Stephen A Russell

New York has Broadway, London has the West End, and here in Melbourne, it's all about the East End. We're an all-singing, all-dancing city which means we're spoiled for choice when it comes to the musicals taking centre stage in the historic East End Theatre District in the CBD. From glitzy theatrical numbers and singalong musicals to smaller-scale productions, Melbourne is an absolute haven when it comes to all things razzle-dazzle. See for yourself by checking out the new and upcoming musicals making their way here in 2026. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. Book the best spot with our guide to scoring the best seats in every Melbourne theatre. Keen on all kinds of theatre? Here are the best shows happening this month.

April 2026: If you like your musicals on the more maniacal side, this killer production of 'Heathers the Musical' (based on the cult 1989 flick starring Winona Ryder) is guaranteed to work its dark magic on you. Our reviewer called it "sparkly and silly in equal measure" and gave it four stars. For something that will make you gasp and giggle, there's no way you can miss 'The Book of Mormon', which has returned to Her Majesty's Theatre. And fresh from a run in Sydney, 'Art' arrives at the Comedy Theatre, starring a trio of legendary Aussie actors: Richard Roxburgh, Damon Herriman and Toby Schmitz. From the toe-tapping to the cathartic, consider this your ultimate guide to all the best Melbourne theatre shows happening this month. When stuck for things to do between shows, you can also always rely on our catch-all lists of Melbourne's best bars, restaurants, museums, parks and galleries, or consult our bucket list of the best things to do in Melbourne before you die.  Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. Want something else to do this month? Check out our guide to the city's best exhibitions.

Updated for 2026: Whatever you think of Netflix’s theatrical strategy, it continues to produce some of television’s most formally daring works, including Adolescence, a hard-to-watch but impossible to ignore limited series about an unimaginable crime. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s HBO’s hilariously profane The Righteous Gemstones, which stuck the landing in 2025 with its final season. In addition, we have moved Andor into the top 20 after its astounding second and final season.  Television used to be considered one of the lowest forms of entertainment. It was derided as ‘the idiot box’ and ‘the boob tube’. Edward R Murrow referred to it as ‘the opiate of the masses’, and the phrase ‘I don’t even own a TV’ was considered a major bragging right.  A lot has changed. Television is now the dominant medium in basically all of entertainment. The shift in perception is widely credited to the arrival of The Sopranos, which completely reinvented the notion of what a TV show could do. But that doesn’t mean everything that came before is primordial slurry. While this list of the greatest TV shows ever is dominated by 21st century programs, from The Wire to Succession to Adolescence, there are many shows that deserve credit for laying the groundwork for this current golden age.  Chiseling them down to a neat top 100 is difficult, so we elected to leave off talk shows, variety shows and sketch comedy, focusing on scripted, episodic dramas, comedies and miniseries. So don’t touc

Update Tuesday, February 17: Following a sold-out Australian tour that wrapped up in February 2024, Moulin Rouge! The Musical is set to strut back into Sydney in 2027. The ten-time Tony Award-winning show’s arrival in Australia is a homecoming of sorts; it is of course based on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film, which was filmed here. There’s never been a quiet year for theatre in Australia. From the bright lights of Broadway and the West End to our very own stages, Australia is lucky to host some of the world’s most spectacular musicals. We’re also a hotbed for homegrown gems, with fresh and experimental shows lighting up stages across the country every month.  From the grand return of the world’s #1 musical, The Lion King, and the spectacular outdoor harbour production of Phantom of the Opera to the Aussie premieres of Waitress and Anastasia, this year’s theatre line-up is shaping up to be one of the most exciting yet. Here are all the biggest and best musicals to see in Australia, listed in order of what's currently showing/hitting the stage next. 👀 The best art exhibitions in Australia🎉 The most exciting events of 2026

Apparently, your forties are the new thirties, which means this year’s The Big FOUR-Oh! anniversary of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is hawt property. Packing in around 800 shows from March 25 to April 19, makes for A LOT of laughs to be had. So here’s a curation that will hurt your ribs. Tbh, pretty much everything hurts at 40… Here are our top shows to see at this year's MICF, so book those seats – and stat! Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. Counting down to Friday? Here's our guide to all the fun things happening in Melbourne this weekend.

Updates for 2026: One of the best movies of 2025, Pillion mixes tender emotions and kinky sex into a BDSM romcom that’s funny, hot and heartbreaking all at once. In the past few decades, queer cinema has made major strides – not just in reaching mainstream audiences, but in redefining what ‘queer cinema’ actually looks like. In the past, if gay lives and issues were ever allowed to be addressed on screen at all, the viewpoint was often limited to that of white, cisgender men. But the LGBTQ+ experience is not a monolith, and recent years have seen the scope of queer film expand to include the voices of the trans community and people of colour. That’s not to mention the kind of stories being told, from the dom-com of Pillion to the atmospheric horror of I Saw the TV Glow to the romantic ghost story All Of Us Strangers. Obviously, there are still many barriers left to breach, but the progress of the last half-century or so deserves to be celebrated. To that end, we enlisted some LGBTQ+ cultural pioneers, as well as Time Out writers, to assist in assembling a list of the greatest gay films ever made.  Written by Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Stephen A Russell, Tom Huddleston, Alim Kheraj, Guy Lodge, Ben Walters and Matthew Singer. RECOMMENDED: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time🎥 The 65 best documentaries of all-time😍 The 100 best romantic films of all-time🤣 The 100 best comedies of all-time

There’s never been a better – or more important – time to celebrate cinemas. They’re the places we go to dream, focal points of our communities, and an all-round great escape. Yet movie theatres are faced with challenges that even lovelty popcorn holders can’t help with. But they’ve survived the advent of TV, Hollywood strikes, a couple of pandemics, and so far, they’re holding firm against streaming and surging costs – and there’s reasons for optimism, too: younger, Letterboxd-savvy audiences are embracing the big-screen experience like never before, and filmmakers like Ryan Coogler, Christopher Nolan and Chloé Zhao are championing it at every opportunity. Just try booking an IMAX ticket for The Odyssey. With that in mind, Time Out’s local experts have collaborated on a celebration of the best cinemas from across the globe. From cult Tokyo cinemas and grand Parisian film temples to beloved Sydney picturehouses and LA film dream palaces, from a Berlin kino with its own nuclear bunker to a Canadian cinema with only 12 seats, we’ve pointed the spotlight on a hundred magnificent movie palaces that all movie lovers should know about – and visit.  NB We’ve gone almost entirely with single-use cinemas rather than venues that double up as theatres or gig venues.  Greatest cinemas at a glance: 🍿 The greatest cinema in the world: TCL Chinese Theatre, LA 🌔 The world’s best outdoor cinema: Cine Paris, Athens 📽️ The coolest cult cinema in the world: The New Beverly, LA Jump to list

Fast approaching its 40th birthday while still looking as fresh and fabulous as ever, themagnificently queer arts showcase that is Midsumma Festival returns in all its glory. Running from January 18 to February 8, it's ready to rock Melbourne’s coolest venues as the sun shines down. Kicking off with bountiful beats as the Midsumma Carnival transforms Alexandra Gardens, the fun then sashays to St Kilda, where the annual Pride March lights up Fitzroy Street and Catani Gardens. Over in the northern 'burbs, Victoria’s Pride Street Party will see the action take over Gertrude and Smith Streets for a fifth year. In between these big blowouts, you can get cultural with a raft of glittering arts events to take in. Here are our top tips on what to see, and you can explore the full program here. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. Keen to party on? These are the best nightclubs and gay bars in Melbourne.

You know the feeling when you step out of a film screening and, for a brief moment, it seems like you’re stepping out of a fictional world and into real life? What if you could prolong that magical feeling for just a little bit longer? Cinemas don’t always need to be another part of the grey fabric of a city, they can also be in some genuinely cinematic – and properly remote – locations. Don’t believe us? Here are the world’s most isolated picture houses for film buffs and adventurers alike.  RECOMMENDED:📽️ The 50 most beautiful cinemas in the world.

From the ritzy opening night gala at the Capitol Theatre (hosted by Sammy J), through to free bangers on an interactive dancefloor at Fed Square and choral gold at Arts Centre Melbourne with Voices, on to the closing night awards at Trades Hall’s festival hub, this year’s monumental Melbourne Fringe program is all about rewarding Action Heroes.No, not the Marvel variety, but instead marvellous collective arts action. With so much awesome to see and do, here’s our guide to a few of the most fabulous festival highlights. The Melbourne Fringe Festival is running from September 30 to October 19.  Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. Still got a craving for culture? Check out the best theatre and musicals in Melbourne this month.

For outsiders, Australia can feel like an undiscovered country, or another planet altogether – and when it comes to the nation’s cinematic output, that image works to its advantage. While the prevailing idea of Aussie film internationally is still defined by Crocodile Dundee, Oz has produced a trove of great films and filmmakers, many of which are informed by a unique perspective – whether it’s Peter Weir’s ethereal visions, the balls-to-the-wall action of the Mad Max franchise, or movies like Ten Canoes and Walkabout highlighting the indigenous experience. And sure, Crocodile Dundee is still a charming lark, and the popular films about unsuspecting tourists tormented by nutcases in the Outback are also a significant part of Australian movie history. But as this list of the country’s greatest films proves, there is much more to that history than that. This story contains the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died. RECOMMENDED: 📽️ The 50 best foreign-language films ever made.🇯🇵 The greatest Japanese movies of all time.🇰🇷 The best Korean films ever made.

There’s few more glorious summer activities than lying back in the great outdoors and soaking up a movie. The sun dropping beneath the horizon, the prosecco flowing, Hugh Jackman about to start singing in a top hat – let’s face it, you’re statistically likely to be watching The Greatest Showman – and a deckchair to sink into. What could be more perfect? You even get to use that comfy blanket your nan gave you. But if there’s one thing that ups the ante on the experience, it’s doing it in an eye-poppingly beautiful location – like one of the 30 starlit screens on this list. From a screen that emerges from Sydney harbour like a kind of cinematic Botticelli, to a vertiginous Colorado amphitheatre, to Cannes’s iconic Cinéma de la Plage, they cover all bases and the entire globe. Take a tour of the most spectacular screens on the planet. RECOMMENDED: 📽️ The 50 most beautiful cinemas in the world🌎 100 places every movie lover should visit

“What’s your damage?” One of the many endlessly quotable lines spouted by Winona Ryder’s Veronica and co in Michael Lehmann’s jet-back comedy, Heathers (1989), it’s also the least likely to get you fired from work. The one about the chainsaw? Not so much… Both explosive utterances make it to the delightfully diabolical stage adaptation, Heathers the Musical. With a book, music and lyrics from the Legally Blonde the Musical team-up of Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, it follows an unending parade of non-musical films adapted into song-and-dance stage versions, including Back to the Future, 9 to 5, Groundhog Day, Cruel Intentions, Pretty Woman and Mrs Doubtfire. Are we going to prom or to hell with this take? Directed by Andy Fickman with musical direction from Martine Wengrow, Heathers the Musical may be cheesier than the goofy yet undeniably brutal movie, but the slushy-driven “teen-angst bullshit” spirit of the Westerberg High cohort is still present and incorrect. Far more so than, say, the recent jukebox tone-down of far bleaker film, Saturday Night Fever. It really works, though costume designer David Shields’ popping Veronica in blue over black, is a step too far, copied and pasted from a million teen films, notably Allison in The Breakfast Club. Shields’ school set design is also rather perfunctory, as is Ben Cracknell’s basic lighting, but thank goodness the ensemble ably distracts.  How are those teenagers who want to be treated like human beings? Leading the charge

Memory is a tricksy companion at the best of times. Even more so when tragedy strikes and lives are shattered or erased.  Grief swirls in unexpected directions, consuming us all of a sudden. In pushing us further forward or pulling us back to where we started, the details get lost, washed away like sand on a beach, then reformed all too painfully clear. So it is with Australian playwright Tom Holloway’s confronting puzzle of a memory play, Beyond the Neck. Subtitled ‘A Quartet on Loss and Violence,’ it was written as a collective trauma response to the Port Arthur massacre and the indiscriminate slaughter of 35 lives, horrendously injuring 23 more.  Drawing on survivor stories using some of the techniques of verbatim-style, the work is a reckoning with how well-meaning media gags on reporting the aftermath and the court case stunted the recovery process for many survivors and opened the door for rampant conspiracy theories. Ooft, this sounds heavy. Should I brace myself?  Look, there’s heavy stuff in here, undoubtedly. But Beyond the Neck is also a hopeful and occasionally hilarious play that reminds us that, even when we are lost in the labyrinth, we can find our way back by following those memory threads. Who's involved? First performed at Hobart’s Peacock Theatre in 2007, nearly a decade after the disaster that reshaped Australia’s gun laws, Holloway’s bracing work still holds sway. This Theatre Works restaging, coming so soon after the atrocity at Bondi Beach, is directe

When we first glimpse bone-wielding apes careening around a towering, dark monolith in the opening moments of Stanley Kubrick’s epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, we are awestruck and alarmed by its ominous presence.  So, too, the vast pier of the West Gate Bridge that dominates the Southbank Theatre’s Sumner Stage during labourer-turned-playwright Dennis McIntosh’s new work, West Gate. Simply but astonishingly realised by set and costume designer Christina Smith, the foreboding presence of this towering structure makes Cassandras of us all.  Even as the showering sparks of its creation pierce the dark, with lighting designer Niklas Pajanti working hand in glove with Smith to deploy the lighting rig as construction gantries, we are bitterly aware that it will fall, much like Troy. Is that a spoiler? Only if you’re oblivious to the tragic history of one of Melbourne’s darkest days.  Just before midday on October 15, 1970, a 112-metre, 2,000-tonne span of the under-construction steel box girder bridge twisted and tore free of its fatally flawed moorings. The cataclysmic plunge of steel and stone erupted in a quagmire of mud and flames.  Still Australia’s biggest industrial disaster to this day, the catastrophe claimed 35 lives, injuring 18 more. The subsequent Royal Commission identified the flawed design of Freeman Fox and Partners, the engineers responsible for another fatal collapse in Wales just a few months earlier, and the removed contractor, World Services and Construct

German filmmaker Ilker Çatak, born in Berlin to Turkish immigrant parents, enjoys putting his stressed-out characters through the wringer. Leonie Benesch delivered a masterclass in anxiety-attacking tension in one very bad day at school in Oscar-nominated The Teachers’ Lounge. That gem took home two awards at the 2023 Berlinale. Two years later, the writer-director has claimed the festival’s big prize, the Golden Bear, with Yellow Letters.  An intriguingly metatextual work, co-written with Ayda Meryem Çatak and Enis Köstepen, it opens in the Turkish capital, Ankara, before shifting the action to Istanbul. Only Çatak and his cinematographer Judith Kaufmann film in neither of these locations. Instead, jaunty intertitle cards announce: ‘Berlin as Ankara’ and ‘Hamburg as Istanbul’. Even the locations are victims of authoritarianism here.  Yellow Letters follows the implosion of a family after state censorship strips a married couple, actor Derya (Özgü Namal) and her playwright and drama professor husband Aziz (Tansu Biçer), of their culturally daring careers. They’ve been used to freely criticising the government on social media, and now their work is deemed ‘too political’. Of course it is – as is all art. As rumbling protests throng in the streets, Derya’s latest play is promptly cancelled and she’s fired from the company, while Aziz is let go from his university gig too. With money increasingly tight, they move in with his mother (İpek Bilgin) in Istanbul, alongside their teen

There’s nothing wrong with being old-fashioned. Padraic McKinley’s Great Depression gold heist flick has a welcome ’70s vibe and a careworn charm, mostly emanating from the always trusty Ethan Hawke. Hawke, Oscar-nominated for his melancholic turn in Blue Moon, is down-but-not-yet-out dad Samuel. With no work to be found, he’s scraping by on the generosity of neighbours, who create odd jobs for loose change. But this can’t keep the bailiffs from their door, sneakily evicting him and peppy daughter Ava (A Quiet Place: Day One’s Avy Berry) while they’re at church.  Spying a vacant apartment in the local paper, he attempts to break in so they can squat, but is accosted by brutal cops and promptly sent to a labour camp, clearing a gold mine closed by order of President Roosevelt. With at least six months’ back-breaking work ahead of him, he stands to lose his daughter too: Penny, now a ward of the state, may well be adopted out before they can be reunited. However, Samuel’s resourcefulness in applying smart thinking to a stubborn boulder attracts the favour of his boss, Clancy (the appealingly grizzled Russell Crowe). Though this gift horse comes loaded with hidden perils. Clancy recruits Samuel, plus confederates Olson (Borgen’s Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), Singh (Avi Nash), an Indian-American with a head full of socialism, and the sketchy Rankin (Austin Amelio) to help him smuggle out bricks of bullion. Having closed all the mines, President Roosevelt has ordered them to be seize

Family can be hell. But tearing them apart on film is pure paradise for us bloodthirsty drama queens. A hunger that gonzo Brazilian filmmaker, visual artist and festival fave Karim Aïnouz (Motel Destino) is more than happy to satiate with his latest bonkers, horny offering. Leading the stacked cast is Callum Turner, the latest grist for the James Bond rumour mill, who provides narration. He plays Ed, a sharp-suited, cold-hearted chap in an astonishingly privileged pack of cutthroat fashion-lovers. They have little in common besides their impossibly priced threads. Under the imperious command of their blind patriarch father (Tracy Letts), the clan includes Ed’s older brother Jack (Jamie Bell), who drinks animal blood for kinks and fetishises the gun purportedly used to kill Gianni Versace. Epilepsy-prone baby bro Robert (Lukas Gage) dons lingerie for kicks. Their equally pent-up sister, Anna (Riley Keough), will have what anyone’s having. Each wants shot of the rest, though Robert wants Jack to shoot his incestuous shot with him. (What is it about The White Lotus cast members?) Anna mercilessly mauls Jack’s girlfriend, Martha, who is pointedly lower class but still pretty spoiled and insists he must move out. Anna latches onto Martha’s dress, damning it as being from either Kos or Zara in this year’s answer to Triangle of Sadness’s Balenciaga/H&M moment. Fitting, as Rosebush Pruning feels snipped from both Ruben Östlund’s eat-the-rich satire and Pasolini’s Teorema. Why are the

Adolescence and Top Boy actor Ashley Walters’ startlingly assured debut feature opens in darkness. We hear, but don’t see, the panicked aftermath of a knife crime and voices in heated debate as a siren announces the arrival of the police. Cut to Troy’s rabbit-in-the-headlights stare in the back of a cop wagon. Played by The Long Walk actor Tut Nyuot, he’s a good, if waylaid, kid caught up in a furious world he’s vastly unprepared for. Thrust into a foreboding brick youth detention centre, all the crueller for its positioning by the freedom of the sea, Troy is stripped naked alongside two fellow detainees. They’re destined to be his good and bad angels.  Doe-eyed Ukrainian actor Vladyslav Baliuk plays Krystian, a gentle Polish lad even more out of his depth in a brutally unforgiving place where the kind-hearted have no protection from a shiv’s skin slice. That his goofy crime, revealed later, is entirely undeserving of this imprisonment has no bearing on an unbending system.There’s a crackle of energy between Krystian and Troy that suggests their deep bond could be more than it seems, a source of calm amid this storm of teenage testosterone.The bad angel, a lithely unnerving Dion (What It Feels Like For a Girl actor Sekou Diaby), has other ideas. Not his first stint inside, Dion holds court as a dealer with a bevy of boys at his command. He presses fellow Black kid Troy into his service, leaving Krystian adrift Dion is only half Troy’s trouble, with the loose unit energy of hi

No matter how powerful or pampered, celebrities are still human. They have their own foibles and panic attacks. So we all feel it when Charli xcx’s looks are mercilessly savaged in Aidan Zamiri’s anarchically absurdist mockumentary, The Moment. Charli escapes to Ibiza for a few days to get away from the fractious implosion of her Brat concert movie, being shot in a pigeon-infested warehouse in East London. Skipping the huge waiting list to see the hotel’s in-demand facialist results in the singer’s ego being blow-torched. Apparently, her dry skin physically drains said specialist to the point of snoring. Tossed out unceremoniously, the Apple singer crumbles. A collapse further crumpled on bumping into Kylie Jenner, who raves about the barking mad facial-abuser and the documentary filmmaker who has caused Charli so much grief: Johannes, played with passive-aggressive condescension by Alexander Skarsgård.  He’s a tacky stuntmeister who wants the show, and therefore his film, to lean into giant cigarette props and a less vomit-hued green, dolling up Charli in the drag queen sheen favoured by Chappell Roan. Johannes breathes down the neck of Marty Supreme actor Hailey Gates’ creative director, Celeste, who’s battling to move on from Brat. But the singer is so wigged out she doesn’t know who to trust, let alone her gut. A wild ensemble of celebrities playing warped caricatures includes Rachel Sennott, who speedily overcomes caution to huff K on camera. Some disappear – into suppos

What should be a Terry Gilliam-esque misadventure through time and cyberspace opens with a fizzle in Gore Verbinski’s (Pirates of the Caribbean) sci-fi snooze. An off-the-boil Sam Rockwell’s unnamed ‘man from the future’ appears in an LA diner, clad only in a Blade Runner-style plastic mac adorned with bizarre bits and bobs. Holding the joint hostage, he alerts the phone-addicted regulars that he’ll set off a bomb if they don’t pay attention to his madcap plan to save his wilfully lobotomised timeline. Matthew Robinson’s sloppy screenplay feels like it may have been churned out by AI itself. It’s crammed with leaden exposition and clumsy with hammy dialogue in which everyone over-explains themselves, as if we’re watching it with one eye on our phones. While that may be on brand for a film about a ragtag band fighting back against a mind-numbing cyber intelligence, it makes for a boring two-and-a-bit hours. It doesn’t help that Rockwell’s time traveller endlessly repeats, to diminishing effect, a monologue underlining the importance of memorable characters, a species that appears to have gone extinct in this fake plastic future. Rockwell, usually dynamite, can’t sell his faded facsimile of Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys, and the film never recovers. The screenplay feels like it may have been churned out by AI Haley Lu Richardson, excellent in The White Lotus and After Yang, is saddled with a depressed manic pixie role, right down to wearing a knock-off Disney princess dress. She

It’s that time of year again when Mardi Gras takes over Sydney, bringing with it the glittering cinematic showcase of LGBTQIA+ excellence that is the Mardi Gras Film Festival. Opening with the beautiful Australian film Jimpa, starring Olivia Colman, John Lithgow and Aud Mason-Hyde, there’s tonnes to see before the festival wraps two weeks later with American high school comedy She’s the He. Here are ten of our top picks: Pillion Thirsty Heated Rivalry fam, we know you’re checking out Alexander Skarsgård as a biker leather-clad dom in this smoking hot British debut feature. Loosely adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ novella, Box Hill, by writer/director Harry Lighton, it’s astonishingly sexy, absurdly funny and achingly bittersweet. Harry Melling’s the revelation, as the sub drawn into a fetish scene he barely understands, but embraces with his whole body, in this sex-positive delight that’s also a Christmas movie. Yippee-ki-yay. The Chronology of Water Another literary adaptation, this one marks the Cannes-berthing directorial debut of Personal Shopper star Kristen Stewart. Blown away by would-be-swimmer-turned-author and academic Lidia Yuknavitch’s powerfully raw memoir, Stewart made it her mission to bring it to life as a formally daring, non-linear fever of a film. Led by a towering performance from Imogen Poots, as a bisexual woman and addict attempting to rebuild her life after shocking childhood abuse, it’s a tough, but emotionally rewarding watch. The Serpent’s Skin South A

It’s pretty rich, after millennia of being denied the privilege by folks who would rather persecute us or pretend we didn’t exist, for us queers to be told we’re not doing marriage properly. Especially when so many of our gatekeepers seem thoroughly miserable, trapped in their rigid interpretation or racing towards the 40 per cent divorce club. Australian Open, by For Love Nor Money playwright Angus Cameron, smashes this hypocrisy right in the double fault. Sounds deuce-y. Who’s involved? Playing at Theatre Works as part of the queer arts cornucopia that is the Midsumma Festival, Australian Open stars a beautifully matched Sebastian Li and Eddie Orton as Felix and Lucas, a loved-up couple who certainly push each other’s buttons. The former is a teeny bit high drama/maintenance and is smarting at turning 31. Felix kinda wanted a quiet night in all to themselves, especially as Lucas just lost to Roger Federer in Melbourne’s grand slam and is suddenly way more available. Alas, Lucas’ parents, Belinda and Pete, have crashed the party.  As played by the magnificently arch Jane Montgomery Griffiths and an adorably chipper Alec Gilbert, the ‘rentals consider themselves proud allies, even if they do have a habit of air-quoting the gay away. But when the lads let slip that they’ve no intention of closing off their open relationship if and when they marry, mum and dad can’t quite cope with this new information. While we’re on curveballs, this heated rivalry is keenly observed from on

Say the words Saturday Night Fever and pretty much everyone conjures up John Travolta sashaying in a blazing white flared suit on a rainbow flashing dancefloor, gesticulating to the Bee Gees’ high-pitched vocals. No wonder. It’s an iconic moment, set to a stellar soundtrack that remains one of the best-selling of all time, bested only by Whitney Houston and co on The Bodyguard.  The Bee Gees deliver the mighty ‘Stayin’ Alive’, ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, ‘More Than a Woman’, ‘You Should Be Dancing’, ‘Jive Talking’ – in a scene cut from the final film, but present on the album – and title track ‘Night Fever’. They’re joined by the likes of Yvonne Elliman’s ‘If I Can’t Have You’, penned by the Bee Gees, and Kool and the Gang’s ‘Open Sesame’ on a smash-hit that’s all thriller, no filler.   Fewer folks will recall, however, the bleaker elements of John Badham’s classic 1977 movie. With a screenplay by Norman Wexler, adapted from a feature by music journalist Nik Cohn, it’s set in a New York City on its knees financially, experiencing a poverty-pinched crime spike. A story of working class unrest, as the have-nots dare to dream, it shares many plot points with West Side Story.  Featuring racially and misogynistically motivated violence, gang fights, suicide, abortion and assault in the original cut, later reissued in a toned-down to parental guidance version, Saturday Night Fever is not all disco spills and chill. So what are you getting yourself into here with Saturday Night Fever?

Calling all cinephiles: the Sydney Film Festival just launched a huge program for 2025, and a galaxy of engrossing screen stories is set to take over cinemas across the city. Running from June 4–15, the regal State Theatre once again serves as the glittering centrepiece of the action, and this year also sees the addition of the iconic Sydney Opera House as a screening venue. In 2025, the Festival will present 201 films from 70 countries – including 17 world premieres, 6 international premieres, and 137 Australian premieres, bringing together hundreds of new international and local stories.  This year’s festival will open with the Australian-made Together. The debut feature of Michael Shanks, it brings the gross-out body horror The Substance stans love to shriek at, as a co-dependent couple played by real-life lovers Alison Brie and Dave Franco get a bit too close for comfort. With 201 films from 70 countries in store, the program also includes retrospective sidebars on persecuted Iranian New Wave filmmaker Jafar Panahi, American game-changer Elaine May and acclaimed Indian documentarian Nishtha Jain, there’s tonnes on offer. But where to begin? We’ve got you covered – read on for our critic’s picks.  Here are our top ten top picks for the 72nd Sydney Film Festival:   Photograph: Supplied/SFF | 'Dangerous Animals' Dangerous Animals   After decades of America cutting our lunch with wave after wave of killer shark movies, the home team bites back. The Loved Ones director Sean

Radiating from the glittering State Theatre and beaming out to cinema screens across the city, the Sydney Film Festival is the jewel in the crown of the city’s cinematic scene. This June, it will shine that little bit brighter, when the members of one of Australia’s most beloved bands rock up to Opening Night.  Director Paul Clarke traces the glorious highs and obligatory lows in Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line (screening on June 5, 9 & 14), kicking off eleven days of gold in the 71st SFF line-up – which features 97 films from 69 countries, including 28 world premieres. With so much to choose from, professional film fanatic Stephen A Russell has stepped in to narrow down your options with this nifty ten-deck.  Critic's picks: The best movies to see at SFF Photograph: Supplied/SFF | 'The Moogai' The Moogai Turning the true horror of the Stolen Generations into a monster movie, Cleverman co-creator Jon Bell has expanded his spooky short into a skin-crawling feature, which is up for SFF’s inaugural First Nations Award. Debuting at Sundance, it stars two total legends of Sydney’s creative community, Shari Sebbens and Meyne Wyatt, as married couple Sarah and Fergus, who’ve just had their second kid. When Sarah begins to have visions about bub being menaced by something terrifying, Fergus doesn’t believe her.  Screening on June 8 & 9. Book here. (FYI: You might also be interested in the talk First Nations Films: A Global Perspective on June 9.)  Photograph: Supplied/SFF | 'Kinds

For the uninitiated, the arrival of Bong Joon-ho’s deliriously twisted take on upstairs-downstairs rivalry, Parasite, was a revelation. Funny and terrifying in equal measure, it also works as a sharp social satire on a class war playing out within one very fancy home. A highlight of the 2019 Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA), it went on to gangbusters at the local box office and took over Hollywood too, securing no fewer than four Oscars, including Best Picture, adding to a haul that embraced both a Golden Globe and the Palme d’Or. But the truth is Korean cinema (and twisted TV shows like Squid Game) has been on fire for decades, with this legion of new fans joining an army of devotees. And what better way to get across the must-sees than by charging headlong into this year’s exciting KOFFIA line-up? The Melbourne showcase opens with the soaring historical epic The Night Owl, blending fact with fiction to conjure up a gripping crime thriller with a dash of Game of Thrones’ political intrigue. Filmmaker An Tae-jin spins a gripping yarn set in 17th-century Joseon, the last dynastic rule of Korea, positing what really caused the suspicious death of real-life Crown Prince Sohyeon (Kim Sung-cheol). Let’s just say he did not die of ‘malaria’, with The Night Owl having fun by creating a partially blind acupuncturist (Ryu Jun-yeol) who can see clearly after dark. Witnessing the truth, he must race against time to prove it as malevolent forces move against him.   If you prefe

Like a man living in his own personal Aaron Sorkin movie, Vin Diesel threw aside his teleprompter at last week’s CineCon in Las Vegas to deliver a spontaneous cri de coeur about the value of cinemas. His audience was America’s movie theatre owners, there to scope out what much-needed ‘product’ Hollywood has for them in the year ahead. ‘You guys don’t give a shit about the teleprompter,’ he grinned. Instead, Diesel waxed lyrical about his upcoming Fast X blockbuster and his pet subject: family. Cinemas were part of his Fast family, he said. They were the reason his megabucks franchise has been a success, and he knew what they’d been going through since the pandemic. ‘I look out and see soldiers on the front lines,’ he told them.  Five thousand miles away, his words would have been ringing painfully true. There, the acting CEO of England’s Tyneside Cinema, Simon Drysdale, has been emerging from the horrors of a redundancy round. Bankruptcy looms for Newcastle’s beloved cinema. A fundraiser has been launched in a bid to galvanise the locals. ‘We’ve got months to survive,’ Drysdale tells Time Out. ‘We’re 40 percent down on attendances from pre-pandemic and our costs are stratospheric. We were struggling pre-pandemic, but the situation is pretty dire now.’ Tyneside’s woes are a worryingly familiar story two years on from the pandemic. Edinburgh’s Filmhouse, Aberdeen’s Belmont Filmhouse, Los Angeles’ Cinerama Dome, and London’s multi-arts space Riverside Studios have all either gon

It’s been far too long since we sat in a dark movie theatre, losing popcorn to impossible crevices while smearing melted choc-tops liberally across our best out-of-the-house outfits. And we couldn’t be any happier for this gloriously cinematic mess. We're getting you ready to return to the movies by getting you up to scratch on the hottest new releases. Here are five of the biggest movies you can catch in Sydney’s cinemas right now. Recommended: The best cinemas in Sydney. No Time to Die OK, OK, we’re cheating a little because Daniel Craig’s final mission as Bond, James Bond doesn’t open until November 11, but tickets are already on sale and it’s all anyone is talking about already. Word to the wise, avoid the internet for the next few weeks if you don’t want any spoilers. But you can rest assured our reviewer LOVED 007’s swansong, hinting, “There are big, unprecedented storytelling decisions.” You can read the full review here Nitram The biggest Australian release of the year took home Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for star Caleb Landry-Jones. The controversial film is a powerful and remarkably sensitive reckoning with the days that led up to the Port Arthur massacre and that terrible day that led to a complete overhaul of Australian gun laws. Our reviewer said, “The film does not glorify his murderous act or even depict it. Nor does it name him. What it does, with bone-shuddering brilliance, is reinforce why those reforms were necessary.” You can read the full revi

Unlike some places overseas, including the US, there hasn’t been much of the carrot-reward approach to encouraging folks getting vaccinated in Australia, beyond the roadmap to unlocking. That changed dramatically over the weekend. A group of cashed-up philanthropists, including MYOB founder Craig Winkler, have tipped into a prize fund that’s been dubbed Million Dollar Vax. A lottery prize pot of $4.1 million is up for grabs for any Australian who has had at least one vaccination to date and has or will be double jabbed by December 13 and able to prove so with a vaccination certificate. Each day in October the pot will cough up $1,000 gift cards. But the main drawcard is a $1 million jackpot, to be drawn on November 5. Winkler says Million Dollar Vax, based on the American models, is more about rewarding folks who have already decided to get jabbed, rather than specifically encouraging them to do so. In a statement he clarified that: “That’s a decision you should make in consultation with a health professional. The promotion simply seeks to reward people who decide to be vaccinated now rather than waiting, so that we can reduce the community impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.” He also noted that the faster we get above 80 per cent vaccination rates across the nation, the sooner we can help states to unlock safely and all get back to some sort of normality in our lives. If you have already been double jabbed or are keen to do so, you can sign up for the lottery here. Want to save

If you’re stupendously excited about the avalanche of massive main stage shows opening this summer, including not one but two dramatic big hitters from Sydney Theatre Company (STC) before the end of the year in Julius Caesar and Death of a Salesman, then you’re going to LOVE this news. The illustrious company has signed a ‘first look’ deal with super-producers Michael Cassel Group (MCG). What that means in practice is that MCG will have first dibs on transferring or remounting any show that STC creates with a view to touring it interstate or internationally. It’s the first time an agreement of this nature has been struck by a theatre company in Australia. And it’s already up and running. The current lockdown may have postponed a planned encore run of artistic director Kip Williams’ Oscar Wilde adaptation The Picture of Dorian Gray, the one-woman show starring an astounding Eryn Jean Norvill as all 26 characters, but MCG have snapped it up. That ensures audiences all over the country and overseas stand at chance at seeing it for themselves in the very near future. Reviewer Maxim Boon said of the star, “Norvill produces some of the most virtuosic theatre I have ever witnessed, on stage or screen,” and of Williams, “he has deftly explored an intersection between the cinematic and theatrical, creating productions on the bleeding edge of stagecraft that bridge the liminal space between these two modes of storytelling.” Speaking of the newly inked deal, Williams said, “I am so thri

In exciting news for creative minds warming up for Sydney’s upcoming cultural unlock, Brand X have teamed up with City of Sydney to run a beautiful looking creative studio opening early next year.  The City of Sydney Creatives Studios will include two large, double-height rehearsal spaces with sprung timber floors for performance artists, five soundproof recording studios for musos, production and editing suites for video whizzes, art studios and an honest to goodness apartment for artist in residence sojourns too. There will also be a café downstairs, and loads of offices, storage space and dressing rooms too. Creatives can register their interest here.  “It has long been a priority to increase centrally located, affordable space for our artists and creatives,” lord mayor Clover Moore says. “This five-storey venue will accommodate creatives in the heart of the city, and help the sector’s recovery from the devastating effects of the pandemic. The spaces are designed for a variety of artistic disciplines and artists at different stages in their careers, and to encourage collaboration within our talented creative community.” Brand X director James Winter is psyched too. “We are energised at the prospect of delivering new, accessible opportunities for emerging and established artists to enable practice-based experimentation, creative development and production of new work.” Want to know more about arts venues reopening? Read the plan here.     

Sydneysiders who have been fully vaccinated will be able to return to cinemas, theatres and live music venues, art galleries, museums and more once the state hits the 70 per cent double dose target. Once this key vaccination level is reached, NSW's lockdown will begin to lift from October 11. However, those who choose to remain unvaccinated will have to wait a little longer to re-join the city’s cultural life. Anyone deliberately dodging the jab without a medical excemption will not be allowed to enter any arts venue until December 1, when it’s expected NSW will have more than 90 per cent double dosed in the community at large. Even after that date, it will be up to individual venues if they are comfortable welcoming unvaccinated patrons. It’s incredible news for the arts community, with the majority of venues completely out of action for many, many months over the last year and a half, unlike hospo venues which have at least managed to struggle on with takeaway options. It means that the major shows that hedged their bets by announcing reopening dates and putting tickets on sale have been vindicated, including Broadway smashes Hamilton, Come From Away and Jagged Little Pill. The BridgeClimb has also announced that they are raring to get folks stomping all over the world-famous harbour edifice once more. Expect many more cultural events to unlock the doors in the coming weeks. There will still be 75 per cent capacity limits on entertainment venues and masks will be mandatory

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been clear that NSW is preparing to reopen once the target of 70 per cent double vaccinated has been met, but there has been no official date put on that milestone. We’ll get there when we get there. That hasn’t stopped several of Sydney’s major attractions and hotels from declaring they are ready to roll in late October, with many predicting we’ll meet the official target on or around October 18. The big shows and destinations hedging their bets on this date include hit musical Come From Away, which is waiting in the wings at the Capitol Theatre and has started selling tickets from October 20. It's also the first major arts production in Australia to not only require theatregoers be fully vaccinated, but also its cast and crew. Producer Rodney Rigby said they were outing their faith in NSW residents getting double jabbed, allowing live performances to reboot. “Across the world, vaccination is proving to be an effective way of getting fans safely back into the theatre and we cannot wait to welcome audiences back soon.” The world-famous BridgeClimb across Sydney's iconic Coathanger has announced October 22 as the date it hopes to begin re-harnessing brave souls after the best views of the city. They’re hoping to coax back climbers by offering post-climb drinks vouchers for the Glenmore for the first 200 customers to book in. “It’s time for Sydneysiders to celebrate,” BridgeClimb CEO David Hammon said. “This is going to be a summer like no other f

The producers of Tony and Olivier award-winning musical Come From Away have announced the show will reopen to live audiences on October 20, assuming the roadmap to lifting lockdown once 70 per cent of adults over 16 are fully vaccinated remains on track. According to the NSW government’s roadmap as it stands, they’ll be able to welcome audiences back to the Capitol Theatre at 75 per cent capacity, with tickets already on sale now, through to November 28. However, the NSW government has not officially confirmed the date from which businesses can reopen, only that this date will be the first Monday after the 70 per cent vaccination target is reached. Rodney Rigby of Newtheatricals produces the show – set in the aftermath of 9/11 when flights from across the US were diverted to a tiny Canadian community – in collaboration with Junkyard Dog Productions. In a sign of the times, they have mandated that all audience members must be able to prove they are fully vaccinated in order to enter the Capitol. He said they wanted to lead by example. “Across the world, vaccination is proving to be an effective way of getting fans safely back into the theatre and we cannot wait to welcome audiences back soon.” The policy of all cast and crew being required to be vaccinated has been widely embraced on Broadway in New York and in London’s West End, and gives us an idea of how theatres are likely to work once they reopen. Previously, casts have protected themselves from possible infection by livi

As Sydney gears up to unlock, three of Australia’s biggest live music tour promoters stand ready to unleash an avalanche of major stars returning to our harbourside city’s coolest venues. Massive names like Lorde, Snoop Dogg, Alanis Morissette, the Backstreet, the DMAs and the Kid Laroi. The thing is, though, if you want to be back in the presumably socially distant mosh when that happens, you’re gonna need to get double vaccinated. Frontier Touring, Live Nation and TEG has banded together to help the push for Australia to get jabbed, get back out there and get in amongst stadium rock one again. Favouring the carrot, rather than the stick, approach, they’ve launched a cool competition dubbed Vaxstage Pass. Open to all Aussie residents aged 18-plus, head over the Vaxstage Pass site to sign up. You’ll have to be fully vaxxed and able to prove so via the Medicare COVID-19 Digital Certificate, by the time the comp closes on November 30, and then share, in under 25 words, which live gig you’re most looking forward to. And the prize is pretty outstanding. Five winners will get double passes to each gig hosted by Frontier Touring, Live Nation or TEG for the whole of next year. Wowzas. Get jabbed, get in, get on it. Love live music? Stream a global gig featuring Kylie, Delta Goodrem, Jennifer Lopez, Lizzo, Billie Eilish and more.