Five of the best ... films

1 Better Watch Out (15)

(Chris Peckover, 2017, US) 89 mins

If you’re already feeling ground down by the festive season, this could be what you’re after: a smart, seasonal horror-comedy that’s undemandingly entertaining yet full of surprises. It works best if you know nothing beyond the set-up: a precocious pre-teen (Levi Miller) feels this could be his lucky night with the long-fancied babysitter (Olivia DeJonge).

2 Happy End (15)

(Michael Haneke, 2017, Fra/Aus/Ger) 107 mins

Another snapshot of family dysfunction from the master of the genre, who folds social media and sociopathic tendencies into this study of a Calais dynasty, none of whom is without their secrets - from patriarch Jean-Louis Trintignant to business-minded daughter Isabelle Huppert.

3 The Disaster Artist (15)

(James Franco, 2017, US) 103 mins

A movie about “The Godfather of bad movies”, The Room, whose cult status owes much to its astoundingly self-unaware director-writer-star, Tommy Wiseau. Franco channels Wiseau hilariously, with support from his brother Dave and a host of recognisable faces. A film-biz satire where we’re all in on the joke.

4 Human Flow (12A)

(Ai Weiwei, 2017, Ger) 140 mins

The artist conveys the scale and suffering of modern-day migrants, accompanying displaced people in 23 countries and capturing their plight in both harrowing personal stories and memorable aerial and landscape images. The scope of the exercise is daunting (as is the runtime) but it offers a sobering perspective on the subject.

5 Menashe (U)

(Joshua Z Weinstein, 2017, US) 82 mins

The strictures of Orthodox Judaism are highlighted in a tender, Yiddish-language drama that’s so authentic it’s practically documentary. The line is blurred even further by the use of genuine street footage and non-actors – including our hero, a slobby Brooklyn widower (Menashe Lustig) who must either remarry or lose custody of his son. He’s not your typical movie character, but his plight is entirely relatable.

SR

Five of the best ... pop and rock gigs

1 Yung Lean

Lil Peep’s drug-related death has meant that emo hip-hop has not had the best press of late. Sweden’s Yung Lean was a precursor to the sadly departed US rapper, and his early music fizzes with the same “cloud rap” hallmarks: scuzzy, irreverent and shot through with sadness and drug refs. However, latest album Stranger showed his perceptiveness, and hopefully signals a bright future.
Roundhouse, NW1, 12 December; Albert Hall, Manchester, 13 December

2 Shaggy

Sharing a name with a Scooby-Doo character hasn’t harmed the career of this Jamerican great, who continues to provide his legions of fans with 90s nostalgia. After his packed-out Glastonbury sets, he returns to the UK for a headline tour.
Sheffield, 11 December; Southampton, 12 December; Cardiff, 13 December; London, 14 December; touring to 16 December

3 Mariah Carey

Mariah’s new tour isn’t all about her big festive hit. Well, it is called the All I Want for Christmas tour ... But she has other tunes up her fur-trimmed sleeves. Support comes from previous collaborator Westlife’s Mark Feehily, who coincidentally has just released his own festive album.
Manchester Arena, 10 December; The O2, SE10, 11 Decmeber

4 Dinosaur Jr

J Mascis and pals got their own emojis earlier this year, adding a touch of Kardashian-ness to their austere and sludgy sound, as evidenced on latest album Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not. They head to the UK for a six-date tour, with Ohio pop-punkers Cloud Nothings supporting in London.
Glasgow, 10-11 December; London, 13 December; Manchester, 14 December; touring to 17 December

5 Soulwax

“Everybody wants to be the DJ, everybody thinks it’s oh so easy,” sang Soulwax back in 1999, predicting the rise of lackadaisical laptop-wielders. Fast-forward to 2017 and the Belgian duo have themselves recorded an album in just one day. An experiment in production, or proof that making a record really is a walk in the park? Either way, it’s pretty decent.
Roundhouse, NW1, 15-16 December; touring to 17 December

HJD

Four of the best ... classical concerts

1 Schumann Street

Presented in some of the historic Huguenot houses of the East End of London, Spitalfields festival’s immersive installation is based upon Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe. Each of the 16 numbers has been given a different musical treatment, with performers including Sam Amidon, Uri Caine, James McVinnie and Lisa Hannigan.
Huguenot Houses of Spitalfields, E1, 9-10 December

2 Glory to the Christ Child

With their Choral Pilgrimage completed, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen take to the road again with a Christmas programme. The selection of seasonal settings mixes perennial favourites with less familiar carols from five centuries, from Palestrina to the present day.
London, 9 December; Glyndebourne, 10 December; Birmingham, 11 December; Oxford, 15 December; touring to 21 December

3 Total Immersion: Salonen

The second immersive day of this BBC Symphony Orchestra season concentrates on Esa-Pekka Salonen, a musician who remains better known for his conducting than for his music. After chamber music from Guildhall School musicians, and choral pieces from the BBC Singers, fellow Finn Sakari Oramo conducts a concert of Salonen’s orchestral works and the UK premiere of the choral Karawane.
Milton Court and Barbican Hall, EC2, 10 December

4 Dialogues With Shostakovich

Two of Shostakovich’s greatest works, the First Violin Concerto and the last of the symphonies, the 15th, feature in Juanjo Mena’s latest concert with the BBC Philharmonic. But Mena begins the concert with the UK premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s tribute to his former mentor, Dialogues With Shostakovich.
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 9 December

AC

Five of the best ... exhibitions

1 Michael Armitage

Magic realist scenes of east African history and nature fill Armitage’s paintings, with pale greens, shady blues and the occasional floating pink rabbit. Born in Nairobi in 1984 and sharing his time between Kenya and London, Armitage clearly makes close observations of people and places. Yet he mingles these with stories, nightmares and troubling historical incidents to create imagined visions of modern Africa seen through the lens of European art history.
South London Gallery, SE5, 13 December to 23 February

2 Kehinde Wiley

The Trump era might be a living nightmare for many but Wiley’s new paintings are startling evidence that the worst of political times can call forth artistic daring. He reinvents the seascapes of the great American artist Winslow Homer to comment on the perils of modern migration and the brutality of attempts to close borders. Isolated boat travellers in surging seas inspired by Homer’s The Gulf Stream star in an exhibition that raises stormy thoughts about racism in the United States.
Stephen Friedman Gallery, W1, to 27 January

3 John Stezaker

If it is true that Berlin dadaists invented photo-collage at the end of the first world war, then it will soon be a century old. There is therefore something very nostalgic about the collages of old black-and-white photographs that Stezaker creates. His montaged Masks do not merely use images of departed screen icons. They represent a revival of the techniques of dada and surrealism that are intelligent and intriguing, if not all that original.
The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, to June

4 Monika Sosnowska

When does architecture become sculpture, and vice versa? Ever since Gordon Matta-Clark sawed a house in half in 1974, artists and architects have daringly infringed on each other’s spaces. Sosnowska’s interventions range from surreal false engineering solutions that press on the internal space of galleries to outdoor installations that can be mistaken for building materials, undermining walls between the real and imaginary.
Hauser & Wirth, W1, to 10 February

5 Nicolas Party

The giant coloured heads this Swiss artist has created to pay homage to pioneering Oxford women resemble mystic images from some space-age temple. They are simplified and sacred, playing in a thought-provoking way on what representational sculpture is, and why we turn to it to honour public heroes, while objecting forcefully to statues of history’s villains.
Modern Art Oxford, to 18 February

JJ

Five of the best ... theatre shows

1 Black Beauty

First seen at the Traverse in Edinburgh last Christmas, this brilliantly inventive staging of Anna Sewell’s horsey classic got several five-star raves, including here at the Guardian, and brings together the talents of Andy Manley, Andy Cannon and Shona Reppe. So don’t say neigh to a show that is full of visual coups and some expert wordplay, which will delight oldsters who recall the novel and a younger generation who come to it afresh.
Lakeside Arts, Nottingham, 9-31 December

2 Bromance

Contemporary British circus is beginning to make a splash and Barely Methodical Troupe is one of the major players. It will be premiering new work at the Norfolk and Norwich festival next year but here’s one it made earlier, its 2014 breakout show. It is a really likable show in which the three male performers explore masculine friendship through acrobatics and Cyr wheel, suggesting that while three is sometimes a party it can also be a crowd.
The Albany, SE8, to 13 December

3 Hot Brown Honey

Smashing the patriarchy has never been such fun as it is in this loud and raucous cabaret-style show, which took Edinburgh by storm in both 2016 and 2017. It is canny programming on the part of HOME to bring this hugely enjoyable show to Manchester during the festive season, and it’s certainly timely in the way it stings male assumptions and privilege, as it considers race, gender, colonialism and sexism using circus and burlesque.
HOME, Manchester, 12-23 December

4 Let the Right One In

John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Swedish vampire novel has twice been made into a movie. Back in 2013, it was staged by National Theatre of Scotland at Dundee Rep. That production then moved to London’s Royal Court and the West End, and now lucky Dubliners can enjoy the dark pleasures of director John Tiffany and writer Jack Thorne’s take on this desperate and heart-breaking coming-of-age love story. A spine-tingling, wintry chiller.
Abbey theatre, Dublin, to 6 January

5 Romantics Anonymous

Based on a 2010 French movie, Les Emotifs Anonymes, about a pair of painfully shy chocolate-makers, Emma Rice’s goodbye to the Globe is a bittersweet affair. This quirky, engaging musical could be cloying but it is cut with something rich and dark as well as a saucy sense of fun. A genuinely generous show that is sharp about the debilitating nature of crippling shyness and of lives half lived because of fear.
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, SE1, to 6 January

LG

Three of the best ... dance shows

1 New Adventures: Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella

This second world war update of the fairytale is rich in period detail, with RAF uniforms and utility frocks dressing Bourne’s beguiling narrative style, which combines comedy, camp and high romance.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, 9 December to 27 January; touring to 23 June

2 Northern Ballet: The Little Mermaid

David Nixon’s adaptation of the tale recreates the magic of its underwater settings while fully acknowledging the pain of its heroine’s suffering.
The Grand theatre, Leeds, to 17 December; touring to 5 May

3 The Borrowers

Jane Hackett brings the mini characters of Mary Norton’s novel to the dance stage with the help of hand-painted animation and a new score by Tobias Saunders.
Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich, 13-17 December

JM

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