoken more than once in Park Chan-wook’s latest film, No Other Choice, a black comedy set in the often dispiriting white-collar world of work. Premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, as anyone familiar with the South Korean Park’s ‘vengeance trilogy’, including the acclaimed Oldboy, will know, his movies are not for the feint-hearted. Even when they’re ostensibly comedies. In this case, there’s plenty of moments that’ll make you squirm, especially if you’re squeamish when it comes to oral hygiene. There’s even a very grim way of disposing a body, one that seemingly comes inspired by techniques for tying up plants in the garden. The ‘killer’ in question is Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a father-of-two who has worked for Solar Paper as a speciality paper manager for the past quarter-century. “Paper has fed me for 25 years,” he says, sounding rather like The Office’s Michael Scott. When he gets let go, he’s left to find a new job in his middle years, with economic pressures meaning he might need to sell the family home. His wife (Son Ye-jin) is already trying to economise – no more Netflix, kids! – as all non-essentials are cut back on. Only their youngest daughter’s cello lessons will continue, as Man-su desperately keeps searching for a gig in this increasingly tough economy. But with paper his life (he was 2019’s ‘Pulp Man of the Year’, after all), all he wants to do is find work in the same industry. View oEmbed on the source website Adapted from Donald Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, Man-su takes a novel approach to finding work, and it doesn’t involve updating your LinkedIn profile. Rather than take his chances in an interview, he decides to kill off all those who might stand a chance. Of course, he’s no murderer; his hand shakes every time he picks up a gun, taken from the wall of his family home. His first target is Lee Sung-min’s engineer, a married man who has succumbed to drink while his actress wife tries (and fails) to audition for roles. As Man-su spies on his home, it’s all rather farcical. Some of it’s funny, some of it isn’t. Humour doesn’t always travel well across cultures, and Park’s earlier forays into comedy, such as 2006’s I’m a Cyborg But It’s OK, were a little wayward. But even if No Other Choice will leave you stone-faced, you can’t help but admire the invention on display, especially in later scenes, where Park dips into the surreal. What does hit home in No Other Choice is the employment crisis we are all facing, with workplace environments becoming increasingly automated. Soon, it’ll just be a handful of callous executives and empty warehouses, with huge machines creating products, and only one employee needed to oversee everything. It’s a soul-destroying notion, especially with the execs simply shrugging that they have “no other choice” but to dump the bulk of their workforce. No question, No Other Choice is broader than many Park films, and certainly less subtle than his last film, 2019’s masterful procedural Decision To Leave. But led by the highly watchable Lee Byung-hun, whose working relationship with Park goes all the way back to the director’s 2000 debut Joint Security Area, it’s still a rambunctious ride (if slightly overlong, at 139 minutes). With some lovely lines, like “slay them all”, innocently spoken by Man-su’s wife when he’s off for an interview, it’s more than paper-thin. No Other Choice is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The History of Sound review: Tender love story will deepen Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal's fanbases
This decade-spanning tale is exquisitely told by director Oliver Hermanus.
A tender, decade-spanning love story, exquisitely told by director Oliver Hermanus, The History of Sound is yet another wonderful showcase for the considerable talents of Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal. The British actor O’Connor, best known for his work as Prince Charles on The Crown, and the Irish-born Mescal, famed for Normal People and, more recently, Gladiator II, are already dizzyingly popular; this first collaboration is only likely to deepen their fanbases. Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, The History of Sound begins, briefly, in 1910, as Mescal’s Lionel narrates about his unique appreciation of music. “I thought everyone could see sound,” he intones. But it won’t be for another seven years that he meets a man who is similarly in tune with sound. In a bar one night, David (O’Connor) is playing a piano. They will soon become firm friends and more. David, we learn, grew up in Newport, then London, and comes from a wealthier background than Lionel, who was raised up on a poor farm in Kentucky (one he still is expected to help out on). His poor eyesight means that he avoided the draft, to fight in the trenches of the First World War. But David heads to what he wryly calls his “walking tour of Europe”, thankfully returning unscathed. Sponsored by Vue Save up to 30% on the latest releases at Vue in 2025 Are you a movie lover who always wants to be up to date with the latest releases? Then you're in luck, as RadioTimes.com readers can enjoy new films at Vue Cinemas for less. Customers will receive up to 30% off films with Vue Pass, as long as they have a RadioTimes.com account. It's a great time for new releases, with films such as Wicked, Nosferatu, The Brutalist and Moana 2 taking UK cinemas by storm. Head to your nearest Vue to catch these movies and more for up to 30% less if you're signed up as a RadioTimes.com member. Save up to 30% with Vue Pass When he does, these two young men reunite in Maine and decide to venture cross-country, recording folk songs for the preservation of America’s heritage. The college where David works has bankrolled the project, and David decides that he needs Lionel to collect the songs on wax cylinders. Mescal’s Lionel also tutors young kids in the science of sound and vibration. At this point, as David and Lionel grow closer, you could be forgiven for thinking the film has the air of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain about it, a period gay romance (a ‘Folkback Mountain’, if you will). But, adapted by Ben Shattuck from his own short story, the film takes an intriguing turn when the two men separate and David no longer returns Lionel’s letters. The story continues on, with Lionel taking centre stage, even with a sojourn to England, where he meets a young lady from a welcoming, well-to-do family. Is he suppressing his real sexuality? Like so much of this film, it’s left unsaid, with the South African-born Hermanus adopting the same delicate approach that he deployed on Living, the 2022 film he made with an Oscar-nominated Bill Nighy about a bureaucrat who receives a terminal diagnosis. More reviews from the Cannes Film Festival: Die My Love review: Jennifer Lawrence is superb in this absorbing and quietly devastating drama The Phoenician Scheme review: Wes Anderson's latest is a quaint tale of industrial espionage Eddington review: Ari Aster's latest is thematically rich but overlong Mescal, who has already been a part one brilliant gay-themed drama (Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers), truly sinks into his role here as a man unable to forget the soul that touched his life so deeply. Hidden behind his ovular spectacles, he’s almost unrecognisable at first, until the character comes out of his shell. There’s also a lovely surprise in the end, as Chris Cooper (the marvellous actor of Adaptation fame) pops up to play Lionel in scenes set much later in his life, where it’s clear music has remained his passion. Hermanus accompanies this moment with Joy Division’s haunting song Atmosphere, a truly unusual choice following the folk songs that populate the earlier part of the movie. While this isn’t a film that’ll have you sobbing, it’s an increasingly touching love story, one that deserves its place at the heart of the LGBTQ+ cinematic canon. A movie that draws you in gradually, you may even quiz where its going at the halfway point. But Hermanus and Shattuck carefully layer the story with emotional bear-traps; by the end, you will be ensnared. The History of Sound is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
How Roy Keane's infamous 2002 World Cup bust-up was transformed into an acclaimed film
The cast and crew for the new football flick Saipan speak to Radio Times about adapting the notorious row for the big screen.
Irish actor Éanna Hardwicke was only five at the time of the 2002 World Cup, but the memories are still vivid. “I was really aware of the iconography of it,” he reflects, when we meet in London’s Sea Containers hotel. “I can picture the Irish jersey. I could probably tell you the whole starting 11 of the Irish team. I had sticker books, and I remember just being completely caught up in World Cup fever, which I probably haven’t been to an extent since.” Of course, for any Republic of Ireland football fan, the 2002 FIFA tournament in Japan and South Korea remains infamous. Not so much for events on the field, with Ireland eventually knocked out on penalties in the last 16 to Spain. More for events off it, before a ball had even been kicked, when Irish captain – and Manchester United midfield legend – Roy Keane had an unforgettable bust-up with manager Mick McCarthy. The setting was Saipan, a small island in the Pacific, where the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) had determined its team acclimatise before the FIFA World Cup. Infuriated by the poor training facilities – including no footballs when they arrived – Keane flew home, making headlines around the world. “It’s something that happened over four or five days on, fair to say, the biggest global stage you can get, whether you’re a sportsman or not,” remarks Hardwicke, who plays Keane in Saipan, a new movie that dramatises the fallout. While there have been other player-manager meltdowns at World Cups – think of French star Nicolas Anelka in 2010, arguing with coach Raymond Domenech – this was a row that divided families across Ireland and according to Saipan’s co-director Glenn Leyburn, “still reverberates through Irish culture to this day”. Back in 2002, Ireland was going through a huge transition, the time of the so-called Celtic Tiger when a period of rapid economic growth had transformed the country into a thriving economic success story. View oEmbed on the source website Mirroring that, Irish football was in a golden period, following appearances in World Cup tournaments in 1990 and 1994, in which Keane played. Although injured in the run-up to the 2002 competition, the 31 year-old Keane was at the peak of his professional powers – a symbol that Ireland was no longer here just to make up the numbers. “I mean, he could have played for any team in that World Cup and been the most important player,” says Leyburn. “And so he wanted something more... and felt that was possible.” In what transpired to be his last ever shot at playing in a World Cup, Keane’s abrupt departure caused a great deal of soul-searching among Irish men and women. “I think the tragedy is manifold,” says Hardwicke. “It’s about being in a moment of massive, massive excitement and ambition for a small island, four million people. Also the fact that if there is this narrative about the Irish getting in their own way or not quite being serious contenders in football... there’s something really tragic about that narrative being confirmed for people.” Scripted by Paul Fraser (whose career includes several movies for Shane Meadows, including cult classic Dead Man’s Shoes), the film co-stars Steve Coogan as McCarthy, the actor and comedian perfectly nailing the vocal rhythms of the manager. As Leyburn’s co-director (and wife) Lisa Barros D’Sa points out, Coogan’s origins – like McCarthy he has Irish roots but grew up in the north of England – drew him to the role. “That idea of being part of the Irish diaspora and how that informs your identity was something Steve is very interested in and was able to really bring to the character of Mick.” Hardwicke admits he was apprehensive working with the hugely experienced Coogan. “There’s a bit of your ego that goes... will I just feel nervous and crumble in front of him when we actually do a scene together? And I felt like that could happen. But really brilliant actors like Steve, they do just pull you up to their level.” Did he resist doing impressions of Coogan’s most famous character, the Norwich DJ and TV host Alan Partridge? “I wouldn’t dare,” he chuckles. His own morphing into Keane is one of Saipan’s highlights, especially given his softly-spoken demeanour in reality. “He’s a very gentle, amiable character,” says Leyburn. The actor, who featured in the BBC’s hit Sally Rooney adaptation Normal People and is currently on stage in London in a production of The Playboy of the Western World, certainly seems a million miles from the surly Keane, whose curmudgeonly reputation has only been enhanced by his regular appearances on Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage as a pundit. “I think he’s uncompromising, genuinely, and I think there’s a lot to admire about that,” says Hardwicke. “Like most people, you meet people halfway in an interaction, or you tend to soften things. I always think of preparing for a role, whether they’re real person or fictional, in the same way. “It’s all physical. It’s all about how someone carries themselves through the world, how their brain affects their body and vice versa. I just played around with walking in those shoes and going, ‘How does it feel to not alter yourself or change yourself, to make other people feel at ease?’” With only a few weeks to prepare, Hardwicke trained at London’s Before the Lights gym to get in shape. Keane may have come of age “in that era where you’re on the pints four nights a week, and then you play on Saturday”, but he never followed suit. “He was one of the early adopters of a really clean diet and a particular training regime.” Hardwicke tried to put himself in Keane’s mindset, although it was a struggle. “I couldn’t be further from that. I really couldn’t. Honestly, five weeks was enough for me. I felt like I couldn’t shoot anymore. This film couldn’t be longer than it was.” In advance of the shoot, meanwhile, Coogan met McCarthy, who was happy to talk through the notorious events. And Keane? “We reached out,” says Barros D’Sa, cautiously. “We let him know about it. We haven’t spoken directly to Roy.” While the film has already been released in Ireland in early January, the filmmakers seem braced for the unknown when it comes to reactions from either party. “We don’t know how it’s going to unfold,” she continues. “It’s really up to them to react however they want to react.” Leyburn nods in agreement. “One of the great things about Roy is he’s very forthright with his opinions. We all love him for that. So we’ll see.” It meant that Hardwicke, who grew up in Cork, in Ireland, where Keane is from, had to do his prep work from afar. Now the film is done, would he like to meet the man himself? “I’d love to have a drink with him,” he grins. “When I saw the film, I thought, if he has one complaint, it’s he looked much better at 31 than I do at 28!” Although it’s hard to imagine either Keane or McCarthy being overly pleased at this emotionally raw moment in their lives turned into movie, the filmmakers never wanted to sensationalise events. “We’ve got nothing but respect for both Roy and Mick,” adds Leyburn. “They both had very valid approaches to that World Cup, and they were both put in a really difficult situation, which wasn’t of their own making. And the tragedy is just it couldn’t work out. The more we delved into the story, the more we saw how alike they were and how they both wanted the same thing.” No strangers to real-life stories, Leyburn and Barros D’Sa previously made 2013’s Good Vibrations, about Terri Hooley, a record-store owner instrumental in developing Belfast’s punk scene. But here, they take a more surreal, dreamlike approach – typified by a giant promotional cut-out of Keane’s head that can frequently be seen around the hotel. Largely set in the rooms and empty corridors where Keane is having his meltdown, the film echoes other works – like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink – where a hotel setting becomes a reflection of the protagonist’s state of mind. “It feels like a psychodrama,” says Hardwicke. “The island and the hotel become a theatre of the psyche for Roy. What it does is it takes us away from a straight retelling or a docu-drama. We’re used to seeing those factual dramas now, aren’t we? You get three or four episodes, and it is about telling true events in a concise way. I don’t think that is what Saipan is doing. It’s based on true events, and it’s thoroughly researched by Paul, but it’s about the way that you tell that visually.” More than anything, it shows Ireland at a tipping point, says the actor. “I think we live in a very, very different Ireland now than we did 23 years ago. And if it’s not too lofty to say, there is some connection to our culture, whether it’s our sporting culture, whether it’s people like Roy, whether it’s our rugby team in the last 10 years, whether it’s our musicians and cultural figures now, like Fontaines DC or CMAT or Kneecap. “I think there’s a sense that we live in an Ireland now that is quite front-footed on the world stage and is maybe less apologetic about its presence.” Saipan is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
How the distress call of a Palestinian child was turned into an Oscar-nominated film
Director Kaouther Ben Hania speaks to RT about her immensely powerful new film The Voice of Hind Rajab – which is built around the real audio from a January 2024 distress call in Gaza.
The Voice of Hind Rajab is in cinemas now. Add it to your watchlist When Kaouther Ben Hania first heard the voice of Hind Rajab, it was life-changing. In January 2024, trapped in a car in Gaza City and under fire from Israeli forces, the 5-year-old Palestinian girl put in a call to paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Left utterly terrified, with her relatives all dead around her, tragically, Hind did not survive the onslaught. Later investigations discovered 355 bullet holes in the black Kia she was in. The 70-minute audio of her distress call went viral, as Hind became a symbol for the thousands of children killed in the appalling conflict that escalated in Gaza after the terror attacks of October 7, 2023. "The first time I heard her voice, it impacted me a lot," says Ben Hania. "There was a feeling of helplessness around what is happening in Gaza. And since she was asking for help, this feeling of helplessness was amplified. And I thought this is something that cinema can translate." A Palestinian story "should be told by Palestinian actors" The Tunisian director behind the Oscar-nominated titles The Man Who Sold His Skin and Four Daughters was prepping another film at the time, but she knew she had to switch focus. "There was the urgency to tell this story," she says. Setting her other project aside, Ben Hania conceived of a radical idea: to build a film around the audio. All set in the Red Crescent call centre, the film casts actors as the volunteers there, reacting to Hind’s real cries for help as they scramble to save her. Naturally, Ben Hania spoke to Hind’s mother early in the process. "I told myself, ‘You can’t do this movie if you don't have the approval of Hind's mother.’ It's her child. Losing a child is one of the hardest things, I think, for a parent. So if she didn’t want me to do it, I wouldn’t do it.” As distressing as it was, Hind’s mother approved the idea. "She told me that she doesn't want her daughter to be forgotten... [and] she told me, ‘I want justice for my daughter. If this movie can help, do it, please.'" Emboldened by the idea of integrating the real audio, Ben Hania dismissed the notion of casting an actress to play Hind. "For me, it was not honouring her memory, faking the voice. And which young child actress will go through [that]? It was a ‘bad taste’ thing to do,” she says. She also cast Palestinian actors as the volunteers. “For me, it’s a Palestinian story and it should be told by Palestinian actors. What is happening in Gaza makes all of us, in a way, Palestinian.” A brutal but compelling film to watch, it highlights what Ben Hania calls the “Kafkaesque machine of the Occupation”, as volunteer Omar (played by Motaz Malhees) desperately tries to send out a rescue team, only to be hamstrung by protocols. “It's designed on purpose. Who put the rules?” says Ben Hania. “This is the meaning of occupation. You put rules, because you are the dominant and those rules are designed to make their life impossible. It made the life of Hind impossible. And even if you follow the rules... you get bombed.” Ethical quandaries and divisive reactions When the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last September, the emotional response was overwhelming. Critics were in tears and the film received a 23-minute standing ovation, the longest in the festival’s history. “I could feel the emotion,” Ben Hania recalls. “I was hearing the sobbing. So then when they started clapping, it went forever, and it was like, ‘Will they stop?’” It was only that another movie was scheduled to play next that meant the audiences ceased the applause. Despite this, the film has been met with a divisive reaction. “I know that my producers, and also their executive producer, received thousands and thousands and thousands of [spam] emails telling them that it’s not good to do this movie, it's antisemitic, it's not a story that they should tell,” explains Ben Hania. Instead, the producers were told they should concentrate on the Israeli side of the story, that over 250 Israelis were kidnapped, and many more killed, in the brutal incursion by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Some have also accused Ben Hania of manipulating the material. Trade paper Variety, in its review, said: “Some viewers will be fully immersed in the horror and despair of the moment, while others may have greater misgivings regarding Ben Hania’s layering of tearjerker tactics over material that hardly requires extra emotional amplification.” Others have criticised the use of Hind’s audio, questioning the ethics of using such provocative footage for a movie. View oEmbed on the source website How did such criticisms feel? “It's not easy to hear,” Ben Hania replies. “I did this film from a place of grief, actually. From a place of love also. And my main idea was to honour her voice, and to give her a voice, to amplify her voice, and to ask the audience to put themselves in the shoes of Palestinians and especially those working to save lives [with] humanitarian work. “Our main purpose was to honour her memory and not to let her be forgotten. Through her, we can feel the pain of other lost children.” In Venice, the jury – led by The Holdovers filmmaker Alexander Payne – awarded the film the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, second place behind Jim Jarmusch’s familial drama Father Mother Sister Brother. Rumours flew around that those on the jury were split. “I've been in juries. I know how it works… I know that a jury is a small number of people,” Ben Hania shrugs, pointing out that the film later winning the Audience Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, where it received the highest score ever from a public vote, was more meaningful to her. From a struggle for distribution to Oscar contention and long-term impact Since Venice, the film’s journey has been a bumpy one, initially struggling to find all-important US distribution, despite the acclaim. “Was I surprised? When you do the kind of movie I'm doing, everything is a struggle. I'm not a privileged filmmaker from a privileged background, doing movies set in a privileged culture that is mainstream. Like English-speaking movies are. “So every movie is a struggle to be distributed, and Arabic-speaking movies with subtitles are perceived as niche. So you have this and you have the political context of this movie. So, no, I wasn't surprised.” Fortunately, Ben Hania received help from several high-profile Hollywood names – including actors Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, who walked the red carpet in Venice in a show of support, Brad Pitt and filmmakers Jonathan Glazer and Alfonso Cuarón. They all came on board as executive producers to help raise awareness for the movie. “It was something very coming from the heart, like we love this movie, we should support it,” says Ben Hania. “And it was beyond my expectation. I never, never thought that the movie would touch them this way. So it's huge.” Already, the film competed in the race for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes (where it lost out to Brazilian drama The Secret Agent) and is a major Oscar contender. Does she think it has a chance to be nominated or to even win? “I have no idea. It's very strange. I hope so. I don't know. There are so many movies in this Oscar race. Great movies also. There is the Park Chan-wook movie No Other Choice. There is the Jafar Panahi movie, It Was Just An Accident. Sentimental Value. Colombia has Poeta. So many beautiful, beautiful movies.” More importantly, can a film like The Voice of Hind Rajab be used as a tool to bring awareness to humanitarian disasters? Certainly, festival audiences who have watched the film have been left shell-shocked by what they’ve seen, with the audio of Hind leaving viewers numb in a way that nightly news reports simply can’t do. Perhaps it’s the case of putting a name and a face – or in this case a voice – to this appalling slaughter, rather than seeing deaths rack up like statistics. “The narrative was Gazans are collateral damage, killed because they are collateral damage,” comments Ben Hania. “They are faceless. They don't have names. It's almost like they don't exist. And they are accused. All the victims are accused of being terrorists and Hamas. There is this kind of narrative that is infused everywhere. So I did this movie because of this. This little girl had a mother, she had a little brother... they were playing at the beach. They are human beings. They are not collateral damage or numbers.” Ironically, the arrival of The Voice of Hind Rajab has coincided with the release of Israeli hostages, captured by Hamas in October 2023, as a ceasefire deal was struck. Ben Hania remains sceptical, however, about the future, with so many still suffering. The generational trauma is ingrained for years to come. “The wound is still bleeding,” she says. “Can you undo what was done? How do you deal with this? Can we talk about change? Still things are very sensitive. I did the movie, but will it bring Hind to life? No.”
How the distress call of a Palestinian child was turned into an Oscar contender
Director Kaouther Ben Hania speaks to RadioTimes.com about her immensely powerful new film The Voice of Hind Rajab – which is built around the real audio from a January 2024 distress call in Gaza.
When Kaouther Ben Hania first heard the voice of Hind Rajab, it was life-changing. In January 2024, trapped in a car in Gaza City and under fire from Israeli forces, the 5-year-old Palestinian girl put in a call to paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Left utterly terrified, with her relatives all dead around her, tragically, Hind did not survive the onslaught. Later investigations discovered 355 bullet holes in the black Kia she was in. The 70-minute audio of her distress call went viral, as Hind became a symbol for the thousands of children killed in the appalling conflict that escalated in Gaza after the terror attacks of October 7, 2023. "The first time I heard her voice, it impacted me a lot," says Ben Hania. "There was a feeling of helplessness around what is happening in Gaza. And since she was asking for help, this feeling of helplessness was amplified. And I thought this is something that cinema can translate." A Palestinian story "should be told by Palestinian actors" The Tunisian director behind the Oscar-nominated titles The Man Who Sold His Skin and Four Daughters was prepping another film at the time, but she knew she had to switch focus. "There was the urgency to tell this story," she says. Setting her other project aside, Ben Hania conceived of a radical idea: to build a film around the audio. All set in the Red Crescent call centre, the film casts actors as the volunteers there, reacting to Hind’s real cries for help as they scramble to save her. Naturally, Ben Hania spoke to Hind’s mother early in the process. "I told myself, ‘You can’t do this movie if you don't have the approval of Hind's mother.’ It's her child. Losing a child is one of the hardest things, I think, for a parent. So if she didn’t want me to do it, I wouldn’t do it.” As distressing as it was, Hind’s mother approved the idea. "She told me that she doesn't want her daughter to be forgotten... [and] she told me, ‘I want justice for my daughter. If this movie can help, do it, please.'" Emboldened by the idea of integrating the real audio, Ben Hania dismissed the notion of casting an actress to play Hind. "For me, it was not honouring her memory, faking the voice. And which young child actress will go through [that]? It was a ‘bad taste’ thing to do,” she says. She also cast Palestinian actors as the volunteers. “For me, it’s a Palestinian story and it should be told by Palestinian actors. What is happening in Gaza makes all of us, in a way, Palestinian.” A brutal but compelling film to watch, it highlights what Ben Hania calls the “Kafkaesque machine of the Occupation”, as volunteer Omar (played by Motaz Malhees) desperately tries to send out a rescue team, only to be hamstrung by protocols. “It's designed on purpose. Who put the rules?” says Ben Hania. “This is the meaning of occupation. You put rules, because you are the dominant and those rules are designed to make their life impossible. It made the life of Hind impossible. And even if you follow the rules... you get bombed.” Ethical quandaries and divisive reactions When the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last September, the emotional response was overwhelming. Critics were in tears and the film received a 23-minute standing ovation, the longest in the festival’s history. “I could feel the emotion,” Ben Hania recalls. “I was hearing the sobbing. So then when they started clapping, it went forever, and it was like, ‘Will they stop?’” It was only that another movie was scheduled to play next that meant the audiences ceased the applause. Despite this, the film has been met with a divisive reaction. “I know that my producers, and also their executive producer, received thousands and thousands and thousands of [spam] emails telling them that it’s not good to do this movie, it's antisemitic, it's not a story that they should tell,” explains Ben Hania. Instead, the producers were told they should concentrate on the Israeli side of the story, that over 250 Israelis were kidnapped, and many more killed, in the brutal incursion by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Some have also accused Ben Hania of manipulating the material. Trade paper Variety, in its review, said: “Some viewers will be fully immersed in the horror and despair of the moment, while others may have greater misgivings regarding Ben Hania’s layering of tearjerker tactics over material that hardly requires extra emotional amplification.” Others have criticised the use of Hind’s audio, questioning the ethics of using such provocative footage for a movie. View oEmbed on the source website How did such criticisms feel? “It's not easy to hear,” Ben Hania replies. “I did this film from a place of grief, actually. From a place of love also. And my main idea was to honour her voice, and to give her a voice, to amplify her voice, and to ask the audience to put themselves in the shoes of Palestinians and especially those working to save lives [with] humanitarian work. “Our main purpose was to honour her memory and not to let her be forgotten. Through her, we can feel the pain of other lost children.” In Venice, the jury – led by The Holdovers filmmaker Alexander Payne – awarded the film the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, second place behind Jim Jarmusch’s familial drama Father Mother Sister Brother. Rumours flew around that those on the jury were split. “I've been in juries. I know how it works… I know that a jury is a small number of people,” Ben Hania shrugs, pointing out that the film later winning the Audience Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, where it received the highest score ever from a public vote, was more meaningful to her. From a struggle for distribution to Oscar contention and long-term impact Since Venice, the film’s journey has been a bumpy one, initially struggling to find all-important US distribution, despite the acclaim. “Was I surprised? When you do the kind of movie I'm doing, everything is a struggle. I'm not a privileged filmmaker from a privileged background, doing movies set in a privileged culture that is mainstream. Like English-speaking movies are. “So every movie is a struggle to be distributed, and Arabic-speaking movies with subtitles are perceived as niche. So you have this and you have the political context of this movie. So, no, I wasn't surprised.” Fortunately, Ben Hania received help from several high-profile Hollywood names – including actors Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, who walked the red carpet in Venice in a show of support, Brad Pitt and filmmakers Jonathan Glazer and Alfonso Cuarón. They all came on board as executive producers to help raise awareness for the movie. “It was something very coming from the heart, like we love this movie, we should support it,” says Ben Hania. “And it was beyond my expectation. I never, never thought that the movie would touch them this way. So it's huge.” Already, the film competed in the race for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes (where it lost out to Brazilian drama The Secret Agent) and is a major Oscar contender. Does she think it has a chance to be nominated or to even win? “I have no idea. It's very strange. I hope so. I don't know. There are so many movies in this Oscar race. Great movies also. There is the Park Chan-wook movie [No Other Choice]. There is the Jafar Panahi movie, It Was Just An Accident. Sentimental Value. Colombia has Poeta. So many beautiful, beautiful movies.” More importantly, can a film like The Voice of Hind Rajab be used as a tool to bring awareness to humanitarian disasters? Certainly, festival audiences who have watched the film have been left shell-shocked by what they’ve seen, with the audio of Hind leaving viewers numb in a way that nightly news reports simply can’t do. Perhaps it’s the case of putting a name and a face – or in this case a voice – to this appalling slaughter, rather than seeing deaths rack up like statistics. “The narrative was Gazans are collateral damage, killed because they are collateral damage,” comments Ben Hania. “They are faceless. They don't have names. It's almost like they don't exist. And they are accused. All the victims are accused of being terrorists and Hamas. There is this kind of narrative that is infused everywhere. So I did this movie because of this. This little girl had a mother, she had a little brother... they were playing at the beach. They are human beings. They are not collateral damage or numbers.” Ironically, the arrival of The Voice of Hind Rajab has coincided with the release of Israeli hostages, captured by Hamas in October 2023, as a ceasefire deal was struck. Ben Hania remains sceptical, however, about the future, with so many still suffering. The generational trauma is ingrained for years to come. “The wound is still bleeding,” she says. “Can you undo what was done? How do you deal with this? Can we talk about change? Still things are very sensitive. I did the movie, but will it bring Hind to life? No.” The Voice of Hind Rajab is in UK cinemas now. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Hamnet review: Jessie Buckley is superb in family drama that's much more than 'Shakespeare in Grief'
This masterpiece adapted from the novel of the same name by Maggie O'Farrell is expecting to be a major awards player.
★★★★★ Hamnet is in cinemas from Friday 9 January. Add it to your watchlist While it’s tempting to call Hamnet “Shakespeare in Grief”, that’s rather doing Chloé Zhao’s masterly study of loss a disservice. The last time the Bard so significantly appeared in a film was the 1998 Oscar-winner Shakespeare in Love, by John Madden. But while that was a fictionalised story around the creation of Romeo and Juliet, this is an authentic-feeling, intimate family drama, far removed from that glossy romance. Paul Mescal plays the Bard – only ever once referred to as William Shakespeare in the entire movie. Early on, he meets and falls for Agnes (Jesse Buckley), a free-spirited soul at one with her rural surroundings. Rumour has it she’s the daughter of a forest witch – according to Will’s mother Mary (Emily Watson). He’s also frowned upon, with Agnes’ brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) calling the aspiring playwright a “pasty-faced scholar”, adding: “What use is he?” Seemingly, though, nothing can hamper their love, and Will and Agnes produce three children – including a delightful boy, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). Theirs is a secluded life in the countryside, far from London, where Will eventually wins a contract to make gloves for the theatre. In these early scenes Zhao (Nomadland) brilliantly evokes the simple pleasures and hardships of life in this time, her camera perfectly in tune with the heartbeat of nature. Adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, who co-wrote the script with Zhao, it’s a fictional imagining of Shakespeare’s inner life, as the story seeks to look behind the celebrated playwright. This is a young man torn between the love for his family and a career in the theatre that blossoms the more time he spends around creatives in the city. “There are people waiting for me in London,” he cries, words he will soon regret. Depicting the Stratford-upon-Avon countryside in earthy tones, where inhabitants are so close to nature they’re caked in dirt, it’s an utterly bewitching portrait of 16th-century living. It’s also a world where illness is commonplace and life is utterly fragile. As events unfold, an unimaginable tragedy occurs, leading to an outpouring of grief that threatens to tear the family apart. And yet it’s also the spark for the Bard’s finest hour, as catharsis is found in creativity. Subtle and persuasive, this is not a film that ever tries to signpost that it’s about Shakespeare. Allusions to his work are almost casually included, like the tender scene where you’ll see his children play-acting as the witches from Macbeth. Later scenes where the Bard drills his actors, over and over, in rehearsals, are also surprising in their very rawness, each word pounded out by Mescal’s volatile writer. As the title hints, the creation of the Bard’s greatest play Hamlet takes centre stage in the film’s third act – one that takes on greater meaning and resonance given the preceding bleak events. It’s here where Zhao’s film reaches a devastating crescendo, painfully, personally brought to life by Mescal and particularly Buckley, who gives one of the greatest performances of her esteemed career, as a woman whose very soul has been ripped in two. Scenes such as a kitchen table confrontation, as Agnes is seen on domestic duties, are electric, as Zhao explores heavyweight issues of life, art and the shattering nature of loss. The finale, all set around a stage performance, lives long in the memory, making this quietly hewn movie feel utterly wrenching. The play’s the thing, to quote from Hamlet, and Zhao and O’Farrell find a way to bring that notion to life. Expect this to be a major contender in the 25/26 awards season – it’s a masterpiece.
Hamnet review: Jessie Buckley is superb in this masterly study of loss
While it’s tempting to call Hamnet ‘Shakespeare in Grief’, that’s rather doing Chloé Zhao’s masterly study of loss a disservice. The last time the Bard so significantly appeared in a film was the 1998 Oscar-winner Shakespeare in Love, by John Madden. But while that was a fictionalised story around the creation of Romeo and Juliet, this is an authentic-feeling, intimate family drama, far removed from that glossy romance. Paul Mescal plays the Bard – only ever once referred to as William Shakespeare in the entire movie. Early on, he meets and falls for Agnes (Jesse Buckley), a free-spirited soul at one with her rural surroundings. Rumour has it she’s the daughter of a forest witch – according to Will’s mother Mary (Emily Watson). He’s also frowned upon, with Agnes’ brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) calling the aspiring playwright a “pasty-faced scholar”, adding: “What use is he?” Seemingly, though, nothing can hamper their love, and Will and Agnes produce three children – including a delightful boy, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). Theirs in a secluded life in the countryside, far from London, where Will eventually win a contract to make gloves for the theatre. In these early scenes Zhao (Nomadland), brilliantly evokes the simple pleasures and hardships of life in this time, her camera perfectly in tune with the heartbeat of nature. Adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, who co-wrote the script with Zhao, it’s a fictional imagining of Shakespeare’s inner life, as the story seeks to look behind the celebrated playwright. This is a young man torn between the love for his family and a career in the theatre that blossoms the more time he spends around creatives in the city. “There are people waiting for me in London,” he cries, words he will soon regret. Depicting the Stratford-Upon-Avon countryside in earthy tones, where inhabitants are so close to nature they’re caked in dirt, it’s an utterly bewitching portrait of 16th Century living. It’s also a world where illness is commonplace and life is utterly fragile. As events unfold, an imaginable tragedy occurs, leading to an outpouring of grief that threatens to tear the family apart. And yet it’s also the spark for the Bard’s finest hour, as catharsis is found in creativity. Subtle and persuasive, this is not a film that ever tries to signpost that it’s about Shakespeare. Allusions to his work are almost casually included, like the tender scene where you’ll see his children play acting as the witches from Macbeth. Later scenes where the Bard drills his actors, over and over, in rehearsals, are also surprising by their very rawness, each word pounded out by Mescal’s volatile writer. Read more: Marty Supreme review: Timothée Chalamet hits new heights in breathless and brilliant ping pong drama Song Sung Blue review: A big-hearted, blue-collar love story – with a shocking fork in the road As the title hints, the creation of the Bard’s greatest play Hamlet takes centre stage in the film’s third act – one that takes on greater meaning and resonance giving the preceding bleak events. It’s here where Zhao’s film reaches a devastating crescendo, painfully, personally brought to life by Mescal and particularly Buckley, who gives one of the greatest performances of her esteemed career, as a woman whose very soul has been ripped in two. Scenes such as a kitchen table confrontation, as Agnes is seen on domestic duties, are electric, as Zhao explores heavyweight issues of life, art and the shattering nature of loss. The finale, all set around a stage performance, lives long in the memory, making this quietly-hewn movie feel utterly wrenching. The play’s the thing, to quote from Hamlet, and Zhao and Farrell find a way to bring that notion to life. Expect this to be a major contender in the 25/26 awards season – it’s a masterpiece. Hamnet is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9th January 2025. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Avatar: Fire and Ash review – Yet another marvel of CG craftsmanship from James Cameron
The third entry in the epic sci-fi franchise embraces all-out conflict – but perhaps doesn't quite justify its length.
★★★★☆ Avatar: Fire and Ash is in cinemas from Friday 19 December 2025. Add it to your watchlist It’s time to go back to Pandora. Journeys to director James Cameron’s fictional alien planet have already inspired two of the highest-grossing movies of all time, Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Only a fool would bet against this third chapter, Avatar: Fire and Ash, doing the same. With this Cameron’s third Avatar movie in a row, it’s a bold, brash return to this mo-cap created, CG-realised world, where you have little choice but to surrender yourself to the visual onslaught. View Green Video on the source website If The Way of Water was more of a hang-out movie, where Cameron introduced the ocean-dwelling Metkayina clan, Fire and Ash is a full-on all-out conflict. Set a year on from events of the preceding movie, the focus is once again Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the former Marine who became one of the blue-skinned Na’vi people after transferring his consciousness permanently into his avatar. He and his family, including wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), now live with the Metkayina – including Kate Winslet’s free-diving, pregnant Ronal – after leaving their own Omatikaya clan. With the script again penned by Cameron and husband-and-wife team Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, this time the story introduces the Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash People, a volcano-dwelling group led by the fearsome tribal leader, Varang (Oona Chaplin). The best antagonist in the Avatar franchise so far, brilliantly brought to life by Chaplin, the red-and-white-coloured Varang is power-hungry creature, at one with the elements. She forges an uneasy alliance with Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Jake’s nemesis – the fallen military commander resurrected as an avatar "recombinant". Or as he puts it here, “I guess I don’t die that easy". He is going gung-ho to take down Sully, as the human-led military group RDA look to colonise Pandora, despite humans still being unable to breathe the air on the surface of the planet. It is Quaritch who introduces Varang to “weapons of metal”, watching her eyes widen as she fires bullets. “Feels good, don’t it?” he purrs. As the very political and ecological stability of Pandora is threatened, the RDA turns its forces to attacking the Tulkun, those beautiful whale-like creatures that dominate the planet’s oceans. It’s these scenes that hit home, as these peaceful innocents are harpooned in a moment that resonates to anyone who has seen footage of the decimation of the Earth’s whale population. Cameron may lack subtlety, but it can be denied these scenes decrying man’s destruction of Mother Nature feel powerful. With operations overseen by General Frances Ardmore (Edie Falco), there is also a return for the Ahab-like Captain Mick Scoresby (Brendan Cowell, on fine form), who now has a metal arm after losing his in The Way of Water. Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement, as Scoresby’s marine biologist, also reappears, although the film’s central figure is Spider (Jack Champion), the dreadlock-wearing son of the late Quaritch who was adopted by Sully’s family. His journey gives Fire and Ash much of its emotional heft, as the Quaritch avatar pursues Spider for his own nefarious ends. At 3 hours 17 minutes, the film is long, maybe never quite justifying its length, with a story that is – to borrow a recent title – one battle after another. The message is hardly sophisticated (“killing will only bring more killing”) but its hard to deny the immersive quality of the 3D visuals, with every frame plunging you into Pandora. If spending time in the bio-luminescent forests and turquoise oceans of an alien planet is your thing, then Fire and Ash does everything you’d hope. It’s a marvel of CG craftsmanship and of Cameron’s pursuit of perfection.
Avatar: Fire and Ash review – Another marvel of CG craftsmanship from James Cameron
It’s time to go back to Pandora. Journeys to director James Cameron’s fictional alien planet have already inspired two of the highest-grossing movies of all time, Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Only a fool would bet against this third chapter, Avatar: Fire and Ash, doing the same. With this Cameron’s third Avatar movie in a row, it’s a bold, brash return to this mo-cap created, CG-realised world, where you have little choice but to surrender yourself to the visual onslaught. If The Way of Water was more of a hang-out movie, where Cameron introduced the ocean-dwelling Metkayina clan, Fire and Ash is a full-on all-out conflict. Set a year on from events of the preceding movie, the focus is once again Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the former Marine who became one of the blue-skinned Na’vi people after transferring his consciousness permanently into his avatar. He and his family, including wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), now live with the Metkayina – including Kate Winslet’s free-diving, pregnant Ronal – after leaving their own Omatikaya clan. With the script again penned by Cameron and husband-and-wife team Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, this time the story introduces the Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash People, a volcano-dwelling group led by the fearsome tribal leader, Varang (Oona Chaplin). The best antagonist in the Avatar franchise so far, brilliantly brought to life by Chaplin, the red-and-white-coloured Varang is a power-hungry creature, at one with the elements. She forges an uneasy alliance with Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Jake’s nemesis – the fallen military commander resurrected as an Avatar "recombinant". Or as he puts it here, “I guess I don’t die that easy". He is going gung-ho to take down Sully, as the human-led military group RDA look to colonise Pandora, despite humans still being unable to breathe the air on the surface of the planet. It is Quaritch who introduces Varang to “weapons of metal”, watching her eyes widen as she fires bullets. “Feels good, don’t it?” he purrs. As the very political and ecological stability of Pandora is threatened, the RDA turns its forces to attacking the Tulkun, those beautiful whale-like creatures that dominate the planet’s oceans. It’s these scenes that hit home, as these peaceful innocents are harpooned in a moment that resonates to anyone who has seen footage of the decimation of the Earth’s whale population. Cameron may lack subtlety, but it can't be denied these scenes decrying man’s destruction of Mother Nature feel powerful. Read more: Avatar: Fire and Ash could be the end of the franchise, reveals director James Cameron Avatar: Fire and Ash director James Cameron shares how this film about loss helped him process his "true grief" With operations overseen by General Frances Ardmore (Edie Falco), there is also a return for the Ahab-like Captain Mick Scoresby (Brendan Cowell, on fine form), who now has a metal arm after losing his in The Way of Water. Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement, as Scoresby’s marine biologist, also reappears, although the film’s central figure is Spider (Jack Champion), the dreadlock-wearing son of the late Quaritch who was adopted by Sully’s family. His journey gives Fire and Ash much of its emotional heft, as the Quaritch avatar pursues Spider for his own nefarious ends. At 3 hours 17 minutes, the film is long, maybe never quite justifying its length, with a story that is – to borrow a recent title – one battle after another. The message is hardly sophisticated (“killing will only bring more killing”) but it's hard to deny the immersive quality of the 3D visuals, with every frame plunging you into Pandora. If spending time in the bio-luminescent forests and turquoise oceans of an alien planet is your thing, then Fire and Ash does everything you’d hope. It’s a marvel of CG craftsmanship and of Cameron’s pursuit of perfection. Avatar: Fire and Ash will debut in cinemas on Friday 19th December 2025 in the UK. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Scarlett Johansson on becoming more comfortable with herself and why it would be "reductive" to politicise her directorial debut
The A-list actor has stepped behind the camera for new film Eleanor the Great which stars June Squibb as a 94-year-old Jewish widow who does something terrible.
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard strand, three major actors made their directorial debuts. While Kristen Stewart and Britain’s Harris Dickinson went full arthouse with their films – respectively, addiction drama The Chronology of Water and homeless study Urchin – Scarlett Johansson took another path. Eleanor the Great is a comedy-drama about a 94-year-old Jewish widow who does something terrible. It’s funny, poignant and stars the wonderful June Squibb, whose late-career blossoming since films like Nebraska and Thelma has been a sheer delight. “This film appeared to me to have a commerciality to it, which is important,” says Johansson, and she should know. Since she started acting three decades ago, her films have accumulated more than $15 billion at the box office. While this is chiefly down to her role as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in multiple films from Iron Man 2 to Avengers: Infinity War, this year saw her help relaunch Universal’s prestige dinosaur franchise with Jurassic World: Rebirth, grossing $868 million at the box office. Johansson knows a hit when she sees one. Curiously, she’s been wanting to direct almost as long as she’s been acting. “When I was a teenager, I thought that I would direct and probably not act,” she tells me. “I mean, because I think I didn’t have an insane passion for acting when I was a teenager.” It’s an interesting answer to the question ‘How long have you wanted to direct?’ Most actors build their way gradually towards going behind the camera. But the precocious Johansson has always harboured those dreams, even as an adolescent growing up in New York. It’s also intriguing to hear that acting was not her cultural North Star back then, despite making her debut opposite Bruce Willis in the 1994 comedy North and rising to prominence alongside Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer four years later, when she was 13. “I did [have a passion to act] when I was really young,” she continues, “and then it was so hard to find projects that were engaging, I was not as engaged in the process. I mean, I would find some projects here and there, but it was hard. Now there’s a lot more opportunity for young people to play very interesting roles. But it wasn’t the trend as much when I was a teenager.” By the time she was in her teens, she established herself as an actress with indie credentials, thanks to films like the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There and Terry Zwigoff’s cult teen tale Ghost World. “I would find little things here and there,” she adds, “but I thought, ‘Well, I probably will end up directing.’ And then, when I got to be in my twenties, I became more interested in understanding my job as an actor better, and I was very focused on challenging myself in different kinds of ways.” Long after establishing herself as an A-List star, in 2017, Johansson started her own production company, These Pictures, which she co-founded with partners Keenan Flynn and Jonathan Lia. Even then, the idea of stepping behind the camera to call the shots didn’t exactly thrill her. “I was like, ‘I definitely would never want to direct’ because that job is only problem solving, and it feels like a nightmare! But I think I just assumed at some point I could potentially direct. It was just hard...some projects at some point or another were compelling but weren’t [right].” Then along came the script for Eleanor the Great, written by Tory Kamen, who was inspired by her own Jewish grandmother. With Squibb already attached, Johansson was immediately struck by this story of Eleanor Morgenstein, a shrewd and spiky nonagenarian who is living in Florida when the story starts. “I actually called my producing partners...I think I can actually direct this. And then we had to scramble to put it together. The scramble to put it together was very, very stressful. It was crazy.” Of course it meant raising finances with her producer’s hat on. She’s produced before, notably the 2024 astronaut romance Fly Me To The Moon in which she starred with Channing Tatum. But now she was putting herself on the line as the number one creative. “When you’re making a film, you have to ask people to give you a lot of money. And even if it’s a small film, it’s still going to be a lot of money. It’s millions of dollars. It’s maybe not hundreds of millions of dollars, but it’s an important amount of money.” To help, Johansson gathered an impressive cast around her, including British actors Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) and Erin Kellyman (Raised By Wolves), who play a father and daughter who encounter Squibb’s Eleanor when she moves to New York to be near her family after bestie Bessie passes away in Florida. The crux – that terrible thing that Eleanor does – comes when she visits a Jewish Community Centre and stumbles upon a Holocaust Survivor’s Group. A convert to Judaism herself, Eleanor passes off the late Bessie’s history as her own, pretending she too survived the Holocaust. Johansson identifies as Jewish (her mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, with family origins in both Poland and Russia) and calls Eleanor’s moment of madness “unforgivable” but she understands “this urgency to share the story that will disappear with this person”. The script has a deeper resonance, ensuring that – like Bessie’s story – those that survived the worst atrocity in the history of mankind are not forgotten. “So you can forgive it, hopefully. I mean, that’s the goal anyway, and I think that’s actually really important.” While forgiveness and tolerance are two major themes of the film, Johansson doesn’t want it to be yanked into conversations around the Israel-Palestine conflict, at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise. “I mean, it’s such a complicated question. And I think it would be reductive to politicise this film,” she says. Her French-born cinematographer Hélène Louvart (The Lost Daughter) was in Israel at the time of the October 7th attacks, as she was preparing to shoot another movie, just as Johansson convinced her to join the project. Johansson is particularly fond of Louvart, and the intimate relationship they fostered on set. “Hélène and I spent a lot of time breaking the script down before we shot it...that’s when our work together really began. We understood we were talking, seeing the same thing, and she’s just amazing. She’s really the most observant woman. She’s always watching everything, and it just feels like she’s just observing the entire world around her all the time. She’s so present when you’re talking to her. She’s extraordinary.” Although Johansson may be best known for her action heroine in the MCU, along the way, she’s worked with some of the most innovative filmmakers around, including Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin), Spike Jonze (Her) and Christopher Nolan (The Prestige). Was she influenced by any of her past collaborators when making Eleanor the Great? “Maybe inadvertently. I think sometimes directors have great references. And I’ve worked with directors that have great references. They’re making their version of an Antonioni film. Or it’s a Bergman moment. I didn’t have that as much.” That’s Johansson’s commercial instincts speaking again; Bergman moments don’t tend to fly with the masses anymore. Instead, like her former collaborator Woody Allen, she ploughed a furrow of Jewish humour. “The script was very funny,” she adds. “I think the film’s hilarious! I hope that other people also find it funny.” She even found herself guffawing at Squibb’s performance in the cutting room, alongside editor Harry Jierjian, who previously cut Fly Me To The Moon. “I laughed so much…the whole room was laughing,” says Johansson, praising Squibb’s impeccable comic timing. With Johansson now in the director’s chair, making artistic choices, it puts her in a position of strength that she maybe didn’t have as an actress. But Johansson has always been one of the Hollywood stars who was unafraid to speak her mind. In the past, she’s criticised the media’s obsession with body image and with objectifying her when she was younger. She’s also been an advocate for women issues, with everything from equal pay to reproductive rights. Now, as a 41 year-old mother-of-two, has it been easy to continue to speak up in this way? “I think I usually speak in my own voice,” she says. “I’m pretty comfortable being myself and continue to become more comfortable with being myself as I get older. It’s great. It’s maybe the best thing about getting older. There’s other things that suck and continue to suck more, but that part’s great.” The question remains, where does Johansson go next? This week, reports have circulated that she is close to signing on for an unspecified role in Matt Reeves’ blockbuster The Batman: Part II, opposite Robert Pattinson, which will only increase her box office clout. But what about directing? Could she ever see herself making a bigger film than Eleanor the Great? “As long as I felt like it was a film that had a good shot of people going to see it…that’s important.” Spoken like someone who truly understands the movie industry. Eleanor the Great is out now in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Blue Moon review: Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott shine in tender portrait of an artist
The new film from Richard Linklater focuses on American lyricist Lorenz Hart after his split from songwriting partner Richard Rodgers.
"He was the saddest man I ever knew." This quote from Mabel Mercer begins Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s snapshot of Lorenz Hart. The American lyricist spent 25 years partnered with the younger Richard Rodgers, in which time they wrote such standards as My Funny Valentine and Blue Moon (a song that Manchester City fans have adopted as they own). But it was Rodgers’s next partnership, with Oscar Hammerstein, that is the one still remembered to this day. Set chiefly across one night, Blue Moon takes place on the cusp of this changing of the guard. It’s March 1943, and Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) have just unveiled their first collaboration, Oklahoma!, to 1600 enthusiastic audience members in New York. With the critics ecstatic, Hart (Ethan Hawke) leaves early to head to the after-party at famed midtown restaurant Sardi’s. Drinking heavily, he props himself up at the bar (run by Bobby Cannnavale), awaiting the arrival of Rodgers. "Am I bitter?" he announces. Of course he is. He knows that the "inoffensive" Oklahoma! will run and run. But he hates this "cornball" take on an Americana that never even existed. "Who wants inoffensive art?" he splutters. Speaking with all the grace and incision of Oscar Wilde, Hart has talent to burn; but it’s his struggles with alcohol that will be his undoing. Sponsored by Vue Save up to 30% on the latest releases at Vue in 2025 Are you a movie lover who always wants to be up to date with the latest releases? Then you're in luck, as RadioTimes.com readers can enjoy new films at Vue for less. Customers will receive up to 30% off films with Vue Pass, as long as they have a RadioTimes.com account. It's a great time for new releases, with films such as Wicked, Nosferatu, The Brutalist and Moana 2 taking UK cinemas by storm. Head to your nearest Vue to catch these movies and more for up to 30% less if you're signed up as a RadioTimes.com member. Save up to 30% with Vue Pass The film comes scripted by Robert Kaplow, who previously worked with Linklater on Me and Orson Welles, another film that dived into the American showbiz world of the era. This takes bigger risks, not least because it’s nearly all set inside Sardi’s as Hart holds court with anyone that will listen. The 1942 Humphrey Bogart classic Casablanca is referenced – there’s even a pianist (Jonah Lees) on hand to tinkle the ivories from time to time. There are some affectionate moments, not least when Hart is introduced to a young male admirer – and an aspiring director – who introduces himself as George Hill. "Be careful of love stories," Hart advises. "Think about friendship stories." George Roy Hill, to give him his full name, would go on to make one of the great friendship stories of all time, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Another encounter sees him meet "Stephen", a young musical theatre aficionado (who happens to be Stephen Sondheim) who seemingly has no love for Hart’s work. Read more: Wake Up Dead Man review – Is this the best Knives Out film yet? Wicked: For Good review – Oz saga conclusion will satisfy its extensive army of devotees Looking blonde and demure, Margaret Qualley pops up as Elizabeth Weiland, the young woman that Hart is obsessed by (although his sexuality, and his preferences for men, are frequently alluded to). Hawke, on his ninth movie with Linklater, is dexterous here in a difficult role, although some creative choices don’t work. The bald cap and combover worn by the actor are very distracting. Likewise, the fact that Hawke has been made to look shorter (Hart was under five foot in height) against his co-stars feels odd. Yet this is a sparkling script by Kaplow, brought to life by an enthusiastic Hawke, especially in his exchanges with Rodgers, when the man of the hour finally arrives. Sherlock and All of Us Strangers star Scott captures the essence of a creative catapulted into the stratosphere with real elan. Rather than leave Hart in the dust, he feels for his erstwhile partner. "I owe my professional life to you," he says. But their working relationship has become untenable. The longer Blue Moon goes on, the more tragic it becomes, as Hart is haunted by the songs he’s written, the love he yearns for and the career he is about to lose. Alcohol has taken a grip of him. It’s a tender – and sometimes affecting – portrait of the artist, one that hopefully will allow modern audiences to remember the contributions Lorenz Hart made to popular culture. Blue Moon is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Jay Kelly review: George Clooney's comedy drama is glossy and navel-gazing – but Adam Sandler excels
Noah Baumbach’s new Netflix film plays like a loving tribute to its lead star.
★★★☆☆ Jay Kelly is in cinemas now and on Netflix from December 2025. Add it to your watchlist George Clooney skates close to his own life – or at least tries to make us think he is – in Noah Baumbach’s new film Jay Kelly. The story of a famous actor undergoing a late-career crisis, it’s an inward-looking navel-gaze that starts well but veers dangerously close to indulgence. Clooney pays the titular star, just wrapping up his latest movie, a corny-looking thriller called 'Eight Men from Now'. A multiple divorcee, he’s got two weeks before his next opus rolls, and he wants to spend it with younger daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards), only to discover she’s heading to Europe for the summer. Then two things happen to give him pause for thought. Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), the director who gave him his big break as a young actor, dies. And, at the funeral, he meets Tim (Billy Crudup), an old acting class buddy. As they catch up over a beer, it becomes clear Tim holds a grudge that Jay ‘stole’ his role at an audition way back when and they fight in the car park. The next day, and now sporting a black eye, Jay decides to ditch the new movie and fly to Paris to intercept Daisy. And so he takes a private plane with his entourage, including long-time manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern), as well as his hair stylist (Emily Mortimer) and other assorted hangers-on. His excuse? That he’s going to attend a career tribute in Tuscany, one he previously rejected. The film’s central sequence, and its most amusing, sees Jay and his team on board a public train to Italy. With no first class, he has to sit with the “plebs”, as Stath Lets Flats’ Jamie Demetriou – one of the passengers – puts it. Amazed to see such a mega-star in the wild, they flock around him. “When I see you, I see my whole life,” cries one man, delighted, like something out of Fellini’s 8½. Behind the scenes, Ron and Liz are trying to firefight an escalating situation, as Tim looks to sue Jay for the injuries he suffered in their bar fight. Increasingly, Jay starts to reflect on his own life, especially his poor relationship with older daughter Jessica (Riley Keough). It doesn’t help when Ron’s other actor client Ben (Patrick Wilson) turns up to accept another tribute, with his lovely family in tow. Nor when his “working stiff” father (Stacy Keach) arrives, gently berating his son where possible. By this point, though, Baumbach’s movie is starting to wallow in cliché, especially with Alba Rohrwacher’s over-the-top ‘Eye-talian’ handler. View oEmbed on the source website At its best, Jay Kelly offers an understated performance from Sandler, reuniting here with Baumbach after 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories. It’s a tender, heartfelt turn from Sandler, far removed from his comedic man-child schtick, as he plays a man who comes to realise he needs to support his own family (including his wife, played by Baumbach’s partner and Barbie co-writer Greta Gerwig), rather than devote his life to Kelly’s stardom. As for Baumbach, this glossy first team-up with Clooney feels far removed from the edgy indies he made with Gerwig like Frances Ha and Mistress America. In some ways, it feels like a tribute to Clooney (see the concluding montage, featuring clips of Clooney in Syriana, Leatherheads, The Thin Red Line and others). The trouble is, everyone knows Clooney’s life is not as empty as Jay Kelly’s; quite the opposite in fact. The desired effect, for us to feel for his character mid-crisis, never quite works.
10 Questions with George Clooney and Adam Sandler
The real-life Hollywood pals bring their bromance to the screen in new movie Jay Kelly
Add Jay Kelly to your watchlist Both fixtures on the Hollywood A-list, George Clooney and Adam Sandler have careers going back to the late 1980s. With that wealth of experience, it’s no wonder Clooney, 64, was cast as the titular movie star in Noah Baumbach’s sparkling new comedy-drama Jay Kelly, while Sandler, 59, plays his long-suffering manager, Ron, for ever trailing after him. They’re an unlikely pair, but they make quite the double act… George, your character Jay Kelly is a famous movie star. In your own life, did you ever consider if fame was really for you? GEORGE I don’t think you have the luxury of saying, “Well, I don’t know if I’m really up for fame” when you’re a young actor just trying to get a job. You’re not really thinking about fame. Have your careers and ambition changed over the years? George I have eight-year-old kids, so I had to change my career choices. Directing means 10 months on the road, so it’s not something I can do any more, because I want to be home. ADAM You’ll be back in 10 years! GEORGE It’s a lot easier to make those decisions later in life when you’ve succeeded. It’s a lot harder for people who have to make those decisions when they’re trying to make their mark. There’s certainly decisions that are made easier when you’re 64 and too old to be having young children. Adam, how have you juggled the work/life balance? ADAM I was raised in a family-comes-first home. I have an enormous amount of guilt if I’m not with my family. If I’m away too long, I’m feeling it the whole time. So, prioritising family came easy. You’re familiar faces — how do you cope with being recognised? ADAM I jump in there. I live my life and don’t really change much. It’s a different energy when you walk into a restaurant, everybody knows you and says hello. But then that calms down, and life feels good. Which of each other’s performances have you admired? GEORGE I was so blown away by The Meyerowitz Stories. There’s a gentleness and a vulnerability that’s very hard to do as an actor… you stole that show. ADAM How about I just talk about George’s play [Good Night, and Good Luck]? What he did setting records all over Broadway… I was baffled with how steady, how charismatic you were, and how deep the performance was. You’ve both starred in comedy and intense dramas. Which is harder to play? GEORGE Comedy feels infinitely more stressful. I feel like there’s more pressure on you. Adam, do people come up to you all the time and go, “Be funny?” ADAM That has happened. I don’t usually rise to the occasion. GEORGE Well, you’re not right now, that’s for sure. You’re bringing us all down! Jay Kelly had cheesecake as one of the demands on his rider. What’s on yours? ADAM In the early days, if it was hot, I would go, “Oh God, why is it so damn hot in here?” Somehow that later became “Adam likes it cold”. After that, I would walk onto set and it’s freezing and when I asked, “Why is it like this?” They would say, “You like this, right?” I said it one time! That’s my cheesecake. Jay is forced to come face-to-face with the people he has wronged from his past. Do you believe it’s ever possible to fix what’s behind us? GEORGE I would hope so, because I’ve often tried to repair things. I’ve come to people and said, “I didn’t handle that very well.” You hope to be able to do that, but sometimes maybe not. Are you still in touch with old friends? GEORGE Thom Mathews [a US actor]… we went on the same auditions all the time. If I didn’t get it, I wanted him to get it. So there was a great camaraderie. He and I have been friends for over 40 years. ADAM I’m in touch with a lot of people from the old days, but Jay Kelly definitely made me feel for the people who have been with me this whole time. When I had a movie open up at the box office and it did well, I’d call the guys who work with me, and they were feeling exactly what I was feeling. This excitement. And then when I had ones where I’d get punched in the face, they were feeling that too. Jay and Ron have an interesting relationship — how do you get on with your own agents? GEORGE My agent is a guy named Bryan Lourd, who’s one of the great guys in the business. He’s also one of my best friends. He and I have four schools that we put together across the country, getting young people who don’t look male and white working in editing and visual effects. So my relationship with him is nothing but admiration and respect. And I’m really happy to say that because I’ve been in situations with agents 25 years ago where none of that was true. ADAM I’ve had several over the years. I stole from all of them [to play Ron]. Man, it’s a selfless job. You’re all about the client, and I enjoyed being that man for George. But not in real life!
Jay Kelly stars George Clooney and Adam Sandler reveal how age has changed ambitions and talk correcting past mistakes
The real-life Hollywood pals bring their bromance to the screen in new movie Jay Kelly.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Both fixtures on the Hollywood A-list, George Clooney and Adam Sandler have careers going back to the late 1980s. With that wealth of experience, it’s no wonder Clooney, 64, was cast as the titular movie star in Noah Baumbach’s sparkling new comedy-drama Jay Kelly, while Sandler, 59, plays his long-suffering manager, Ron, for ever trailing after him. They’re an unlikely pair, but they make quite the double act… George, your character Jay Kelly is a famous movie star. In your own life, did you ever consider if fame was really for you? GEORGE CLOONEY: I don’t think you have the luxury of saying, “Well, I don’t know if I’m really up for fame” when you’re a young actor just trying to get a job. You’re not really thinking about fame. Have your careers and ambition changed over the years? GEORGE: I have eight-year-old kids, so I had to change my career choices. Directing means 10 months on the road, so it’s not something I can do any more, because I want to be home. ADAM SANDLER: You’ll be back in 10 years! GEORGE: It’s a lot easier to make those decisions later in life when you’ve succeeded. It’s a lot harder for people who have to make those decisions when they’re trying to make their mark. There’s certainly decisions that are made easier when you’re 64 and too old to be having young children. Adam, how have you juggled the work/life balance? ADAM: I was raised in a family-comes-first home. I have an enormous amount of guilt if I’m not with my family. If I’m away too long, I’m feeling it the whole time. So, prioritising family came easy. You’re familiar faces – how do you cope with being recognised? ADAM: I jump in there. I live my life and don’t really change much. It’s a different energy when you walk into a restaurant, everybody knows you and says hello. But then that calms down, and life feels good. Which of each other’s performances have you admired? GEORGE: I was so blown away by The Meyerowitz Stories. There’s a gentleness and a vulnerability that’s very hard to do as an actor… you stole that show. ADAM: How about I just talk about George’s play [Good Night, and Good Luck]? What he did setting records all over Broadway... I was baffled with how steady, how charismatic you were, and how deep the performance was. You’ve both starred in comedy and intense dramas. Which is harder to play? GEORGE: Comedy feels infinitely more stressful. I feel like there’s more pressure on you. Adam, do people come up to you all the time and go, “Be funny?” ADAM: That has happened. I don’t usually rise to the occasion. GEORGE: Well, you’re not right now, that’s for sure. You’re bringing us all down! View oEmbed on the source website Jay Kelly had cheesecake as one of the demands on his rider. What’s on yours? ADAM: In the early days, if it was hot, I would go, “Oh God, why is it so damn hot in here?” Somehow that later became “Adam likes it cold”. After that, I would walk onto set and it’s freezing and when I asked, “Why is it like this?” They would say, “You like this, right?” I said it one time! That’s my cheesecake. Jay is forced to come face-to-face with the people he has wronged from his past. Do you believe it’s ever possible to fix what’s behind us? GEORGE: I would hope so, because I’ve often tried to repair things. I’ve come to people and said, “I didn’t handle that very well.” You hope to be able to do that, but sometimes maybe not. Are you still in touch with old friends? GEORGE: Thom Mathews [a US actor]... we went on the same auditions all the time. If I didn’t get it, I wanted him to get it. So there was a great camaraderie. He and I have been friends for over 40 years. ADAM: I’m in touch with a lot of people from the old days, but Jay Kelly definitely made me feel for the people who have been with me this whole time. When I had a movie open up at the box office and it did well, I’d call the guys who work with me, and they were feeling exactly what I was feeling. This excitement. And then when I had ones where I’d get punched in the face, they were feeling that too. Jay and Ron have an interesting relationship – how do you get on with your own agents? GEORGE: My agent is a guy named Bryan Lourd, who’s one of the great guys in the business. He’s also one of my best friends. He and I have four schools that we put together across the country, getting young people who don’t look male and white working in editing and visual effects. So my relationship with him is nothing but admiration and respect. And I’m really happy to say that because I’ve been in situations with agents 25 years ago where none of that was true. ADAM I’ve had several over the years. I stole from all of them [to play Ron]. Man, it’s a selfless job. You’re all about the client, and I enjoyed being that man for George. But not in real life! The latest issue of Radio Times is out on Tuesday – subscribe here. Jay Kelly is available to stream on Netflix from 5 December. Add Jay Kelly to your watchlist on the <a id="OWA8b702c45-bee9-94e4-f018-57518e78041b" title="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" href="https://www.radiotimes.com/download-the-app/?af_xp=custom&pid=website&c=editorial_content&is_retargeting=true&af_reengagement_window=30d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-outlook-id="449c28d9-909e-4aab-b6b8-153454f55d5e" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0">Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Wicked: For Good review – Oz saga conclusion will satisfy its extensive army of devotees
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are back in top, lung-busting form in another wondrous, multi-colour extravaganza.
After last year’s Wicked: Part I, we’re back for some more Ozploitation. Jon M Chu’s two-part adaptation has already been a wild ride, tapping into the perennial enthusiasm for the long-running stage show by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, which itself came inspired both by Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel and, of course, Hollywood Golden Age musical The Wizard of Oz. Part I conjured a healthy $756 million global box office, followed by ten Oscar nominations and two wins. There’s no reason to think Wicked: For Good won’t perform the same trick, or better it, with Chu bringing events to a rousing close. While he infuses enthusiasm into every frame, the same can be said for his leading ladies. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are back in top, lung-busting form as, respectively, the pink-hued Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the green-skinned witch who has been cast out of Oz, thanks to the machinations of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum, wickedly charming as ever), the ultimately carney-man. Now in exile, the demonised Elphaba’s name has been stained by the Wizard, in league with her one-time tutor, the former Dean of Sorcery at Shiz University, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh, still wearing that delicious Mr Whippy ice-cream hair-do). The slightly vapid Glinda, meanwhile, thinks they need to be trademarking the word "good", while she’s also caught up in preparations for her impending wedding to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who has been charged with capturing Elphaba. Early on, we see her deftly flying her broomstick and causing disruption as workers build the famed Yellow Brick Road – and that won’t be the only reference to The Wizard of Oz. Wicked: For Good weaves around events of the 1939 movie, as a certain house from Kansas comes tumbling from the sky. Chu, wisely, never makes this about Dorothy, Toto and the others, but rather places them in the backdrop – a move that respectfully doesn’t trample on the memory of the iconic star of the original, Judy Garland. There are new songs penned by Schwartz – No Place Like Home and The Girl in the Bubble. But you’d be hard pressed to claim these lift the show into a new stratosphere. And in truth, whether or not splicing the stage show in two was a cash grab, you’re always left wondering what a one-movie approach would’ve been like. Try as he might, Chu doesn’t quite generate the same emotional heft as the previous film, but that’s always likely when the audience has been made to pause halfway through the story. View oEmbed on the source website Despite some cool visual treats (flying monkeys!), there’s also some questionable CGI/make-up effects involving both Goldblum and Bailey, in a meme-worthy transformation, and a lot less of Bowen Yang, as Pfannee, which is a shame. But gripes aside, it hardly matters when you’ve got Erivo and Grande hitting the highest of notes. Both Oscar nominees last time out, in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories respectively, it’d be no shock if Academy voters were keeping their powder dry to award these divas this time around. In both cases, it’d be richly deserved. Read more: Keeper review: An unsettling, compelling but ultimately unsatisfying chiller from Oz Perkins The Running Man review: Glen Powell proves a charismatic hero in Edgar Wright remake There are some lovely interactions – including one hilarious fight – as Glinda confronts her feelings about Elphaba, whose quest to save the animals, banned from Oz along with the Munchkin people, has led her to this life on the outside. Once again, Nathan Crowley’s production design is wondrous, a multi-colour extravaganza that truly brings Oz to life. Simply spending time there – with its fields of tulips and fireworks in the sky – is one of the great pleasures of this movie. A film that will surely satisfy Wicked’s extensive army of devotees. Wicked: For Good is scheduled for release in UK cinemas on 21st November 2025. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Wicked: For Good review – A conclusion of the Oz saga to surely satisfy its extensive army of devotees
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo return in top, lung-busting form for another wondrous, multi-colour extravaganza.
★★★★☆ Wicked: For Good is in cinemas from 21 November. Add it to your watchlist After last year’s Wicked: Part I, we’re back for some more Ozploitation. Jon M Chu’s two-part adaptation has already been a wild ride, tapping into the perennial enthusiasm for the long-running stage show by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, which itself came inspired both by Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel and, of course, Hollywood Golden Age musical The Wizard of Oz. Part I conjured a healthy $756 million global box office, followed by ten Oscar nominations and two wins. There’s no reason to think Wicked: For Good won’t perform the same trick, or better it, with Chu bringing events to a rousing close. While he infuses enthusiasm into every frame, the same can be said for his leading ladies. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are back in top, lung-busting form as, respectively, the pink-hued Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the green-skinned witch who has been cast out of Oz, thanks to the machinations of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum, wickedly charming as ever), the ultimately carney-man. Now in exile, the demonised Elphaba’s name has been stained by the Wizard, in league with her one-time tutor, the former Dean of Sorcery at Shiz University, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh, still wearing that delicious Mr. Whippy ice-cream hair-do). The slightly vapid Glinda, meanwhile, thinks they need to be trademarking the word "good", while she’s also caught up in preparations for her impending wedding to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who has been charged with capturing Elphaba. Early on, we see her deftly flying her broomstick and causing disruption as workers build the famed Yellow Brick Road – and that won’t be the only reference to The Wizard of Oz. Wicked: For Good weaves around events of the 1939 movie, as a certain house from Kansas comes tumbling from the sky. Chu, wisely, never makes this about Dorothy, Toto and the others, but rather places them in the backdrop – a move that respectfully doesn’t trample on the memory of the iconic star of the original, Judy Garland. View oEmbed on the source website There are new songs penned by Schwartz – No Place Like Home and The Girl In The Bubble. But you’d be hard pressed to claim these lift the show into a new stratosphere. And in truth, whether or not splicing the stage show in two was a cash grab, you’re always left wondering what a one-movie approach would’ve been like. Try as he might, Chu doesn’t quite generate the same emotional heft as the previous film, but that’s always likely when the audience has been made to pause halfway through the story. Despite some cool visual treats (flying monkeys!), there’s also some questionable CGI/makeup effects involving both Goldblum and Bailey, in a meme-worthy transformation, and a lot less of Bowen Yang, as Pfannee, which is a shame. But gripes aside, it hardly matters when you’ve got Erivo and Grande hitting the highest of notes. Both Oscar nominees last time out, in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories respectively, it’d be no shock if Academy voters were keeping their powder dry to award these divas this time around. In both cases, it’d be richly deserved. There are some lovely interactions – including one hilarious fight – as Glinda confronts her feelings about Elphaba, whose quest to save the animals, banned from Oz along with the Munchkin people, has led her to this life on the outside. Once again, Nathan Crowley’s production design is wondrous, a multi-colour extravaganza that truly brings Oz to life. Simply spending time there – with its fields of tulips and fireworks in the sky – is one of the great pleasures of this movie. A film that will surely satisfy Wicked’s extensive army of devotees.
Dragonfly review: Brenda Blethyn is at her very best in frequently heartbreaking film
This new film from writer/director Paul Andrew Williams is a bleak but captivating study of loneliness and social care set in contemporary Britain.
Two actors, among the very best of their respective generations, come together for Dragonfly, a bleak but captivating study of loneliness and social care set in contemporary Britain. Brenda Blethyn plays Elsie, an ageing pensioner who lives in a semi-detached bungalow. Elsie has been a widow for 13 years and has one son, John (Jason Watkins), who rarely visits. The only people she regularly sees are the carousel of care workers who bustle in to wash her and fix her tea before scooting off to their next appointment. Next door is Coleen (Andrea Riseborough). She lives alone with her bullish-looking dog, an animal she loves dearly but barely has control over. Her hair scraped back, her skin is pale and, despite her protests to the contrary, she looks far older than her 35 years. Living on benefits, she slouches on the sofa all day watching TV, sinking into a malaise. But gradually, she finds company when she offers to buy provisions for Elsie from the corner shop. From this little acorn, an oak tree of friendship grows, as these two lost souls find solace together. Writing and directing is British filmmaker Paul Andrew Williams, who adds yet another intriguing addition to his body-of-work, one that kickstarted with the visceral London to Brighton almost two decades ago. Williams errs on the darker side in his films, as his last movie, the 2021 hallucinatory revenge tale Bull shows, and Dragonfly is no different. The companionship that Elsie and Coleen conjure is destined to take a disturbing twist, although it’s likely you won’t see it coming until it’s too late. The film toys with social realism, albeit on Williams’s terms. The low-key electronic score by Raffertie, who previously scored Oscar-nominated horror The Substance, occasionally punctuates unsettling shots of Elsie’s home, empty hallways and so on that suggest how little she has left in her life. Shooting in natural light, there’s a gloom that envelops this film, made more poignant when Elsie suddenly cries out at one of her care workers, “What’s my name? You don’t know, do you?” Casually, this is a portrait of Britain at breaking point. A busted flush. Opening with shots of a depressed-looking British town centre (it was filmed in West Yorkshire), Williams never patronises his characters, or the positions they are in. Despite the bleakness, he mines a strain of gentle humour, notably when Coleen buys a walkie talkie set so the two can chat. Needless to say, Elsie struggles with the buttons. “I can hear you better through the door,” she wails, amusingly. But, as funny as this is, those rudimentary communication devices take on a more poignant meaning later in the film. Blethyn arguably hasn’t had a role this good since Mike Leigh’s 1995 Cannes-winning Secrets & Lies, although any comparisons to Leigh should be dismissed. Williams’s approach has sharper teeth than Leigh’s domestic portraits, as good as they are. Riseborough, meanwhile, is at her chameleonic best here. It’s remarkable that two decades into her career, one that’s seen her work frequently in Hollywood, she’s still almost unrecognisable from role to role. Here, she sinks right into Coleen, a woman who has suffered a painful existence, living on government hand-outs, her mental health hitting the red zone. Williams handles her with care for the most part, although one shot of her face pressed against Elsie’s door feels overcooked. She and Blethyn have been nominated at the forthcoming British Independent Film Awards for Best Joint Performance, and it feels an entirely apt choice. They play off each other brilliantly, the centrepiece in this highly astute and frequently heartbreaking film. Dragonfly is in UK cinemas from Friday 7th November 2025. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Kenny Dalglish reflects on his glory years, the tragedy of Hillsborough and the joy of still attending Anfield
The Liverpool and Celtic legend is the subject of a new documentary from Amy and Senna director Asif Kapadia.
When Kenny Dalglish took to the stage at London’s Picturehouse Central cinema recently, accompanied by his daughter and Match of the Day presenter Kelly Cates, the Liverpool footballing legend was in wonderfully jovial form. In front of friends and admirers, including ex-player Jamie Carragher and actor Damian Lewis, he was there to present Kenny Dalglish – the new documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Asif Kapadia. The 74-year-old Glaswegian joked that he was the first of Kapadia’s subjects to be alive – a nod to the director’s multi award-winning docs Senna, Amy and Maradona, which took on, respectively, the tragic tales of Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna, singer Amy Winehouse and football icon Diego Maradona. The man they call ‘King Kenny’ is a very different prospect – at once a man of the people and one of the greatest footballers of his generation. Kapadia’s film steers us through Dalglish’s early years and his time at Celtic before, in 1977, Liverpool manager Bob Paisley paid a British transfer record of £440,000 to bring the striker south of the border as a replacement for the departing Kevin Keegan. As he always does with his documentaries, Kapadia doesn’t feature talking heads, but rather mixes candid audio recordings of his interviewees and compelling archive clips. “There wasn’t a camera, there wasn’t a crew, there wasn’t lots of people, it was quite relaxed,” says Kapadia, who did most of the recordings in Liverpool, sitting Dalglish down with a cup of tea and some Dairy Milk chocolate. Their exchanges were often humorous, Dalglish even telling Kapadia to get a haircut before one recording session. One day, Kapadia couldn’t make it to Liverpool, and Dalglish came down on the train (arriving suited and booted, “for an audio interview!” the director laughs). “Most people don't do that. You have to go to them.“ It’s just one example of how down-to-earth Dalglish is. Can you imagine David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo jumping on British Rail without an entourage? Here is a man, as Kapadia’s film so carefully points out, who always put the collective ahead of the individual. In 1977, Dalglish’s arrival at Liverpool coincided with the club’s most successful period, winning three European cups and six First Division leagues during his time as a player. “I think it's nice to reminisce when you’ve been through what I’ve done. It’s brilliant isn't it?” Dalglish tells me, cheerfully, when we meet. “Obviously, there’s some other things you wouldn’t want to be repeated, which has nothing to do with a game. It’s to do with what happened at a game. So that’s emotive and touching.” He is, of course, referring to the events he witnessed at both Heysel and Hillsborough, two of the most horrifying tragedies to ever take place inside football grounds. The first, in 1985, took place on the night that Liverpool played Juventus in the European Cup Final. 39 souls, mostly Juventus supporters, lost their lives, when a wall collapsed following an altercation with Liverpool fans. Shortly afterwards, Liverpool’s manager Joe Fagan resigned and Dalglish took over, initially as player-manager. Even then, the idea of a player-manager was a rarity. “Especially at 34 years of age,” he says. “But if they were prepared to take a chance, then what right did I have to say no?” Dalglish’s first year in charge ended with Liverpool winning the double – shockingly, it remains the only time still the club has won the league title and the FA Cup in the same year. Needless to say, Kapadia features the iconic moment when Dalglish famously clinched the league for Liverpool on the final day of the 1985-’86 season, scoring the only goal in the game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Again, Dalglish is not one to accept the glory all for himself. “That was only a culmination of some fantastic work a load of other guys had done for me. On and off the pitch. I mean, remember Ronnie Moran, Roy Evans, Tom Saunders, they were there beside us off the pitch and on the pitch, every single one of them was an ally. So I thought that [scoring the winner] was a nice way to say thank you!” Kapadia’s film largely skips over Dalglish’s international career (he won 102 caps in fifteen years for Scotland and played in three World Cups), focusing on his time at Liverpool. The 1987-’88 season remains a high point in the club’s history, winning the league with a stylish team Dalglish rebuilt, bringing in John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, John Aldridge and Ray Houghton. Again Dalglish deflects praise away from himself and onto the club. “I gave them a list in players, and they brought them in,” he shrugs. Kapadia, a devoted Liverpool FC fan, remembered Dalglish from his childhood, and wanted to make a love letter to him and to a time before Sky Sports and the Premier League changed football irrevocably. “When I started this film, I thought, ‘Is it possible to make a film about Kenny and just talk about football? Can I just make a football film about him?’ But then I spoke to people and they said, ‘Well, you missed the point of the man.’” Dalglish may not be a politician, but his time with Liverpool showed him as a resolute leader in the wake of the Hillsborough tragedy, which ultimately saw 97 fans lose their lives due to overcrowding on the terraces during the 1989 FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. Dalglish led the club with dignity during this period, attending funerals and remaining on the side of the fans, even when they were falsely accused of vile behaviour. There’s no doubt its a chilling moment in the film, whether you’ve seen the footage before or not. Kapadia reports of a screening they had for the survivors of Hillsborough and their families recently in Liverpool. “It was so emotional. And Kenny was there. He spoke to everyone. He knows most of them, of course, as you would. So I feel like that's another part of the story, telling his story, but him also saying, ‘We’re not going to forget what you did.’ I think that's really important.” As the film shows, Liverpool FC was in turmoil after that, the board, players and manager uncertain whether to even continue in the FA Cup. Eventually, it was decided they would carry on – and the team beat Forest in the re-arranged semi-final to set up a date with their Merseyside neighbours Everton (a repeat of the 1986 FA Cup final, when Liverpool won the double). This time, they won 3-2, a game that Dalglish calls the “the most meaningful success” in his time at the club. "For me, that’s the most relevant. It was unfortunate if you were an Evertonian, because the world and his dog was against them, wasn’t it? Everybody wanted us to win it. But in saying that it also put pressure on the boys that were playing." As emotional as that was, Hillsborough took its toll on Dalglish, who ultimately resigned in 1991. “I was just fortunate enough that I could make that decision,” he reflects. “There’s a lot of people who go past the point of no return and, medically, I was glad that I was able to make that decision. I wasn’t happy with the decision I had to make, but it was necessary. In some ways you’re happy that you were able to do that. In other ways, you're disappointed it came to that level.” While Kapadia’s film stops with Dalglish’s departure, his career continued, becoming the only manager to win the Premier League with Blackburn in 1995. He later returned for a second spell at Liverpool in 2011 after the sacking of Roy Hodgson during a particularly barren period for the club. Dalglish led the team to its first trophy in five years, a League Cup win against Cardiff in 2012, and an FA Cup Final appearance the same year. “I was glad I went back. It was a huge honour to be able to go back, and to win a trophy during that spell, and to get to the final of the FA Cup as well in the same year…[that] was very rewarding. We were a wee bit in transition then, changing over. But as I say, enjoyed it, and I'd still make the same decision again.” With humility, he adds: “The unfortunate thing about getting back is a very, very good man lost his job – and that was Roy.” You might say this is typical of Dalglish. “This idea of caring for people, doing the right thing…that’s how he was brought up in Glasgow,” says Kapadia. “I think that's what comes across...it’s always doing the right thing for your people, whether it’s your family, whether it’s your team, whether it’s the city.” Unsurprisingly, a willing roster of family, friends and fans speak about Dalglish in the film, including teammates Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness and Beatles star Paul McCartney. These days Dalglish can still regularly be seen attending games at Liverpool’s ground, Anfield. “It's always important to get enjoyment of your life, isn't it?” he says. “Going to Anfield, it's never going to be a chore, is it? It’s always going to be tinged with happiness.” I jokingly ask if he’d consider a third spell as manager of the club. “That means somebody’s been unsuccessful,” he replies. When it comes to Kenny Dalglish, there really is no ‘i’ in team. Kenny Dalglish is now streaming on Prime Video. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
As Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein lurches into life, the director reveals how true horror has seen him tackle ‘the real monsters’ – inside and out
Frankenstein is in cinemas now and on Netflix from 7 Nov. Add it to your watchlist. A director who has given us some of the most indelible monsters in screen history, Guillermo del Toro has had a fascination with the macabre from an early age. Very early. He was no more than two when he saw an episode of TV series The Outer Limits. “I got scared so bad that I started dreaming of monsters in a lucid way,” he recalls. “I would wake up in my room and there would be creatures that were not real… I offered to become their friend if they let me climb out of the crib to go to the bathroom.” Across his childhood in Mexico and a three-decade career in Hollywood, Del Toro has made peace with those monsters. Think of the Pale Man, the humanoid with eyeballs in his palms, in 2006 fascism allegory Pan’s Labyrinth. Or the amphibious captive in 2017’s The Shape of Water, the film that won Del Toro two of his three Oscars (the third was for his beautifully animated Pinocchio in 2022). Now the director is taking on the greatest monster of them all: the Creature at the heart of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, in a mesmerising adaptation starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi. Del Toro was 11 when he first read the gothic classic, a Spanish-language copy he picked up in a supermarket that he still has to this day. But his obsession was fired four years earlier, when he saw Boris Karloff’s unsettling monster in James Whale’s seminal 1931 Frankenstein. He calls it his St Paul on the road to Damascus moment. “I went into some sort of seizure of joy,” he says, when we meet at the Venice Film Festival, where his impeccably crafted Frankenstein received its world premiere. Now 61, he’s dreamed of making this film his entire career – longer, even. “I wanted to make this movie before I had a camera, before I knew what a camera was,” he explains. “There are a few seminal figures in my childhood that loom large. Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Dr Frankenstein, the Hunchback, Pinocchio. And those are sort of my holy touchstones. Because I identify. I identify with the Hunchback. I identify with the Phantom. I identify with the Creature of Frankenstein. You take pieces of self from the world and create a composite.” All his life, he’s collected Frankenstein memorabilia – including a life-size sculpture of Karloff by Mike Hill, the creature designer who worked on Frankenstein. Del Toro, who has been married to American critic and screenwriter Kim Morgan since 2021, has them all on display at home. “I call that area the living room,” he chuckles. “When you go to a Catholic home, you see Virgin Marys. You see crucifixions on the walls. They’re the same in my house, but for monsters.” A reaction to his strict Catholic upbringing, perhaps. Raised in Guadalajara, he had a privileged childhood – not least because his father Federico won the lottery when Del Toro was small. A car dealer, Del Toro Senior had always been strict with money. But after the windfall, two things made an incredible impact on his son. “Firstly, we could go to Disneyland every year. Which was very formative for me. The second thing is that somebody told him, ‘Now that you are rich, you should have a library.’ And my dad bought a bunch of books that he never, ever read. But I did. That changed my life.” Del Toro devoured encyclopaedias of art and anatomy, which became his roadmap for Frankenstein, the timeless story of a scientist who recklessly plays creator, bringing life to a cadaver, stitched together from body parts. With Oscar Isaac cast as egomaniac Dr Victor Frankenstein, the 6ft 5in Jacob Elordi, star of Saltburn and The Narrow Road to the Deep North, is the perfect Creature – physically imposing, yet struck by the wonder of the world as he experiences it afresh. For Del Toro, it was all in Elordi’s eyes. “When I saw them, I said, ‘This is the Creature. No doubt about it.’” View Green Video on the source website One of the most faithful adaptations of Shelley’s book, the film is a sure-fire front-runner in this year’s Oscar race. But for Del Toro, it’s bigger than that. It’s about evolution. Once upon a time, his movies were “close to fairy tales or fables where the monster was good and the humans were bad”. Then came 2021 period noir Nightmare Alley, with Bradley Cooper. “That was the first time that I really thought, ‘Well, can the protagonist be the antagonist?’ And Frankenstein is that, too. Can the protagonist be the antagonist? Can the monster also kill people instead of being just a victim?” Although Del Toro prefers the word “creature” to “monster”, which has a more human connotation. “Monsters in real life have expensive suits and wear smiles on TV. That’s the real monstrosity,” he says. “When you say, ‘Country, motherland, patriotism’, these are things that sound very good, but the way they are enacted is monstrous. Or when people are selling the marvels of AI, and at the same time they’re saying, ‘Look, knowledge is not important. You have an app. Ask it.’ At the purely biological point of view, your synapse is not going to fire. How is that good for you?” Politicians and tech moguls aside – the obvious villains of our time – Del Toro has experienced real monsters. In 1998, his father was kidnapped, with a $1 million ransom demanded. Del Toro was broke; he’d sunk all his money on 1997’s Mimic, and had also made a loss of $250,000 on his 1992 debut film, Cronos. Fortunately, his friend – Titanic director James Cameron – gave him the money to hire a hostage negotiator, who saw to it that Federico was freed after 72 days. Even now, Del Toro gets the shakes thinking about it. “Since my father was kidnapped I simply have an amount of PTSD that I cannot really handle, because it’s on a visceral level.” Returning to Mexico [he has homes in Toronto and Los Angeles] still gives him the fear. “I go back, I go back, and I love going back, but very soon I feel shortness of breath, or I feel agitation, and then I leave.” The abduction was “second in my catalogue of pain”, he says, now almost in a foetal position. “I think Mimic was worse.” The sci-fi/horror brought fierce clashes with now-jailed producer Harvey Weinstein. Since Mimic, Del Toro craftily built up his Hollywood stock, switching between big-budget studio pictures such as Blade II (2002) and Pacific Rim (2013) and more personal films such as The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Crimson Peak, his 2015 gothic drama that, in many ways, was an aesthetic dress rehearsal for Frankenstein. While there have been high-profile disappointments – notably, pulling out of The Hobbit in 2010 – he’s one of those rare directors who is able to paint his visions on a grand scale. But it has been far from easy. When it comes to being a director, “You have to be a mixture of a poet and a boxer and a pusher,” he says. “What I hate is when people say ‘visionary’. It’s like you’re on ayahuasca on a chaise longue! You’re not. You’re crossing the jungle with a machete.” Del Toro may joke that he’s been “cursed” with his bulky physique, but there is something of the adventurer or athlete about him. “It’s a contact sport, making movies. It’s not a delicate, languishing, dictation of poetry.” Since 2022, he’s worked with Netflix – Pinocchio, anthology series Cabinet of Curiosities (both 2022) and now Frankenstein. It will be shown in a few cinemas, but Del Toro is unconcerned that most people will watch Frankenstein at home, on a small screen. “I saw 90 per cent of my Universal monster movies as a kid on TV,” he shrugs. He also understands how the business works these days. “First of all, you make it for whoever pays for it.” Never mind the size of the screen, he adds: “What you don’t sacrifice is the size of the ideas.” Fortunately for Del Toro, horror is a box office evergreen. “I think that we need horror to understand the world, because beauty can be pretty oppressive,” he reasons. “Horror is very liberating.” It’s also the perfect genre to smuggle across different ideas, “from the flights of philosophy of David Cronenberg; the social horror of Jordan Peele; or straight-down scare-horror, beautifully executed, like [Zach Cregger’s 2025 film] Weapons, which I adored.” Now, with Frankenstein finally on our screens, Del Toro is in mourning. “There’s a bereavement and an achievement at the same time,” he says. So what next? He recalls A History of Violence director Cronenberg, “a friend for almost 30 years”, once telling him: “The only way to stay alive as a director is to try something that is different and that scares you into being someone else.” To that end, he’s planning a violent thriller, Fury, with Oscar Isaac in the lead. Maybe this time he’ll find the monster within.
Guillermo del Toro reveals his favourite horror films
The director of Frankenstein says choosing just a few of his favourite horror films is an impossible task, but he's happy to have a go…
Add Frankenstein to your watchlist What are your favourite horror films? It’s difficult. It’s like, what are your favourite dishes? You want a burger and a pizza? I can show you great burgers and pizzas. Or if you want a five-star deconstructive molecular cuisine, I’ll give you another list. If I was looking for scary horrors, then I would say the original Ring, Jaws, Alien, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I would say Weapons too. Those are very scary to me. If you wanted to think "moving", I would say Creature From The Black Lagoon, Charles Laughton’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, and [the 1931 film] Frankenstein.
Emotive reason Jacob Elordi was cast as Frankenstein’s Monster revealed by Guillermo del Toro as director also shares his family trauma
“When I saw them, I said, ‘This is the Creature. No doubt about it.’”
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. A director who has given us some of the most indelible monsters in screen history, Guillermo del Toro has had a fascination with the macabre from an early age. Very early. He was no more than two when he saw an episode of TV series The Outer Limits. “I got scared so bad that I started dreaming of monsters in a lucid way,” he recalls. “I would wake up in my room and there would be creatures that were not real… I offered to become their friend if they let me climb out of the crib to go to the bathroom.” Across his childhood in Mexico and a three-decade career in Hollywood, Del Toro has made peace with those monsters. Think of the Pale Man, the humanoid with eyeballs in his palms, in 2006 fascism allegory Pan’s Labyrinth. Or the amphibious captive in 2017’s The Shape of Water, the film that won Del Toro two of his three Oscars (the third was for his beautifully animated Pinocchio in 2022). Now the director is taking on the greatest monster of them all: the Creature at the heart of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, in a mesmerising adaptation starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi. Del Toro was 11 when he first read the gothic classic, a Spanish-language copy he picked up in a supermarket that he still has to this day. But his obsession was fired four years earlier, when he saw Boris Karloff’s unsettling monster in James Whale’s seminal 1931 Frankenstein. He calls it his St Paul on the road to Damascus moment. “I went into some sort of seizure of joy,” he says, when we meet at the Venice Film Festival, where his impeccably crafted Frankenstein received its world premiere. Now 61, he’s dreamed of making this film his entire career – longer, even. “I wanted to make this movie before I had a camera, before I knew what a camera was,” he explains. “There are a few seminal figures in my childhood that loom large. Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Dr Frankenstein, the Hunchback, Pinocchio. And those are sort of my holy touchstones. Because I identify. I identify with the Hunchback. I identify with the Phantom. I identify with the Creature of Frankenstein. You take pieces of self from the world and create a composite.” All his life, he’s collected Frankenstein memorabilia – including a life-size sculpture of Karloff by Mike Hill, the creature designer who worked on Frankenstein. Del Toro, who has been married to American critic and screenwriter Kim Morgan since 2021, has them all on display at home. “I call that area the living room,” he chuckles. “When you go to a Catholic home, you see Virgin Marys. You see crucifixions on the walls. They’re the same in my house, but for monsters.” A reaction to his strict Catholic upbringing, perhaps. Raised in Guadalajara, he had a privileged childhood – not least because his father Federico won the lottery when Del Toro was small. A car dealer, Del Toro Senior had always been strict with money. But after the windfall, two things made an incredible impact on his son. “Firstly, we could go to Disneyland every year. Which was very formative for me. The second thing is that somebody told him, ‘Now that you are rich, you should have a library.’ And my dad bought a bunch of books that he never, ever read. But I did. That changed my life.” Del Toro devoured encyclopaedias of art and anatomy, which became his roadmap for Frankenstein, the timeless story of a scientist who recklessly plays creator, bringing life to a cadaver, stitched together from body parts. With Oscar Isaac cast as egomaniac Dr Victor Frankenstein, the 6ft 5in Jacob Elordi, star of Saltburn and The Narrow Road to the Deep North, is the perfect Creature – physically imposing, yet struck by the wonder of the world as he experiences it afresh. For Del Toro, it was all in Elordi’s eyes. “When I saw them, I said, ‘This is the Creature. No doubt about it.’” One of the most faithful adaptations of Shelley’s book, the film is a sure-fire front-runner in this year’s Oscar race. But for Del Toro, it’s bigger than that. It’s about evolution. Once upon a time, his movies were “close to fairy tales or fables where the monster was good and the humans were bad”. Then came 2021 period noir Nightmare Alley, with Bradley Cooper. “That was the first time that I really thought, ‘Well, can the protagonist be the antagonist?’ And Frankenstein is that, too. Can the protagonist be the antagonist? Can the monster also kill people instead of being just a victim?” Although Del Toro prefers the word “creature” to “monster”, which has a more human connotation. “Monsters in real life have expensive suits and wear smiles on TV. That’s the real monstrosity,” he says. “When you say, ‘Country, motherland, patriotism’, these are things that sound very good, but the way they are enacted is monstrous. Or when people are selling the marvels of AI, and at the same time they’re saying, ‘Look, knowledge is not important. You have an app. Ask it.’ At the purely biological point of view, your synapse is not going to fire. How is that good for you?” Politicians and tech moguls aside – the obvious villains of our time – Del Toro has experienced real monsters. In 1998, his father was kidnapped, with a $1 million ransom demanded. Del Toro was broke; he’d sunk all his money on 1997’s Mimic, and had also made a loss of $250,000 on his 1992 debut film, Cronos. Fortunately, his friend – Titanic director James Cameron – gave him the money to hire a hostage negotiator, who saw to it that Federico was freed after 72 days. Even now, Del Toro gets the shakes thinking about it. “Since my father was kidnapped I simply have an amount of PTSD that I cannot really handle, because it’s on a visceral level.” Returning to Mexico [he has homes in Toronto and Los Angeles] still gives him the fear. “I go back, I go back, and I love going back, but very soon I feel shortness of breath, or I feel agitation, and then I leave.” The abduction was “second in my catalogue of pain”, he says, now almost in a foetal position. “I think Mimic was worse.” The sci-fi/horror brought fierce clashes with now-jailed producer Harvey Weinstein. Since Mimic, Del Toro craftily built up his Hollywood stock, switching between big-budget studio pictures such as Blade II (2002) and Pacific Rim (2013) and more personal films such as The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Crimson Peak, his 2015 gothic drama that, in many ways, was an aesthetic dress rehearsal for Frankenstein. While there have been high-profile disappointments – notably, pulling out of The Hobbit in 2010 – he’s one of those rare directors who is able to paint his visions on a grand scale. But it has been far from easy. When it comes to being a director, “You have to be a mixture of a poet and a boxer and a pusher,” he says. “What I hate is when people say ‘visionary’. It’s like you’re on ayahuasca on a chaise longue! You’re not. You’re crossing the jungle with a machete.” Del Toro may joke that he’s been “cursed” with his bulky physique, but there is something of the adventurer or athlete about him. “It’s a contact sport, making movies. It’s not a delicate, languishing, dictation of poetry.” View oEmbed on the source website Since 2022, he’s worked with Netflix – Pinocchio, anthology series Cabinet of Curiosities (both 2022) and now Frankenstein. It will be shown in a few cinemas, but Del Toro is unconcerned that most people will watch Frankenstein at home, on a small screen. “I saw 90 per cent of my Universal monster movies as a kid on TV,” he shrugs. He also understands how the business works these days. “First of all, you make it for whoever pays for it.” Never mind the size of the screen, he adds: “What you don’t sacrifice is the size of the ideas.” Fortunately for Del Toro, horror is a box office evergreen. “I think that we need horror to understand the world, because beauty can be pretty oppressive,” he reasons. “Horror is very liberating.” It’s also the perfect genre to smuggle across different ideas, “from the flights of philosophy of David Cronenberg; the social horror of Jordan Peele; or straight-down scare-horror, beautifully executed, like [Zach Cregger’s 2025 film] Weapons, which I adored.” Now, with Frankenstein finally on our screens, Del Toro is in mourning. “There’s a bereavement and an achievement at the same time,” he says. So what next? He recalls A History of Violence director Cronenberg, “a friend for almost 30 years”, once telling him: “The only way to stay alive as a director is to try something that is different and that scares you into being someone else.” To that end, he’s planning a violent thriller, Fury, with Oscar Isaac in the lead. Maybe this time he’ll find the monster within. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Ben Stiller has made a film about his parents, who were comedy stars in 1960s USA. But does the film actually say more about him?
Add Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost to your watchlist Comic double act Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were huge in the 60s. They regularly appeared on the American variety programme The Ed Sullivan Show, while Jerry went on to play the short-tempered Frank Costanza, George’s father, in Seinfeld, and Anne – who died in 2015 – appeared in movies like The Boys from Brazil and Fame. Now, in his documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, actor-director Ben Stiller paints a tender portrait of his famous folks. When Jerry died in 2020, Stiller began filming the New York apartment his parents shared. A way to remember the place he grew up in before it was sold, it was the start of something highly personal. “I thought, ‘I want to do something that is going to be some sort of tribute to my parents,’ ” he explains, over Zoom. “This was at the beginning of Covid, and there was no chance to do a memorial for my dad. I just felt like this was a way to connect with him after losing him.” From Jerry’s home movies to cassette recordings, photos and newspaper clippings, the archive was plentiful. Stiller and his sister Amy (also an actor) even found love letters. The silver-haired Stiller, 59, was particularly taken by this intimate insight into his mother and father’s inner life. “When you think of your parents, you don’t think of them in that first blush of young love. And it was amazing to see how much passion they had for each other. I knew my dad was so devoted to my mom his whole life. But to read this frisky back and forth… it was pretty surreal, I have to say.” Stiller has always been close to his parents, lines between family and work blurring. His mother appeared in his 1994 directorial debut Gen X romance Reality Bites and hit comedy Night at the Museum, while his father played the shell-suit-wearing manager Maury Ballstein in Zoolander, Stiller’s cult 2001 comedy about a dumb-bell fashion model. “I wasn’t stupid – they were funny… I was completely using them,” he admits in the documentary, clearly unconcerned about the “nepo baby” tag. For a long time, their fame cast an uncomfortable shadow, though. “When I was a teenager, I thought I wanted to be a serious director and make serious movies,” he explains. “I think I was rebelling against my parents, the comedians, but at the end of the day you just go with what makes you happy, and what you enjoy. It’s also a period in your life when you’re trying to separate yourself from your parents, so it’s complicated. As my parents were in the business, it took me a while to figure out what I liked doing for myself.” If the film sees Stiller explore complex feelings towards his upbringing, fame and the vagaries of showbiz, it’s also a very public form of therapy after the loss of his parents. “I was definitely processing the grief of losing them, but also trying to connect with them more, too,” he says. That his dad obsessively documented their lives – even recording arguments between him and Anne – surprised him. “That deep interest he had in that history and exploring his own issues is something that I really came away with, something that maybe people who know him just from television might not know about him.” For an entertainer famed for precision-tooled Hollywood comedies like Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story and Meet the Parents, this first documentary of Stiller’s career was a learning curve. “Documentaries are hard. You have to live in the world of not knowing for a very long time, and that’s not something that really comes naturally to me,” he says. “I went through different phases with it. There were times when I was excited by the process. There were times I was really daunted by it and didn’t want to deal with it, to be honest. I was like, ‘Oh no, I’ve started this thing, what is it going to be?’” What emerges, ultimately, is also a frank look at his own life and a career that frequently took him away from his family. He notes how he’d fly home from shoots on weekends or organise “special places” for his kids to visit on set – “I thought I was doing so much better than my parents,” he says in the film. But he wasn’t. On camera, his son Quinn, 20, vents his frustration about a recent restaurant visit, when Stiller fussed over a photo with a fan rather than spending quality time with him. Home truths were spilled with Quinn and his daughter Ella, 23, who was cut out of Stiller’s 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, much to his shame. “I was able to really hear what my kids were saying to me and really accept the reality of being who I am, as opposed to the idea of who I wanted to be, and that reality of not living up to something you want to be,” he says. “I’m talking in terms of family relations and really being able to accept that more… which, honestly, I think has helped us.” Showbiz also put a strain on his marriage. In 2017, Stiller split from wife, actor Christine Taylor, after 17 years. Compared to his parents’ 50-plus years union, he felt like a failure. But, during Covid, he and Taylor moved back in together, forming a bubble for the sake of the kids, and began what Stiller calls in the documentary “a sort of coming together”. Five years on, their marriage is back on track. “I’m really happy right now,” he smiles. “I’m in a great place in my life. I’m very grateful for that.” Recently, Stiller’s pivoted into television, as one of the creatives behind the Emmy-winning Severance – fulfilling that teenage dream of directing more serious fare. Of course, he still adores comedy, but compared to his parents’ more innocent time, he says things have changed. “We live in a world where taking chances with comedy is more challenging. You’re seeing that front and centre in our country. But I think it’s important that comedians keep doing what they’re doing, speaking truth to power and being free to say what they want. That’s the most important thing.” He is alluding, of course, to the recent issues faced by Jimmy Kimmel, whose chat show was suspended after comments he made on screen in the wake of political activist Charlie Kirk’s murder – even if that suspension has since been revoked. In his line of work, social media has changed everything, for good and bad. “You have things that go out to huge audiences very quickly,” he says. But are bite-sized, TikTok-friendly gags dumbing down comedy? “I think we’ve reduced our attention spans down a little bit,” he nods, sighing. “I feel lucky to have grown up in the analogue world.”