1 hour ago Dust to Dreams review – a baffling short film from director Idris Elba

Toronto film festival: The actor recruits Seal for a Lagos-set 19-minute misfire that inelegantly stuffs in far too muchOn the face of it, there’s a formidable aggregation of talent and media firepower on display in this lively but faintly baffling short film set in Lagos, with an original story credit for its producer, the Nigerian super-producer Mo Abudu; it is written and directed by Idris Elba and stars Seal. Within its 19-minute running time it appears to try summarising the action of an entire 90-minute feature film. There isn’t a moment to really relax and explore any relationship in any satisfying and plausible way; the line-readings are rushed and uncomfortable and, most bewilderingly, Seal doesn’t actually get to sing all that much, although as an actor he has a strong and confident address to the camera.The premise is that Millicent (played by Nse Ikpe-Etim) runs a vibrant and hugely successful club in Lagos, but she is very ill, and the question of who is to inherit this...

Politics

2 h. ago Angelina Jolie breaks down in tears as she recalls her late mother's heartbreaking struggle with cancer

Angelina Jolie cried as she recalled her late mother's struggle with cancer at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. She stars as a woman diagnosed with the disease in Couture, which debuted on Sunday.

Politics

3 h. ago Russell Crowe, 61, enjoys rare red carpet date night with much younger fiancée, 33

Russell Crowe enjoyed a date night with fiancée Britney Theriot at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday.

Politics

3 h. ago Sydney Sweeney reveals why she ‘absolutely loved’ her physical transformation for Christy film

The Christy Martin biopic premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend

Politics

6 h. ago Taika Waititi and Rita Ora to turn Fyre Festival fiasco into a stage musical

The couple, who married in 2022, are set to produce a musical based on the ill-fated Caribbean festival

Culture

8 h. ago Ballad of a Small Player review – Colin Farrell wins us over in flashy, slight gambler tale

Toronto film festival: Conclave director Edward Berger makes a less cohesive follow-up with an over-stylised adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s novel sold by a killer central performanceIt was easy to understand why Edward Berger’s name was being bandied around in relation to the reinvention of 007, the director having shown himself to be more than capable of both extravagantly staged action (his Oscar-winning breakout All Quiet on the Western Front) and knife-edge intrigue (his Oscar-winning follow-up Conclave). He dismissed speculation at the time (with some mild annoyance) and the job has since landed at the feet of Denis Villeneuve – but his latest, China-set gambling drama Ballad of a Small Player, adds flashy bombast to his résumé and helps to explain why he even though he might have passed on Bond (and recently Ocean’s too), he’s in development on a Bourne.Berger is a canny commercial director, confidently switching between genre, language and location, the kind of able film-ma...

Sport

8 h. ago Hamnet review – stately Shakespeare drama with emotionally overwhelming finale

Toronto film festival: Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are knockouts in Chloé Zhao’s poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker endingMaggie O’Farrell’s lauded 2020 novel Hamnet is a dense and lyrical imagining of the lives of William Shakespeare’s family, full of interior thought and lush descriptions of the physical world. It would seem, upon reading, near impossible to adapt into a film. Or, at least, a film worthy of O’Farrell’s so finely woven sensory spell. Film-maker Chloé Zhao has attempted to do so anyway, and the result is a stately, occasionally lugubrious drama whose closing minutes are among the most poignant in recent memory.Zhao is a good fit for the material. She, too, is a close observer of nature and of the many aching, yearning people passing through it. But she has previously not made anything as traditionally tailored and refined as this. The humbler dimensions of her films The Rider and Nomadland are missed here; Hamnet too o...

Events

8 h. ago Hamnet review – Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal excel in stately Shakespeare drama with overwhelming finale

Toronto film festival: The two stars are knockouts in Chloé Zhao’s poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker endingMaggie O’Farrell’s lauded 2020 novel Hamnet is a dense and lyrical imagining of the lives of William Shakespeare’s family, full of interior thought and lush descriptions of the physical world. It would seem, upon reading, near impossible to adapt into a film. Or, at least, a film worthy of O’Farrell’s so finely woven sensory spell. Film-maker Chloé Zhao has attempted to do so anyway, and the result is a stately, occasionally lugubrious drama whose closing minutes are among the most poignant in recent memory.Zhao is a good fit for the material. She, too, is a close observer of nature and of the many aching, yearning people passing through it. But she has previously not made anything as traditionally tailored and refined as this. The humbler dimensions of her films The Rider and Nomadland are missed here; Hamnet too often gives off th...

Events

10 h. ago Waitrose unveils this year’s Christmas food – and it includes limoncello mince pies

Mark your calendars, festive fare can be ordered from 22 September

Politics

10 h. ago British Wool launches nationwide competition for schoolchildren to design Shaun the Sheep’s new festive knit for Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day

Celebrity judge and jumper collector extraordinaire Gyles Brandreth will join the panel to decide the winning child’s design

Politics

11 h. ago Trump’s strongman image got boos at the US Open, and perhaps that was the point | Andrew Lawrence

The president’s appearance at the men’s final was met with pushback. But his visit was always about distraction, even if it exposed his flawsIt was just the authoritarian image Donald Trump hoped to project at the US Open: the president himself, looming from Arthur Ashe Stadium’s giant screens like Chairman Mao at Tiananmen Gate, as he stood at attention for the national anthem. But there was no denying that, while the picture was there, the sound clashed. The burst of cheers that went up for his stiff salute on Sunday was quickly drowned out by a chorus of boos made louder from the Ashe roof being closed for rain – perhaps fitting given that many fans had been left to stand in the wet and endure the long security lines that resulted from his attendance. In that awkward five-second moment, as the Stars and Stripes was unfurled on center court, the president smirked at the negative reaction. It surely rang so familiar.Trump’s presence at the US Open men’s final wasn’t just intended a...

Politics

12 h. ago Hedda review – Ibsen gets a Saltburn makeover in Amazon’s ill

Toronto film festival: Nia DaCosta ups the nastiness of Hedda Gabler in a stylish but over-egged adaptation with lead Tessa Thompson losing the film to a standout Nina HossHenrik Ibsen’s second-most famous play, Hedda Gabler, has been plenty messed around with in recent years. There was a much-derided stage production starring Mary-Louise Parker. There was Liz Meriwether’s sci-fi reimagining, Heddatron. And now there is Nia DaCosta’s film Hedda, a rejiggering of the narrative that places a premium on subterfuge and sexual intrigue. It sometimes lands its intended jolt, but too often mistakes arch style for profundity.That was also true of DaCosta’s Candyman sequel, an endlessly attractive film that was an otherwise confused update of the 1992 classic. Hedda fares better; it’s the work of a more assured and restrained writer-director, one who is willing to, on occasion, let visual flash take a backseat to more mechanical matters of storytelling. But there is nonetheless a recklessnes...

Events

12 h. ago Poetic License review – Apatow family affair ends up as warm and funny comedy

Toronto film festival: Judd Apatow’s actor daughter Maude directs her mother Leslie Mann in a smart, charming film about a woman adrift finding unlikely younger friendsOne could cynically look at the credits for the film Poetic License and dismiss it outright. It was directed by Maude Apatow, daughter of Judd, and stars, among others, Apatow’s mother, Leslie Mann, Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Nico Parker (daughter of Thandiwe Newton and film-maker Ol Parker). On paper it all looks like a make-work project to keep the well-connected busy and creatively fulfilled. But the film itself – Apatow’s debut – is rich and lively enough to make none of the nepo stuff really matter.Written by Raffi Donatich, Poetic License concerns a family who have moved from Chicago to a sleepy university town where economist James (Cliff “Method Man” Smith), has secured a plum professorship. He’s busy getting started, which leaves his wife Liz (Mann) a bit lonely and unmoored in her ne...

Society

13 h. ago Hamburg Christmas market break with four star hotel and flights for £99

A festive break in Hamburg just got affordable — stay in a four star hotel and enjoy return flights for as little as £99 per person

Economics

13 h. ago Sacrifice review – starry satire pokes fun at celebrity before falling into a volcano

Toronto film festival: Chris Evans is excellent as a vain actor kidnapped by an eco-terrorism cult in an initially amusing comedy of performative politics that falls apartPoking fun at the absurdity of celebrity is of course never unwarranted but it also frequently comes across as a little fatiguing. The target is easier than ever and too often, so are the jokes, incisive satire proving hard to nail when the subjects have become so indistinguishably cartoonish. The same has become true of the wealthy in general and recent films that have tried to lampoon either have felt lazy, pointing and laughing at something that’s stopped being funny a long time ago.There’s an initial kick then to the new film from French music video provocateur turned film-maker Romain Gavras, who finds a more precise section of the VIP area to ridicule: performative environmentalists. As the world continues to burn, artists and those who use that word loosely, have attached themselves to the crisis whether it ...

Politics

14 h. ago West Fest: New food festival celebrates the very best of west London

The festival will play host to the final of the British Street Food Awards

Culture

14 h. ago Rental Family review – Brendan Fraser is stranded in mawkish misfire

Toronto film festival: The Oscar-winning star of The Whale makes another awards play with a beautifully shot yet emotionally inert comedy dramaBrendan Fraser is an actor performing characters who help people achieve a sense of emotional healing, affirmation or comfort. That could describe who he tends to be in “real” life (whatever that means in this context) but it’s also what he’s playing in Rental Family.The feelgood dramedy – or at least that’s what it tries so hard to be – is about an actual service in Japan that supplies actors who perform as bit players in everyday people’s lives. They’re hired by clients to fake it in roles as a family member, a friend or even the cheering audience at a karaoke bar. The premise packs meta layers and gives Fraser the opportunity to inhabit multiple roles, while turning the lens back on the audience to consider what we’re looking for in the movie(s). Unfortunately, when it comes to Rental Family, it’s just not that deep. Continue reading...

Society

14 h. ago The one change that worked: I sobered up – and started to listen to what my body was telling me

After years of partying, I realised the exhaustion and anxiety weren’t worth it, and turned my back on Friday night Fomo. I still enjoy the dancefloor, but I always know when to leaveMost of my adult life has revolved around music: clubs, bars, festivals, house parties – anywhere I could dance to loud music. I loved how energising and cathartic it was to get immersed in it, to lose myself a little and move my body expressively without judgment. I’d get so absorbed that I would lose track of time; once, at Burning Man, I was awake for 36 hours exploring the festival, meeting new people and partying.When I became a DJ, these kinds of events increased. Late nights out would last until the morning. Often, they became marathon weekend sessions, which ran from Friday night to Sunday lunchtime. It wasn’t all dancing and shenanigans – there would be moments to sit around and chat with people, too. I’d be out at least three times a week. Even though I’d get tired, I would always find some wa...

Politics

15 h. ago London Design Festival: what to see this year, from public art to Kintsugi workshops

This year’s programme features 10 different Design Districts and more than 400 events. Whether you’re a seasoned festival-goer or a first-timer, here are some of the best bits to enjoy

Economics

15 h. ago Horrifying moment thrillseeker is gored to death by a rampaging bull at Spanish festival while desperately trying to climb railings to safety

This is the horrifying moment a reveller is gored to death at an annual Spanish festival after desperately trying to escape it by climbing onto railings.

Events