My teenage self was shy and miserable, before a coming-of-age film unleashed an adolescence of drink, sex and drugs. It was a years-long party that eventually came crashing down

At 13, what felt like almost overnight, I turned from a happy, musical-theatre-loving child into a sad, lonely teenager. Things I had cared about only yesterday were suddenly irrelevant, as I realised that nothing and no one mattered, least of all me. It’s an angst that adults often find difficult to remember or understand; as the famous line from The Virgin Suicides goes: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”

Going to an all-girls Catholic school, I didn’t even really know that sex, drugs and alcohol existed, or that they had currency, until I watched Thirteen for the first time at 14, after seeing a still on Pinterest. The reckless rebellion the two best friends portrayed was seductive to me, and within weeks of watching the film, I’d met some girls from the co-ed school opposite who were having sex, going to parties and taking drugs. Soon, I was doing it all too.

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© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian

© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian

© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian

Emerald Fennell’s film brings the raunch to Brontë’s romance, while Nintendo’s beloved plumber stars in a colourful, family-friendly sports game

Wuthering Heights
Out now
Out on the wily, windy moors, writer-director Emerald Fennell has constructed a new interpretation of the Emily Brontë classic. Margot Robbie is Cathy while Jacob Elordi takes on Heathcliff, and as you might expect from the film-maker behind Saltburn, the passionate pair are set to leave no height unwuthered.

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© Composite: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo

© Composite: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo

© Composite: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo

A stylish high-stakes armed robbery thriller with Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo, and a gentle supernatural comedy from Mackenzie Crook. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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© Composite: Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

© Composite: Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

© Composite: Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Berlin film festival: Shahrbanoo Sadat is a charming presence in front of the camera and a skilled film-maker behind in this shrewd and contemporary tale

The Afghan film-maker Shahrbanoo Sadat is a warm and approachable presence as writer, director and star of No Good Men – a tale of Afghanistan’s women in 2021 as they are about to be surrendered to the Taliban with the withdrawal of US troops.

It’s an urgent tale, which incidentally closes with a fervent finale reminiscent of Casablanca – although the central turnaround in the male lead’s heart, gallantly disproving the title, is maybe a bit smooth.

No Good Men is screening at the Berlin film festival and will be released at a later date

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© Photograph: ©Virginie Surdej

© Photograph: ©Virginie Surdej

© Photograph: ©Virginie Surdej

Johnny Flynn and John C Reilly offer casting heft, but this moody, technically sound tale of an unfolding epidemic in 1870s Wisconsin lacks emotional substance

There is some very concerted image-making and mood-making in this technically accomplished yet unsatisfying drama from first-time, Norway-based director Dara Van Dusen. It is a sombre tale of the American old west, adapted by Dusen from the novel by Stewart O’Nan, and somehow has the feel of a short film indulgently taken to feature length. Its visual gestures and set pieces, although striking and often shocking, felt for me disconnected from any emotional truth – a truth that sustained, developed storytelling may have provided.

The setting is a frontier town in Wisconsin in 1870, and Jacob (Johnny Flynn) is both sheriff and pastor – although he wears neither badge nor religious garment. He has seen traumatising service in the civil war, in which he appears to have achieved high rank, although some in the town are suspicious of his Norwegian background. He is married to Marta (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and they have a young child.

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© Photograph: © Łukasz Bąk

© Photograph: © Łukasz Bąk

© Photograph: © Łukasz Bąk

Wuthering Heights is the latest film to turn heads over anachronistic costumes, but it’s not by any means the first

Emerald Fennell’s retelling of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights finally hits cinema screens this weekend. Ever since the first set of photos were released, the anachronisms of the costumes have been central to the conversation.

As fashion industry watchdog Diet Prada put it: “The costume design for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights scandalised audiences with its freaky mix of Oktoberfest corseting meets 1950’s ballgowns meets futuristic liquid organza meets … Barbie?”

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© Photograph: 2026 Warner Bros. Ent/PA

© Photograph: 2026 Warner Bros. Ent/PA

© Photograph: 2026 Warner Bros. Ent/PA

Grant Gee’s film thoroughly inhabits the creative and personal torment experienced by the American pianist – with a terrific supporting Bill Pullman turn

This elusive, ruminative and very absorbing movie presents its successive scenes like a sequence of unresolved chords carrying the listener on a journey without a destination – and is, incidentally, one of those rare films featuring a wonderful supporting turn that does not undermine or upstage the rest. It’s a film about music. Particularly, about what remains when a musician cannot play and is left to consider the terrible sacrifices made, without conscious consent, to this all-consuming vocation that creates family pain and jealousy almost as a toxic byproduct. It’s a drama to put you in mind of Glenn Gould and Hilary du Pré, sister of Jacqueline.

Screenwriter Mark O’Halloran has adapted the 2013 novel Intermission by Owen Martell about renowned jazz pianist Bill Evans. It focuses on a period of emotional devastation for Evans, when no music was possible – perhaps a restorative intermission, perhaps the start of a calamitous new aridity – when his close friend and bassist Scott LaFaro was killed in a car crash in his 20s.

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© Photograph: © Shane O’Connor 2026 Cowtown Pictures. Hot Property

© Photograph: © Shane O’Connor 2026 Cowtown Pictures. Hot Property

© Photograph: © Shane O’Connor 2026 Cowtown Pictures. Hot Property

From ‘honour’ killings to nuclear war, some screen works have led directly legislative action – despite what jury head Wenders suggested at the Berlin film festival

Should film festivals be more than just screenings and red carpets? Should they prompt us to think about the role cinema plays in the world? Novelist Arundhati Roy certainly thinks so. She pulled out of the jury at the Berlin festival in protest at jury president Wim Wenders’ claim that films should “stay out of politics”; she said Wenders’ stance was “unconscionable”, and that to “hear [him] say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.”

Wenders had suggested that cinema is a way to build empathy, but not directly change politicians’ minds. However this is simply not true. Some films – both documentary and narrative – have not only changed public opinion about social issues but led directly to legislation. Despite evidence to the contrary, politicians are people too. They can be moved. And sometimes they are even moved to action.

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© Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

© Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

© Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

The picture, taken with Paul Thomas Anderson at this year’s Oscar nominee lunch, recalls the eerie image that closes Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic

Frankenstein director Guillermo del Toro’s “jazz hands” pose in the Oscar nominee luncheon photo was part of his and fellow director Paul Thomas Anderson’s attempt to recreate the celebrated group shot, featuring Jack Nicholson, that appears at the ending of The Shining.

Del Toro responded to a post – in which he and Anderson had been inserted into the image from the 1980 horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick – by saying: “[Y]ou got it! PTA and I said: Let’s do the Shining pose and we tried.”

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© Photograph: Richard Harbaugh/The Academy

© Photograph: Richard Harbaugh/The Academy

© Photograph: Richard Harbaugh/The Academy

An AI clip featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting has caused concern among industry figures

A leading Hollywood figure has warned “it’s likely over for us”, after watching a widely disseminated AI-generated clip featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting.

Rhett Reese, co-writer of Deadpool & Wolverine, Zombieland and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t was reacting to a 15-second video showing Cruise and Pitt trading punches on a rubble-strewn bridge, posted by Irish film-maker Ruairí Robinson, director of 2013 sci-fi horror The Last Days on Mars. Reposting the clip on social media, Reese wrote: “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”

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© Photograph: Samir Hussein/WireImage

© Photograph: Samir Hussein/WireImage

© Photograph: Samir Hussein/WireImage

Director revered by actor’s character in Dawson’s Creek is among film industry figures – also including Zoe Saldaña and John M Chu – to make large donation to family

The film director Steven Spielberg has donated $25,000 (£18,365) to a crowdfunder to help the widow and six children of the actor James Van Der Beek, who died this week after being diagnosed with cancer in 2023.

Dawson Leery, Van Der Beek’s character in Dawson’s Creek, the 90s teen soap that shot him to fame, was an aspiring director who idolised Spielberg. Show creator Kevin Williamson had based the character on himself; he went on to write the horror-comedy Scream and other films in the franchise.

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© Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty Images

In Emerald Fennell’s BDSM-tinged film, critics have praised Clunes’s turn as the ‘devout misogynist’ Mr Earnshaw

It has been billed as the sexiest adaptation of Wuthering Heights, with bodices ripped to shreds and a flirtation with BDSM. And yet the standout star of Emerald Fennell’s new film isn’t one of its smouldering young lovers, played by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, but British television’s most affable grump – Martin Clunes.

Clunes plays Mr Earnshaw, the patriarch of the Earnshaw household whose decision to bring home a destitute young Heathcliff from Liverpool to the Yorkshire Moors sets in motion the destructive love story at the centre of Wuthering Heights. In Fennell’s reworking, Cathy’s elder brother, Hindley, is abolished entirely, with his cruelty, boozing and gambling folded into the father instead.

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© Photograph: Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved/PA

© Photograph: Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved/PA

© Photograph: Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved/PA

A poll has found differences between men and women’s motivations for watching romance films together, with 20% of men hoping it may result in sex

As groups of women block-booking rows of seats with friends to see Wuthering Heights look likely to help propel Emerald Fennell’s adaptation to the top of the Valentine’s weekend box office, a new survey suggests men are amenable to watching romantic movies at home – although their motivations for doing so are mixed.

A poll of 2,000 film fans on behalf of the wall-to-wall romance movie Freeview channel Great Romance has found that the top three reasons given by men for watching a romance film are feeling closer to their partner (36%), wanting a quiet life (21%) and thinking it might lead to sex (20%). Twenty per cent said that such films “remind me of the magic of when we met”, while half that number said such an activity was “low effort but still feels like bonding”.

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© Photograph: Maximum Film/Alamy

© Photograph: Maximum Film/Alamy

© Photograph: Maximum Film/Alamy

Bad boy Heathcliff is described as ethnically ambiguous and ‘dark’ in the novel, yet is played by a pretty straightforward white Australian Elordi

Tired of movies for kids? Superhero capes and flatulent animated squirrels? Me too. Fortunately, you and I are in luck. This weekend brings the wide release of Saltburn director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. As is befitting Fennell’s established style, the movie offers over-the-top sexual titillation (though, crucially, zero nudity) and elaborate production design. Plus, a contemporary pop soundtrack from Charli xcx. A horny film version of a 19th-century novel is as adult-skewing as it gets at the box office these days.

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi suck face and stand around in the rain in expensive costumes for over two hours in a movie that Fennell proudly declares a loose translation from the page. It excises a large portion of the book’s story and focuses its eye primarily on the illicit romance between Cathy Earnshaw and swarthy Heathcliff. Crucially, it should be pointed out that Heathcliff is technically Cathy’s foster brother, which allows Wuthering Heights to fit comfortably into one of the most popular genres of online video in the world.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

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© Photograph: Don Arnold/WireImage

© Photograph: Don Arnold/WireImage

© Photograph: Don Arnold/WireImage

We want to hear people’s thoughts on reading the novel ahead of the new adaptation – and if you’ve watched the film how does it compare?

Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights came to theatres worldwide on 13 February, with the director Emerald Fennell saying she hopes it will “provoke a sort of primal response.”

But Brontë’s tempestuous 1847 novel itself has been described as too extreme for the screen and on its release it was certainly not interpreted as a love story. “I can’t adapt the book as it is but I can approximate the way it made me feel,” Fennell has said.

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© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

The award-winning French foodie romance is a perfect filmic feast for Valentine’s Day, while Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner serve up an adventurous rom-com ride

Skip the Valentine’s Day restaurant booking and treat your beloved to this filmic feast instead. French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tràn Anh Hùng (The Scent of Green Papaya) won Best Director at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for this study of a slow-simmering love affair between French gourmand Dodin (Benoît Magimel) and his cook, Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). They spend their days at Dodin’s country estate, dreaming up new dishes with which to wow his coterie of dining companions, who meet regularly to admire Eugénie’s artistry as well as her beauty. Hung’s unhurried camera savours every delicious morsel, but alas, even a nine-course meal cannot last forever.
Saturday 14 February, 9.35pm, BBC Four

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© Photograph: Stéphanie Branchu/IFC/AP

© Photograph: Stéphanie Branchu/IFC/AP

© Photograph: Stéphanie Branchu/IFC/AP

In the 60s and 70s, he pioneered kitchen-sink drama and made bisexuality mainstream. So why did the director end up making Tory ads? Those who knew him best reveal all

Michael Childers was a 22-year-old Los Angeles student when a friend set him up on a date with John Schlesinger, a visiting British director nearly two decades his senior. The esteemed film-maker was licking his wounds: his most recent picture, Far from the Madding Crowd, which imbued its 19th-century rural characters with an anachronistic King’s Road style and panache, had flopped stateside.

Childers approached the date with mixed feelings. He adored Schlesinger’s previous movie, the jazzy Darling, starring Julie Christie as a model on the make, and had seen it three times.But he had heard the director described as “mercurial”. His solution was to take a friend along with him to the bar at the Beverly Wilshire hotel for backup. “I thought: This guy might be a total shit,” recalls Childers, now 81, on the phone from Palm Springs. “I told my friend, ‘Two kicks under the table means we’re out of here. One kick means you’re out of here.’”

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© Photograph: Michael Childers/Corbis/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Childers/Corbis/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Childers/Corbis/Getty Images

Berlin film festival
Bella Ramsey leads this likable coming-of-age story where the shared experience of adolescent cancer gives new warmth to a familiar genre

Bella Ramsey leads the cast of this likable coming-of-age movie from 26-year-old actor-turned-director George Jaques about a summer camp for teens with cancer. Though maybe sometimes a bit too euphoric in its positivity, and unrealistic about the life-changing experiences to be had at a camp like this or any other, it’s big-hearted, well acted, topped off with an amusing star cameo – and for those who think they can spot the “tragic-sacrificial” character in stories like this, writer-director Jaques executes a smart misdirection-twist.

There’s a kind of Heartstopper energy and a strongly LGBTQ+ cast but perhaps oddly, heterosexuality is dominant. It is as if the centrality of cancer has left no room for any additional “other” identities.

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© Photograph: © Colin J Smith, SUNNY DANCER Distribution Limited

© Photograph: © Colin J Smith, SUNNY DANCER Distribution Limited

© Photograph: © Colin J Smith, SUNNY DANCER Distribution Limited

Elordi and co-star Margot Robbie walked the carpet at Sydney’s State Theatre on Thursday night for Emerald Fennell’s lavish, hyper-stylised adaptation of Emily Brontë’s doomed romance

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© Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

There’s fun to be had in Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski’s satisfyingly tech-fearing adventure – but some restraint wouldn’t have gone amiss

Despite directing a phenomenally successful franchise starter (Pirates of the Caribbean), two of its sequels (Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End), a smash-hit horror remake (The Ring), an Oscar-winning animation (Rango), and films starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts (The Mexican) and Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine (The Weather Man), Gore Verbinski never quite broke through as a name the average cinemagoer would instantly recognise. There are some through-lines in his work – a dark sense of humour, an ease with pushing megastars past their limits – but he was mostly there in service of something or someone else, whether it be IP or an A-lister.

After both consumed him in 2013’s loathed flop The Lone Ranger, Verbinski went away and returned three years later with an extravagant “one for me”, the ambitious throwback horror A Cure for Wellness. I ultimately admired what he was trying to do (a gothic, exquisitely crafted original chiller with a real budget) more than what he actually achieved, and with another box-office disappointment under his belt, he disappeared again. A longer wait of almost a decade followed, and now he’s back with an even bigger swing, the sci-fi comedy adventure Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

American actor best known for his role in the television drama Dawson’s Creek

For a worldwide generation of young television viewers in the 1990s, James Van Der Beek, who has died aged 48 after suffering from cancer, provided the role model of a sensitive male teenager. As the fresh-faced Dawson Leery in the American drama Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003) – shown in the UK on Channel 4 and then on Channel 5 – he starred in a series portraying friendship, first love and the trials and tribulations of adolescence in the fictional coastal town of Capeside, Massachusetts.

The nerdy Dawson’s idealism and habit of over-analysing often give him unrealistic expectations and a tendency to make long emotional speeches. “It’s not about the kiss – it’s about the journey and creating a sustaining magic,” he reflects in an early episode.

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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

The film-maker and author narrates this vivid account of his wide-eyed adventures as a young music journalist in 70s America, hanging out with heroes from David Bowie to Led Zeppelin

The title of The Uncool refers to rock critic Lester Bangs’s assessment of Cameron Crowe, whose adventures as a music journalist were loosely depicted in his 2000 movie, Almost Famous. Long before he became a film-maker, the teenage Crowe travelled around the US interviewing some of the biggest rocks acts of the era, among them Gram Parsons, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Eagles and the Allman Brothers Band. Crowe’s memoir reveals him as the perennial outsider who, unlike his interviewees, cared little about sex, booze and drugs and who lacked a certain savoir-faire. Yet rock stars liked having him around, enjoying his sincerity and the fact that he was more admiring fan than dispassionate reporter.

Crowe is the reader, delivering a warm and vivacious narration that conveys the wide-eyed astonishment of his youthful self as he is thrust into the orbit of his heroes. He also paints a vivid picture of an era in which bands weren’t protected by gaggles of PR representatives and a writer could spend 18 months with an artist – as Crowe did with Bowie in the mid-1970s – to write a single profile.

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© Photograph: Cinematic/Alamy

© Photograph: Cinematic/Alamy

© Photograph: Cinematic/Alamy

Early projections suggest Emerald Fennell’s adaptation could recoup its $80m production budget in its opening three days – with strong US and overseas takings expected

The titillating trailers and method-dressed promotional tour appear to have paid off: early indications are that Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights will earn back its $80m (£59m) production budget on the first weekend of release.

Projections estimate the three-day frame, which falls on Valentine’s weekend, should recoup around $50m (£37m) at the US box office – where it opens across 3,600 screens – and a further $40m (£29m) overseas.

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

Kasho Iizuka’s feature casts trans actors to revisit a notorious 1965 trial that made gender reassignment illegal for more than 30 years. He explains why the history remains unfinished

The so-called “Blue Boy trial” in 1965 was a landmark moment for trans visibility in Japan. Now it has become a landmark film, directed by Kasho Iizuka, a transgender man and one of very few queer film-makers working in the commercial Japanese film industry.

The original legal case concerned a doctor who was prosecuted for performing gender reassignment surgery on transgender women, amid law enforcement frustrations that female-presenting transgender sex workers could not be prosecuted for their profession due to their being legally male. The doctor was found guilty of violating Japan’s eugenics laws, which prohibited surgeries resulting in sterilisation if they were deemed inessential. “Blue Boy”was a slang term for transgender individuals assigned male at birth, and the verdict effectively outlawed gender reassignment surgery in Japan until 1998. Despite this, the case raised the domestic profile of transgender people.

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© Photograph: © 2025 “Blue Boy Trial” Film Partners

© Photograph: © 2025 “Blue Boy Trial” Film Partners

© Photograph: © 2025 “Blue Boy Trial” Film Partners

From One Battle to Another to Marty Supreme, supermarket magnates, professors and special agents have been stealing scenes on screen

Striving for realism, Timothée Chalamet knew what the scene required. “I’m really getting in the guy’s face and I’m really trying to get him angry with me,” the lead actor recalled recently about the making of Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. “I was saying to Josh, ‘He’s not getting angry with me, he’s not getting angry with me.’”

But it turned out the unnamed extra had been paying attention. Chalamet added: “I did another take, and then the guy said, ‘I was just in jail for 30 years. You really don’t want to fuck with me. You don’t want to see me angry.’ I said to Josh, ‘Holy shit, who do you have me opposite, man?’”

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© Photograph: Public domain

© Photograph: Public domain

© Photograph: Public domain

Amy Berg’s arresting documentary delves into the early life and untimely death of the 90s singer-songwriter, with extensive contributions from his mother and girlfriends

Some moths are drawn to the flame and some butterflies to the wheel. The exquisitely beautiful, mercurial and prodigiously talented 90s singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley was drawn to the music business. And this contractually demanded endless touring and a multi-album commitment when he’d already poured his twentysomething-year-old life and soul into the first one, Grace, a hipster-critical smash whose commercial underperformance in the US caused execs to push him ever harder for a follow-up to recoup their investment. The business also created a world where he got to meet his heroes (such as Paul McCartney and Robert Plant), whose extravagant, good-natured praise for him sent this already highly strung young soul over the edge. He was as handsome as Jim Morrison in his sleek prime as well as – to my eye – Adam Ant with a touch of Neil Innes.

Amy Berg’s arresting documentary of a death foretold explains how young Jeff and his mother were abandoned when he was an infant by his father, Tim Buckley, a singer and counterculture figure who was to die of a heroin overdose in his late 20s. Jeff was to die at about the same age, in an accidental drowning in Wolf River Harbor, Memphis, Tennessee, in 1997, when he was just 30.

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© Photograph: Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

© Photograph: Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

© Photograph: Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Opening the Berlin film festival, No Good Men blends romance and rebellion, capturing love, humour and female agency in Kabul on the eve of the Taliban’s return

‘Afghanistan’s first romantic comedy” was not the easiest of sales pitches, director Shahrbanoo Sadat admits. But her long shot of a movie landed her the opening slot at the Berlin film festival starting Thursday, sending her in the red-carpet footsteps of the likes of Martin Scorsese and the Coen brothers.

Sadat, 35, wrote, directed and stars in the daring, genre-bending film No Good Men, about a budding love affair in a Kabul newsroom on the eve of the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 and the west’s chaotic withdrawal.

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© Photograph: ©Virginie Surdej

© Photograph: ©Virginie Surdej

© Photograph: ©Virginie Surdej

The YouTube gaming star’s weird and divisive adaptation of his obscure horror film is a game within a film about a game – and hints at new directions for storytelling

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Something weird struck me early on while watching the movie Iron Lung, which has so far taken $32m at the box office, despite being a grungy low-budget sci-fi thriller adapted from an independent video game few people outside of the horror gaming community have even heard of. Set after a galactic apocalypse, it follows a convict who must buy his freedom by piloting a rusty submarine through an ocean of human blood on a distant planet. Ostensibly, he’s looking for relics that may prove vital for scientific research, but what he finds is much more ghastly. So far, so strange.

The film was also written, directed and financed by one person – the YouTube gaming superstar Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach – who also stars. But that’s not the weird part, either. The weird part is that watching the film Iron Lung feels like watching Fischbach play Iron Lung the game. Maybe it’s the fact that he spends most of the movie sitting at the sub’s controls, trying to figure out how to use them correctly – like a gamer would. Maybe it’s that, as the film progresses, he has to solve a series of environmental puzzles linked by various codes, computer read-outs and little injections of narrative – just like in a video game. Long periods of the movie involve Fischbach trying to decide what to do next, the camera close up on his confused face. This is incredibly similar to watching his YouTube videos about playing Iron Lung, an experience he often found bewildering. It was the most metatextual experience I’ve had in the cinema since The Truman Show – but I’m not sure this is what Fischbach intended.

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© Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

© Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

© Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

Whether it’s Zendaya in tennis-inspired shoes, Cynthia Erivo dressed in green, Margot Robbie as Barbie or Jenna Ortega in shredded black leather, today’s movie stars rarely disappoint on the promo circuit

‘Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method?” Kristen Stewart said last year, the implication being that method acting is the exclusive preserve of a particular type of man, unburdened by caring responsibilities or needing to be agreeable. But what is available to all actors (without getting their teeth pulled, taking magic mushrooms or demanding to be spoon-fed on set) is method dressing: that is, promoting a film in an outfit inspired by their character.

Everyone seems to be doing it, particularly in the past few months as Wicked: For Good and now Wuthering Heights have hit the red carpet. Why? It’s a low-stakes way to offer an extra endorsement for the film the actor is promoting (they liked it so much they’re willing to stay in character) and to drum up column inches and excitable TikTok commentary. It can also be a knowing wink – a gift, even – to fans. Some actors (or their stylists) include subtler sartorial semiotics and Easter egg accessories in their outfits that only the hardcore fandom and fashion nerds can appreciate. Either way, there’s a lot of it about. But who are the Daniel Day-Lewises and Robert De Niros of promo tour dressing?

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© Composite: Guardian Design; Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design; Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design; Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

50 years and 29 days ago, The Movie 'Nashville' had its 50th. anniversary. .
"when you pay more for an automobile then it cost Columbus to make his first voyage to america, that's politics."
Henry Gibson as Haven Hamilton. (slyt)

This is our way to fight back against the forces of evil—the forces that are pushing back against LGBT equality, all of these horrible anti-trans laws, the banning of trans kids from sports and all of that stuff. For us as artists and writers, this is our only weapon. from "Wow, This Is So Gay": An Oral History of But I'm a Cheerleader [Vanity Fair; ungated]