Subscribe

Get full access to the app & website:

Subscribe

The critics

Wuthering Heights is red-blooded, raunchy and entirely unfaithful

Sensuality seeps into every aspect of Emerald Fennell’s provocative, ‘BDSM Bridgerton’ adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel

Tuesday, 10 February 2026

Spotify is strangling the music industry – bands like mine must make a stand

Artists are being ripped off by streaming services in a business that is more unfair, uncreative and exclusive than ever

Monday, 9 February 2026

Albums of the week: Mandy, Indiana, Daphni, Howling Bells, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, plus Fakemink

With its mix of EDM and industrial noise, the Manchester group’s latest record is a challenging listen – but worth the graft

Sunday, 8 February 2026

Manipulate festival: candyfloss puppets and cabaret Anna Karenina

The city’s international festival is smaller and shorter than its summer siblings – but big on imagination

Sunday, 8 February 2026

Deleted scenes: the scandal-hit Sundance favourites

Bodybuilding drama Magazine Dream, now available to stream, is among the big festival hits derailed by bad publicity

Sunday, 8 February 2026

The private lives of Gwen John

A retrospective of the Welsh artist takes a stance against biography in favour of method

Saturday, 7 February 2026

Ralph Fiennes takes on Tchaikovsky in his deft opera debut

The actor serves it straight with a simple but sophisticated staging of Eugene Onegin

Saturday, 7 February 2026

Blood Memory is the latest gem from a master of audio storytelling

Nick van der Kolk helps a man with a violent past tell his tale of redemption

Saturday, 7 February 2026

Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: My Father’s Shadow, Send Help, 100 Nights of Hero

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù is a commanding, charismatic presence as a father struggling in 1990s Nigeria in Akinola Davies Jr’s superb debut feature

Saturday, 7 February 2026

American Psycho on stage – style over savagery

Rupert Goold’s restaging of his musical version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel is skinny, glossy and gore-free

Friday, 6 February 2026

Suede’s renaissance years

The Britpop pioneers still have an infectious, age-defying energy and vulnerability

Friday, 6 February 2026

What’s the point of Netflix’s Lucy Letby doc?

With no new revelations about the harrowing case, this series has few talking points

Friday, 6 February 2026

The Chronology of Water is the abrasive work of an auteur

Kristen Stewart’s debut about a woman who finds safety in swimming is unflinching

Friday, 6 February 2026

Generation Bateman: how the manosphere co-opted American Psycho

Thirty-five years on from the publication of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, its vain, murderous antihero has become a model for a new looks-obsessed toxic masculinity

Friday, 6 February 2026

The world is burning – so turn on a relentlessly stressful season of Industry

High-intensity, high-conflict entertainment – be it Marty Supreme, Industry or the Real Housewives franchise – is having a moment. What does that tell us about how we live now?

Thursday, 5 February 2026

Hanging Out with Ant & Dec: good vibes and not much else

The presenting duo’s fun, upbeat new show is a little too guarded and heavy on the small talk

Saturday, 31 January 2026

Julia Wolfe’s unEarth: an oratorio by the voices of the future

The BBC’s Symphony Orchestra gives young musicians a platform to call for action

Saturday, 31 January 2026

A View of One’s Own rescues forgotten women artists

The Courtauld’s riveting, revelatory and deeply researched show of ten lost female painters looks afresh at the golden age of British landscape art

Saturday, 31 January 2026

TR-49 is a thrilling code-breaking game

A wartime enigma machine forms the basis of Inkle’s elegant and intellectually exhilarating mystery

Sunday, 1 February 2026

Paul Taylor Dance Company showcases works of grace and light

The late choreographer’s company returns to the UK for the first time in 20 years with all the breeziness and buoyancy for which they are known

Saturday, 31 January 2026

About

Contact usFAQsAbout us
Work with usCareers

Join

PDF EditionJournalism school
EventsShop

Follow

The Observer
The Observer Magazine
The ObserverNew Review
The Observer Food Monthly
Copyright © 2025 Tortoise MediaPrivacy PolicyTerms & Conditions