The Lowdown to The Devil’s Backbone: the week in rave reviews

Ethan Hawke is a triumph in a poignant new comedy-drama, and Guillermo del Toro’s breakout horror flick gets a rerelease. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Bowie: The Final Act review – moving and enjoyable tribute to music legend’s last stand

Singer’s final decades can’t really be called his creative golden years but there are touching contributions from his collaborators

‘I’ve waited for this movie my whole life’: Guardian readers’ best films of 2025

From the surreal fairytale The Ice Tower to the revenge western Tornado, our readers share the films that had the biggest impact on them this year

First footage of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey released online

Trailer shows Matt Damon as the Greek hero, with Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus

‘Cue air punches and tears’: why Next Goal Wins is my feelgood movie

Continuing the series where writers pick their go-to mood-lifting films is a look back to an inspiring sports documentary

The Guide #222: From Celebrity Traitors to The Brutalist via Bad Bunny – our roundup of the culture that mattered in 2025

Not exhaustive, not definitive and unapologetically subjective: our annual tour of the best TV, music, films, podcasts, games and books of the last year

Making Mary Poppins by Todd James Pierce review – the musical brothers behind the movie magic

Bob and Dick Sherman take centre stage in this well-researched account of how Walt Disney created a classic

From Harry Potter to The Crying Game, Susie Figgis’s explosive enthusiasm made her an irreplaceable casting director

Producer Stephen Woolley pays tribute to Figgis, who has died aged 77, a brilliant professional whose ‘molotov cocktail personality’ enabled her work in British and Hollywood cinema

The Housemaid review – Sydney Sweeney takes the job from hell in outrageous suspense thriller

Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar co-star as Sweeney’s secretive bosses in an upstate New York mansion, and director Paul Feig ramps up the sexual tension with evident gusto

How did a warm, cheery man like Rob Reiner make a film as horrific as Misery?

In an industry not exactly known for it, Reiner was an exceptionally nice guy. But he was too much of a showman to make a straight shocker. The result was rich, terrifying – yet cherished

‘The antithesis to Nazi ideology’: how Pippi Longstocking was born to stand up to Hitler

A new documentary explores how Astrid Lindgren’s beloved children’s books about the pigtailed free spirit were written in response to the darkest days of the second world war

Tell Me Softly review – high-school romance of bad boys and blurred boundaries

Social-media fame and sexual intrigue collide in this part-Twilight, part-OC romantic drama whose provocative dramatic set-ups feel as glib as porn scenes

Lurker to Our Girls: the week in rave reviews

A buzzy thriller about a Hollywood hanger-on and a moving documentary following the parents bereaved in last summer’s Southport attack. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Horror hit Paranormal Activity spawns a West End play – and even its director yelped with fear

Inspired by the scary film franchise, playwright Levi Holloway and Punchdrunk maestro Felix Barrett are bringing the ‘bizarrely joyous’ world of terror to the stage

Sophie Kinsella obituary

Author whose Shopaholic series of romcom novels were global bestsellers and adapted into a Hollywood film