Hollywood

How The Sopranos changed TV for ever

20 January 2024 9:00 am

Peter Biskind describes how a once despised medium became the definitive narrative art form of the early 21st century. But has it now passed its peak?

‘We are stuck like chicken feathers to tar’: Elizabeth Taylor’s description of the fabled romance

21 October 2023 9:00 am

The Burton-Taylor relationship was either one of the greatest love stories of all time or a suicide pact carried out in relentless slow motion

Complicated and slightly creepy: the Bogart-Bacall romance

19 August 2023 9:00 am

Lauren Bacall was 25 years younger than Humphrey Bogart. Unlike his previous wives, she stayed – though Roger Lewis finds something creepy about their relationship

Letter from Thailand

22 July 2023 9:00 am

Many of my friends, stranded by the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, have temporarily given up their film projects and…

Identity politics is in retreat in Hollywood

20 August 2022 9:00 am

‘Diversity is woven into the very soul of the story.’ If those words of praise from a rave review in…

Dark days in Hollywood: Mercury Pictures Presents, by Anthony Marra, reviewed

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Summer is a time for blockbusters and Anthony Marra has delivered the goods with Mercury Pictures Presents, a sweeping book…

The magic of black and white films

18 June 2022 9:00 am

He is a rich English lord with a very large house and his wife is a beautiful American with a…

The art of the witty riposte

9 April 2022 9:00 am

One hundred or so years ago, a down-in-the-dumps Joseph Roth wrote to Stefan Zweig: ‘The barbarians have taken over.’ Later…

Oscars diary: a jaw-dropping night

2 April 2022 9:00 am

Oscar week is intense – and it’s been a while since it’s been as intense. The red carpet is full…

Could today’s Hollywood stars have made it in ancient Greece?

2 April 2022 9:00 am

The Oscar frenzy spent, it is worth reflecting on how easy writers and actors have it these days. The ancient…

How to save the Oscars

26 March 2022 9:00 am

This Sunday’s Academy Awards will be a litmus test of whether Hollywood can uncouple itself from the political agenda of…

Hollywood, fist-fights and getting cancelled: Joan Collins and Taki in conversation

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Joan Collins and Taki on golden Hollywood, fist-fights and getting cancelled

Why I was labelled a bitch: Joan Collins remembers the old Hollywood days

4 December 2021 9:00 am

Readers of this magazine will have enjoyed Joan Collins’s diaries, and her Past Imperfect was one of the funniest showbiz…

Lumpily scripted and poorly plotted: Cry Macho reviewed

13 November 2021 9:00 am

Clint Eastwood is 91; Cry Macho may well be his last film. Or maybe not. He has, after all, been…

The best podcasts where girls sit around talking about ghosts

16 October 2021 9:00 am

‘I’ve actually seen ghosts.’ This statement comes less than ten minutes into the first episode of Dark House, a limited-series…

My literary heroes have led me astray

4 September 2021 9:00 am

Gstaad   Good manners aside, what I miss nowadays is a new, intelligent, finely acted movie. Never have I seen…

The genius of Basic Instinct

28 August 2021 9:00 am

Our occasional series on cinema’s most underrated films arrives at what many have considered the peak of misogynistic trash. We’re…

Return to LA Confidential: Widespread Panic, by James Ellroy, reviewed

3 July 2021 9:00 am

Even by James Ellroy’s standards, the narrator of his latest novel is not a man much given to the quiet…

A nicer side of Nero

19 June 2021 9:00 am

New York I haven’t felt such shirt-dripping, mind-clogging wet heat since Saigon back in 1971. The Bagel is a steam…

A Shakespeare play at the Globe whose best features have nothing to do with Shakespeare

5 June 2021 9:00 am

Back to the Globe after more than a year. The theatre has zealously maintained its pre–Covid staffing levels. On press…

Why Mick Jagger is an insult to rock

15 May 2021 9:00 am

New York Orthodox Easter Sunday came late in May this year, and I spent it at an old friend’s Fifth…

Audiences don’t want woke: comic-book writer Mark Millar interviewed

8 May 2021 9:00 am

James Delingpole talks to comic-book writer Mark Millar about the joy of Catholicism, our sorry lack of male action figures and his childhood superpower

Is it time to cancel Sophocles?

27 February 2021 9:00 am

Gstaad The sun has returned, the snow is so-so, and exercise has replaced everything, including romance. What a way to…

From bad joke to 21st-century classic: the best recordings of Korngold’s Violin Concerto

13 February 2021 9:00 am

Erich Korngold was what you might call an early adopter. As a child prodigy in Habsburg Vienna, he’d astonished the…