Arts and Culture

In recent years Panettone, Italy’s iconic fluffy traditional Christmas cake, has seen many twists on its traditional flavour

There were huge advantages to being outside the Soviet Union, but the filmmaker's love of Russia bound him to home

A string of new music this year provided beautiful and uplifting sounds, but with a dark undercurrent

From deeply unsettling drama to a superior superhero spin-off, here are the shows to stream over Christmas

Jacques Audiard’s brilliant Emilia Pérez is a musical like no other, by turns funny, tragic and thrilling

The Bibi Files paints a devastating picture of the Israeli prime minister and his family

Sigourney Weaver shines in her west end debut in Jamie Lloyd’s powerful new production of Shakespeare’s final solo-authored play

Patrick Marber’s unremarkable revival delivers polite laughs only

For a woman who never desired the limelight, Silvana Mangano achieved cinematic immortality almost in spite of herself

How British music turned away from America and learned to love the continent

Inspired by Goya, the Portuguese artist’s versions of Humpty Dumpty and Three Blind Mice are very much not for children

A beautiful memoir about the ugly side of Europe tops our round-up of 2024’s best non-fiction

An astounding, eccentric documentary uncovers a murky assassination plot involving Belgium, the CIA and Louis Armstrong

The pronunciation of his name has always been debatable, but its origin seems clear enough – and it’s not from the Huguenots

The troubled birth and lasting genius of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time in America

Our editor-at-large’s rundown of the pick of the week’s streaming, cinema, theatre and books

Max Webster's production of The Importance of Being Earnest fails to commit to doing something truly innovative

The Italian constitution sets an obligation for the government to promote a crucial part of the nation’s identity

Even before Gregg Wallace ended his own career, the time was ripe for a change. Here are four names who could shake things up

The intensity he displayed in the saddle was an extension of his personality. He was spiky, surly and could bear a spectacular grudge

At a glitzy Paris art fair, a dose of reality from eight photographers who have something to say about the world

It isn’t just London any more and it isn’t just Iberian chefs cooking

An Israeli startup’s plan to use AI to publish 8,000 books a year sounds like the death of quality

Three parallel exhibitions celebrate a great Dutch artist whose career began after a great deal of crying over spilt milk

How Stephen Frears’ The Hit – the first movie based on British gangsters exiled in Spain – finally lived up to its name

A 1532 first edition of Machiavelli’s The Prince, which are vanishingly hard to come by, has just come on the market

The country is in a tunnel and there is no light at the end of it. But I still need to get my hair cut

Trump is descended from immigrants and has a multilingual family. Why is he not more tolerant of bilingual arrivals?

The Old Vic’s Dickens classic still carries a powerful message about poverty and greed