Imelda Staunton: ‘Umbridge’s giggle needed to be short and sharp. So I just did a boom, boom’

The actor answers your questions on working with her dog, becoming a dame, Harry Potter, and making televisual history in The Singing Detective

Momo and the Time Thieves review – kids’ fantasy jaunt sticks the boot into capitalism

This new adaptation of Michael Ende’s 1973 fantasy novel contains some neat parables for our digitally nihilistic age, but even a mystical tortoise can’t save it it from monotony

The Pout-Pout Fish review – Nick Offerman is best thing in kids cartoon adventure on the high seas

Offerman leads a talented cast, but this preschool picture book spinoff fails to inspire

Love me, love my bruised ego: what the narcissist-artist film tells us about the fear of ageing

Bitter Christmas, Late Fame and The Christophers all depict geniuses aware of their waning acclaim and terrified it will end

How to feel optimistic in the face of crisis? Ask the kids fighting slug-like aliens

The Animorphs books taught my generation about digging deep in the face of an existential threat. We need that spirit now more than ever, says Guardian Europe writer Alexander Hurst

RL Stine’s Pumpkinhead review – horror from Goosebumps writer has kid confined inside large fruit

Based on a short story by the Goosebumps author, this derivative but tautly plotted tale over-relies on Scooby-Doo-style sleuthery, and its truly unsettling turn comes too late

It’s not just the Odyssey effect: poetry is booming because it’s the only language for these times of violence and chaos

From Homer’s epic to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, we can see how poetry fills the gap when ordinary ways of writing or speaking aren’t enough, says Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins

Practical Magic review – Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock’s 90s witchy fantasy still enchants

Preceding a long-awaited sequel, Griffin Dunne’s supernatural suburban romance gets a big-screen rerelease. With its romcom quirk, buttery cinematography and stabs of black comedy, it remains a zany gem

Tell us: has Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey stoked your interest in classics and poetry?

We would like to hear from people for whom the film has increased their interest in poetry or classics in general

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gives UK poetry sales an epic boost

Poetry sales surpassed £8m in the first 30 weeks of 2026 and are expected to reach a record high this year thanks to blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s 2,700-year-old poem

Prisoners of Paradise review – Ellie Bamber heads to Mauritius for chaste literary tale of star-crossed lovers

An upper-class Englishwoman falls in love with a worker on her uncle’s sugar plantation in this insipid adaptation of Romesh Gunesekera’s novel

The Summer Book review – Glenn Close powers sweet-natured take on Tove Jansson’s grief classic

This sensitive adaptation of Jansson’s 1972 novel, set in the beatific Gulf of Finland, is a quiet treatise on life and death

Nolan’s film could make The Odyssey the most sought-after book in the US

The nearly 2,700-year-old epic poem is flying off shelves at bookstores and libraries after the blockbuster film came out

The Ribbon Hero review – do-gooder princess battles giant flying earwigs in update of classic yarn

Yûki Igarashi’s adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s influential manga is a conservative (if impressively animated) reimagining that dulls the source material’s pioneering elements

The right hates The Odyssey because of its ‘wokeness’ – but it missed an even bigger threat to its worldview

The new film extols the value of a rules-based world order. That’s far more radical than any casting decision says Labour MP and classicist Peter Swallow