Going out: Cinema

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Out now
It would have been hard to imagine in 2002 that 28 Days Later would spawn something so different (and that’s probably a good thing; who wants identikit sequels?). The post-apocalyptic UK is now almost unrecognisable in this Nia DaCosta-directed, Alex Garland-scripted instalment, with violent tribes competing for scant resources.

Rental Family
Out now
In this Japan-set drama from director Hikari, Brendan Fraser plays an actor hoping to land a decent role after appearing in a hit toothpaste commercial. He is hired by a company that provides family stand-ins for events, leading to some unexpectedly genuine connections.

The Voice of Hind Rajab
Out now
Using real audio footage, this Gaza-set film dramatises the death of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was trapped on the phone for three hours in a car surrounded by six relatives killed by Israeli forces, only to be shot dead herself, after soldiers fired 335 rounds of ammunition into the car and the ambulance that came to collect the little girl, also killing two paramedics.

Hong Kong film festival UK
HOME, Manchester, to 1 February
After playing in London last year, the Hong Kong film fest goes on the road, presenting a variety of films and shorts from Hong Kong and the ESEA diaspora, including Queerpanorama, in which Jayden Cheung plays a man whose identity is constantly in flux as he takes on the persona of the last person he hooked up with, and a 25th-anniversary screening of Spacked Out. Catherine Bray

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Going out: Gigs

All Time Low
20 to 24 January; tour starts Glasgow
Formed in 2003, US pop-rock mainstays All Time Low have weathered music’s shifting tides by sticking to a formula of big riffs and even bigger choruses. This arena tour celebrates last year’s Everyone’s Talking! album and enduring hits such as Dear Maria, Count Me In. Michael Cragg

Kathryn Joseph
Òran Mór, Glasgow, 18 January
Signed to Mogwai’s label Rock Action, Scottish singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph shares her bosses’ penchant for eerie atmospherics, layering ever-expanding synths, rumbling electronics and her remarkable voice to unsettling effect. She’ll showcase last year’s We Were Made Prey album here. MC

Vijay Iyer
Cafe Oto, London, 17 & 18 January
His pianistic prowess, improv intuitions and cross-cultural openness have made the Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer a unique presence on the jazz scene for three decades. These are solo gigs, but Iyer’s deep immersion in African-American, Indian and contemporary-classical musics enables him to wield a panoramic vision. John Fordham

Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
City Halls, Glasgow, 20 January
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra revives one of the most unexpected musical phenomena of the 1990s, 50 years after it was composed. Henryk Górecki’s Third Symphony sets Polish texts that meditate on motherhood, love and loss to music of stark, haunting beauty. The soprano soloist is Francesca Chiejina. In this performance, the soprano soloist is Francesca Chiejina, the conductor Pawel Kapula. Andrew Clements

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Going out: Art

Hawai’i
British Museum, London, to 25 May
Incredible Hawaiian objects owned by the British Museum including an 18th-century warrior’s feathered helmet and a fearsome wooden statue of a god that’s one of the world’s sculptural masterpieces, appear alongside global loans in this exhibition that tells of cultural encounters between a Pacific kingdom and the British Empire.

Crossing into Darkness
Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, Sunday to 12 April
This exhibition curated by Tracey Emin is a brooding and melancholic opening to the year. “In the middle of my life I found myself in a dark wood,” wrote Dante, and this exhibition goes bravely into that emotional forest. Goya, Munch, Bourgeois and Kiefer are among the pilgrims of night.

Joseph Beuys
Thaddaeus Ropac, London, to 21 March
The great German sculptor, who served in the Luftwaffe in the second world war, went on to radicalise art with his performances and political and environmental campaigns. His legacy is a body of objects and installations whose grey, timeworn materials resonate with echoes of the Holocaust - including his deathly bathtubs.

Maps
National War Museum, Edinburgh, to 4 October
This exhibition brings an unusual eye to history, seeing the second world war through maps. There are handmade ones used by prisoners of war in escape attempts, as well as professionally designed and printed maps made for soldiers and flyers, in a global war that was fought over huge spaces. Jonathan Jones

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Going out: Stage

Guess How Much I Love You?
Royal Court theatre, London, to 21 February
Luke Norris’s intimate family drama kicks off The Royal Court’s 70th-anniversary season. A pregnant couple attend their 20-week scan – and their imagined future slips away. Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo star. Miriam Gillinson

All Is But Fantasy
The Other Place, Stratford-upon Avon, Wednesday to 21 February
Think the barnstorming musical Six – but with Shakespeare. Whitney White’s two-part gig-theatre show lets Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Emilia and Richard III take the mic to reclaim their stories. MG

Mike Wozniak
18 January to 12 November; tour starts Edinburgh
Fiercely beloved as one-third of gently geeky chat pod Three Bean Salad, Wozniak is also an accomplished standup. His first new show in five years centres on a story about a bench, doubtless wreathed by plenty of characteristically erudite comic tangents. Rachel Aroesti

The Royal Ballet: Woolf Works
Royal Opera House, London, 17 January to 13 February
It’s just over a decade since Wayne McGregor created his most ambitious and successful ballet, inspired by Virginia Woolf. Rather than recreating Woolf’s narratives, McGregor takes on some of her themes and techniques, in particular from Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves. Lyndsey Winship

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Staying in: Streaming

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Sky Atlantic & Now, 19 January, 9pm
House of the Dragon whisked us back 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Now this new prequel – based on George RR Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas – propels us forward a century to follow a hedge knight (“like a knight but sadder”) and his squire.

Steal
Prime Video, 21 January
Speaking of Westeros, GoT alumna Sophie Turner – AKA Sansa Stark – leads this thriller about a heist at a pension fund, the ordinary office workers who get tangled up in the crime and the gambling addict detective on the case.

The Beauty
Disney+, 22 January
Can the inordinately prolific screenwriter Ryan Murphy redeem himself after the cringeworthy mess of All’s Fair? Tune in to his latest star-studded and utterly ludicrous melodrama (Ashton Kutcher and Bella Hadid in a story about an STI that makes people more attractive) to find out.

Things You Should Have Done
BBC Three & iPlayer, Tuesday, 10pm
Former YouTuber Lucia Keskin’s sitcom is far too quirky to be considered a copper-bottomed crowdpleaser, but if the concept of a self-anointed “stay-at-home daughter” tickles you, it’s certainly worth giving the second series of this surreal and thoroughly idiosyncratic show a go. RA

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Staying in: Games

Perfect Tides: Station to Station
PC; out 22 January
This coming-of-age story has been causing a buzz on the indie awards circuit. Set in 2000s New York, complete with a recreation of a Nokia 3210 to text, it stars a young writer called Mara trying to find her place in the world. The conversations you have, interests you pursue and decisions you make will affect how her life turns out.

MIO: Memories in Orbit
PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PS5, Xbox; out 20 January
A beautifully-drawn French action game that looks like a cult graphic novel, about a robot trapped on an enormous space vessel full of rogue machines and mysteries. Like a sci-fi version of Hollow Knight: Silksong. Keza MacDonald

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Staying in: Albums

Madison Beer – Locket
Out now
On this third album, the New York singer-songwriter continues to pick through her emotional debris via supple electropop, be it cutting off a hapless ex on Bittersweet’s fluttering chorus, or taking charge on the dark throb of Yes Baby.

A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be Dumb
Out now
Eight years after his last album, rapper, actor and fashion maverick A$AP Rocky returns with the year’s first blockbuster event. Featuring artwork by Tim Burton, a video starring Winona Ryder and a Wiki-length roster of producers (including Pharrell and Danny Elfman), Don’t Be Dumb has a lot to live up to.

Sleaford Mods – The Demise of Planet X
Out now
The English polemicists follow-up 2023’s Top 3 album, UK Grim, with this slab of bleakly comic post-punk. Actor Gwendoline Christie adds a dash of horror to single The Good Life, while the throbbing electro of No Touch features artist and musician Sue Tompkins.

Cavetown – Running With Scissors
Out now
Singer, songwriter and YouTuber Robin Skinner, AKA Cavetown, creates folk-tinged electronic mini-epics on this follow-up to 2022’s Top 40 album, Worm Food. Exuberant singles such as the loved-up Rainbow Gal and Baby Spoon are juxtaposed by the heavier purging of NPC. MC

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Staying in: Brain food

The Tale of Silyan
National Geographic & Disney+, out now
This moving film follows a North Macedonian farmer’s struggle in the face of new government regulations. Forced to work in a landfill, it’s the bond he forges with an injured stork, Silyan, that restores his spirit.

Dan Snow’s History Hit: Get Smart in 2026
Podcast
Dan Snow’s long-running history series kicks off the year with a new strand of episodes aiming to connect historical events with today’s sociopolitical developments, including explainers on Afghanistan’s recent history and the legacy of the Dambusters.

UsefulCharts
YouTube
YouTuber Matt Baker’s insightful channel pairs visual diagrams and timelines with analysis of current affairs and historical movements. Highlights include a fast-moving survey of British political parties and a fresh take on a world history timeline. Ammar Kalia