James Balmont

The streaming year is off to flier. For anyone who’s spent the dark winter months hibernating at home in their downtime, Netflix, BBC, HBO, Apple TV and all those other giants of small-screen entertainment have really delivered on the assignment. To help us hunker down with shows to dispel the winter blues or, in the case of Netflix’s bleak and brutal American Primeval, make them slightly worse – albeit in thunderously widescreen style. And there’s plenty more ahead. Apple TV has The Studio, Seth Rogen’s eagerly-awaited, cameo-packed Hollywood satire, Netflix has announced the finale of Squid Game this summer, along with the end of Stranger Things, more Black Mirror, a second run of Tim Burton’s Wednesday and about a zillion other things, while Disney+ delivers another series of Andor, arguably the standout show of 2022. Here’s everything you need to see... so far. You’re gonna need a comfier couch.RECOMMENDED: 🎥 The 50 best movies of 2025 (so far)🔥 The best TV and streaming shows to watch in 2025📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge

If you were lucky enough to grow up pre-Y2K, you would have likely known little about Korea beyond the conflict in the back pages of your school history book. But that all changed when, in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the country doubled down on funding exportable pop culture in an attempt to rebrand the country on the world stage. The gambit, part designed to attract big business and tourism, was a wild success – and now we have K-Pop, K-dramas and kimchi pouring out of our ears. One of the biggest proponents of the ‘hallyu’ wave, though, has always been filmmaking – with Hollywood-style action blockbuster Shiri; brutal revenge thriller Oldboy; and Academy Awards triumph Parasite among the most resounding victories of a national cinema revitalised from the brink of anonymity. We simply can’t get enough of it today. And for good reason: South Korea is a goldmine of original ideas and storytelling talents who show no signs of taking their feet off the gas as the industry thrives. So why not huff on the metaphorical fumes? Our list of the best Korean movies of all time billows below.Recommended:🇫🇷 The 100 best French movies of all-time🇯🇵 The 50 best Japanese movies of all-time🇭🇰 The 100 best Hong Kong movies of all-time🇮🇹 The best Italian movies of all time: from Bicycle Thieves to The Great Beauty

What makes a special cinema? A colossal IMAX screen, Dolby Atmos sound and cutting-edge 4K projectors are all great, but there’s something more that makes a great temple of cinema – a sense of storytelling that starts before you’ve even grabbed your popcorn and taken your seat. There are a few cinemas that truly stand apart: cine-temples so historic, beautiful and unusual that they make taking in a movie feel like an act of pilgrimage. We’ve scoured the globe, from London to Paris, Jaipur and New York to Sydney and Copenhagen, to highlight the 50 most heavenly movie theaters on the planet. From a 12-seat theatre in an old Ontario crafts shop to a 2702-seat grand salle in the City of Light, Time Out is celebrating them in all their architecturally eye-popping, Insta-friendly, just plain drop-dead-gorgeous variety. Pull up a red velvet armchair, plonk your feet on a foot stool and take a trip to the world’s most beautiful cinemas. RECOMMENDED: 🎥 The 100 greatest movies ever made🌏 101 places all movie lovers should visit

When it comes to filmgoing in central London, Leicester Square is undoubtedly king: its Odeons, Vues and Cineworlds make it a global tourist attraction for red-carpet-coveting fans. But amidst the royal array of cinemas, one misfit ‘Prince’ sticks out like a naughty child, vying for attention from a Chinatown back street. That scamp is the Prince Charles: the capital’s legendary home of cult cinema, outlandish all-nighters and all kinds of weird and wonderful programming. Nowhere else in London will you be enticed off the street by a readograph that declares ‘Sod the sunshine, come sit in the dark!’ – or ordered to ‘turn off your cellphone, asshole!’ via a recorded John Waters message. This is where demands for Thunderbirds, Werner Herzog epics, and Nightmare on Elm Street marathons (scrawled side-by-side on requests board) are actually likely to be fulfilled – alongside vibrant sing-a-long events and curiosity-piquing ‘mystery movies’.   An eccentric institution beloved by fans of all walks of life – Saltburn director Emerald Fennell and Masters of the Air’s Callum Turner are among the latest to voice their admiration – the venue may well be London’s answer to historic revival houses like LA’s New Beverly Cinema (owned by noted Prince Charles fan Quentin Tarantino). Time Out caught up with some of the cinema’s most passionate patrons and partners to tell its story. The beginnings, 1962-1989  Originally constructed as the Prince Charles Theatre in the early ’60s – and apparen

On March 25, 1925, at London’s Selfridges department store in central London, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird made the first public demo of his latest creation: a way to broadcast visual information from a camera to a screen. A full century later, Baird’s discovery has led to perhaps the most vital, creative and popular mode of artistic expression in the entire world. But it’s only in the past 25 years that television has really fulfilled its artistic potential.  The result has been the so-called ‘Golden Age of Television’, a boom kickstarted roughly around the turn of the century with the rise of shows like The Sopranos and later Breaking Bad, and continuing with awards-winners from Succession to Shōgun to Slow Horses. So while our list of the 100 greatest TV shows may pay tribute to the unmissable programs of yesteryear, you’ll find that the majority hail from our own century – meaning there’s no excuse not to watch every single one. Paring the list down to only 100 was a painful process, so we decided to omit sketch shows, talk shows, news and non-fiction in order to focus on scripted drama and classic comedy. Time to go goggle-eyed.

With Hollywood still regaining its footing after a 2020s it’d probably describe as a personal low, the field has been open for streaming shows to monopolise the cultural conversation. And this year it’s been well-established thoroughbreads that have been dominating our social feeds (Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Bear, Industry, Bridgerton, Slow Horses), as well as some unexpected bolters (Baby Reindeer, Rivals, Fallout). And with a second run of Squid Game about to end the year with a big pile of bodies, the pressure to cram in eight or ten episodes’ worth of must-see TV is not relenting anytime soon. Our advice? Shake off the pressure to ‘see everything’ – it’s impossible, short of ripping a hole in the fabric of time – and find the shows that really hit your sweet spot. To help with this, we’ve taken a backwards glance over the best and most all-round enjoyable new binges, curating our definitive list of 2024 favourites. And as any fan of ace Aussie comedy Colin From Accounts will tell you: it’s not always about the number of Emmys on the shelf, as the sheer joy on screen that makes something worth your precious time. Here’s where to start. RECOMMENDED: 🎥 The 50 best movies of 2024🔥 The best TV and streaming shows of 2023📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge

Stunt professionals put their bodies, and sometimes even their lives, on the line daily to pull off the coolest action beats in blockbusters. There’s no Oscar for it (yet) and they rarely get to walk the red carpet, but make no mistake, they’re the lifeblood of many of our favourite movies. And if you sell ice packs, they’re probably your number one customers. To celebrate stunt work and action choreography, the BFI is putting on Art of Action, a major new season of screenings, talks and events across the UK. The slate includes more than 40 action spectaculars from Buster Keaton to John Woo, and re-restored classics from Point Break to Seven Samurai. The season runs from October to December, and to mark the occasion we’ve asked a few of the top stunt people in cinema to pick one stunt that blows them away.  So which death-defying deeds most impress stunt legends like Chad Stahelski, Vic Armstrong, Simon Crane and Melissa Stubbs? Read on to find out. BFI’s Art of Action takes place at cinemas across the UK from Oct-Dec 2024  RECOMMENDED: 💥 The 101 greatest action movies ever made👊 The 30 best fight scenes ever filmed

There’s more to Japanese movies than Kurosawa, Ozu and Miyazaki. That’s not to downplay their contributions to the country’s cinematic history – or cinema in general. All three are potential GOATs. It’s just that there’s much, much more where that exalted triumvirate came from.  Like the trailblazing silent works of Kenji Mizoguchi. Or the off-kilter pop-art crime thrillers of Seijun Suzuki. Or the bizarrely horrifying visions of Takashi Miike. On this list of the greatest Japanese movies of all time, you’ll find them all, alongside, of course, Kurosawa’s epics, Miyazaki’s soulful animations and Ozu’s powerful domestic dramas – oh, and Godzilla too. You’ll trace Japan’s unique filmmaking history, moving from the silent era to its post-war golden age to the 1960s New Wave to the anime explosion of the ’80s, all the way up to the current renaissance spearheaded by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Mamoru Hosoda. It’s a lot to take in. But with expert commentary from Junko Yamazaki – assistant professor of Japanese Media Studies at Princeton, whose focuses include post-war Japanese film music and the jidaigeki (period drama) genre – this cinephile’s bible is as authoritative as it is exhaustive. Consider it your travel guide to one of the world’s most creative movie cultures. RECOMMENDED: 🇰🇷 The greatest Korean films of all time🇫🇷 The 100 best French movies ever made🇯🇵 The best anime movies of all time, ranked🌏 The 50 best foreign films of all-time

Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day – and even a terrible movie can contain flashes of genius. If you’re willing to sit through enough dreck, sometimes a miracle will unfold before your eyes: a scene that genuinely makes the ticket price seem almost like value for money and that takes the edge off right that sinking feeling you get when a movie turns into a turkey before your eyes. And, from Darth Maul’s moment of glory to everything Raul Julia does in Street Fighter, those moments deserve celebrating, because it’s not their fault that everything around them is made of potato peelings and offal. Here are the 50 best bits in the very worst movies. RECOMMENDED:🗑️ The 40 best bad movies ever made.🛵 The best cult classic movies of all time.

No one loves movies like Quentin Tarantino. All directors are passionate about cinema, of course, but there are few who manage to translate that passion so clearly into practically everything they’ve ever put on screen. Over the course of his career, Tarantino has done a little of everything: crime movies, war movies, kung fu movies, retro-grindhouse movies, western movies and movies about the movies. But at this point, Quentin Tarantino is a genre unto himself: whatever mode he’s working in, you know you can expect fast-paced dialogue, cool characters, rad music and shocking violence – and, in his various references and direct homages, an unabashed love for film itself. It’s hard to believe someone so obsessed with filmmaking is actually going to retire after a measly ten movies, but Tarantino swears he’s hanging up his clapperboard after his next one. When that next one is arriving is anybody’s guess: he recently kiboshed his supposed swan song after filming started and went back to the drawing board. In the meantime, we put our critical skills to use by ranking the full Tarantino filmography.  Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time💰 The 60 best heist movies of all-time🤵 The 50 best gangster movies of all-time🎬 The 50 coolest filmmakers in the world right now

Has movie music ever been better? With legends like John Williams and Howard Shore still at work, Hans Zimmer at the peaks of his powers, and the likes of Jonny Greenwood, AR Rahman, Mica Levi, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross knocking it out of the park, the modern film score is a Dolby Atmos-enhancing feast of modernist compositions, lush orchestral classicism and atmospheric soundscapes.What better time, then, to celebrate this art form within an art form – with a few iconic soundtracks thrown in – and pay tribute to the musicians who’ve given our favourite movies (and, to be fair, some stinkers) earworm-laden accompaniment? Of course, narrowing it all down to a mere 100 is tough. We’ve prioritised music written for the screen, but worthy contenders still missed out, including Dimitri Tiomkin’s era-defining score for It’s a Wonderful Life and Elton John’s hummable tunes for The Lion King.To help do the narrowing down, we’ve recruited iconic movie composers, directors and broadcasters like Philip Glass, Carter Burwell, Max Richter, Anne Dudley, AR Rahman, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Edgar Wright and Mark Kermode to pick their favourites. Happy listening!Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all time.🪩 The 50 best uses of songs in movies.💃 The greatest musical movies ever made.

There was a point in time, in the early ‘00s, when the Old Blue Last was quite literally the centre of London for kids like me. The rowdy Shoreditch boozer — on the crossroads connecting Great Eastern Street with Curtain Road — was then a bastion of unhindered fun, lying almost exactly at the midpoint between the vintage clothes stores of Brick Lane and the club nights at 333 Mother Bar and The Macbeth. Its gravitational pull was so strong, in fact, that I would literally work out the location of other London landmarks by measuring their distance from its beer-soaked foyer. And no matter how far I crawled, I would repeatedly find myself back there over the next 20 years – lost in the vortex of never-ending parties. Historically populated by dodgy geezers and ladies of the night, the ’00s had seen it assimilated by skinny-jeaned, Lego-haircut hipsters before the ‘indie sleaze’ generation was pushed up into Dalston and Stoke Newington. The constant stream of live music from upstairs — often accessed by sneaking in via the external stairwell fire escape — meanwhile, would ensure that the reputation cemented by legendary shows from the Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse remained intact in the face of gentrification in the surrounding area. And in the years to come, everyone from Mercury Prize winners Wolf Alice to superstar Kylie Minogue would add their pages to its history. With a succession of hedonistic heydays still stained into its walls, the Old Blue Last remains an infallibl

Warning: contains a major ‘Rye Lane’ spoilerIf you haven’t yet caught ‘Rye Lane’ at the cinema then run, don’t walk to see it before its run is over. It’s one of the films of the year to date and one of the best London romcom in, well, forever. If you have seen it, you may have been left a bit slack-jawed by one cameo appearance that takes place as accountant Dom (‘Industry’s David Jonsson) and aspiring costume designer Yas (Vivian Oparah) wander South London, chewing the fat and slowly falling for each other. As the pair wait to order burritos at a Brixton Market street food stall amusingly named ‘Love, Guactually’, it turns out that name isn’t a coincidence: the grumpy burrito seller dolloping hot sauce on their Mexican food is none other than Oscar-winner actor and ‘Love Actually’ star, Colin Firth. So how did that come to pass? ‘I wrote a letter to Colin Firth saying: “We all love romcoms, and you are great in them, but mine’s different,” and he was up for it,’ explains director Raine Allen-Miller.‘I wanted to give a friendly middle finger to a very well-known romcom by having a scene where they go to get a burrito and it’s called ‘About a Burrito’, or something. It was my fiancé who came up with “Love, Guactually’.’’Firth was eager to support a Black British film and ‘pass on the baton from a romcom perspective’, adds Oparah. ‘It was an “ask and you will receive”-type moment.’‘He's from that era of “Love Actually”, “Notting Hill”, “Bridget Jones” – those big, heavy-hitte