Sunset Blvd. (1950 Billy Wilder & co-scr)

"Ten thousand eighty-six Sunset Boulevard."

"I tapped up a couple of yes men at Metro. To me they said no."

Written by Billy, Brackett and D.M. Marshman; Brackett also produced. In the sense of an older woman trying to preserve her youth it's still massively topical.

Doane Harrison is the supervising editor; Arthur Schmidt cut it. The extraordinary production design is by Hans Dreier and John Meehan. Loved those handle-less doors and when the lights go out it looks like closing eyes. Franz Waxman's score is frequently as nutty as the action.

The William Holden character is gallant at the end; pushes Nancy Olsen away from him knowing he's been a bit of a slut, but at least has the balls to leave his sugar mummy.

That strange cigarette holder thing

It's a very well directed film, to be sure. I love the way Holden's stupid long key chain gets hooked on the house doors. And the New Year's party when Holden and Olson are having fun but it's like a flirtation. And the gate keeper and the other people at Paramount who remember Norma Desmond.

Holden is at one point reading 'The Young Lions' by Irwin Shaw, a war novel with some anti-Semitic themes, published in 1948, filmed in 1958.

H.B.Warner, one of the 'waxworks' is familiar to us from It's A Wonderful Life but was also in silents like The King of Kings.

Dance, Fools, Dance (1931 Harry Beaumont)

Zippy pre-Code drama. Society siblings Joan Crawford and Lester Vail are left penniless when their father dies. She gets a job as a journalist, he goes into bootlegging for crime boss Clark Gable. Their stories of course interweave after fellow journalist is murdered.

Photographed by Charles Rosher, hard to admire in TPTV's washed out print.

Crawford is vivacious and dances the house down.

MGM.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962 Robert Mulligan)

Mary Badham in interview revealed her favourite scene to be one in bed where Atticus promises to leaver her her mum's jewellery.

I love the scene with Greg sitting on the porch listening to the kids talk about their mum and he doesn't react at all, but it's great.

Priscilla (2023 Sophia Coppola & scr)

A 15-year old in Germany, Cailee Spaeny (Civil War, Mare of Easttown), meets and falls for Elvis (Jacob Elordi). (This is based on Priscilla's book 'Elvis and Me'.) After a long-distance relationship she ends up moving to Graceland where she essentially becomes a prisoner, while Elvis and his goons disappear off to film locations and tours. He's not even keen to have sex with her and behaves brutishly and takes loads of pills. Oh, he's almost certainly having affairs too, but the film is shot entirely from Priscilla's point of view. There's a great piece of ironic writing when he buys her a car and we all know she's not going to be allowed to drive anywhere in it.

It's nicely shot by Philippe le Sourd, and edited by Sarah Flack, who delivers some very interesting montage sequences, but I was glad when it was over. The soundtrack mixes period songs with more modern stuff.

Production designer: Tamara Deverell. The sound balance is annoying: whispered dialogue isn't audible.

A Severed Head (1970, released 1971 Dick Clement)

"I think you ought to get right away. Go to Crete or Turkey or Tunis. Find yourself."
"And how can I be sure that I'd be there?"

Frederic Raphael's treatment of Iris Murdoch's novel depicts a crazy romantic merry-go-round in which Lee Remick leaves husband Ian Holm for psychiatrist friend Dickie Attenborough, whilst Holm has been having an affair with Jennie Linden. And that's just the beginning... Other people involved are Attenborough's 'sister' Claire Bloom, Clive Revill and Ann Firbank.

Mad scene where drunk Holm assaults Bloom, then falls into a strange imaginary sequence - most interesting. Somewhat shocking and funny.

Edited by Peter Weatherley (The Hireling, Alien), photographed by Austin Dempster.

The Best Things in 2026

I Swear

Say Nothing.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

One Battle After Another. Far fuckin' out, brother!

Bird (Andrea Arnold)

Le Notti de Cabiria

Materialists

Hamnet (and, come to that, Hamlet)

Frank Borzage / 7th Heaven and The Doll

The best of Silent Witness / Tim Prager.

Project Hail Mary

Hacks, Ted Lasso, Blue Lights

The Blame

Blue Lights - Season 4 (2026)

It is probably fair to say that the cops depicted here are in truth a nicer lot than exist in a real police station. But also that we've had so many shows about flawed / conflicted law enforcement types (The Cops springs to mind particularly) that this comes over as a welcome change. It's also very pro police in that they are human beings who have a laugh and are hard working, reasonable people at times under severe pressure.

An exciting beginning (one of the Angela Bassett episodes) puts us in the thick on an anti-migrant protest and introduces a social media activist who causes a lot of problems for Grace (Sian Brooke). Aisling (Dearbhaile McKinney) can't face being in a relationship with Tommy (Nathan Braniff). Shane (Frank Blake) is keen to make an impression with Michael Smiley's unit as he has spotted a gangster suspiciously driving a coach laden with soldier-types. Sandra (Andi Osho) is in court but the case against the killer of her husband is quashed by MI5 pressure thanks to gangster Abigail McGibbon, whose son Michael Shea is a nasty mess. The station is under threat of being closed.

After flashback episode 4, featuring Richard Dormer, Sandra now realises she has the evidence to expose the whole corrupt mess and so bringing the overarching four series story to a conclusion - they could leave it there. (Probably won't.)

Bring back deep focus!

With Joanne Crawford, Neil Keery, Andrea Irvine, Michael Smiley, Cathy Tyson, Hannah McClean, Jonathan Harden, Seamus O'Hara. 

Forbidden Planet (1955 Fred M Wilcox)

A somewhat kitsch and trippy experience particularly as the weird sound effects run through the whole film instead of music. The story seems preposterous. Whether it’s intentionally referencing The Tempest I couldn’t say. Robbie the Robot is clearly a man in a robot suit. The production design is pretty wacky. 

This looks like it belongs in that Diane Keaton book of weird photos

Watch out for those monsters of the Id!

Louis and Bebe Barron were the 'beatniks' responsible for the electronic score. Unknown to them MGM had made a deal with the unions that it was a one-off and they'd never be hired again.

With: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis (Bad Day at Black Rock, Blackboard Jungle, then just about every TV show you can think of), Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Earl Holliman (cook). Photographed by George Folsey, editor Ferris Webster.

Yeah, I don't think I will be watching this next Halloween.

The Haunting (1963 Robert Wise)

An incisively directed and edited film, with good performances and design, and yet it doesn't quite work.

Why not? Because the Julie Harris character has just spent years suffering looking after her mother, and also feels guilty for not being there when she died. She wants something to happen to her. She thinks the house is either after her or for her. (How can she have any experience of psychic phenomena when she's been housebound for so long?) Nothing is resolved. And we feel the ending is somewhat fluffed.

But it's still an absorbing watch, largely because Robert Wise is so good as creating scenes. (He learned first from Orson Welles, then Val Lewton, let's not forget.)

The editor is Ernest Walter (The Mercenaries, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Nicholas and Alexandra, Children of the Damned). Davis Boulton shot it (also Children of the Damned).

Of the cast, Claire Bloom is the most watchable. With Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn.

Amazing production design. We especially liked the door that bends in.

Nicholas Nickleby (2002 Douglas McGrath & scr)

Successful, star-studded interpretation led by Charlie Hunnam (The Gentleman). Jamie Bell is probably the stand-out as Smike. With Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson, Christopher Plummer, Romola Garai, Tom Courtenay, Anne Hathaway, Kevin McKidd, Edward Fox, Nicholas Rowe, Nathan Lane, Barry Humphries, Alan Cumming, Phil Davis, Sophie Thompson, Timothy Spall, Gerard Horan, David Bradley.

Photographed by Dick Pope, edited by Lesley Walker (Mona Lisa, Shirley Valentine, All Or Nothing, The Fisher King).

We loved the line "Your day is done. Night is coming fast for you."

Bollocks of 2026

It's sadly early to start this list (5 January) but unfortunately we have a contender already, Hunting Wives, some crap about a woman who finds herself in the gun packing heart of Texas Republicanism. The title indicates how crap it will be.

Can You Keep a Secret? Dawn French, Mark Heap 'comedy'.

The Lady. True story of Fergie's dresser-turned-murderer. Just wasn't engaging.

The Fortune. Terribly written crap with Eleanor Tomlinson, set in Hartlepool. She inherits from someone she doesn't know and behaves implausibly from the off. Channel 5 bollocks.

Benidorm is Murder. Retired detective John Hannah solves murders. More Channel 5 bollocks. Embarrassing.

Little Disasters. Was put off by the opening seconds, Diane Kruger's look to camera and the portentous voiceover.

Death Valley. Timothy Spall actor turned detective thing. Not exactly bollocks, but life's too short for unfunny guff.

My Brilliant Career. When annoying Australian lead actress goes into a weird dance to modern pop music in 1900 we just through 'eeoo'.

The Undeclared War - season 2. Not bollocks, just boring.

Trigger Point. As insane as the last one. A series of bomb defusal scenes with a meaningless and far-fetched plot wrapped around it. Who writes this bollocks? If not for Vicky McClure it's unlikely we would have persevered.

An Antique Christmas. Woman helps her parents sell their antique shop. Actually worse than it sounds.

Dead of Night (1945 Cavalcanti, Hamer, Crichton, Dearden)

Premiered on September 9. (To put that into perspective, VE Day was 8 May and VJ Day was celebrated here 15 August.) I was thirteen when I first saw it on 19 May 1977. In his massively unhelpful book 'Forever Ealing', George Perry not only tells the stories in the wrong order, but completely fails to report how the film was received by the public.

John Baines wrote The Haunted Mirror - it was his first screen credit. He went on to help write the 1949 Blue Lagoon adaptation.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter)

What of the kid, Tommy? (Brian Andrews.) Not so much the actor, the character. He must have been deeply traumatized by that night. Surely his later story would be worth telling?

I'd watch Forbidden Plant again. We should really have watched this first, along with The Thing From Another World. Maybe next year.

Tony (2026 Matt Johnson)

Who? Dominic Sessa plays Anthony Bourdain... Oh... The Holdovers. Duh.

To his immense credit, he tells the girl (Emilia Jones, from Coda - duh) the truth before sleeping with her. In fact now I come to think of it, that's probably the turning point. He goes from bullshitting his first interview to actually underselling himself in the last.

Has that rather prickly screenplay credit of Todd Bartels & Lou Howe, Matt Johnson & Matthew Miller. Look, here it is, along with that girl who hasn't noticed him:

Antonio Banderas plays the chef. With Leo Woodall, from Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, One Day and The White Lotus. Plus Stavros Halkias, Monica Raymund, Rich Sommer (Mad Men), Dagmara Domynczyk.

Michael Bauman photographed it, Curt Lobb and Robert Upchurch edited.

I mean, yeah.

Vigil - Season 3 (2026 Tom Edge)

Ur, we're in the Arctic Circle, on Norwegian territory, where British and Russian militaries are not allowed to engage. But they have. And this time Rose Leslie is sent into the thick of it whilst Suranne Jones ferrets around in London.

It's like one of my dull midweek rice dishes - it fills you up, but you have the feeling you'd rather have eaten something else.

It is entirely lacking in humour. And you don't really care about anyone in it. Also not sure I'm a Suranne Jones fan any more.

The landscapes look great, but are they real or was the whole thing made in Scotland with CGI pretties added on? This gives the inside info (a six day shoot in Svalbard to catch the 'plates' on which everything else was then placed), and includes such great insider language as 'we could stabilize and rework things without ever running out of pixels'.

Also I kept getting the feeling that all these people from different nations were all Scottish. (They're not.) Gary Lewis, Dominic Mafham, Jeppe Beck Laursen, Naomi Yang, Tornike Gogrichiani, Eric Godon (craggy Russian, In Bruges).

We've seen Steven Miller before, in Dept Q. and Shetland and Silent Witness. He has that same sad look at Timothy Bottoms.

Thank you.

The Blame (2026 Megan Gallagher)

The novel was written by the Telegraph's Money editor Charlotte Gifford and was published under the name Charlotte Langley. It was optioned for TV before it had even been published. It was at first a thriller; the misogyny angle was secondary. Then when it was adapted for TV, Megan Gallagher heightened it by adding the real text messages that had been found on (now fired) police officers' phones. Accordingly, and unlike The Morning Show, the issues don't overbalance the storyline.

Good cast all round: Michelle Keegan, Douglas Booth, Ian Hart, Nathan Mensah (his first appearance - one to watch), Nigel Boyle (the IT guy), Joe Armstrong, Matilda Freeman as the murdered girl. Gavin Spokes and Josh Bolt are the vile detectives and Ceallach Spellman has to watch out if he's not going the same way. It was directed by Bex Rycroft and Claire Tailyour (three each).

6 x 45 for Quay Productions on ITV. It was Wendy's birthday and we were going to watch 'something sweet'. We tried various unsatisfactory things, then landed on this and were hooked - watched it all in one go.

Break Clause (2024 Jess Bray)

Samuel Bottomley (The Teacher) and Lara Ricote have just graduated and moved from Leeds to London when he confesses he's had a one night fling; and as they can't afford to move out must remain locked together, as it were.

Enter John Thompson, Charly Clive, Assa Kinoute, Michael Workeye, Jack Shep and Nathan Foad.

6 x 25 minutes for Channel 4.

Ends very openly - some might say, annoyingly so.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997 Roger Spottiswoode)

Begins well at an International Arms Bazaar, which sounds more fun than it looks. Bond has to steal a jet fighter to stop a nuclear explosion. Then in a rather chilling scene, a British destroyer is attacked and sunk and the survivors executed. This is all the work of evil media tycoon Jonathan Pryce.

Then we're introduced to Bond's remote control BMW and all credibility flies out of the window. There's a scene with this in a car park which is just interminable, with all these bad guys popping out of the woodwork everywhere, and that's the hallmark of the film as it goes along. There's a later chase scene involving a motorbike and pursuing Range Rovers which just never seem to stop coming. The last twenty minutes are endless shoot-outs and explosions that go on and on and are just so boring.

I'm not quite sure what the media tycoon has to gain in bringing about an Anglo-Chinese war, either. Bruce Feirstein is the writer.

Notable for its gallery of great British supporting actors including Judi Dench, Colin Salmon and Samantha Bond, but also encompassing Geoffrey Palmer, Julian Fellowes, Julian Rhind-Tutt (what?? where??), Michael Byrne, Pip Torrens, Hugh Bonneville, and Jason Watkins!

Bond's birds are Michelle Yeoh and Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), with Ricky Jay and Gotz Otto as bad guys. Bond is Pierce Brosnan.

Photographed by Robert Elswit, edited by Michel Arcand and Dominique Fortin, music by David Arnold. Cheryl Crowe wrote and sang the theme tune, which is one of the best things about it.

Richard Gere double bill: Internal Affairs (1990 Mike Figgis) / Pretty Woman (1990 Garry Marshall)

The first was released in the US in January, the second in March.  In Mike Figgis's film he plays a unredeemable corrupt cop who is happy to stoop to murder. I'm not quite sure what he thought he was doing at the end, which loses the plot finally. Andy Garcia though turns almost as psycho as he. Laurie Melcalfe helps investigate. Features a number of big haired women including Nancy Travis (Garcia's wife) and Annabella Sciorra.

It was written by Henry Bean. John A Alonzo shot it and Robert Estrin edited. Had me thinking of the much superior LA Confidential.

Pretty Woman is always a delight, particularly the smallest reactions of the smallest actors: the elevator boy, the shop girls, the waiter who catches the snail, the offended woman at the races.

Julia's 'Holy shit!' moment made us both think of Wendy: