TOXIC TOWN (Netflix) In normal times, 'Toxic Town' would have caused the kind of stir in Britain that ITV's 'Mr Bates versus The Post Office' achieved last year. A tale of citizens rising up and fighting shocking malpractice in their Northamptonshire town, Jack Thorne's four part drama on Netflix is the kind of miniseries about real life trauma that British television does so well. However just as it started to make some noise, 'Toxic Town' was drowned out by the chatter around another Jack Thorne scripted drama 'Adolescence'. While the attention that miniseries has got is und ..read more

ADOLESCENCE (Netflix) It takes a certain kind of alchemy to deliver a great TV drama or film. And it's not that hard to figure out what it is. The right actors get the right script about the right story from the right screenwriter with the right director who brings it to life with the right amount of money and the right crew. It's that simple but finding that alchemy is not so simple. Nevertheless that's what happens on Netflix's four part English miniseries 'Adolescence' - a show that is so human and so perfect, it will simply make your heart crack and then shatter into a million tiny ..read more

  SMALL TOWN, BIG STORY (Sky Atlantic) On paper, it looks great. Take a star from 'Mad Men,' another from 'The Wire' and put them in an Irish sitcom created by a star of 'The IT Crowd'. Add into the mix one of Britain's best screen actors and a squadron of Ireland's best supporting actors and you have a definite comedy hit, right? Er, no because sometimes eswhat looks good on paper can end up being disappointing onscreen if the gags are just not up to scratch. That's certainly the case with Chris O'Dowd 'Small Town, Big Story,' with Christina Hendricks and Paddy Considine in the main role ..read more

  HACKS, Season 3 (Sky & NowTV) It's been a long wait - nine months to be precise since it aired in the US. However Season 3 of the Emmy and Golden Globe winning comedy drama 'Hacks' has finally made it to the UK and Ireland. This time it has new homes on Sky Go, Sky Max, NowTV and TG4 after failing to appear on Amazon Prime, the streaming service that housed it previously. Has it been worth the wait?  You betcha. (SPOILER ALERT!!) Season 2 ended with Jean Smart's legendary Las Vegas comic Deborah Vance riding the crest of a wave following the success of her comedy ..read more

In the end, 2025's Oscars belonged to independent cinema and Sean Baker. A cult director with a taste for telling  stories about people on the margins of US society, his Palme d'Or winning film 'Anora' walked away with five Oscars out of the six it was nominated for. Amazingly, a $6 million indie comedy drama about a Brooklyn lapdancer incurring the wrath of Russian oligarchs took Best Picture, beating the more conventional Vatican thriller 'Conclave' and the epic immigrant tale 'The Brutalist'. Baker made Oscar history by personally taking home four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Bes ..read more

2025's awards season will be remembered for being an unusually tight awards season. Unlike the previous two years' races which saw 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once' and 'Oppenheimer' dominate, there have been no runaway favourites with the exception of possibly the supporting actor and actress categories. As a result, predicting winners in this year's Oscar categories feels like an even more perilous parlour game. Nevertheless it os a parlour game, so let's not take it too seriously. Awards season has always been fluffy nonsense and rarely do the Oscars get every decisio ..read more

ANORA (Sean Baker) As we soak up the hype around this year's crop of Oscar nominees this weekend, one question hangs in the air. Could a $6 million comedy drama about a lap dancer facing the wrath of Russian oligarchs really be the slight favourite for Best Picture? Apparently so - although no-one can state with any conviction that 'Anora' or any of its big rivals will emerge triumphant at Sunday night's Academy Awards. On paper, Sean Baker's movie is an unlikely contender for Hollywood's most coveted prize, given that it's a low budget, indie comedy drama with a relatively unknown cast abou ..read more

  A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (James Mangold) When you look back on the career so far of director James Mangold, you kind of know what to expect from him. Over the course of 13 features from 'Heavy' and 'Copland' to 'Walk The Line,' 'Logan' and 'Ford Vs Ferrari/Le Mans 66,' he has delivered in the main robust, well written, well acted Hollywood films. There's been the odd blot on the copybook - 'Knight and Day' and 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'. However for the most part, he has been a pretty solid, reliable director. This year he has received his first Academy Award nomination as a di ..read more

AMANDALAND, S1 A great spin-off on TV is a rare jewel. The original 'Frasier' is probably the best example of a spin-off that really works - so much so that the 21st Century 'Frasier' reboot seems insipid by comparison. 'Better Call Saul' and 'Lou Grant' are also examples of spin-offs that succeeded on their own terms. Nevertheless the world of television is littered with offshoot shows that failed spectacularly like 'Joanie Loves Chachi' from 'Happy Days,' 'Joey' from 'Friends,' 'Beverly Hills Buntz' from 'Hill Street Blues' and 'Rock and Chips' from 'Only Fools and Horses'. For three ..read more

  NOSFERATU (Robert Eggers) It began life as FW Murnau's 1922 German Expressionist silent cinema classic - an unauthorised version of Bram Stoker's vampire tale 'Dracula'. It has since inspired a 1977 Spanish dubbed version of Murnau's film, a Werner Herzog remake two years later and a Kickstarter funded 2023 version which took nine years to reach the screen. Now we have a chilly remake from Robert Eggers of 'The Witch,' 'The Lighthouse' and 'The Northman' fame  and it has been burning up the box office since New Year's Day. Set in 19th Century Germany and staring Lily Rose Depp, Ni ..read more