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TV
If you only watch one, make it …
Dalliance
Paramount+; available now
Summed up in a sentence A beautifully written Australian drama following the heartbreaks and hilarities of a group of old friends in their 60s, starring Hugo Weaving.
What our reviewer said “Dalliance is not about plot. There are no murders nor mysteries to be investigated or suspects to be harangued. It’s a mood piece and an array of portraits of characters who have actually lived some life, been formed by meaningful experiences and come out the other side – at a later stage than we are used to seeing on our screens.” Lucy Mangan
Pick of the rest
Rainbow Warrior
Now TV; out now
Summed up in a sentence A riveting feature-length documentary about the bizarre story of French secret agents blowing up a Greenpeace ship in New Zealand in 1985.
What our reviewer said “It’s gasp-inducing stuff, even if the documentary is at pains to keep the mood fizzy via skittish editing and a soundtrack consisting of wine-bar jazz and, inexplicably, Wang Chung.” Sarah Dempster
The Airport Chaplain
Netflix; out now
Summed up in a sentence Another moreish Hugo Weaving drama, this time about a do-gooder minister who is always saving the day at work.
What our reviewer said “I doubt the lives of real airport chaplains are anywhere near as frenetic as those of this show’s protagonist, Tobias Wallace (Weaving), whose existence is a testament to that old saying: “Not all heroes wear capes.” Sometimes, they wear hi-vis.” Luke Buckmaster
Further reading Shabana Azeez: ‘The most disgusting thing I’ve seen on The Pitt? American coffee’
You may have missed …
Kabul
BBC iPlayer; out now
Summed up in a sentence A tense, powerful thriller about an Afghan family and the shameful events of when the Americans withdrew and the Taliban moved in.
What our reviewer said “Its thriller tropes, of a race against time and of risks taken under the gaze of an implacable enemy, are utilised effectively to make the story as compelling as it is appalling. August 2021 in Kabul was an awful, shameful moment in history; this show vividly re-lives it.” Jack Seale
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
De Gaulle: Résistance
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Simon Abkarian plays the great Gallic general and Resistance leader, opposite Simon Russell Beale as Churchill, in the first half of a lavish two-parter.
What our reviewer said “This very enjoyable and gallopingly eventful biopic offers a good-humoured, though naturally sympathetic, perspective on France’s great wartime hero. A tiny touch of comedy makes it resemble an old-fashioned 60s war film.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘The spirit of resistance’: De Gaulle biopic turns into surprise hit for France’s younger viewers
Pick of the rest
Bitter Christmas
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Pedro Almodóvar’s autofictional and meta drama is about a director writing a film about a director writing a film.
What our reviewer said “A candidly personal movie, circling around ideas of grief, loss, the vampirism of art and the betrayal involved in basing fictional characters on real people: a complex, slightly muddled, almost surreally modernist noir-melodrama.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading ‘It is the riskiest film I’ve ever made’: Pedro Almodóvar on being the villain in his own movie
Colony
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Frenzied K-horror action from the director of Train to Busan traps a small group of the non-infected in a tower block swarming with rabid hive-mind zombies.
What our reviewer said “Working with a company of South Korea’s top contemporary dancers, movement choreographer Jeon Young makes many of the action and gore scenes resemble something you might see on stage at Sadler’s Wells. Michael Jackson’s Thriller video might have done it first but Colony does it better, more scarily and on an epic scale” Laurence Phelan
Shaun the Sheep Movie
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The first feature-length adventure of cinema’s most adorable ovine hero gets a rerelease ahead of next month’s (18 September) sequel The Beast of Mossy Bottom.
What our reviewer said “It’s a quasi-silent film jam-packed with gags, visual ideas and narrative invention and positively bursting with comedy flavour. Like Jim Henson’s muppets, the stop-motion Aardman figures are effortlessly funny, as well as being better performers than most humans.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Baa-hind the scenes on the Shaun the Sheep movie: ‘In a good week we can shoot two minutes’
Now streaming
Marching in the Dark
True Story
Summed up in a sentence Low prices and rising debt levels have caused a suicide epidemic among agricultural workers in rural India; this documentary is about some of the women left behind.
What our reviewer said “Sanjivani not only works in the fields but also performs domestic labour for her extended family – cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. Her resilience is stunning to witness, but even more impressive is the emotional support provided by a tight-knit network of other widows.” Phuong Le
Further reading Suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers linked to climate change, study claims
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Books
If you only read one, make it …
The Disappearers by Marlon James
Reviewed by Yagnishsing Dawoor
Summed up in a sentence This tale of the aftermath of a homophobic mob attack in 1980s Jamaica is longlisted for the Booker prize.
What our reviewer said “Few books have mapped the beleaguered realities of queer existence with such psychological depth, harrowing realism and searing condemnation.”
Pick of the rest
The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet
Reviewed by Kathryn Hughes
Summed up in a sentence An extraordinary biography of a much-underestimated woman.
What our reviewer said “Matthew Sweet pays his subject the compliment of absolute seriousness, regarding her as a cultural phenomenon whose life, stretching the entire 20th century, deserves deep study.”
Passage by Colin Thubron
Reviewed by John Banville
Summed up in a sentence A dying woman looks back on her life as she makes a last journey to Egypt.
What our reviewer said “Passage is an exquisitely wrought novel which, for all its understated, filigree texture, reverberates in the mind with poetic force.”
Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest by Luke Harding
Reviewed by Lawrence Freedman
Summed up in a sentence How the US turned its back on Ukraine, and aided Putin.
What our reviewer said “Harding discusses the question of whether Trump might himself be a Russian asset. Is it just that he enjoys the company of tyrants and envies their supreme power, or do they have embarrassing kompromat that he wants to ensure doesn’t see the light of day?”
Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason
Reviewed by Sam Leith
Summed up in a sentence A heartbroken woman becomes obsessed with an author, in the follow-up to Sorrow and Bliss.
What our reviewer said “Mason is brilliant at describing the small but intense joys of everyday life – getting your scalp massaged at the hairdresser, for instance, or owning one really nicely designed pair of trousers.”
You may have missed …
Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Reviewed by Emma Brockes
Summed up in a sentence The searing memoir of a Jeffrey Epstein victim, now out in paperback.
What our reviewer said “Giuffre was rightly proud of holding Epstein and Maxwell to account. And yet for any survivor of sexual violence, the cost of recovery – let alone of confronting her abusers in front of the world – can be impossibly steep.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Billy Strings: So Much for Goodbyes
Out now
Summed up in a sentence The introspective fifth album from the bluegrass crossover star – feted by everyone from Bob Dylan to Post Malone to Willie Nelson – is a moving journey through grief following the death of his mother.
What our reviewer said “What does cut through the gloom is the lingering thought of how rich and powerful the album you’ve just heard is.” Alexis Petridis
Further reading ‘I was running away from poverty’: the remarkable rise of bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings
Pick of the rest
Dahi: Black Boy (Alternative)
Out now
Summed up in a sentence After creating tracks for a diverse range of artists including Kendrick Lamar, Vampire Weekend and Madonna, California producer Dahi steps into the spotlight on this genre-hopping debut album.
What our reviewer said “Twisty, tactile tracks reference Radiohead and Fela Kuti, toy with time signatures and chord changes, and are just as likely to deploy open-hearted sax solos as gnarly vocoder – all in the service of showing off the guitar’s versatility.” Katie Hawthorne
Klara Lewis: Opening
Out now
Summed up in a sentence Swedish musician and self-styled “sound sculptor” Klara Lewis returns with more deconstructed ambient and acoustic experiments.
What our reviewer said “Even at their most simple and ephemeral, Lewis’s vignettes build something rich and moving.” Safi Bugel
