The Culture Guide: Our experts recommend music, films, books and more for 2025
The Culture Guide: Your entertainment guide to 2025
From Willy Wonka to Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet has all the bases covered. James Mangold’s film charts the rise of the chameleonic troubadour as he rises through the folk music clubs of 1960s New York to reinvent popular music. Edward Norton and Elle Fanning co-star.
A behind-the-scenes dramatisation of the tragic events of the 1972 Munich Olympics, when a team of ABC sports journalists finds itself covering the terrorist attack on the Israeli team in a monumental live newscast. Tim Fehlbaum directs, with Peter Sarsgaard helming the chaotic broadcast.
Dreading the saccharine Valentine’s Day celebrations? Renée Zellweger’s Bridget Jones is here to save the day. Can Bridget — now a widow and a single mum — find true love with a younger man while Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) is still lurking in the wings? Emma Thompson and Colin Firth co-star.
Steven Soderbergh directs a spy thriller that blends the personal and the political, as a couple finds itself plunged into the murky world of international intelligence gathering. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett head an impressive cast that includes Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Pierce Brosnan.
The latest live-action adaptation of a classic fairytale from Disney stars Gal Gadot as the ruthless queen who seeks to eliminate the young and beautiful Snow White (Rachel Zegler). Expect new songs and a fresh take on the seven dwarfs. Marc Webb directs from a script written by Greta Gerwig and Erin Cressida Wilson.
Written by Goodfellas and Casino scribe Nicholas Pileggi, Barry Levinson’s film revolves around the brutal rivalry between real-life organised crime bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, both of whom are played by Robert De Niro. Cosmo Jarvis and Debra Messing co-star.
Sci-fi black comedy starring Robert Pattinson as Mickey, an ‘expendable’ astronaut who is not expected to survive his mission to a dangerous planet, but who causes all manner of problems for his successor when he seemingly achieves the impossible. Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, and Steven Yeun co-star.
A crazy gang of Marvel superhero misfits gather around Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) attempting to bring order to the chaos. Jake Schrier directs, with Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, and Olga Kurylenko all reprising their roles from previous MCU outings.
Hosted by the late former Cincinnati mayor and local news anchor Jerry Springer, the daytime talk show ran for 27 seasons, and was pretty much a televised circus tent where every act was an over-the-top melodrama featuring love triangles, secret siblings, and the occasional flying chair. Packed with extraordinary first-hand testimony and revelations from show insiders, this two-part series explores how the daytime talk show became one of the biggest and most outrageous TV hits of the 90s.
The high-energy sketch comedy is back for a second season. Starring Séan Burke, Emma Doran, Michael Fry, Justine Stafford, and Killian Sundermann with TV spoofs such as Winning Shriek, Grannys’ Den, Last Dates, Bros of Tralee, while Marian Keyes answers the question “Who [The Fuck] Do You Think You Are?”
It’s been over three years since the Adam Scott-fronted show first hit the streaming service, so fans have more than done their time waiting to see what happens to the gang at Lumon. The first episode will drop on January 17, with one episode a week until March 21.
Second season of the action-thriller centred on a low-level FBI agent who works in the White House basement manning a phone that never rings... until the night that it does. He’s swept into a fast-moving and dangerous conspiracy that ultimately leads all the way to the Oval Office.
Dublin-based multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer Aaron Corcoran channels the New York No wave scene in the late 70s/early 80s for his debut record. A spiky 10 tracks long, he received vocal training by Gilla Band’s Dara Kiely, an inspiration which shines through.
Donegal-based English songwriter Anna B Savage releases her third album in January, produced by John ‘Spud’ Murphy — the ‘fifth’ member of Lankum. She says it’s as much about healing as it is an unbowed sense of curiosity, and, more simply, “a love letter to a man and to Ireland”.
For the first time, Van Etten has written and recorded in total collaboration with her band, hence the addendum and claim this is a debut album. Sounds like classic SVE to us but maybe reaching for ever-greater heights?
The Springsteen-indebted Newcastle singer eyes world domination in 2025. He has four dates at St James’ Park lined up in June, plus a London Stadium gig, so expect his third studio record to go nuclear.
This gripping police thriller captures the harrowing events of one night in a Cork housing estate in 1994 when novice Garda Julia Harte vows to catch a serial killer. Thirty years later, she is retired when she receives a phone call from her old Superintendent — two women have been murdered, their bodies marked and staged, just like in ’94.
Violet Sorrengail journeys to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves — her dragons, her family, her home, and Xaden. But a storm is coming... and not everyone can survive its wrath.
On a spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay drives away with her two young daughters, escaping an unsafe home. But she must raise her children in a hotel room while searching for a new home and dealing with her husband’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.
A passionate love affair is tested to its limits in Eily and Stephen’s two-year romance in London as ties from the past are intruding.
The Cork author returns with a new thriller about a man who may have committed murder and the ghostwriter charged with helping him protest his innocence. Emily has never ghostwritten anything before, but she knows what it’s like to live with a guilty secret — but there are some stories that should never be told.
Imagine being lost at sea with your one night stand. That’s what happens when two strangers find themselves stranded together in this epic new love story when the houseboat they stayed on has been swept out to sea. Zeke and Lexi soon realise there’s much more on the line than their new relationship.
