Megalopolis: the $120m Coppola flop that just won’t go away

A screening tour, a New Year’s re-release, a documentary, an incoming director’s cut … will we ever be rid of this historic misfire?

At first, it appeared to end with a whimper. After decades of talk, Francis Ford Coppola’s forever-gestating dream project Megalopolis debuted in movie theaters in fall 2024, and promptly flopped at the box office, grossing a paltry $14m worldwide against a budget around $120m, much of which was put up by Coppola himself. Not even a series of splashy Imax presentations, including some with a live-actor element, could entice more than a relative handful of curious cinephiles out of the house to witness Coppola realize his ambition of making a movie about a visionary, time-stopping architect (Adam Driver) and the decadent city only he can save with his brilliant blueprints.

Some of the movie nerds showed up to watch Driver speechify, to immerse themselves in digital evocations of a futuristic, Rome-New York City hybrid, and enjoy the eclecticism of a cast that also includes Laurence Fishburne, several members of Coppola’s family, SNL’s Chloe Fineman, a number of semi-canceled actors encouraged to ham with impunity, and Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum. A bunch of the movie’s original viewers had some fun making jokes on social media; a few mounted genuine defenses in the digital pages of Letterboxd and the like. But unsurprisingly, the movie did not figure into year-end awards consideration. After months-to-years of buildup, the movie left theaters within a few weeks, and was available to stream at home a little while later. For most movies, that’s a recipe for disappointed shrugs.

Published: December 30, 2025, 11:54 am

Why is the Democratic party hiding its 2024 autopsy report? | Norman Soloman

If the DNC isn’t open and transparent about why they lost, then how can we be sure they will learn their lesson this time?

The Democratic National Committee’s decision to block the release of its own autopsy report on the 2024 election is stunning but not surprising. Averse to unpleasant candor, the Democrats’ governing body functions more like a PR firm than a political organization devoted to grassroots capacities for winning elections. The party’s leaders pose as immune from critique, even if they have led the party to disaster.

Unwilling to depart from the party establishment’s culture of conformity, the DNC has remained under the Biden-Harris shadow throughout 2025. Release of an official autopsy might have shown that party leaders actually want to encourage public discourse about the missteps that enabled Donald Trump to become president again. But the DNC is proceeding as if there’s nothing to be learned from the tragic debacle of 2024 that its leaders don’t already know – and they don’t need to share their purported wisdom with anyone else.

Voter disenchantment: Losing 6.8 million voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 proved pivotal in the close 2024 election. Harris’s inability to mobilize those pro-Biden voters was a massive failure.

Biden’s betrayal: Biden’s stubborn decision to seek re-election, and his refusal to step aside until very late in the process, robbed Democratic voters of open primaries and undermined Democrats’ chances.

Abandoning the working-class base: With millions of Americans feeling desperate because of rising costs, the Harris campaign lost this Democratic base by bowing to corporate donors’ interests and failing to challenge the impact of corporate greed in escalating inflation.

The Gaza effect: Harris lost many voters – especially young people, Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans, with sizable consequences in Michigan and other swing states – due to her refusal to indicate any openness to shifting her policy position on Israel and Palestine.

Losing young voters: Extensive evidence shows a huge drop-off in Democratic support among young voters aged 18-29.

Norman Solomon is the director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book is The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy

Published: December 30, 2025, 11:00 am

That floating poo was far too symbolic! It’s the TV letdowns of the year

From Carrie Bradshaw cleaning up mess in And Just Like That to Kim Kardashian’s zero-star clanger and Bonnie Blue’s sexcapades, here are the biggest duds of 2025

Where to begin with the love/hate Sex and the City spin-off? The show was plagued with woeful writing, cringe-inducing character development (justice for Miranda!) and just 71 seconds of fan-favourite Samantha. But for a moment there, as the third series started, it looked like And Just Like That had finally hit its stride. Then came an episode all about Seema’s natural deodorant. No wonder creator Michael Patrick King announced that this would be the final series. It ended on a bum note; the closeup of Miranda’s toilet flooded with poo was just way too symbolic. Still, there’s no denying that fans have had a hoot dissecting every single “wtf?” episode. And as Carrie – a single woman once more – danced around her palatial townhouse to Barry White’s You’re The First, The Last, My Everything, who didn’t let out a little sob?

Published: December 30, 2025, 10:00 am

As we prepare for 2026, remember we have the power to make our future | Rebecca Solnit

We enter 2026 with radical uncertainty about the fate of the US – but also with the clarity that people have the power to determine what it will be

When we talk about opposition in politics, sometimes it’s just a policy disagreement – but in the current political crisis in the US, the opposition has become the opposite of the Trump administration in meaningful ways. It had to because this is not only a policy conflict.

Between the administration and the opposition are actual opposites of principle: among those committed to inclusion and those to exclusion; truth and lies; kindness and cruelty; the protection and destruction of systems that in turn protect the climate or public health.

Published: December 30, 2025, 11:00 am

Threesomes, rough towels and ‘lesbian bed death’: 23 of the best Sexual Healing columns

The Guardian’s sex advice column is coming to an end after 20 years. Here are some of the most memorable questions and answers
• Pamela Stephenson Connolly on two decades of solving readers’ sex problems

My wonderful new wife is everything I have always looked for in a woman. The issue is that she is openly and proudly bisexual. When we first became involved, she even joked that she didn’t want me getting mad when it was time for her to visit her friend on girls’ trips. A threesome with a bisexual woman has always been my fantasy. She even gave me permission to go online and find a “unicorn” for us. But when I set up a meeting, she didn’t seem to want to follow through with it, so I stopped looking. Recently, on holiday, she made a sexual comment about a girl in a bikini, so I again brought up the idea of a threesome. But she said she might have grown out of that phase of her life and just wants to be with me. She also said that adding another person would ruin the marriage, and I worry that things might change between us if we get together with another girl. I am at a loss as to what to do. If she is truly bisexual, I am worried that if those desires are not met, she may pursue them without me. My only rule is that if she is with a girl, I am also present. Most guys would love my situation – am I making this harder than it is?

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

Ukraine war live: Russia says it has moved its nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles into Belarus

Move could feasibly allow Russian missiles to reach European targets faster from Belarus, its neighbouring ally that also shares a border with Nato countries Poland, Lithuania and Latvia

Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has echoed Donald Tusk’s optimistic tone regarding talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

He posted to X to confirm there had been “another round of consultations” with “European and Canadian partners”. It is not clear who was in the meeting.

Peace is on the horizon, there is no doubt that things have happened that give grounds for hope that this war can end, and quite quickly, but it is still a hope, far from 100% certain.

Published: December 30, 2025, 3:51 pm

‘He will not be accepted, dead or alive’: the fate of Palestinians suspected of helping Israel

Khalil Dawas was thought to have been recruited from Israeli jail but large parts of his story remain shrouded in mystery

On Tuesday 14 October, Hamas handed over four bodies to Israel as part of an exchange of the dead under the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire.

Israeli forensic experts soon confirmed the identities of three of the bodies, but they said that one did not belong to them. Hamas insisted that the fourth man was an Israeli soldier.

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:00 pm

Israeli president’s office denies Trump’s claim Netanyahu pardon is ‘on its way’

Isaac Herzog’s spokesperson says he has not spoken to Trump since US president wrote to urge him to stop trial

The office of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has denied a claim by Donald Trump that Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges, would soon receive a pardon.

Speaking shortly before his meeting in Florida with the Israeli prime minister on Monday night, Trump said he had been told by Herzog that a pardon was “on its way”.

Published: December 30, 2025, 3:21 pm

Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen over weapons shipment it claims UAE sent to separatists

Attack signals escalation in tensions between the kingdom and UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council

Saudi Arabia has bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla, targeting what it said was a weapons shipment from the United Arab Emirates meant for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a Yemeni separatist force.

The UAE said it was “surprised” by the Saudi strike, and that the shipment did not contain any weapons and was meant for UAE forces, rather than any Yemeni groups. It called for de-escalation and said the developments in Yemen should be handled “with responsibility”.

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:17 pm

US judge halts ending of temporary protected status for South Sudanese migrants

Emergency request by several of the country’s nationals and an immigrants rights group was granted by the court

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked plans by the Trump administration to end temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to hundreds of South Sudanese nationals living in the United States.

US district judge Angel Kelley in Boston granted an emergency request by several South Sudanese nationals and an immigrant rights group to prevent the temporary protected status they had been granted from expiring as planned after 5 January.

Kelley, who was appointed by the Democratic former president Joe Biden, issued the order after four migrants from South Sudan along with African Communities Together, a non-profit group, sued. The lawsuit alleged that action by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was unlawful and exposed them to being deported to a country facing a series of humanitarian crises.

Published: December 30, 2025, 3:32 pm

Trump should defy Netanyahu over nuclear talks with Iran, says its foreign minister

Seyed Araghchi claims US president’s Arab allies now view Israel’s recklessness as ‘a threat to us all’

• You’ll never defeat us in Iran, President Trump: but with real talks, we can both win | Seyed Abbas Araghchi

Donald Trump should defy Benjamin Netanyahu and realise renewed talks with Iran over its nuclear programme are a better bet and more likely to succeed owing to stronger support in the region for a successful outcome, the Iranian foreign minister, Seyed Araghchi, says in a Guardian article. He also suggests Trump’s Republican base want a deal and not further unnecessary wars.

Araghchi was writing a day after Netanyahu held talks with Trump in the US in which Israel’s calls to consider fresh attacks on Iran were discussed alongside the Gaza peace plan.

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

Iceland has hottest Christmas Eve ever with temperature of 19.8C recorded

Meteorological office reports high temperatures across country and record measured at Seyðisfjörður in east

Record temperatures of almost 20C were reached in Iceland on Christmas Eve, the local meteorological office has confirmed.

Seyðisfjörður, a small town in the east of Iceland, hit 19.8C on 24 December. Average December temperatures in Iceland are between -1C and 4C.

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:13 pm

More musicians drop out of Kennedy Center shows after Trump name change

The Cookers on Monday pulled out of a New Year’s Eve jazz gig at the controversially renamed ‘Trump-Kennedy’ center

A second jazz band has pulled out of performing at the controversially renamed “Trump-Kennedy” center in Washington DC, giving just two days notice before their New Year’s Eve gig was set to take place.

The Cookers, described as a Grammy-nominated, all-star septet of legendary post-bop jazz musicians, have not given an explicit reason for their decision but in a statement posted on their website said: “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice.”

Published: December 30, 2025, 3:57 pm

Cecilia Giménez, famed for ‘Monkey Christ’ mural mishap, dies at 94

Spanish woman’s attempted restoration of church artwork was widely mocked but became lucrative tourist attraction

Cecilia Giménez, the woman who achieved unwanted international fame for her botched “Monkey Christ” restoration of a 19th-century mural in Borja, north-east Spain, has died aged 94.

In 2012, Giménez, an amateur artist, decided to restore Ecce Homo, a mural by a local artist, Elías García Martínez, that hung in the Santuario de Misericordia church in Borja. However, her talent as an artist was not equal to her good intentions and she produced what was described as the worst restoration in history.

Published: December 30, 2025, 3:22 pm

Trump shows customary disdain for protocol as poker-faced Netanyahu watches on

President’s impromptu news conference in company of Benjamin Netanyahu touched on Gaza, the possibility of further strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s tensions with Syria

Hosting Benjamin Netanyahu for the fifth time since returning to the White House 11 months ago, Donald Trump gave a performance on Monday that provided a microcosm of his now customary disdain for foreign policy protocol.

In an impromptu 15 minute news conference on the steps of Mar-a-Lago, Trump first offered an offhand, and vaguely dismissive, acknowledgement of the unusual frequency of the Israeli prime minister’s visits by asking journalists: “Do you recognize this guy?”

Published: December 30, 2025, 9:00 am

We still don’t really know what Elon Musk’s Doge actually did

Calculating the actual savings and impact of the bulldozing US department that vowed to cut $1tn in waste is difficult

• Elon Musk, AI and the antichrist: the biggest tech stories of 2025

When Elon Musk vowed late last year to lead a “department of government efficiency” (Doge), he claimed it would operate with “maximum transparency” as it set about saving $2tn worth of waste and exposing massive fraud.

Today, with Musk out of the White House, Doge having cut only a tiny fraction of the waste it promised, and dozens of lawsuits alleging violations of privacy and transparency laws, much of what the agency has done remains a mystery.

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:00 pm

Trump ‘not worried’ as China’s live-fire Taiwan wargame enters second day

US president says Chinese leader did not notify him of drills that have involved live missile launches into Taiwan strait

• Taiwan-China tensions – explained in 30 seconds

Donald Trump has said he is not worried by China’s live-fire military drills surrounding Taiwan and that he has a great relationship with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who “hasn’t told me anything about it”.

The US president’s comments came amid a large two-day surprise attack simulation launched by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday and Tuesday, which China has called “Justice Mission 2025”.

Published: December 30, 2025, 10:56 am

Pardons and prizes: five key takeaways from Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu

US president hosted Israeli prime minister to discuss stalled Gaza peace plan, Iran and an award for Trump

• Trump news at a glance: president greets Netanyahu, warns Hamas, threatens to sue Jerome Powell

Donald Trump hosted Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for lunch at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. In remarks to reporters before, during and after their meeting, the two leaders said that they were in broad agreement on most issues, from next steps in Gaza and the possibility of bombing Iran again, to how very deserving Trump is of getting another award.

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:09 am

Despair for would-be US citizens as American dream blocked by Trump

Aspirant Americans tell of exclusions from ceremonies by sudden policy introduced on ‘security’ grounds

The occasion should have been marked by the joy of reaching the destination of US citizenship following the long odyssey of immigration.

Instead, the ceremony at Boston’s Faneuil Hall – renowned as a “cradle of liberty” for its role as a protest hub in the run-up to the American revolution – felt like a nightmarish end of the road for some aspirant new Americans who had turned up full of hope.

Published: December 30, 2025, 12:00 pm

Shawn Harris was ready to defeat Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now he awaits Republicans’ next move

After the far-right US representative’s resignation, Harris wonders who his opponent for Georgia’s 14th district will be

Retired brigadier general Shawn Harris had been all geared up for a campaign to defeat Marjorie Taylor Greene next November, and then the far-right representative quit the field. Now he’s wondering what Republicans will throw at him.

In November, Greene announced she would resign from Congress rather than face a challenger backed by the president after she began disagreeing with Donald Trump’s policies on Iran, healthcare and the release of the Epstein files, opening the field for a successor.

Published: December 30, 2025, 12:00 pm

‘Be fearful when others are greedy’: Warren Buffett’s sharpest lessons in investing

As the billionaire retires, he leaves memorable advice from his annual letters that include pithy takes on bubbles, discipline and long-term goals

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who is retiring at the end of 2025, has entertained and educated shareholders in his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate for many years with his pithy annual letters outlining the firm’s performance.

Every year since 1965 he has updated his investors on the journey as Berkshire morphed from a “struggling northern textile business” with $25m of shareholder equity when he took over, to an empire worth more than $1tn.

Though the price I paid for Berkshire looked cheap, its business – a large northern textile operation – was headed for extinction.

My error caused Berkshire shareholders to give far more than they received (a practice that – despite the biblical endorsement – is far from blessed when you are buying businesses).

Woody Allen once explained why eclecticism works: ‘The real advantage of being bisexual is that it doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.’

When such a CEO is encouraged by his advisers to make deals, he responds much as would a teenage boy who is encouraged by his father to have a normal sex life. It’s not a push he needs.

Andrew destroyed a few small insurers. Beyond that, it awakened some larger companies to the fact that their reinsurance protection against catastrophes was far from adequate. (It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.)

In our view, however, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.

Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: it’s not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.

From this irritating reality comes the first law of corporate survival for ambitious CEOs who pile on leverage and run large and unfathomable derivatives books: modest incompetence simply won’t do; it’s mind-boggling screw-ups that are required.

When downpours of that sort occur, it’s imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons. And that we will do.

Naturally, I was delighted to attend Mrs B’s birthday party. After all, she’s promised to attend my 100th.

She sold me our interest when she was 89 and worked until she was 103. (After retiring, she died the next year, a sequence I point out to any other Berkshire manager who even thinks of retiring.)

The candidates are young to middle-aged, well-to-do to rich, and all wish to work for Berkshire for reasons that go beyond compensation.

(I’ve reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death – abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term ‘thinking outside the box’.)

Published: December 30, 2025, 6:00 am

‘I never imagined we could buy an island’: how a community saved Mexico’s Galápagos

When developers began circling Espíritu Santo island in the 1990s, a private conservation effort saw them off. But today the Unesco site faces a new threat: mass tourism

On a clear day over the Sea of Cortez, Espíritu Santo looks untouchable. Turquoise water laps at the shores of the island’s rocky coves; whale sharks cruise past snorkellers; seabirds caw over ancient cliffs. The pristine island and its Unesco-protected surroundings – informally called “Mexico’s Galápagos” – are a cocoon of biodiversity.

Yet an increase in tourist numbers has led to growing unease among the island’s longstanding stewards, as environmentalists report a decline in the area’s marine life and call for stricter regulations.

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

The perfect lunch break: how to get away from your desk – and seize the day

There might not be time for a full exercise class, but what about a short, brisk walk? Here is how to introduce the small, helpful habits that suit you

• Sign up here to get the whole series straight to your inbox

My quest for the ideal lunch break is definitely a triumph of hope over experience. From inventing endless super-soups that might banish the mid-afternoon snack attack, to wildly optimistic lunchtime to-do lists, I have tried and failed countless times. The executive coach Zoe Thomson is not surprised. “One of the biggest things for people is they overestimate how much time and energy they are going to have in their lunch hour,” says Thomson, who previously had a 20-year career with the Avon and Somerset police. “And they underestimate how much time and energy they might need to achieve it.”

I tell her that this has been the flaw with most of my doomed lunchtime masterplans. “The problem is, unpredictable things happen. Say you plan to do a 45-minute spin class in a 60-minute lunch break, but your last call overruns by 10 minutes. Your plan is no longer feasible. If you decided instead to do a 10-minute walk around the block every day, and then have a nice cup of tea after your sandwich, you’re winning. Even if something urgent comes up, the 10-minute walk is still possible. And on a really good day you could walk four times around the block.”

Published: December 30, 2025, 4:00 pm

The year of the self-mocking man sketch: ‘Dumb masculinity is very funny’

It’s a ridiculous time to be male – and that’s good news for a new genre of social media comedy poking fun at the shifting notions of masculinity

“I’m gonna miss toxic masculinity,” says the comedian Kiry Shabazz. “I feel like it’s going to be in a museum someday.”

In the ensuing standup routine, Shabazz describes a fight with a friend who, like him, is “doing the work” to be a better person. He called the friend several unprintable names while acknowledging: “I’m only calling you that because culturally that’s how I know how to express myself.” The friend’s reply to the torrent of insults: “I hear you and I receive that.” The whole thing, Shabazz says, made him “miss the good old days, when men handled beef like men”.

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:00 pm

The 10 most anticipated video games of 2026

As 007 makes his gaming return, you can climb a mountain in Cairn, play a scaredy-cat in Resident Evil, and play a criminal couple in GTA VI

Live your mountaineering fantasies and brave the elements in a wonderfully illustrated climbing game. You must carefully place climber Aava’s hands and feet to make your way up a forbidding mountain, camping on ledges and bandaging her fingers as you go. Like real climbing, it is challenging and somewhat brutal.
• PC, PlayStation 5; 29 January

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

‘Move fast, break stuff’: how tech bros became Hollywood’s go-to baddie in 2025

From Stanley Tucci’s imperious tech titan to Lex Luthor’s distractingly hot CEO and Elon Musk-esque blowhards, films this year took us inside the billionaire mindset

Between the slash-and-burn US government reboot led by a dank meme fan and the relentless pushing of AI by venture capital-backed blowhards, 2025 has felt like peak obnoxious tech bro. Fittingly, jargon-spouting, self-regarding digital visionaries also became Hollywood’s go-to baddies this year in everything from blockbusters to slapstick spoofs. Spare a thought for the overworked props departments tasked with mocking up fake Forbes magazine covers heralding yet another smirking white guy as “Master of the Metaverse” or whatever.

With such market saturation, the risk is that all these delusional dudes blend into one smarmy morass. It felt reasonable to expect that Stanley Tucci might sprinkle a little prosciutto on The Electric State, Netflix’s no-expense-spared alt-history robot fantasia. As Ethan Skate – creator of the “neurocaster” technology that quashed an AI uprising then turned the general populace into listless virtual-reality addicts – Tucci certainly looked the part: bald and imperious in retro Bond villain wardrobe. But even the great cocktail-maker couldn’t squeeze much out of sour existential proclamations such as: “Our world is a tyre fire floating on an ocean of piss.”

Published: December 30, 2025, 9:07 am

‘I don’t like winning’: Toronto man outruns streetcars to show up sluggish transit network

Mac Bauer’s racing activism has made ‘signal priority’ and traffic congestion a big talking point for the Canadian city

When Toronto’s streetcars hit a rare open stretch of road, the metallic grind gives way to an airy electric hum, and for a fleeting moment, there is a feeling that one is hurtling along the knife’s edge of the future.

Seconds later, the illusion shatters: the car grinds to a halt, at a stop – or more often, in traffic. As the city slips past the stalled riders, some notice a runner zipping by.

Published: December 30, 2025, 11:00 am

2025 was the year we grew tired of celebrity for celebrity’s sake | Nadia Khomami

Being blasted into space or taking over Venice no longer cuts it. The rich and famous are being punished for their conspicuous vacuity

When Katy Perry and five other women were launched into space in Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket, no doubt they expected to be celebrated as trailblazers. Cast your mind back to April, and the event was getting wall-to-wall news coverage. The crew, also including Bezos’s then-fiancee Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King, were in space for about 11 minutes, during which Perry sang a rendition of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World and revealed the setlist for her Lifetimes tour. On their return, the pop star kissed the ground and showed a daisy to the camera – a tribute to her daughter, Daisy.

Well, talk about crashing back down to earth. Instead of being hailed as a giant leap for 21st-century feminism, the voyage turned into a colossal PR failure. It was ridiculed for being tone-deaf, an out-of-touch luxury ride for the super-rich during a time of economic hardship. There were so many mocking memes and hot takes that Perry later admitted feeling “battered and bruised” at being turned into a “human piñata”. “I take it with grace and send them love,” she said, “cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for the unhinged and unhealed.”

Nadia Khomami is the arts and culture correspondent at the Guardian

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: December 30, 2025, 10:00 am

The Louvre is the pride of France – and it’s on the verge of collapse. Can we rescue it in time? | Agnès Poirier

From a jewel heist to crumbling galleries, it’s been a dire year for the world’s most visited museum. At least France has woken up to its predicament

Long before Versailles dazzled the world, the Louvre rose from the banks of the Seine as a royal residence. Charles V kept his celebrated library here; Henri IV installed his cabinets of paintings, objets d’art and arms, and created within its walls a veritable city of artists, where cabinetmakers, tapestry-makers, painters and armourers lived and worked. Under Louis XIII, coins, medals and the Louvre’s printing press were added; under Louis XIV came casts, antiquities and the academies of architecture, the arts and the sciences.

The Enlightenment demanded that the masterpieces of the art world be made public; the revolution answered. On 8 November 1793, ordinary citizens were admitted to the Louvre’s Salon Carré and Grande Galerie for the first time, transforming a royal palace into a national art museum. Continually evolving through redesign, reconstruction and reinvention, it has survived revolutions, arson and Nazi occupation. Within its labyrinthine galleries, audacious thefts have unfolded in broad daylight, while secret acts of bravery left barely a trace in history. The Louvre is a place of enduring mystery and fantasy, belonging to both France’s collective memory and the world’s imagination. This year, however, a succession of thefts, leaks and infrastructure failures has forced the French to look again at what the Louvre has become – and what it risks losing.

Agnès Poirier is a political commentator, writer and critic for the British, American and European press

Published: December 30, 2025, 5:00 am

You’ll never defeat us in Iran, President Trump: but with real talks, we can both win | Seyed Abbas Araghchi

The US president has been fooled into seeing Israel as a reliable ally and Tehran as the enemy. We say he should consider the evidence and rethink

• Seyed Abbas Araghchi is the Iranian foreign minister

• Report: Trump should defy Netanyahu over nuclear talks with Iran, says its foreign minister

While Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year achieved his dream of dragging the US into a military confrontation with Iran, it came at a steep and unprecedented cost for Israel. Seeing Netanyahu beg Donald Trump to be bailed out from a quagmire, a rising number of Americans openly acknowledge that Israel is not an ally but a liability. In September, the US’s Arab allies also reached the conclusion that we Iranians have always underscored: Israel’s recklessness is a threat to all.

This reality is paving the way for whole new relationships that may transform our region. The US administration now faces a dilemma: it can continue writing blank cheques for Israel with American taxpayer dollars and credibility, or be part of a tectonic change for the better. For decades, western policy towards our region has been mostly shaped by myths originating from Israel. The war in June was momentous for a number of reasons, including how it exposed the cost for the west of mistaking mythology for strategy. Israel and its proxies claim a “decisive victory”, with Iran left weakened and deterred. Yet our vast strategic depth – the country covers an area the size of western Europe, and has a population 10 times that of Israel’s – meant that most of our provinces were untouched by Israel’s aggression. In contrast, all Israelis experienced the might of our military. The narrative of invulnerability – central to Israel’s myth-making machine – has been shattered.

Seyed Abbas Araghchi is the Iranian foreign minister

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

The hill I will die on: Never decline an invitation on the day of the event. Ghosting is the humane option | Phineas Harper

Either say you can’t make it well in advance or keep stumm

As New Year’s Eve looms, I implore you to heed this party etiquette advice. There are only two correct times to decline a party invitation: well in advance or not at all. The last thing any stressed-out host wants to receive, in the moments before their big event begins, is a sudden flood of 11th-hour RSVPs from guests announcing that they’re not coming. And yet, as anyone who regularly organises large parties in Britain knows, that’s exactly what they tend to be sent. It needs to stop.

Having an invitation turned down in advance stings a little, but it is genuinely helpful. It provides a sense of potential turnout to help gauge catering and expectations. A decline on the day, however, is infuriatingly useless. Food and booze will already long since have been ordered, and it’s way too late to invite another friend to make up the numbers.

Phineas Harper is a writer and curator

Published: December 30, 2025, 6:00 am

Why haven’t Trump’s tariffs crashed the US economy? | Jeffrey Frankel

Effects on inflation and employment have not been as bad as feared – but could still materialise with full force in 2026

When Donald Trump took office last January, most economists feared what would happen if he raised tariffs. The expectation was that, as the new duties drove up prices of consumer goods and inputs – affecting households and companies, respectively – surging inflation and falling real incomes would follow. This would be a supply shock, so the US Federal Reserve could not do much to counteract it.

Trump did raise tariffs to shocking levels, violating international agreements and blowing up the Republican party’s oft-professed commitment to free trade. In terms of severity and disruptiveness, Trump’s 2025 tariffs went far beyond the already harmful tariffs of his first term, and even beyond the infamous Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. According to the Yale Budget Lab, the average effective tariff on US imports rose from 2% to 18%, the highest level since the 1930s, this year. Add to that the uncertainty caused by frequent and inexplicable policy changes, and large adverse effects on inflation, employment and real incomes appeared all but inevitable.

Published: December 29, 2025, 2:49 pm

Snap decisions: why crowding into a photo booth with friends is still a magical experience | Nova Weetman

Whenever I’m out late with friends and we pass a photo booth, I drag them in so I can add to the gallery of faces I love seeing each day

Last New Year’s Eve, I was out with a friend. We had no plans, so we met at a local cinema and then wandered the long street between our houses, pausing for a drink or two in various bars and chatting to strangers doing the same. We stopped when we became hungry and shared a plate of curries and drank beer in the window of an Indian restaurant, watching the parade of partygoers outside. Then we walked to the top of the hill to watch the fireworks lighting up the sky.

It was after midnight as we strolled back but we weren’t quite ready to call it a night, and we found ourselves in a games arcade where a bunch of women were cramming into a photo booth to take a strip of black-and-white photos together. Their enthusiasm was infectious and so we waited until they were finished and did the same. I now have the strip of photos stuck on my fridge, secured under a magnet for a local plumber. In them, we are both grinning wildly at the camera, our faces squashed close, the years of friendship evident in our expressions.

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

Falcons upend playoff-bound Rams as Bijan Robinson runs wild

• Robinson’s 93-yard run sets Falcons franchise mark

• Atlanta survives blown leads to upset playoff Rams

• Gonzalez’s late kick seals third straight Falcons win

Bijan Robinson rushed for 195 yards, including a 93-yard touchdown, Zane Gonzalez kicked a 51-yard field goal with 21 seconds remaining and the Atlanta Falcons recovered after blowing two 21-point leads to upset the playoff-bound Los Angeles Rams 27-24 on Monday night.

Robinson’s 93-yard touchdown run was the longest in Atlanta history and Jessie Bates III scored on a 34-yard interception return. Bolstered by those big plays, the Falcons led 21-0 at halftime and 24-3 early in the second half.

Published: December 30, 2025, 4:53 am

Online school and junior tennis: freedom, focus – and a quiet cost

Elite junior tennis players are flocking to online schools. The model offers flexibility and focus – but raises deeper questions about growth, pressure and childhood

In a major study released recently in Epidemiology, conclusions were drawn – yet again – regarding how shutdowns and online learning were ultimately very damaging to kids’ emotional and mental health (obviously some cohorts of kids were more affected than others with financial security a big part of the calculation). This is no major surprise as parents and students alike weren’t happy with the remote learning environment.

Yet despite this general consensus about online schooling not being as healthy as regular school, a new trend has exploded since Covid: the rapid growth of online schooling for tennis players and other athletes. Parents and their junior athletes feel that by being able to play several hours in the day instead of after school it will accelerate their progress in the sport while still leaving room for academics. And from my perspective, as a parent of a competitive tennis player who attends a “regular” school, it appears to be the rule, not the exception, that most advanced junior players are in online school and not in a physical building. I often find myself bonding with the few other parents whose kids remain in regular school as we’re a rapidly dwindling species.

Published: December 30, 2025, 9:00 am

Tiger Woods at 50: golf’s unreachable standard finally meets time

For decades, he existed beyond comparison. As he turns 50, even golf’s most dominant figure confronts the one opponent he could never overpower

Talk to any golfer who played against Tiger Woods and there is sure to be at least one story about one shot so sublime they were certain it could not be hit by them or anyone else.

He was just different. Better.

Published: December 30, 2025, 7:30 am

Aston Villa defy gravity again as winning run rolls on at Chelsea | Jonathan Wilson

Villa keep coming from behind, keep winning by the odd goal and keep confounding the numbers. At some point it must stop – but not yet

It can’t go on. It makes no sense that it goes on. And yet it goes on.

Aston Villa went into Saturday’s Premier Leage game at Chelsea having won 10 games in a row, looking to match a record set in 1897 and 1914. For an hour there seemed no chance they would achieve it, as Chelsea outplayed them, took the lead and could have had several more. But Chelsea are vulnerable with a lead, especially at home, and Villa have developed a baffling habit of winning away games having gone behind.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Published: December 29, 2025, 9:52 pm

Sharp shooters: the best sports photos of 2025 and the stories behind them

From long exposures of motor racing to remote-operated cameras at football matches, here’s how our favourite sports images were made

• Tom Jenkins’s best sport photographs of 2025

• How one of the best tennis photos was taken

We’ve received more than 500,000 sports photographs in the past year, with some absolute belters among them. Here are some of the fleeting moments, wild celebrations and creative compositions that caught our eyes – accompanied by explanations and technical info from the photographers themselves.

Chloe Kelly celebrates by Florencia Tan Jun (1/200th sec, f/2.8, ISO 2500)

Published: December 30, 2025, 6:00 am

Anthony Joshua’s camp confirm two of his close friends died in Nigeria car crash

• British former boxing champion sustained minor injuries

• Sina Ghami and Kevin ‘Lateef’ Ayodel killed in accident

The British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua has issued a statement after he was injured in a car crash in Nigeria on Monday morning which killed two of his close friends.

The former world heavyweight boxing champion was taken to an undisclosed hospital after his car hit a stationary vehicle at about 11am on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Ogun state police commissioner, Lanre Ogunlowo, said. The driver of Joshua’s vehicle was also injured, he added.

Published: December 30, 2025, 12:17 am

Goals of the year 2025: dazzling skills, acrobatics and sublime strikes

From jaw-dropping tricks to scorpion kicks, flicks, solo efforts and more – enjoy our pick of 2025’s best goals

The very definition of top bins: James Edmondson pops one right in the stanchion at Slough Town to help Macclesfield Town into the third round of the FA Cup.

Published: December 29, 2025, 8:00 pm

Body of triathlete apparently killed by shark found on California beach

Erica Fox’s remains were found after nearly weeklong search, marking a rare shark-related fatality for California

California firefighters have found the body of a California triathlete on a beach north-west of Santa Cruz, almost a week after she went missing amid speculation that she was killed by a shark.

The remains of Erica Fox were found on Saturday, her father and husband confirmed to local news outlets. Fox, 55, was part of a group of more than a dozen swimmers who left from Lovers Point near Monterey, California, on 21 December, but she never returned to shore. A witness driving by the area reported to authorities that they saw a shark with what appeared to be a human body in its mouth emerge from the water, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Published: December 29, 2025, 6:52 pm

‘I lost my head’: Luke Littler on darts crowd booing him at Alexandra Palace

• PDC hot favourite was jeered during quarter-final victory

• ‘It definitely fuelled me up and it made me play better’

Luke Littler admits he lost his head when reacting to the hostile crowd during his fourth-round PDC World Darts Championship win over Rob Cross and still has some learning to do.

The 18-year-old was booed and jeered as he beat Cross 4-2 to book his place in the quarter-finals at Alexandra Palace. Littler let the emotion out after throwing the winning darts, running around the stage gesturing to the crowd, who had wanted Cross to win.

Published: December 30, 2025, 11:55 am

Five charts that explain the global economic outlook for 2026

Inflation is predicted to cool but uncertainty over AI-driven growth and trade policy poses risks in the year ahead

The global economy proved to be more resilient in 2025 than had been feared, despite severe headwinds that ranged from Donald Trump’s trade war to geopolitical tensions and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Entering the new year, the hope is that the worst of the recent inflation shock has passed, as the world’s most powerful central banks lower interest rates. However, the pre-Covid age of rock-bottom borrowing costs is a distant memory, global growth is slowing and conditions remain fragile.

Published: December 30, 2025, 4:00 pm

Khaleda Zia, first female Bangladesh prime minister, dies aged 80

Zia’s archrivalry with Sheikh Hasina defined the country’s politics for a generation

Khaleda Zia, the first female prime minister of Bangladesh whose long rivalry with Sheikh Hasina defined the country’s politics for a generation, has died aged 80.

Zia was one of the most significant and divisive political figures in the country since Bangladesh independence 50 years ago. Her death was announced on Tuesday morning by the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP).

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:13 am

US struck ‘big facility’ in Venezuela, Trump claimed without offering details

Trump alleged that US forces hit ‘very hard’ in what would mark his team’s first land strike on Venezuela if confirmed

Donald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.

“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday.

Published: December 29, 2025, 5:30 pm

Trump says he’d ‘love to fire’ Jerome Powell in latest attack on Fed chair

Trump also repeated false claims about renovation costs for the Fed headquarters during a Monday press conference

Donald Trump launched another attack against Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Monday, calling the central banker a “fool” and once again suggesting he would like to fire him.

Trump launched his latest attack on Powell during a press conference with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, repeating false claims about the cost of a renovation of the central bank headquarters, and told reporters that he might file a lawsuit against Powell for “gross incompetence”.

Published: December 29, 2025, 10:45 pm

Channel tunnel train services suspended after power outage

Operator says some travel will resume on Tuesday afternoon but car passengers facing six-hour delays

• Business live – latest updates

A power outage caused the suspension of all passenger and vehicle trains in the Channel tunnel on Tuesday, disrupting thousands of journeys ahead of the new year celebrations.

Eurostar’s website showed nearly all of the day’s passenger services between London and Europe were cancelled, while LeShuttle trains, which carry private cars and freight vehicles, were due to restart by the afternoon – although drivers trapped in queues to exit the UK are facing six-hour delays.

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:47 pm

From ‘global cooling’ to ‘beautiful coal’: Trump’s startling climate claims of 2025

Trump ratcheted up his questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it

In the past decade at the forefront of US politics, Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of unusual, misleading or dubious assertions about the climate crisis, which he most famously called a “hoax”.

This year has seen Trump ratchet up his often questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it. In a year littered with lies and wild declarations, these are the five that stood out as the most startling.

Published: December 29, 2025, 12:30 pm

Stingless bees from the Amazon granted legal rights in world first

Planet’s oldest bee species and primary pollinators were under threat from deforestation and competition from ‘killer bees’

Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.

It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish.

Published: December 29, 2025, 2:00 pm

Weather tracker: Polar wind set to end warmth in US south and midwest

Spring-like weather experienced by many Americans to end, while heavy snow in Japan brings deadly conditions

A week of extremes in the US as Arctic air plunges southwards across many states, sweeping away record-breaking warmth from last weekend. With low pressure in the west drawing up warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, much of the south and midwest basked in spring-like weather this weekend with temperatures widely an extraordinary 15-20C above normal for late December.

This week, however, most people will ditch their summer clothes for hats and scarves as a ridge pressure builds across the west, allowing for a polar air mass to dive southward, bringing freezing temperatures and the risk of snow.

Published: December 29, 2025, 9:47 am

Authorities identify the two victims of New Jersey helicopter crash: ‘They were always together’

Kenneth Kirsch, 65, and Michael Greenberg, 71, died after the Sunday middair collision near Hammonton airport

Two men who died after their helicopters collided midair in New Jersey over the weekend both earned their private pilot licenses over a decade ago and would often have breakfast together at a cafe near the crash site before taking to the skies from the local airport.

Authorities on Monday identified the two New Jersey men as Kenneth Kirsch, 65, and Michael Greenberg, 71. Witnesses told police that the two helicopters they were piloting Sunday were flying close together just before they crashed in a farm field near the airport in Hammonton, about 35 miles (56km) south-east of Philadelphia.

Published: December 29, 2025, 10:05 pm

Marjorie Taylor Greene says she was ‘naive’ for believing Trump is man of the people

Greene gives lengthy interview with New York Times days before stepping down as congresswoman for Georgia

Marjorie Taylor Greene, now just days away from stepping down as a congresswoman for Georgia, has said in her latest mea culpa interview that she “was just so naive” for believing that Donald Trump was a man of the people.

In a lengthy interview with the New York Times that examines her break with the president after years of devotion, Greene explained that a series of minor ruptures with the president culminated in a total breach after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was killed in September.

Published: December 29, 2025, 8:55 pm

Beyoncé is now the fifth billionaire musician, Forbes reports

Grammy-winning artist joins husband Jay-Z and artists like Taylor Swift following the success of Cowboy Carter tour

Beyoncé is now a billionaire, according to a report from Forbes – becoming the fifth musician to obtain the status.

The Grammy award-winning artist, 44, has joined the world’s wealthiest people following the success of her Cowboy Carter tour, which grossed more than $400m in ticket sales, and an additional $50m in merchandise sales. Her previous Renaissance world tour brought in about more than $579m.

Published: December 29, 2025, 11:38 pm

Case dropped against TikTok streamer who was shot by US immigration agents

Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who livestreams LA breaking news, was accused of ramming car into federal officers’ vehicles

A federal judge has dismissed an indictment against a Los Angeles TikTok streamer who was shot by an officer during an immigration enforcement operation and accused of assault against a federal agent, citing constitutional violations.

Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a TikTok creator who streams local breaking news, was accused in October of ramming his car into immigration agents’ vehicles after they surrounded him during an operation. Body-worn camera footage obtained by the Los Angeles Times shows that an agent fired his gun during the incident, shooting Parias in the elbow. A ricochet bullet also hit a deputy US marshal in the hand.

Published: December 29, 2025, 9:44 pm

What drove gen Z protests that brought down governments and called out corruption? Five activists explain

We spoke to protesters in Togo, Kenya, Nepal, Madagascar and Morocco about how their actions helped shape the world in 2025

Mass protests in Nepal and Madagascar toppled both governments this year, even when the young people at the forefront of the demonstrations were faced with heavily armed police and the threat of arrest.

Many called 2025 the year of the protest although the revolution in Bangladesh in 2024 that unseated the authoritarian leader Sheikh Hasina is often credited with inspiring young people to take to the streets across parts of Asia and Africa. Although not all achieved the change they wanted, from Sri Lanka to Timor-Leste they shared a common factor: gen Z was the driving force.

Published: December 30, 2025, 10:00 am

Amyl and the Sniffers singer sues US photographer over ‘exploitation of her image’

Complaint filed by Amy Louise Taylor in US court accuses Jamie Nelson of selling photos taken for Vogue magazine as ‘fine art prints’ without her permission

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The lead singer of an Australian pub rock and punk band has accused a photographer of “exploitation of her image” and is suing her in a United States court.

Amy Louise Taylor, the lead vocalist of award-winning Melbourne band Amyl and the Sniffers has filed a complaint in the district court of California, accusing photographer Jamie Nelson of selling pictures taken for a Vogue magazine photoshoot as “fine art prints” without her permission.

Published: December 30, 2025, 2:00 pm

Australian cruise ship stuck off PNG ‘detained’ amid investigation into why it ran aground

Coral Adventurer, separately being investigated for allegedly leaving behind passenger who died on Lizard Island, ordered not to leave PNG waters

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A cruise ship that ran aground off Papua New Guinea has been “detained” out of concern it’s unseaworthy “due to potential damage”, amid an investigation into how it became stuck on Saturday morning.

The Coral Adventurer remained stuck on a reef off the north coast of Papua New Guinea, about 30km from PNG’s second-largest city, Lae, on Tuesday, as efforts to refloat it continue.

Published: December 30, 2025, 3:41 am

George Clooney and wife Amal granted French citizenship

The actor said privacy laws protecting children from paparazzi were a key factor in the family’s decision

George Clooney has been granted French citizenship, along with his wife Amal Clooney and their two children, according to an official decree in France’s government gazette.

The publication confirms an ambition Clooney alluded to early in December when he praised French privacy laws that keep his family shielded from paparazzi.

Published: December 29, 2025, 7:06 pm

Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story review – shall we all vow not to watch true-crime this twisted in 2026?

This terrifying documentary about the Utah life coach convicted of extreme child abuse feels supremely grubby. How about a new year’s resolution not to watch – or make – anything this grim ever again?

We are always aware, I think, of man’s inhumanity to man. The latest true-crime documentary from Netflix is here to remind you that this is an umbrella term. It is undoubtedly rarer, though precisely why is unclear, but women can inflict the most awful suffering too – and here, a pair of them do so on children.

Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story is the latest offering from Skye Borgman, who is the undisputed queen of the genre, specialising in high-end takes on the most extreme, the most only-in-America stories of depravity you could (not) hope to find. She made her name with 2017’s Abducted in Plain Sight, about the case of Jan Broberg, who was kidnapped not once but twice by Robert Berchtold, a close friend of the Brobergs and a sexual predator who effectively groomed the whole, spectacularly naive family. The Girl in the Picture, five years later, tells the story of a young woman known as Sharon Marshall, found after her death in a suspicious hit-and-run accident to have been living under multiple aliases as the kidnap and rape victim of a fugitive on the run from the FBI for decades. I Just Killed My Dad completed an unholy trinity of films from Borgman, with an examination of why 17-year-old Anthony Templet shot dead his apparently loving father and waited calmly outside for the police to arrest him. Spoiler alert: Templet’s father was nothing like the man he seemed.

Published: December 30, 2025, 8:01 am

No Time for Goodbye review – well intentioned drama about the loneliness of the asylum-seeker

Journalist Don Ng’s debut feature raises interesting questions about the asylum experience – but his film is too sentimental and superficial to truly answer them

This is a film made with the best of intentions – and it has some good insights into the loneliness and isolation of seeking asylum in the UK. But there are a few too many sentimental moments to properly work as social-realism, or anything close to convincing drama, which is disappointing given its creator, Don Ng, is a journalist-turned-director making his feature debut. It’s set in London, where Bosco (a sensitive performance by Yiu-Sing Lam) has arrived from Hong Kong fleeing the government’s crackdown on political freedom, though he doesn’t really talk much about the situation back home.

Bosco is sent to live with other asylum seekers on a military base while his application is processed. Some of the best scenes turn out to be gentle observations of his sense of dislocation: walking around the local corner shop, for example, with its aisles of unfamiliar food. At a bus stop he meets Yasmin (Tsz Wing Kitty Yu), another asylum seeker, who writes letters to her student doctor boyfriend in Hong Kong, in prison for giving first aid to anti-government protesters. Bosco and Yasmin hang out together, though it’s obvious that for him the friendship feels like something more.

Published: December 30, 2025, 7:00 am

‘Pure euphoric escapism’: why Adventureland is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their most rewatched comfort films is an ode to the charming 80s-set comedy

While casting his knockout quasi-biopic The Social Network, film-maker David Fincher must’ve really dug how eventual Mark Zuckerberg portrayer Jesse Eisenberg handled being dumped on screen. A year before the award-lassoing Facebook drama, which led to an Oscar nomination for Eisenberg, the actor agonised through the dreamy foreground of Adventureland as reluctant carny James Brennan.

The parallels between Fincher’s and Greg Mottola’s movies begin and end with their opening unceremonious separations, yet an admittedly romantic logic does allow me to soak in the notion that the great directorial mind behind such zingers as Zodiac and Gone Girl also found solace in this cinematic time machine.

Published: December 29, 2025, 10:00 am

‘A total knockout!’ The best television you never watched in 2025

From the most beautiful show Netflix has ever made to a thriller about a menopausal hitwoman and a dazzling documentary set in outer space, here are some TV gems that may have passed you by this year

In a bizarre move, Netflix released this series by Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda – the Palme d’Or winner renowned for movies such as Shoplifters and Nobody Knows – with absolutely no fanfare this year. But Asura was a total knockout – a rich and sumptuously shot drama about four sisters in the 70s who discover that their dad has been having a lifelong affair. It was so good, in fact, that it might even be the most beautiful show they’ve ever released. Talk about selling yourself short. Watch it on Netflix.

Published: December 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Stork of Hope review – Belarusian Holocaust drama paints a flattering portrait of its citizens

Cliche-ridden, excessively sentimental and lacking in historical rigour, this film is an act of nationalist self-soothing

Nothing says happy Hanukah like a Holocaust-themed movie, especially if it ends on a feelgood note of survival and reunion after a run of tragic deaths and lashings of suffering. But this Israeli-Belarusian co-production is so excessively sentimental, cliche-riddled and arguably hypocritical considering its provenance, it’s not easy to forbear.

It opens in contemporary Tel Aviv with an elderly man named Ilya receiving news he can barely believe is true: someone dear to him from his childhood is alive. This prompts Ilya to tell his grandsons for the first time about what happened to him during the second world war. Desaturated cinematography then unfolds his story in flashback, showing young Ilya (Andrey Davidyuk) and his little brother Sasha as preteen Jewish boys living in Minsk with their parents, just as the war starts. Dad goes off to the front and is never seen again; the brothers and their mother are soon rounded up by the Nazis, represented by one German actor (Jean-Marc Birkholz) who keeps cropping up throughout to ruin life for Ilya. It’s as if the production didn’t have enough budget to afford a second German-speaking actor or (charitably) because the film-makers are making some kind of symbolic point about the banality – or in this case indistinguishability – of evil. I suspect the former is the case.

Published: December 29, 2025, 9:00 am

‘By 15, I was hanging out with Skrillex’: the idiosyncratic club music of reformed EDM kid Villager

Disillusioned by his early EDM success, Alex Young bought hardware, embraced UK dance culture – and reinvented himself

From Washington, DC
Recommended if you like Floating Points, Jon Hopkins, Joy Orbison
Up next A slew of new music from the vault

It was probably the moment when he was paid $10,000 to DJ a spin fitness class that Alex Young, barely 16 at the time, felt he had lost touch with what music was all about. “At 13, I was like, if I could ever hang out with Skrillex, my life would be complete,” he says, sipping a pilsner on an icy day in Washington DC. “Then by 15, I’m doing it.”

Published: December 30, 2025, 8:00 am

‘Seeing all the work that goes into DIY scenes changed my life’: the bitterly optimistic indie-rock of Prewn

Like her forebears Fiona Apple and Giant Drag, Izzy Hagerup puts a distinctly twisty take on indie-rock, and is unafraid of dark emotional truths

From Chicago
Recommended if you like Wednesday, Fiona Apple, Giant Drag
Up next European/UK tour kicks off in May

A word that Prewn, AKA Izzy Hagerup, often uses to describe her music is “dissociation” – the disconnected emotional state embodied by many of the Chicago-born musician’s songs. It’s not an impression anyone would be left with from listening to her bitter, potent take on indie-rock. Hagerup’s guitar lines snake as they thrash; her balladry is grimy and expansive, steered by febrile vocals that recall mid-period Fiona Apple and the drone of the cello she played as a kid. Unexpected moments lurk, such as the shadowy slip into trip-hop on recent single Dirty Dog.

Published: December 29, 2025, 8:00 am

The Zorg by Siddharth Kara review – scarcely imaginable horrors at sea

A vivid and chilling account of the deadly voyage that triggered the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade

Over the nearly four centuries during which the transatlantic slave trade operated, 12.5 million Africans were trafficked by Europeans to the Americas. 1.8 million of them perished on the voyage under scarcely imaginable conditions of overcrowding, filth and disease. Some threw themselves overboard. And others were thrown into the sea.

In The Zorg, Siddharth Kara tells two stories. The first is of a harrowing incident aboard the eponymous slave ship – the murder of 132 Africans by the British crew. The second relates how that event came to play a role in the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, in large part through the work of a dazzling array of committed campaigners. One of these was Olaudah Equiano, author of one of the few surviving accounts of the Middle Passage from the perspective of an enslaved person, in which he described it as “a scene of horror almost inconceivable”.

Published: December 30, 2025, 7:00 am

Poem of the week: The Man in the Wind by Anne Stevenson

This haunting poem depicts an elusive, dangerous figure of overwhelming destructive power

The Man in the Wind

The man in the wind
who keeps us awake tonight
is not the black monk of the wind
cowering in corners and crevices,
or the white face under the streetlight
stricken with the guilt of his noise,
or the great slapping hand of the wind
beating and beating the rainy alleyways
while the torturer proceeds with the interrogation
and the prisoner’s risen voice
bleeds over cymbals and timpani.

Published: December 29, 2025, 10:35 am

The English House by Dan Cruickshank review – if walls could talk

A deep dive into the creation of eight buildings from the 1700s to the 1900s tells some very human stories

History used to be about wars and dates, but to the architecture writer and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank, it’s more about floors and grates. In his new book, he takes a keen-eyed tour of eight English houses, from Northumberland to Sussex, dating from the early 1700s to exactly 100 years ago, and ranging from an outlandish gothic pile to one of the first council flats. In Cruickshank’s pages, classical influences from Rome and Greece give way to a revival of medieval English gothic and the emergence of modernism.

He is particularly interested in who commissioned and built his chosen dwellings, and how they got the job done. It’s a new spin on the recent fashion for historians to explore the homes of commoners, as opposed to royalty and aristocrats, in order to tell the life stories of their occupants. This probably began with the late Gillian Tindall, who wrote a highly original book about the various tenants of an old house by the Thames next to the rebuilt Globe theatre. That was followed by several series of A House Through Time, fronted by Traitors star David Olosuga.

Published: December 29, 2025, 9:00 am

This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin – set to be a standout novel of 2026

From an acclaimed short-story writer, this epic of power and class across generations in Pakistan is brutal, funny and brilliantly told

Imagine a shattering portrayal of Pakistani life through a chain of interlocking novellas, and you’ll be somewhere close to understanding the breadth and impact of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s first novel. Reminiscent of Neel Mukherjee’s dazzling circular depiction of Indian inequalities, A State of Freedom, it’s a keenly anticipated follow-up to the acclaimed short-story collection with which he made his debut in 2009, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders – also portraying overlapping worlds of Pakistani class and culture.

We begin in the squalor and bustle of a Rawalpindi bazaar in the 1950s, where the heartbreaking figure of a small child, abandoned to his fate and clutching a pair of plastic shoes, is scooped under the protection of a tea stall owner. He proceeds to raise the boy as his own son, having only daughters, but Yazid is also adopted by the stall’s garrulous regulars, who teach him both to read and to pay keen attention to the currents of class, wealth and power which flow past him every day.

Published: December 29, 2025, 7:00 am

Arc Raiders review – pure multiplayer pleasure

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; Embark Studios
The breakout hit, which has players coming together (or turning on each other) to battle intimidating robots in an apocalyptic future, is worth the hype

Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios – so, a game where you deploy into a map full of other players and do as much shooting and looting as you can before making an escape. This is my first real go at the genre, and it’s excellent. It has smooth, only occasionally cumbersome combat, sound design that scratches the brain just right and robotic enemies that genuinely terrify. And it satisfies my constant need to sift through my inventory and rifle through every drawer.

But I have to keep my head on a swivel: Arc Raider’s player v player element means I can get jumped for my precious cargo by a malicious rival at any moment. And also, the knowledge that this game was made with the help of generative AI voice acting makes me slightly ashamed of how much I enjoy it. I play every game sheepishly looking over my shoulder (and my character’s) in case someone in-game takes my sought-after blueprint, or someone in real life kicks down my door to call me a hypocrite.

Published: December 29, 2025, 10:00 am

‘There is a crack in everything’: capturing the dark of winter – in pictures

How do you photograph darkness? A question Sarah Lee considers with her work as the nights draw in: ‘I’ve always been drawn to photographing the darkness as the winter months draw in after the clocks go back and we head towards the solstice. I wondered why that was given that the world itself seems so dark at the moment. I realised this year that it is not the darkness I’m photographing, but, rather, the light. Always the light.’

Published: December 30, 2025, 8:36 am

Packing a punch: the true story behind the first Zimbabwean film to qualify for Oscars

A small boxing academy helping street children in Victoria Falls has inspired an award-winning short featuring Hollywood actor Tongayi Chirisa

Tobias Mupfuti was eight years old when he found himself homeless and living on the streets of Victoria Falls after his father had rejected him and his mother was too poor to feed or clothe him or send him to school. He survived on food handouts from tourists shopping in the Zimbabwean resort town.

Four years later, sick of being bullied and threatened, he asked a boxing coach to teach him the sport for self-defence – a decision that changed his life for ever.

Published: December 29, 2025, 2:00 pm

Songs about love, poverty and swimming in Bacardi lemon: Dutch ‘levenslied’ captures a new generation

The Netherlands’ guttersnipe answer to French chanson and German schlager is as popular as ever – but has it lost its roots as the defiant voice of the working class? Our writer sways along at the Muziekfeest van het Jaar to find out

‘U doet wat, precies, meneer?’ My chic twentysomething hairdresser throws me a puzzled look: “You’re doing what, exactly, sir?” I am not behaving like an Englishman. I have just told her that I have bought tickets for the Muziekfeest van het Jaar (Music of the Year festival) in Amsterdam’s cavernous Ziggo Dome: a two-night extravaganza that is being recorded to be broadcast on New Year’s Eve as a kind of Dutch equivalent to Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, all dedicated to the brassy, sentimental, often untranslatable and still monumentally popular Dutch pop known as levenslied.

“Levenslied” roughly translates as “songs about life”, and although popular throughout the land, especially in North Brabant, it is commonly associated with Amsterdam, and specifically the formerly working-class district of the Jordaan. A social and local music, levenslied concerns itself with family, friends and close associates. Stylistically, it has a connection to the 20th-century French chanson réaliste of Edith Piaf and, when in a party mood, finds common cause with German schlager.

Published: December 30, 2025, 7:00 am

‘There’s no such thing as normal’: 13 essential lessons about sex – from 20 years of Sexual Healing

The Guardian’s sex advice columnist has answered countless questions over the last two decades. As the column ends, here’s what has struck and surprised her

People find it so hard to talk about sex, so if someone takes the time to sit down and write a question, then send it to the Guardian for me to answer, I always regard that as a great privilege. In the 20 years of writing the column, I have been reminded how many people are still out there, living their lives in quiet desperation about something that’s really troubling them sexually. Often the solution is more education; they just need to learn something, or be helped to be more open about a problem.

So many people grow up without the message that sex is healthy and important for a person’s quality of life, and they feel guilty every time they have sex, or think a sexual thought. They haven’t been able to enjoy sexuality and discover who they really are. Sometimes, it’s not the sexuality that is causing someone’s problem, it’s societal notions – prioritising monogamy, for instance – that makes life difficult. One of the things I would have liked to have addressed more was sexuality when people have serious disabilities or illness. Many people think they can’t continue to be sexual beings, and often that idea is pushed by people around them – that, to me, is tragic.

Published: December 30, 2025, 5:00 am

The perfect working day: how to get everything done – without getting stressed

From writing lists to taking a walk, it can be possible to gain clarity and perspective, even when faced with the most daunting tasks

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“Perfection,” the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, “is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” The Little Prince author was talking about elegance in design, but it’s not a bad principle to apply to having a productive day. Rather than thinking about how many things you can cram in, perhaps it’s better to ponder how few you really need to do, and focus on doing them really well.

Where do you start? With a list, obviously. To the chronically overstressed, taking the time to handwrite all the stuff you already know you need to do can feel like a waste of time, but it’s always worth the effort. “You can’t prioritise tasks if you feel overwhelmed,” says Graham Allcott, the author of How to Be a Productivity Ninja, “but you can be totally overloaded and still not feel overwhelmed. The key to this is getting all the various things you have to work on out of your head so you can start to make sense of them. Get a piece of paper, and write on it all the things you need to make progress on, all the stuff that feels unfinished, everything you care about that isn’t done. It will take you longer than you think, but the very act of getting it all out of your head will help you get clarity, perspective and a sense of control.”

Published: December 30, 2025, 11:00 am

‘Let them’, creatine and fibermaxxing: the biggest wellness trends of 2025

Here’s what you need to know about the supplements, procedures and hacks everyone’s discussing

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Staying up to date on wellness trends can be tough. What if you get sat next to an energy healer at a dinner party? What are you going to talk about? Raw milk is already sort of passé.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are the wellness trends everyone was discussing in 2025, and what you need to know about them.

Published: December 29, 2025, 5:53 pm

The secrets of a great sex life: how to keep the flame alive in the bedroom

Sex is an appetite like any other and there is much you can do to make it a priority, from making sure you find the time for it to building your confidence and maintaining intimacy throughout the day

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If you have sex, chances are, you’ll have a good day. But scheduling it makes it feel like a chore. And unlike any other chore or fitness enterprise, you conceive it more as self-indulgence than self-improvement, and as such, even if you’re already in a relationship, it’s hard to find that chin-out determination to get it done. Yet sex is an appetite like any other, a necessity like any other, a nourishment like any other. If you let it go dormant the effect on your relationship might be as if one or both of you are on a permanent diet – and also lonely. That might be fine for both of you, but for many of us, sex is a thing worth prioritising.

At its core, before you introduce any other domestic obstacles, it’s a two-person job, so you have to be attuned to one another; you can’t just decide unilaterally. To take this in ascending order of hurdles; if you’re a childless couple, the main block is going to be each other – not being in the same mood at the same time, not being in the house at the same time. This is true for your entire relationship, not just sex; I once interviewed a fertility doctor, who described working with a couple, trying to find an appointment time for when one was ovulating and both were in the country. They scrolled through several weeks before they managed it. “I felt as if I was beginning to get to the bottom of why they couldn’t conceive,” she said.

Published: December 29, 2025, 11:00 am

Is it true that … you’re more likely to get sick when you’re stressed?

Stress releases hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which can suppress your immune system – but chronic concerns are more of an issue than short-term worries

‘Stress has a well-established effect on your immune health,” says Daniel M Davis, head of life sciences at Imperial College London. “But stress is a very broad phenomenon. You can feel stressed watching a horror movie, or you can experience long-term stress, like going through a divorce.”

Short-term stress can temporarily affect your immune system. “The number of immune cells in the blood changes,” says Davis. “But it returns to normal within about an hour, so it’s unlikely to have any major impact.”

Published: December 29, 2025, 8:00 am

Why the quarter-zip trend is about much more than jumpers

Young men swapping Nike Tech fleeces for quarter-zips are all over TikTok, as well as staging IRL meetups worldwide. What’s behind the growing movement centring a once unremarkable garment?

As I’m wearing a quarter-zip jumper and sipping on an iced matcha, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s my last day of term before the school holidays. The giveaway is it’s a Saturday in London’s Soho, and I’m surrounded by 20 or so young men between the ages of 13 and 21 who are all here for London’s first ever “quarter-zip meetup”.

Organised, rather bizarrely, by sibling rappers OKay the Duo, the meetup is the latest manifestation of a growing tongue-in-cheek trend for quarter-zips and matcha that has taken over TikTok globally. Previous meetups have taken place in Houston and Rotterdam.

Published: December 29, 2025, 10:00 am

The perfect commute: how to turn a frustrating chore into fun – and better fitness

It is never enjoyable to be stuck in traffic or pressed up against a stranger’s armpit. But there are ways to make the most of your commute. You could even use it to write that novel

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For many of us, the idea of “the perfect” commute might sound laughable. If we travel to an office, it’s likely to involve either peak-time public transport or stressful traffic. You might not expect that either of those offers much scope for joy, but there are things we can do to make them more enjoyable, productive and healthier. It’s worth putting some thought into this, because commuting can increase stress, reduce capacity for exercise and encourage us to consume extra calories in on-the-go snacks.

The former lawyer turned time management coach Kelly Nolan suggests starting with a commute audit to assess its true impact. “Begin by blocking it out on a calendar. Creating a visual representation of how much commuting takes out of your day gives an accurate picture. It’s not just about how much free time you have left, it’s about seeing how commuting affects other activities in your life.”

Published: December 29, 2025, 4:00 pm

ChatGPT, cooking and Christopher Walken: how parents got their kids to love reading in 2025

Fewer children are reading for fun - but parents are trying everything from AI to dramatic voices to keep them engaged

It’s been a tough year for our brains. Merriam-Webster dictionary editors chose “slop” as 2025’s word of the year. New York Magazine recently dropped its “Stupid Issue”, with a cover story exploring America’s collective “cognitive decline”. There are big problems in the humanities: reading test scores are down for students nationwide, and undergraduates cannot read full books any more.

Even storytime – a comfy couch, a cardboard book, a kid’s rapt attention as their parent reads them a story – is an endangered activity. According to an April report from HarperCollins UK, parents have lost the love of reading to their children, with fewer than half of gen Z parents calling the activity “fun for me”. According to the survey of 1,596 parents of children aged zero to 13, almost one in three found reading “more a subject to learn” than an experience to enjoy. Only a third of kids aged five to 10 frequently read for fun, compared with over half in 2012.

Published: December 29, 2025, 1:00 pm

My big night out: I woke up on a llama farm in Germany – hungover and lying beside a naked punk

At 20, I went on a European road trip for the summer, where a chance encounter in Cologne taught me the importance of friendship

The clock that ticks at 6am on a Saturday morning at a llama farm in rural Germany, when you wake up hungover next to a naked punk, ticks much more loudly than any other clock. In this case, it was a proper rustic European clock – none of your chrome or plastic nonsense – wooden and ancient, with little figurines which bustled around inside it, on the hour, every hour.

I was 20, on a European road trip, chugging around in an older man’s van in 2014, perpetually hungover.

Published: December 29, 2025, 1:00 pm

Georgina Hayden’s quick and easy recipe for pimento cheese and pickle loaded crisps | Quick and easy

Move over, nachos: a loaded crisp platter is the new party snack in town

Pimento cheese, a much-loved American spread, has been a permanent fixture in my kitchen this month. Whether it’s a quick sandwich filling in times of chaos or an effortless party dip, I am addicted. My favourite way to serve it, though, is as part of a loaded crisp platter. Use salted or pickle crisps, and load them up with spoonfuls of pimento cheese, sliced pickles, herbs and heat. Move over nachos, there’s a new crisp platter in town.

Published: December 29, 2025, 6:00 am

Donald Trump in his own words – the year in racism and misogyny

The president has increased the amount of invective he’s spewed against women and people of color

Published: December 29, 2025, 11:00 am

Tell us: have you changed your career plans because of the risk of an AI takeover?

Did you decide not to pursue your dream profession or did you have to retrain? We would like to hear from you

AI will affect 40% of jobs and probably worsen inequality, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

What has your experience been of trying to future-proof your career? Have you retrained or moved jobs because your previous career path is at risk of an artificial intelligence takeover?

Published: December 29, 2025, 11:26 am

Vikings, new year rituals and a firework guitar: photos of the day – Tuesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Published: December 30, 2025, 1:08 pm