Review

Ira Sachs’ latest movie is the year’s frankest and most sensual film – a thoughtful and provocative exploration of human emotions

If history had been different, Lope de Vega might have been regarded as the greatest dramatist of them all

Technology is making forged paintings easier to identify, and giving us a chance to appreciate the art and craft of the counterfeiters

Amid strikes and sexism, the Venice Film Festival plays it safe

Full of intriguing quirks and anecdotes, Andrew Martin’s Metropolitain is nothing short of a love letter to a subterranean railway

For the author Maylis de Kerangal, reading one of her books in another language is like hearing a familiar tune on a new instrument

The city’s unloved museum of archaeology shines after a makeover that makes its treasure trove of objects sing

Simon Williams has written a very clever and thoughtful play with an unusually sure grasp of the human condition

Italian writer Veronica Raimo’s remarkable Lost On Me is yet another example of why we need more translated European fiction

The German artist was an immodest man with little to be modest about

Hit Netflix series Restaurants on the Edge demonstrates that keeping it simple in the kitchen doesn’t always mean submitting to the obvious

The return of La Cage Aux Folles, the show that proved too much for Thatcher-era Britain

Portuguese comedian André De Freitas is on a mission to put his country on the map, one joke at a time

In small town in northern France, the art of producing beautiful objects from shells is being kept alive

From the ancient Mediterranean through 1960s Ireland to modern-day Appalachia, reads that will transport you

A troubled shoot and underwhelming reviews almost spelled the end of director Sam Peckinpah’s career

The production is intelligent, well-acted, but oh, so boring

Adam Penford’s production of the classic musical speaks to our populist times

There’s far more to Irish cinema than the pain and cliches of Colin Farrell’s dark comedy – as a recent Galway film festival showed

A new version of an Italian classic comes to the UK, in more ways than one

Her work is simple and subdued; her life as Rodin’s muse and mistress was anything but

Unlike the joyless reworking of Oklahoma!, this gets the point of a big, old-fashioned musical

A new strain of writing, that engages with the mundane things of life, is more profound than it may first appear

The Helsinki Biennial event highlights how the climate crisis sparked Finland’s artistic and cultural awakening

A new exhibition is based on the life and works of a man who took part in orgies of rape and torture and boasted he had written the “most impure tale that has ever been told”

Ben Judah’s superb This Is Europe is a tour through the continent’s underbelly, giving voice to the exploited and marginalised

New photos by Paul McCartney reveal a band on the cusp of global stardom, trapped for a mad three weeks in the city of light

The writers have taken a film that I couldn't imagine could ever be improved upon and managed to improve upon it

Frank and Percy lets the two old stagers do their thing, which is what makes it work so well

Europe’s first celebrity is celebrated in a treasure trove of objects at Paris’ Petit Palais

Jack Thorne's telling of an early BBC struggle is unfocused, often boring and poorly realised

Too many books about the countryside are over-written and nostalgic. But Rebecca Smith’s brilliant new memoir gets it just right