From Time to Fontaines DC: the week in rave reviews
Summed up in a sentence David Tennant gives one of his finest performances in the third series of Jimmy McGovern’s terrifying but essential prison drama.
What our reviewer said “This portrait of masculinity and the misery it brings probably won’t garner the attention and momentum that Jack Thorne’s Adolescence did. But it should. Our boys need it.” Lucy Mangan
Further reading ‘Me and the lads would not survive a day in here’: inside TV’s utterly stunning, Bafta-winning prison drama
Pick of the rest
The Diplomat
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence Keri Russell returns in Debora Cahn’s transatlantic thriller for a fourth series of exquisitely fraught geopolitical skulduggery.
What our reviewer said “There are few things as entertaining as The Diplomat in a bad mood, even if the stress induced by its doomsday theatrics requires much diaphragmatic breathing and the odd diplomatic sprint to the loo.” Sarah Dempster
Being Muslim After 9/11
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence Mobeen Azhar tackles tough issues in a brilliant documentary about the rise of Islamophobia since the 9/11 attacks.
What our reviewer said “In his willingness to debate hard topics – even if it means hearing difficult arguments, some of which are aimed at him personally – he is still provoking thoughts and airing views that better-known journalists would never go near.” Jack Seale
You may have missed …
The Party
ITVX; available now
Summed up in a sentence A juicy thriller about the British elite and a party from hell, adapted from Elizabeth Day’s bestselling novel.
What our reviewer said “There’s no one to root for, no one to invest in – they’re all absolutely awful, and you can just go along for the ride.” Lucy Mangan
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
NAZA
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence A Guardian-produced documentary that casts a chilling light on civilian deaths in Gaza, as anonymous Israeli personnel speak under the cover of night.
What our reviewer said “The calculated ‘Naza’ number is the amount of projected civilian deaths from each military strike, and perhaps it will come to have the same connotations as the US military term ‘body count’ during Vietnam.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘They know the house they are bombing is full of children’: NAZA’s directors on their devastating film about Israeli intelligence
Pick of the rest
Case 137
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence A taut, charged procedural from Dominik Moll follows a conflicted officer investigating police brutality and violence against a teenager during the “gilets-jaunes” protests in France.
What our reviewer said “The film is on its most solid ground when it painstakingly – almost in the narrative equivalent of real time – takes us through the process of locating the cop culprits by finding CCTV footage from the site of the attack on the teenagers.” Peter Bradshaw
Kiri and Lou Go Raaa!
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence The first feature-length adventure for CBeebies’ prehistoric pals is a great toddler-friendly film, with beautiful stop-motion visuals, starring Jemaine Clement and Olivia Tennet.
What our reviewer said “For the uninitiated, Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! functions as an introduction to the characters and their world, while for fans it’s a delightful origin story.” Catherine Bray
The Others
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Nicole Kidman is at her glacial, patrician best in this 2001 chiller written and directed by Chilean-Spanish film-maker Alejandro Amenábar.
What our reviewer said “What a relief to have a scary movie instead of a Scary Movie, no boring irony, no tiresome inverted commas – it is well constructed, as opposed to incompetently deconstructed.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading The Others at 20: the haunted house movie that reinvigorated the genre
Now streaming
Faust
Mubi; available now
Summed up in a sentence FW Murnau’s 1926 silent film of Goethe’s tragic tale tells the story a man who sells his soul to the devil and remains a spectacular feat of German expressionism.
What our reviewer said “The ambition, scale and drive of Faust are obvious: there is some wonderful model work for the landscape and cityscape that Faust and Mephisto look down on, flying above. And the still, painterly image of Mephisto as a vast evil angel, brooding over the city like a gigantic cloud, shrouding it in his black wings, is inspired.” Peter Bradshaw
Books
If you only read one, make it …
The Steps by Sylvester Stallone
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Summed up in a sentence The Rocky star tells the story of his breakthrough year.
What our reviewer said “Stallone presents himself as a sweet innocent – monastic and almost sexless – but there is an anger to his memories that burns on every page.”
Pick of the rest
Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus
Reviewed by Clare Clark
Summed up in a sentence The follow-up to global smash Lessons in Chemistry, set at a rarefied New York poetry magazine.
What our reviewer said “It is hard to imagine a novel with more laugh-out-loud jokes about typography, harder still to dismiss her fierce exhortation to all of us to make words count.” Read the full review
The Floating World by Ben Eastham
Reviewed by Ian Maleney
Summed up in a sentence An impressive debut about money, power and artwashing by the global elite.
What our reviewer said “Eastham attempts an ambitious balancing act: on one side, the cynical gamesmanship of high-end contemporary art, and on the other, the emotional inner life of a man haunted by the memory of his deceased wife.”
Peasants by Maryam Aslany
Reviewed by Joe Moran
Summed up in a sentence A rallying cry not to dismiss those who make their living from the land.
What our reviewer said “Peasant households make up about 2 billion people, a quarter of the human race. Their way of life is far more resilient than factory work, and there is nothing backward about it.”
Make Me Well by Xand van Tulleken
Reviewed by Simon Usborne
Summed up in a sentence A no-nonsense doctor debunks the wellness industry.
What our reviewer said “He’s the best kind of science writer, leaning into complexity while making it as easy to digest as a fish oil gummy (another thing you might want to stop forking out for).”
You may have missed …
The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet
Reviewed by Kathryn Hughes
Summed up in a sentence This extraordinary biography of the queen of romance has been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction.
What our reviewer said “Matthew Sweet pays his subject the compliment of absolute seriousness, regarding her as a cultural phenomenon whose life, stretching the entire 20th century, deserves deep study.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Fontaines DC: Dopamine Chamber
XL Recordings; out now
Summed up in a sentence A beguiling, endlessly inventive and frequently astonishing fifth LP from the Irish band.
What our reviewer said “Fontaines have grown in dramatic, majestic fashion to become the best band of their generation – the kind that, to nick a phrase from another band, really might live for ever.” Laura Snapes
Further reading Fierce, frantic and loaded with menace: Fontaines DC’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!
Pick of the rest
Worldpeace DMT: Stick Around for Tea
WPDMT; out now
Summed up in a sentence Bringing back the hyperliterate sound design of their acclaimed 2025 debut, the London duo explore childhood with whimsical humour and terrific musicality.
What our reviewer said “Leo Fincham and Rowan Miles sing in a self-consciously childish way that belies their taut musicality … The result is the kind of devastatingly contemporary record that even arch classicists couldn’t possibly turn up their noses at.” Shaad D’Souza
Weird Baile: Collected Rips 2004-2024
TraTraTrax; out now
Summed up in a sentence Two decades of work from producers JLZ, VHOOR, Mu540 and DJ RaMeMes strips the Brazilian genre to its essential parts until it chimes with grime and drill.
What our reviewer said “Rather than simply replicate these motifs, Weird Baile’s skill comes in disrupting and deconstructing them into a new mould … This wonky, decades-spanning compilation, as outlandish as it is alluring, sends baile funk into a hallucinatory zone.” Ammar Kalia
Bertrand Chamayou: Mendelssohn Songs Without Words
Warner Classics; out now
Summed up in a sentence The pianist brings a singing quality and seeming effortlessness to the complete set of Songs Without Words.
What our reviewer said “Chamayou doesn’t present these miniatures as if he thinks they are profound, yet thanks to his seeming effortlessness they come across that way … each new piece feels somehow familiar and yet demands your fresh attention.” Erica Jeal
On tour …
Stevie Wonder
3Arena, Stockholm, 22 October; touring the UK 3 to 11 November
Summed up in a sentence The opening night of Wonder’s tour marking the 50th anniversary of Songs in the Key of Life leaves jaws on the floor, thanks to sumptuous tracks carrying still-urgent messages.
What our reviewer said “Even given its reputation, Songs in the Key of Life still has the ability to knock you sideways with the astonishing level of quality it maintains throughout: it’s an album on which the deep cuts would be anyone else’s showstoppers.” Alexis Petridis
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.