From Edvard Munch to Central Cee: Observer critics choose their cultural highlights for 2025
Film
American auteurs return
A new film from one of the heavy hitters of US cinema is always cause for celebration, and with projects from Kathryn Bigelow, Noah Baumbach and Paul Thomas Anderson on the horizon, there’s plenty to whet cineaste appetites in the coming year. Details on all three are scant at the moment.
Kathryn Bigelow
’s film, her first sinceDetroit
in 2017, is a political thriller set in the White House, following staffers as they scramble to respond to an imminent missile strike on America. The cast includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson and Jared Harris.Even less is known about
Noah Baumbach
’s new film, which, like Bigelow’s, is a Netflix production. Baumbach’s recent work includes the adaptation of Don DeLillo’sWhite Noise
, and a co-writer credit onBarbie
. This one, which Baumbach co-wrote with Emily Mortimer, has a starry cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Jim Broadbent, Isla Fisher and Laura Dern are among the names listed on the credits of a picture described as being a “funny and emotional coming-of-age film about adults”.Perhaps the most hotly anticipated of all is
Paul Thomas Anderson
’s latest, which is currently untitled but had the working title ofThe Battle of Baktan Cross
. Unsubstantiated rumours suggest that it might be an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novelVineland
(Anderson previously adapted another Pynchon novel,Inherent Vice
, in 2014). What we know for certain is that the film is scheduled for release in August and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Anderson’sLicorice Pizza
star Alana Haim.Wendy Ide
Music
The Gallaghers get it together
The guns fell silent. The stars aligned. Not seen on a stage together since 2009 – the year Barack Obama became the first black president of the US,
Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift
and Bitcoin was launched – the warring Gallagher brothers are set to finally reunite this summer for a tour marking the 30th anniversary of their 1995 album,(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?.
It would not be an Oasis endeavour without controversy. Already marred by outrage and inquiries over “dynamic pricing” and Liam Gallagher’s initial
to fans’ complaints – plus accusations of gatekeeping by grouchy old-timers bemoaning the pressure on tickets from younger fans – the Oasis reunion looks set to remain a talking point from here to July and beyond. Did Noel Gallagher’scostly divorce
change his mind? Do we have Liam Gallagher to thank for keeping the spirit of Oasis alive through his more recent solo success? Will it be the set list people want – first two albums, back to-back, cheers, as you were – or will fans have to endure late-career filler? Answers may be forthcoming at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on 4 July.Kitty Empire
Art
Blockbusters and big statements
The suspended drama and mystery of Sienese painting finally has its due in the National Gallery’s long-awaited
1300-1350
(8 March-22 June). This is art’s golden moment, when bodies step into motion and faces become expressive; when stories begin to stream across exquisitely coloured panels. Jointly organised with the Met in New York, and including masterpieces by Duccio, Martini and Lorenzetti, this is the revelatory blockbuster of the year. turns 25, celebrating with the return ofLouise Bourgeois
’s monumental spiderMaman
, which towered over the Turbine Hall when the building first opened a quarter of a century ago. TheBritish Museum
is mounting the first Hiroshige show in its entire history, with enthralling woodblock prints of Edo Japan, including snowfall over Fuji, the famous Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, and bustling shops, boats in full sail and eagles in flight. Advance booking is definitely required forHiroshige: Artist of the Open
Road
(1 May-7 September).It feels as if I have been waiting my whole life for a Millet retrospective, and I may have to wait a bit longer. But the National Gallery’s
(7 August-19 October) is a strong start, centring on the intensely movingL’Angélus
, borrowed from Paris. Toil and harvest, labour, dusk and loss: the great poet-painter of French peasants. And anyone who thinks ofMunch
as a hardcore miserabilist will be astonished by hisPortraits
at the National Portrait Gallery (13 March-15 June). Depicting lovers, artists, writers, patrons, even proud plutocrats, shy children and big-bellied industrialists, these works are sociable, sunny and dramatically original.Laura Cumming
Theatre
Much ado about Shakespeare
It promises to be springtime for Shakespeare, with a great glut of productions. Most explosively,
is billed as a collision between the Bard and Radiohead, in which a “frenetic distillation” of Shakespeare’s tragedy is infused with a score by Thom Yorke. The production is co-created by Yorke with Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones, who together choreographed and designedHarry Potter and the Cursed Child
andLet the Right One In
. Co-produced by Factory International and the Royal Shakespeare Company, the show will be at Aviva Studios in Manchester (27 April-18 May).The elusive, ever-intriguing Luke Thallon will become
for the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon (8 February-29 March); Rupert Goold, who worked with Thallon onPatriots
, directs. From 10 February-10 May, Jonathan Bailey – ofBridgerton
andWicked
– will star, directed by Nicholas Hytner, inRichard II
at the Bridge in London. Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell will spar as Benedick and Beatrice inMuch Ado About Nothing
, Jamie Lloyd’s latest Shakespearean re-creation, at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane (10 February-5 April). At the Theatre Royal Bath, Harriet Walter will redefine the Seven Ages of Man speech when she becomes the sardonic Jaques in Ralph Fiennes’s production ofAs You Like It
(15 August-6 September).Susannah Clapp
Classical
Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen is transformed for the stage
by Thomas Vinterberg, also a Broadway and West End play, this world premiere ofFesten
(11-27 February; Royal Ballet and Opera, London) is a commission by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, with librettist Lee Hall ofBilly Elliot
fame. The creative lineup includes Edward Gardner, conductor; Richard Jones, director; and a star cast led by Allan Clayton, Stéphane Degout, Gerald Finley, Natalya Romaniw and Rosie Aldridge.Festen
– meaning Celebration – centres on a rich family and the patriarch-businessman’s 60th birthday party, at which a secret is revealed. This dark comedy explores issues of violence and abuse, and is sure to be a tense, challenging and gripping evening.Fiona Maddocks
Dance
Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney’s Figures in Extinction
For the past four years, visionary choreographer Crystal Pite has been collaborating with Complicité’s co-founder and artistic director Simon McBurney to create a dance trilogy called
(Aviva Studios, Manchester; 19-22 February), a meditation on the natural world and our position in it. The dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater have already brought to the UKFigures in Extinction [1.0]
, a haunting catalogue of all the species being lost to climate change. The second part, about humanity’s need for connection in a separated world, has only been seen in the Netherlands. Now the entire trilogy, with a newly created final section, comes to Factory International, using video, dance and the spoken word to offer provocation, thoughtfulness and perhaps a little hope.Sarah Crompton
TV
Real-life TV tales
We had not one but two dramatisations of Prince Andrew’s calamitous
interview
last year. Now for a variation on the theme.Brian and Margaret
(Channel 4, February) portrays journalist Brian Walden’s infamous 1989 grilling of Margaret Thatcher – a pummelling for which the PM never forgave him. It set in motion events that led to her resignation the following year. The two-part drama has high-class credentials, with Steve Coogan and Harriet Walter as the combatants, James Graham writing and Stephen Frears directing.An equally complex woman is explored in
Miss Austen
(BBC One, spring). Marking 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth, this fascinating four-parter, adapted from Gill Hornby’s bestsellingliterary mystery novel
, stars Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen, elder sister of Jane. It begins in 1830 and explores why Cassandra burned all of Jane’s personal letters after her death – a decision that has bewildered academics and readers for centuries. Strong support comes from Jessica Hynes and Rose Leslie, while Olivier award-winnerPatsy Ferran
plays the novelist herself.Michael Hogan
Film
Chalamet channels early Dylan in A Complete Unknown
by James Mangold – and in particular, the central performance by Timothée Chalamet – suggests that the latter is likely to be the one to beat in the Oscar best actor race. And deservedly so: it’s an uncannily accurate impersonation that captures both that distinctive voice and performance style, and the prickly persona behind the shades and black denim. Mangold is an old hand when it comes to getting into the skin of notoriously abrasive music legends, having previously profiled Johnny Cash inWalk the Line
. Here, Mangold has slightly less booze-sodden chaos and drama to work with, but he vividly evokes the time and the spirit of New York’s early 1960s folk explosion.WI
Music
Here come the girls, again
If 2024 was “the year of the woman” –
for Boygenius, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Victoria Monét and SZA; cultural ubiquity for Chappell Roan, Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter – 2025 looks set to showcase new work from several female solo talents, both mainstream and outlier. First isEthel Cain
, whose celebrated debut,Preacher’s Daughter
(2022), put the southern gothic songwriter on the map. Her second album,Perverts
(8 January), is billed a standalone project, full of ambient textures and slow builds.South African superstar-in-waiting
Moonchild Sanelly
, meanwhile, melds pop, kwaito and hip-hop on her exuberant third album,Full Moon
(10 January), which features tunes about the perils of tequila and flexes like her singleScrambled Eggs
. Last year, Sanelly collaborated with Self Esteem on a one-off two-hander,Big Man
. Four years on from her acclaimedPrioritise Pleasure
album and a successful swerve intoacting roles
,Self Esteem
– AKA Rebecca Lucy Taylor – is finally putting the finishing touches to its “horribly honest
” sequel. “It’s not what you think,” she told one interviewer, intriguingly.abundance of emotional honesty
” also features onEusexua
(24 January), the forthcoming third album by multi-hyphenateFKA twigs
, whose sound is partly inspired by eastern European techno. Songs released so far, includingPerfect Stranger
, hint at a mainstream breakthrough.Lana Del Rey
’s long-awaited country-tinged album, previously known asLasso
, is now calledThe Right Person Will Stay
.
It arrives in May, shortly before Del Rey hits the UK for a stadium tour in late June.KE
Festival
All eyes on Bradford
“Overlooked” and “underestimated” were words that cropped up many times three years ago when Bradford won the bid to become the UK’s
; now, the West Yorkshire town has a chance to prove its merits. The programme certainly looks promising. It kicks off on 10 January with an open-air extravaganza in City Park calledRISE
, weaving together music and wizardry from local magician Steven Frayne (formerly known as Dynamo). Also this month, striking photographs by Ethiopian artistAïda Muluneh
go on show at Impressions gallery, while the National Science and Media Museum is reopening following a £6m development and will presentDavid Hockney: Pieced Together
, exploring the Bradford-born artist’s use of film and photography. Hockney also supportsDRAW!
, a nationwide project encouraging drawing for all ages. The Akram Khan Company comes to Bradford to performJungle Book reimagined
at the Alhambra theatre, repositioning Mowgli as a refugee during the climate crisis, and Asian Dub Foundation will unleash their soundtrack to French thrillerLa Haine
live at St George’s Hall on 15 January.Killian Fox
Art
In celebration of the outlandishly inventive Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery was the most influential performance artist of the late 20th century, a colossal figure of huge inventiveness. Born in Australia in 1961, Bowery was already storming London by his early 20s with outlandish drag, bizarre scenarios and grotesque makeup. Standing 1.91 metres (6ft 3in) without his soaring platforms, he was described by his friend Boy George as “modern art on legs”. Tate Modern’s
(27 February-31 August) presents him through photographs, films and interviews, and, of course, Lucian Freud’s famous nude portraits. Expect a nightclub inside a museum, with special emphasis on Bowery’s costumes, performances and collaborations with RuPaul, Andrew Logan, Trojan, Lady Bunny and Michael Clark. This embrace of a brief but fearlessly wild life promises to be a spectacular exhibition.LC
Theatre
The Greeks are in town
Greek tragedy is shaking up the London theatre, helping to change the idea of a West End play. From 24 January-12 April, Brie Larson (
Captain Marvel
) stars asElektra
at the Duke of York’s. Daniel Fish – director of a revelatory production ofOklahoma!
– will stage the play via a translation by the poet and classicist Anne Carson. Robert Icke’sadaptation
ofOedipus
was one of last year’s theatrical highlights. Now Ella Hickson, author ofThe Writer
, has written a new version of Sophocles’s drama, which can be seen at theOld Vic
from 21 January-29 March. Co-directed by Matthew Warchus and Hofesh Shechter, it will star Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody
) and Indira Varma (Present Laughter
).SCl
TV
Returning dramas
We can look forward to a whole host of much-loved dramas coming back for more in 2025. It’s been a nine-year wait for
The Night Manager
(BBC One, summer) but Tom Hiddleston finally returns as John le Carré’s hotel worker turned spook. Just as excitingly, Olivia Colman joins him again as Foreign Office spymaster Angela Burr. Highly contrasting but also hotel-based isThe White Lotus
(Sky Atlantic, 17 February). Thethird series
of the spa resort satire is set in Thailand, with Jason Isaacs, Walton Goggins and Carrie Coon among the western guests in search of eastern spirituality.Two of Netflix’s biggest hits are back to give a timely boost to the streamer. Tim Burton’s gothic teen fantasy
Wednesday
dances back for season two (Netflix, spring), complete with Lady Gaga cameo. The fifth and final season ofStranger Things
(Netflix, summer) promises to be epic, following the final battle for Hawkins in 1987. Cue Kate Bush.Waffle parties all round, because acclaimed sci-fi head-scratcher
Severance
(Apple TV+, 17 January) clocks on for another office shift at the sinister Lumon Industries. HBO’s hit video game adaptation,The Last of Us
(Sky Atlantic, spring)jumps forward five years
to revisit zombie apocalypse survivors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Finally, any orders for a fourth course ofThe Bear
(Disney+, June)? Yes, chef. Even if thethird serving
disappointed some diners.MH
Art
Burmese activist Htein Lin’s creativity in captivity
Burmese painter, performance artist and activist Htein Lin’s work is rarely shown in this country. Many of his narrative paintings and prints draw on his six years as a political prisoner in a Myanmar jail, following his activism in the 1988 student uprising. The
, Birmingham, will be showing many of these works, made on prison uniforms and scraps of coarse canvas, along with films of his courageous performances, some of them made in prison for fellow inmates. Lin is also working with inmates in HMP Grendon, Buckinghamshire during the course of this show.LC
Film
Bridget Jones is back for a fourth feature in Mad About the Boy
Everyone’s favourite klutzy serial dieter returns for a fourth instalment of pratfalls and romantic travails. Bridget (Renée Zellweger reprises the role) has endured more than her fair share of upheaval and tragedy over the near quarter of a century since the
. We rejoin her as a widowed fiftysomething single mother who is dipping her toe back into the shark-infested waters of the dating pool. Suitors include a man 20 years her junior (One Day
star Leo Woodall plays the improbably named Roxster McDuff) and a teacher at her son’s school (Chiwetel Ejiofor). The good news for those who mourned his absence in the previous film is that Hugh Grant returns as slippery cad Daniel Cleaver.WI
Music
The long-awaited debut album from one of UK hip-hop’s biggest names
Albums may not be the definitive statements they once were, but
is probably the most important UK hip-hop artist without an official debut release. In 2023, his Dave-assisted trackSprinter
broke records for a UK rap release due to its tenure at No 1. He has won best male artist at the Mobos twice, and in 2024, the west London driller collaborated withIce Spice
,Lil Baby
andJ Cole
, taking his unapologetically British rhymes – about his past as a dealer and his love life – international. Previous mixtapes (Wild West
and23
) have charted high, but Cee’s very long-awaited album,Can’t Rush Greatness,
finally drops on 24 January.KE
Classical
The ENO and WNO strike back
Launching soon are two key shows from the English National Opera and Welsh National Opera, companies facing uncertainty and upheaval. ENO is honouring the admired Scottish-American composer Thea Musgrave (b.1928) with her 1977 opera
(15-18 February). Action focuses on the widowed Mary’s return to Scotland from France, until she flees to England hoping for protection from Elizabeth I. Directed and designed by Stewart Laing, conducted by Joana Carneiro, it stars soprano Heidi Stober as Mary, with tenor Nicky Spence as the Earl of Bothwell. Expect period Highlands atmosphere, a vivid and melodic score, passion and treachery.Spence then takes the title role for WNO in Benjamin Britten’s
(5 April-7 June; Cardiff and on tour), the tragic tale of a lonely fisherman outsider and one of the 20th-century’s operatic masterpieces. Tomáš Hanus conducts, Melly Still directs. An outstanding ensemble cast includes Sarah Connolly, Sally Matthews, Fflur Wyn, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and David Kempster. Following WNO’s recent triumph with Britten’s final opera,Death in Venice
, this promises to be unmissable.FM
Theatre
David Hare’s new play launches Bath’s Ralph Fiennes season
The Ralph Fiennes season at Theatre Royal Bath opens with a new play by David Hare starring Fiennes and Miranda Raison.
brings to the stage a dynasty that changed the theatre, tracing the switchback private lives and public careers of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, glittering rulers of the Victorian stage, as well as the extraordinary biographies of Terry’s dramatic children: the elusive Edward Gordon Craig – visionary designer, explosive lothario – and Edith Craig, socialist, suffragette and founder of the feminist Pioneer Players. Jeremy Herrin directs; Bob Crowley designs. From 27 June-19 July.SCl
Games
Grand Theft Auto rocks up in Vice City
is a cultural juggernaut whose loving approximation of Los Angeles continues to provide an online playpen for every kind of proclivity, from staging elaborate heists to Lycra’d yoga sessions. This year’s sequel is set in Vice City, a love/hate letter to Miami and the swelter of surrounding Florida. We’ll play as Lucia, the series’ first female protagonist. While there are few details about the story, the prison garb she wears in thetrailer
suggests it’s likely to follow a familiar arc, as we escape from poverty into riches via a combination of cunning, nous and that other cornerstone of the American dream: assault weapons. While the US no longer holds the same cultural sway over young generations (the lives ofGTA
’s architects
, now men in their fifties, were shaped by Hollywood and hip-hop) this is game-making at its most lavishly extravagant. And if the game, expected in the autumn, is delayed? Hideo Kojima’ssequel
to 2019’s strange but alluringDeath Stranding
, a sci-fi adventure in which Norman Reedus’s character delivers packages across highland landscapes, will surely do its best to fill the gap.Simon Parkin
Dance
Sadler’s Wells opens its new site in Stratford
, a new base for dance in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, opens on 6 February, with Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu’sOur Mighty Groove
, in which dancers from the local community will join Uchenna Dance in a celebratory piece. Igbokwe-Ozoagu has form with this sort of thing, having worked as mass movement choreographer at the 2012 Olympics, and uses a variety of club styles – house, waacking and vogue – alongside African and contemporary work. It should be a thrilling way to open a theatre where the subsequent programme includes Botis Seva’sUntil We Sleep
(24-28 June) and Ivan Michael Blackstock’s brilliantTraplord
(28-31 May) as well as the UK premiere of Trajal Harrell’sThe Köln Concert
(4-5 April), and ballet, kathak, krumping and bharatanatyam in a rich opening season. On 18 January there’s also an open day for prospective applicants for the hip-hop theatre schoolAcademy Breakin’ Convention
, which will take its first students in the autumn. It’s all part of a carefully calibrated balance between community engagement and dance excellence.SCr
Film
Danny Boyle to deliver the shocks again in
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle returns as director for the third film in the zombie series (he handed the reins of the second to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo). Plot details are under wraps, but we know that Boyle co-wrote the screenplay with Alex Garland and that the cast includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes and the star of the original, Cillian Murphy. The first film’s cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle, also returns, and reportedly the whole thing was shot on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. And if it’s anywhere near as chilling as the utterly terrifying
, which is cut to a1915 recording
of Rudyard Kipling’s anti-war poem, Boots, to blisteringly powerful effect, then audiences can expect something pretty special when the picture is unleashed on the world in June.WI
Art
See Harold Offeh’s provocative pieces in a major solo exhibition
The Ghanaian-born artist Harold Offeh’s witty, dynamic and provocative performances have sent up everything from pop culture to identity politics to smartphone narcissism. At
in Cambridge he will be showing films and involving all sorts of collaborators, from fellow artists to local communities, in the city where he lives. If you’ve seen his tragicomic videos in group shows or his deadpan short films, in which Offeh is both star and director, you will know how piercing and zany he can be. This show will fill Kettle’s Yard with energy and ideas in gloomy November.LC
TV
Stephen Graham doubles down as one of the UK’s finest
Stephen Graham isn’t just one of the best British actors around. He’s also among the hardest working, hence starring in two hotly tipped series in early 2025. After chef film
, Graham has form for ambitious one-shot dramas. He embraces the format again in gripping psychological thrillerAdolescence
(Netflix, early 2025), which follows a family after their 13-year-old son is accused of murder. Each episode is filmed in one long continuous take, immersing viewers in the case.
Peaky Blinders
-esque period pieceA Thousand Blows
(Disney+, 21 February) is set on the bare-knuckle boxing scene in 1880s east London. Graham got into the shape of his life to play local champion Henry “Sugar” Goodson. Malachi Kirby is Jamaican challenger Hezekiah Moscow. Erin Doherty steals scenes as leader of the Forty Elephants – a notorious all-female gang of thieves.MH
Music
Indie rockers the Tubs hit their stride
Indie rock endlessly recycles itself. While this can often make for some watered-down sounds, sometimes a lodestar band comes along and distils all of the genre’s key elements into pure listener gold. Mostly Welsh Londoners the Tubs (their drummer is Scottish) combine a
with fist-in-the-air, lyrical guitar work, rousing multigender harmonies and an uncompromising emotional intelligence, both savage and tender. All these are at play on their second album,Cotton Crown
- named, yes, after aSonic Youth
song, but full of the joys of Hüsker Dü, jangle pop and Johnny Marr guitars to boot. Singer Owen Williams often sounds like folk-rock royal Richard Thompson, and now we have an inkling why. That’s Williams as a baby on the album’s cover, being breastfed in a cemetery by his mother – the late folk singerCharlotte Greig
– whose death haunts this excellent record, out 7 March.KE
Theatre
The Herds
: a pilgrimage of puppet beasts marks the environmental crisis
a herd of lifesize puppet animals
will set off from the Congo basin on a 20,000km journey. As if forced to move by the climate crisis, lions, kudus and gazelles – all made from corrugated cardboard, with eyes like coals – will head to the Arctic Circle. The troupe will swell as it travels, taking in species belonging to different regions, and training new puppeteers and makers at each stopping-place. Artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi and producer David Lan, part of the team behind the marvellous refugee puppetLittle Amal
, will create one of the most vital theatrical events of 2025.SCl