Andy Kryza

Let’s clear this up right away: no, ‘family comedy’ is not code for ‘kids movie’. At least, it doesn’t have to be. Sure, some movies described as ‘fun for the whole family’ are really just fun for the youngest ones in the household. But as these 37 films attest, it is possible for a movie to make every generation laugh in unison.  Each of the following hits just the right notes to send everyone on the couch into hysterics without making parents sweat over explaining the meaning of a few choice words, situations and possibly body parts to the littlest members of the audience. Next time the whole brood is corralled in front of the television, throw on one of these classics, and a good time is guaranteed. After all, the family that laughs together, stays together. Written by Hannah Doolin, Danielle Valente, Alim Kheraj, Oliver Strand, Andy Kryza & Matthew Singer Recommended: 👪 The 50 best family movies to stream on movie night👶 The best family movies on Netflix for all-ages🤣 The 100 best comedy movies✍ The 100 best animated movies of all-time

As a parent, navigating your kid’s tweenage years is tough. No longer a kid but not yet a tornado of hormones, it’s a short-lived but awkward time that affects just about everything, up to and including movie nights. Where you happy little butterball could once be pleased with anything loud and colourful, now they’re getting more discerning. At the same time, they’re not so desperate to prove their maturity that they’re demanding a legal thriller or a Merchant Ivory costume drama. So how do you choose the right flick to please all audiences? Don’t freak out. We’re here to help. We’ve rounded up 36 movies that almost seem laser-guided to explode the pleasure centres of anyone between the ages of ten and 12. And the good news is that much of what works for that demographic is the same stuff you loved at the age, from ’80s blockbusters to silly comedies to adventure flicks to movies about young love and the struggle of growing up. Throw one of these on and you’ll be a hero, at least for one night.   Recommended: 🎒 The 100 best teen movies of all-time👪 The 50 best family films to stream on movie night🤣 The 35 best family comedy movies

It’s easy to be a Scrooge about Christmas movies, especially these days. Streaming platforms have shamelessly muscled into the Hallmark market, churning out quick, cheap holiday romcoms with C-list casts every year, hoping to land on something so irresistibly cheesy it briefly becomes a seasonal phenomenon. Put that cynicism aside, however, and most of us can admit that we all have at least one movie we return to every December – the one that allows us to embrace nostalgia unapologetically and lets us know that the most wonderful time of the year has arrived.  It doesn’t have to be schmaltzy and saccharine, either. Maybe it’s a golden era classic like It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street. Maybe it’s something more modern and goofy, like Elf or Home Alone. Maybe it’s raunchy and rude, like Bad Santa or Christmas Vacation, or just plain dark, like Black Christmas. That full range of yuletide cheer can be found on this list of the best holiday movies ever made. No matter what kind of Christmas movie you prefer, you’ll find one that warms your core like a cup of hot cocoa. RECOMMENDED: 🎅 The best new Christmas movies to stream this year🎶 The 50 best Christmas songs to listen to this month🎄 The best animated Christmas movies for the whole family🧝 The best Christmas movies on Netflix in the UK

Update for 2025: It’s been a great year-and-change for horror, so we’ve gone ahead and added some instant-Halloween classics, including the Michael B Jordan vampire blockbuster Sinners, the latest (and perhaps greatest) addition to the Final Destination series and the immensely creepy yet underseen Irish chiller Oddity. Halloween happens only one day every year, but the holiday’s most dedicated devotees always manage to make a month out of it. One way to do that is with movies. And that’s easy to do, considering there’s an entire film genre dedicated to scaring the crap out of audiences.  But contrary to popular wisdom, there’s a difference between the greatest horror movies and the best Halloween movies. A film like, say, Don’t Look Now might be among the most emotionally devastating entries to the horror canon, but it’s perhaps a little too cerebral for spooky season. But zombie apocalypses? Ghost stories? Chainsaw murders? Monster mash-ups? All up for grabs.  So, to help you put together your October queue, we’ve sorted the king-size Snickers from the circus peanuts to make the ultimate Halloween movie watchlist. It’s a list that keeps on growing: we revise every season with yearly standouts, and always find top-flight new additions. These 50 are guaranteed to scare you senseless – in the most fun sense of the phrase. Quick picks: 📍 Best old-school horror: Eyes Without a Face (1960)📍 Best ghost story: Poltergeist (1982)📍 Best found footage horror: The Blair Witch Projec

As the nights draw in and the chill sets through the air, there’s no denying it: spooky season has officially arrived. The pumpkins are carved, the costume’s nailed and now there’s just one thing left to summon… a Halloween playlist wicked enough to get even the undead on their feet. Sure, the classic Halloween songs still reign supreme – we’re talking ‘Thriller’, ‘Ghostbusters’ and all the usual heavy-hitters. But lately, a new wave of pop phantoms has emerged to soundtrack your October nights. From Olivia Rodrigo’s ex-boyfriend bleeding her dry, to the enchanting spellwork of Lady Gaga a.k.a Mother Monster herself, with a detour through the slick, otherworldly beats of K-Pop’s most stylish demons – Halloween playlists have, quite literally, come back to life. Our favourite Halloween playlist songs for 2025 at a glance: Most iconic Halloween track: ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson Best new Halloween anthem: ‘Abracadabra’ by Lady Gaga Most dramatic Halloween song: ‘There Will Be Blood’ by Kim Petras Best Halloween anthem with a K-Pop twist: ‘Your Idol’ by Saja Boys Best Halloween track to dance to: ‘Monster Mash’ by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers RECOMMENDED: 👻 The best Halloween movies of all time 🎤 The best karaoke songs 🎵 The best songs of 2025 so far 🕺 The best albums of 2025 so far

Love hurts. Love scars. Love can make you giddy with laughter or hot under the collar and tight in the pants. It can make you sing and dance or shoot to kill. However it’s expressed, love is perhaps the most elemental emotion a human being can feel. So it makes sense that filmmakers turn to it for inspiration more than any other. A great cinematic romance drills straight into the heart of the audience. Even if you’ve never, say, robbed a bank with your loved one, or stood by your sweetheart as they transformed into a hideous monster, the best romantic films make you understand and sympathise with the decisions of those under love’s spell. Because one way or another, we’ve all been there. Falling in love is easy, but choosing the greatest films about love is a puzzle. That’s why, to help us curate this list, we chatted to more than 100 filmmakers, actors and writers, including those from Time Out. Believe us when we say these are folks familiar with the language of amor. Who knows more about making hearts swell than Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook? Or Notting Hill screenwriter Richard Curtis? Shoot, we even asked the ultimate romantic, Miss Piggy. Whether you prefer comedies or dramas, horror or sci-fi, we’re sure you’ll find the following list of the 100 greatest romantic movies ever speaks to your own heart as well. Written by Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Tom Huddleston, Catherine Bray, Trevor Johnston, Andy P Kryza, Guy Lodge, Phil de Semlyen, Alim Kheraj & Matthew Si

Netflix currently holds an ignomious place in the film industry, but subscription numbers show it’s still the king of the streamers – and, frankly, for good reason. In recent years, the platform has seriously picked up its film output, with everyone from Martin Scorsese to Rian Johnson producing original content for the studio, while it also pumps out cultural phenomenons like Kpop Demon Hunters and gorgeous critical favorites like Train Dreams.  At this point, though, every user knows the deal: while there are large, gleaming gems in the catalogue, they’re often obscured by piles of lineup-filling dross. So let’s help you dig out the quality watches. Here are the 50 best movies currently available on the platform. Recommended: 💻 The 40 best Netflix original series to binge👪 The best family movies on Netflix for all ages😬 The 20 best thriller movies on Netflix

We know what you’re thinking: ‘Best kids Christmas movies? Aren’t all Christmas movies basically for kids?’ Oh sure, plenty are. But assuming every film with a yuletide theme is good for the young ones is where parents can get in trouble. You may end up streaming a movie where Santa Claus is a serial killer, or a Hallmark romcom that’ll bore them silly.  So, no, the phrase ‘Christmas movies for kids’ is not as redundant as it might sound. And clearly, picking the right movie to get the smallest members of the household into the holiday spirit requires both care and wisdom. These 30 movies, though, are like hot cocoa for the little ones’ souls. Want to get on your child’s nice list? Stream one of these, and your stocking will runneth over. Recommended: 🎅 The 50 best Christmas movies of all-time🎁 The best Christmas specials of all-time🎄 The best animated Christmas movies for the whole family🤣 The 35 best family comedies for your next movie night👶 The best movies for toddlers👪 The 50 greatest animated movies to watch as a family

Updates for 2025: With Lindsay Lohan experiencing something of a mainstream career renaissance, Alicia Silverstone is stepping up as the ‘beloved actor who’s sort of disappeared who’s now back to find love at Christmastime’ in Netflix’s highlight holiday offering, A Merry Little Ex-Mas. But its streaming numbers have so far been eclipsed by the romantic holiday heist comedy, Jingle Bell Heist, about two desperate criminals who unite to rob a London department store.  Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the glow of the television is so delightful. When the air gets crisp and the jingle bells become inescapable white noise, that means it’s Christmas movie season. And thankfully, there is a lot of content out there. Over the last few years, Netflix, in particular, has given the Hallmark Channel a run for its money, churning out a veritable snowfall of yuletide content every season.  Sifting through the avalanche can be daunting. You might think all Christmas movies are more or less the same, but the quality can vary wildly, from boring and clichéd to clichéd and ridiculously entertaining – and sometimes, you might even get something with a genuinely unique perspective on the holiday. To keep your likely already frostbitten fingers from endless scrolling, we’ve sorted the proverbial shiny new bikes from the lumps of coal. Here are the best Christmas movies to stream on Netflix this year. Recommended: 🎅 The 50 best Christmas movies of all-time🎄 The best kids Christmas movi

Televised Christmas specials have been around almost as long as TV itself. It’s a seasonal signifier on a par with snow, tinsel and department store stampedes. If you live in a part of the world without well-defined seasons, you could always figure out what time of the year it is by flipping on the telly, and if you found your favourite sitcom suddenly strewn with garlands and twinkling lights, you’d know Santa would be making a housecall pretty soon. Not much has changed. Even in the streaming era, many platforms have made a tradition of throwing back to the good, old-fashioned holiday variety show, recruiting a bunch of big-name movie stars or pop singers to get together on a soundstage and croon a few yuletide classics. Most of them come and go, melting from memory like old Frosty when the sun comes out. Some, however, are so good they become holiday perennials. Here are 19 Christmas specials we make a point of watching every single year. Recommended: 🎅 The 50 best Christmas movies of all-time🎄 The best kids Christmas movies to watch this year✍ The best animated Christmas movies the whole family will enjoy

Disney itself may not have produced as many great Christmas movies as you might assume, but at this point, the House of Mouse’s corporate umbrella is wide enough that Disney+ is positively exploding with cinematic holiday treats. Scroll through its library, and you’ll find everything from seasonal classics to original specials to cartoon shorts. Of course, as with any streamer, the sheer volume of content can be overwhelming – and there are quite a few lumps of coal mixed in there.  Thankfully, we’re in a giving mood – ’tis the season, after all. To make it easier to find the platform’s best holiday offerings, we’ve scoured Disney’s vast vault and separated the gingerbread from the fruitcake. Here are the 20 best Christmas movies sure to satisfy the entire family.  Recommended: 🎅 The 50 best Christmas movies of all-time🎄 The best kids Christmas movies to watch this year✍ The best animated Christmas movies for the whole family🐭 The best Disney Christmas movies to stream for the holidays

  You’d think it would be easy to throw together a list of Disney’s greatest Christmas movies. After all, this is the company that built an empire on magic, mirth and childhood dreams. Surely its vaults must be positively bursting with yuletide cheer. But think about it: how many House of Mouse classics can you actually name? Sure, scroll through Disney+ and you’ll find heavy-hitters like Home Alone and Jingle All the Way, but those movies were acquired from other companies and stuffed under the extremely wide Disney umbrella. As for actual Disney-branded Christmas gems, you’ve got to dig fairly far ‘neath the proverbial tree. You’re in luck, though. ‘Tis the season for giving, so we’ve gone through the studio’s expansive catalogue and excavated the movies most likely to make your heart swell with cheer. Some are familiar; others are truly hidden chestnuts. All of them are guaranteed to get you in the Christmas spirit. Recommended: 🎅 The 50 best Christmas movies of all-time🎄 The best kids Christmas movies to watch this year✍ The best animated Christmas movies for the whole family🏰 The best Christmas movies on Disney+🐭 The 50 best Disney movies for family night

It’s one thing for a movie to scare a general audience. But a movie that can frighten, disturb and haunt a fellow moviemaker? Now that’s a real achievement. After all, those are the folks who know first hand all the tricks of the trade when it comes to scaring viewers – the cinematic sleights of hand, the narrative manipulations. If a film can suspend all that knowledge, and bring them into the moment enough to feel freaked out? Then that has to be a truly terrifying, upsetting experience. So we wanted to know: what movies have left some of the coolest current auteurs quaking in their director chairs? Everyone from Nosferatu’s Robert Eggers to Rian Johnson to Luca Guadagnino to the Oscars’ reigning Best Director Sean Baker provided responses. Not all of them are horror movies, either: you’ll find everything from intense character studies to absurdist provocations to classic Disney cartoons represented. Looking for something different to watch this Halloween? Take a tip from a few experts below. Photograph: StudioCanalIrréversible Irréversible – picked by Robert Eggers (Nosferatu) ‘Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, Gerald Kargl’s Angst, Michael Haneke’s Piano Teacher and Bruno Dumont’s Twentynine Palms all left me pretty shaken after my first viewing.’ Photograph: Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – picked by Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells) ‘I remember seeing Snow White when I was less than five, and I freaked out every time the Evil Queen came on. My dad told me I could

It's been nearly two years since the last Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Spider-Man: Far From Home, hit theaters. But as fans anxiously await the July 9 debut of the long-delayed Black Widow, Disney+ has kept the superhero train going with its comic-focused series. And next week, fans will get a big infusion of MCU hijinks with the debut of Loki. The six-episode series sees Tom Hiddleston reclaim the ornate headpiece of fan-favorite anti-hero Loki, a role he's inhabited for more than 10 years. The show looks bonkers, featuring alien worlds, time travel and an abundance of charmingly sinister banter from Hiddleston. But what exactly is this show about, and how will it affect the future — and the past — of Marvel's master plan? Here's what we know going in.  First things first, when does Loki debut? Loki debuts Wednesday, June 9 on Disney+. It runs six episodes, with one episode dropping each week through July 14. Ok, so what exactly is this show about? The show will follow Hiddleston’s Asgardian God of Mischief and frequent bad guy Loki as he falls in with the Time Variance Authority (TVA), a clandestine interstellar bureaucracy tasked with ensuring that the very fabric of space and time isn’t torn apart by heroes and villains’ tendency to jump back and forth in time.  From the looks of the trailers, it appears that Loki’s time-hopping shenanigans (more on those in a moment) has led him to cause a rift across multiple timelines and dimensions. Working with Owen

After a two-year break, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has roared back to life, dominating Disney+ with an onslaught of hit shows, storming multiplexes with Black Widow and Shang-Chi, and hijacking the internet discourse with fan theories about the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home. Yet amid all the hype of Marvel’s Phase 4, the biggest questions hover around the hotly anticipated Black Panther 2. The Marvel blockbuster factory has completely changed the cinematic landscape since Iron Man debuted in 2008, but none became a bona fide cultural phenomenon quite like director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther.  The afrofuturist tale of noble warrior king T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and the technologically advanced hermit nation of Wakanda wasn’t just a $1.3-billion hit, it was a zeitgeist-seizing moment for blockbuster cinema, leading to a Best Picture Oscar nomination and three Academy Awards. Its focus on strong Black characters – including Marvel’s best villain in the form of Michael B. Jordan – made it the kind of tectonic paradigm-shifter that only comes every decade or so in blockbuster cinema.  A follow-up was inevitable, but things became infinitely more complicated with the unexpected death of series star Chadwick Boseman, who succumbed to colon cancer in August 2020. Marvel kept quiet about the future of the franchise as fans mourned.  Here’s everything we know about Black Panther 2 so far. Image: Marvel Studios When is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s release date?  Black P

For the past two years, fans of prestige TV have been forced to spend their Sundays without the familiar comforts of torture, dismemberment, incest, dragons and deception. But soon, their hunger will be sated: In 2022, nearly three years after Game of Thrones aired its extremely divisive finale, the franchise will come roaring back with House of the Dragon.  HBO’s latest George RR Martin adaptation has fans salivating for more of what they loved about high fantasy’s most gloriously smutty big-budget hit. But will the first of six GoT spinoff series fulfill the prophecy of rekindling fans' goodwill after Game of Thrones whiffed its big finish? Here’s everything we know so far.  When will House of the Dragon be released?  The show’s release date has yet to be confirmed, though HBO has officially announced House of the Dragon is coming in 2022. The production, which is still underway, was previously shut down due to Covid, and the pandemic’s continued presence could be a reason for the network’s hesitancy in announcing an official date.  That puts House of the Dragon in a race to air with Amazon’s swords-and-serpents tentpole, Lord of the Rings, which is set to debut in September 2022. Both come pre-loaded with huge fan bases, and both share common elements such as dragons, golden wigs, broadswords and glowering. It’s a safe bet that House of the Dragon, however, will trounce LOTR when it comes to nudity: The Tolkien adaptation drew controversy when it announced it would include

We’re still a long way out from Paddington 3, but that fluffy paragon of kindness and decency from darkest Peru is never far from our thoughts. Paddington eternal because he is in the hearts of all who let him in. Similarly, he is in the feeds of all who tweet. He’s here to bring you daily joy if you just hit ‘follow.’ Some days, he’s romping in a meadow or scampering through a swamp. Others, he’s taking a stroll through the big city. Still others, he’s lurking behind a cloud of steam, staring blankly as an unsuspecting person in a hotel shower. I Photoshop Paddington into another movie until I forget: Day 224 pic.twitter.com/M9cKEXTg97 — Jaythechou (@jaythechou) October 19, 2021 No, this is not the official Paddinton Twitter, which delightfully traffics in daily affirmations and niceties without the leering voyeurism and threat of violence. We’re talking about the Twitter account @jaythechou, run by a graphic artist who has sworn to Photoshop Paddington into a different movie every day ‘until I forget.’  So far, the artist has amassed more than 230 different expert-level Photoshops, drawing 108,000 followers to images of the peacoat-sporting bear dropped into the action of Shang-Chi and Black Widow, placed him alongside Shrek and Donkey and even had him ride shotgun (and likely take some PCP) with Denzel in Training Day.  The account very directly recalls the Creepy Paddington memes of 2014, which inserted the bear into multiple horror films. We now know what tho

Marvel’s so-called Phase 4 has been pretty straightforward so far, which we fully understand is a ridiculous thing to say considering the most recent film in the 26-and-counting series is a millennia-spanning saga of demigods directed by Nomadland Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao.  Yet the post-Endgame era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been relatively grounded: both Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings kept the franchise’s shenanigans earthbound, while Eternals’s more cosmic inclinations were relatively blasé.  That’s about to change. December’s Spider Man: No Way Home is poised to rip the fabric of space, time and corporate synergy asunder by bringing back long-dead villains from previous generations of Spideydom. Thor: Love and Thunder will no-doubt continue goofball auteur Taika Waititi’s quest to transform the God of Thunder into a live-action Heavy Metal riff. And sandwiched between the two is what could be the most mind-bending, colourful and downright surreal offering yet: The long-awaited Doctor Strange sequel, In the Multiverse of Madness.  The film marks Benedict Cumberbatch’s first top-line Marvel outing since the hero’s 2016 origin story. And it could just prise open the MCU’s blast doors for a universe-shattering series of events that could ripple throughout the MCU. Here’s everything we know so far about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Photograph: Marvel Studios When will Doctor Strange 2 be released? In the Multiverse of Madnes

It’s been four years since the big screen was graced by Batman (no, the Snyder Cut doesn’t count). That’s an eternity for fans of the world’s most famous vigilante, who have been spoiled with 11 very different films since Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster ushered in modern superhero cinema. Now, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: Warner Bros is set to release the latest Caped Crusader adventure in early 2022.   ‘Light’ is a bit misleading. Anyone still bemoaning the dark-and-gritty reinvention of superhero cinema following Christopher Nolan’s game-changing Dark Knight trilogy take heed: The upcoming reboot, titled The Batman, looks to make Nolan’s Gotham City look like Sesame Street. Newly minted Bruce Wayne Robert Pattinson will navigate a noir-tinged, rain-soaked city where gangs of deranged clowns stalk the shadows, gangsters run amok and serial killers taunt the police with trails of carnage. This is a place where light seems too scared to shine. Adam West this isn’t. Here's everything we know about the hugely anticipated The Batman.    When does The Batman come out? After years in development, a long shoot in the UK and multiple Covid-related delays – including a diagnosis for Pattinson himself – The Batman is set to be released on March 4, 2022. Read our review of the film here. What is the runtime of The Batman? Eagle-eyed fans spotted the IMAX Melbourne website listing its runtime as 176 minutes. If that’s accurate, and there is no reason for an IMAX to lie to us,

It’s been 18 long years since Peter Jackson wrapped his beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy (and seven relief-filled years since he put his other trilogy to sleep). Now, after a prolonged period of Hobbitlessness, fans will finally return to Middle-earth courtesy of Amazon, whose own Dark Lord has emerged with a benevolent gift for us mortals in the form of a LOTR series based on JRR Tolkien's extended mythology. It comes with the slightly clunky name The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and it is going to be huge. Even with a teaser trailer out, the show remains shrouded in mystery, with media reports generally focused on the Smaug-sized price tag ($250 million for the rights, $465+ million for production). But with filming wrapped and a release date cresting the horizon of 2022, some details have emerged. Here’s what we know so far. What is the release date? The series will debut on Amazon Prime on September 2, 2022, and will span eight weekly episodes.  Has a trailer been released? Alongside the name reveal in January 2022, a teaser trailer was launched over Superbowl weekend (another event in which the winners get rings). It showcases some swooping Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings-esque shots over the Middle-earth landscapes, as well as the more CGI-heavy effects shots of his Hobbit movies. Front and centre is Morfydd Clark as the young Galadriel. What is the series about? For those who don’t know their Silmarillions from their Sarumans, Amazon’s series will tak

Questioning whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (it is) has become the holiday version of ‘is a hot dog a sandwich?’ (it’s not).The debate has transitioned from Christmas dinner banter to the go-to blather of pub-bores everywhere. When something’s a ‘hot topic’ for three decades, it goes colder than yesterday’s hot chocolate. The debate is over. Time to discuss the yuletide merits of The Last Boy Scout.  However, last year Die Hard director John McTiernan finally weighed in on the topic, and in doing so threw a fresh log on the fire by saying that Die Hard’s tone was informed by Frank Capra’s beloved holiday fable It’s a Wonderful Life.  ‘Specifically, the Pottersville sequence,’ McTiernan told the American Film Institute. ‘Which is what happens when the evil banker gets to do what he wants in the community without George getting in the way to stop it. And it’s the clearest demonstration and criticism of runaway, unregulated cowboy capitalism that’s ever been done in an American movie.’ McTiernan’s comments struck a particular nerve in this writer because I’ve been saying this for years: Not only is Die Hard a Christmas movie, but it’s actually a stealth retelling of It’s a Wonderful Life. Just as Scrooged retold A Christmas Carol through the lens of ‘80s corporate television, Die Hard is basically Capra’s story filtered through an ‘80s action-movie fantasia. Here is irrefutable proof.  Photograph: 20th Century Studios John McClane is basically George Bailey with bloody f

Discovering that your favourite ‘serious’ filmmaker enjoys a good chuckle – even a lowbrow one – can be a shock: It’s like catching your wine-loving cousin shotgunning a Budweiser. Not only is finding out that Christopher Nolan is a huge MacGruber fan and Terrence Malick quotes Zoolander for fun, it makes us realise that maybe our guilty-pleasure comedy flicks aren’t so guilty after all.  With that in mind, we prodded our picks for the coolest filmmakers on the planet for their favourite comedic moments across cinema history. Among them were comedically inclined auteurs like Ruben Östlund, Cathy Yan and Edgar Wright, sure, but also more serious-minded artists like Barry Jenkins, Julia Ducournau, Denis Villeneuve, Paul Thomas Anderson and Lynne Ramsay. They shot back with a decades- and genre-spanning array of laugh-out-loud moments. We also discovered that Michael ‘Amour’ Haneke really, really loves hearing Steve Martin do a silly accent. Comedy, truly, is the great uniter. Read on: The 50 coolest filmmakers in the world right now The voice coaching scene in The Pink Panther (2006) – picked by Ruben Östlund ‘I had dinner with Michael Haneke in Vienna once and it all ended up with me showing him this scene on my mobile phone. It didn’t really pay off and everything became quite embarrassing. I guess it says something about how much I like this scene.’  ‘Taxi!’ in Tootsie - picked by Céline Sciamma

It may not feel like it, but it will be only a little over two years between the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home and its immediate predecessor, Far From Home. Sure, a lot has gone down in the intervening time, but maybe a bit of a pause was what the webslinger needed. However beloved a character is, zeal levels are going to be tough to maintain when they’ve been on the big screen ten times in the space of 20 years (excluding the six super-sparky versions in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse).  Yet now, nearly a month from the release of No Way Home, Spidey discourse is dominating the internet once again. And with a second trailer fueling fan theories about what’s to come in the next, excitement has reached a fever pitch. Here’s everything we know – or at least we think we know – about Spider-Man: No Way Home When is Spider-Man: No Way Home in cinemas? Frothy, fun and crammed to the gills with big-screen spectacle, Spider-Man movies tend to be the very definition of a summer blockbuster. This one, perhaps fittingly in a messed-up year, gets a rare spin in time for Christmas: it’s out on December 17 in the US and UK. Is there a Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer? Two, in fact. The second hit the internet on November 16 after a seemingly endless period of anticipation, with some sites speculating that the delay was the result of Sony and Marvel – who are the co-conservators to cinematic Spidey (more on that in a moment) – sparring over what could and couldn’t be shown in the previ

Like a down-on-his luck schlub being yanked toward a ledge, Netflix has taken the inevitable plunge: Squid Game – the global smash that became Netflix’s biggest hit of all time – is getting a second season, according to creator Hwang Dong-hyuk.  ‘There's been so much pressure, so much demand and so much love for a second season… I almost feel like you leave us no choice!’ Hwang told the Associated Press. ‘There will indeed be a second season. It's in my head right now. I'm in the planning process currently. But I do think it's too early to say when and how it's going to happen.’  At this point, very little is known about the future of Squid Game. Hwang himself seems surprised by the success of his dystopian passion project. But season 1 left a tonne of plot threads dangling like so many Tug-of-War players suspended over a chasm. Here are the biggest questions we have in advance of Squid Game season 2, plus some theories about where the show could go next. MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR SQUID GAME FOLLOW… you’ve been warned.  Photograph: Noh Juhan, courtesy of NetflixGganbus for life What will happen to Squid Game protagonist Gi-Hun? At the beginning of Squid Game, 456 hardscrabble characters are whisked off to a mysterious island and pitted against one another in a series of deadly playground games, beginning with a rousing round/massacre of Red Light, Green Light. By the end of the games, only one player still stood: Indebted gambler, deadbeat dad and kindhearted soul Seong Gi-Hun (