12月にする素晴らしいこと

Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland at MOP Foundation in A Coruña: Until 1 May, 2026

For the biggest exhibition of Annie Leibovitz’s fashion photography to date, a trip to Spain is in order. At A Coruña’s MOP Foundation, visitors can experience “the dazzling breadth of Leibovitz’s photographic universe” through videos and installations and, of course, photographs – some iconic, others on display for the very first time. From an immersive look at Leibovitz’s longstanding relationship with the Rolling Stones to her many gorgeous fashion stories – reminisce on an oversized, Helmut Lang-sporting Natalia Vodianova in the guise of Lewis Carol’s Alice – there’s plenty to sink your teeth into.

Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream at MoMA, New York: Until 11 April, 2026

The Cuban-born artist Wifredo Lam famously described his art as an “act of decolonisation”. And indeed, his remarkable large scale paintings, which synthesised modern European painting styles, Afro-Cuban imagery and Caribbean tradition, proved vital in creating “a meaningful space for the beauty and depth of Black diasporic culture” within the history of modernism. So explains MoMA, where a major new retrospective of Lam’s work reveals the true scope of his trailblazing vision through an impressive array of paintings, works on paper, collaborative drawings, illustrated books, prints, ceramics and archive materials.

Luigi Ghirri: Polaroid 79-83 at Centro Pecci, Prato:  Until 10 May, 2026

Luigi Ghirri is perhaps Italy’s most famous postwar photographer, yet few are aware of his foray into instant photography, which began in 1979 when Polaroid handed him a generous supply of film and cameras. This is something that the Centro Pecci’s new exhibition, dedicated entirely to Ghirri’s Polaroids, looks set to rectify. Prior to 1979, Ghirri was famous for his immaculately conceived photographs, imbued with multiple layers of meaning and memory, which explored the very nature of the image and the photographic process. Through Polaroids, however, he embraced “unpredictability and immediate results” to playful new effect – albeit with all the same sense of lyrical nostalgia and subtle subversion.

Monument to the Unimportant at Pace, London: Until 14 February, 2026

Fans of Claes Oldenburg’s giant cherry-topped spoons or Elmgreen & Dragset’s upended swimming pools will no doubt enjoy Pace London’s new group exhibition. Titled Monument to the Unimportant, it explores the ways that artists use everyday objects as a jumping-off point for their work – to funny, surreal, political and personal ends. Spanning sculpture, painting and works on paper by everyone from David Hockney, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Rachel Whiteread and Erwin Wurm, it is a testament to artists’ ceaseless ability to render the ordinary extraordinary. 

Juergen Teller: You Are Invited at the Onassis Foundation, Athens: Until 30 December

If you’re in – or bound for – Athens any time soon, be sure to catch Juergen Teller’s marvellous mid-career survey at the Onassis Foundation’s new Onassis Ready space in the Greek capital. The show traces the German photographer’s rise to fame in the 1990s shooting early pictures of Nirvana and Kate Moss, through the many album covers, portraits, fashion editorials and personal projects that followed suit, right up to his more recent pursuits (like photographing Pope Francis in a women’s prison during the 2024 Venice Biennale), spotlighting the enduring themes and ongoing evolution of Teller’s influential practice.

Sea Garden at EMΣT, Athens: Until 8 February, 2026

Across the city at Athens’s National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMΣT), another show has piqued our interest. Sea Garden is the result of the museum’s second Open Call scheme in support of emerging Greek curators – in this instance, Danai Giannoglou and Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou – and takes as its focus “works that materially incorporate and depict natural landscapes and the subtle but decisive human interventions they reveal.” Featured names range from Claude Cahun (who famously donned a rock like a bedsheet, with only her arms revealed, in a bid to challenge society’s rigid understanding of gender and identity) and Ana Mendieta (who imprinted her own body onto landscapes only to erase the markings through a poetic harnessing of the elements) to contemporary Athens-based artists Dora Economou and Catriona Gallagher.

Danny Lyon: The Texas Prison Photographs at Howard Greenberg, New York: 5 December, 2025 – 31 January, 2026

American documentary photographer Danny Lyon is widely celebrated for his radically participatory approach, and his Texas prison photographs are no exception. From 1967 to 1968, Lyon gained rare access to seven Texas penitentiaries where he photographed the incarcerated in their cells, at work, during downtime, shakedowns and beyond. The resulting images are empathetic yet unflinching in their depiction of prison life in the US. First published in Lyon’s 1971 book Conversations with the Dead, they’re now on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York, alongside artwork by the prisoners, as well as letters, documents, interviews and film footage that further illuminate Lyon’s deep connection with his subjects. 

Faith Ringgold at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York: Until 24 Janurary, 2026

At Jack Shainman, New York, don’t miss your chance to see some of Faith Ringgold’s most exquisite textile works, courtesy of the gallery’s new exhibition – the first of many it will dedicate to the pioneering American artist and activist. The career-spanning curation includes Ringgold’s earliest “tankas” – paintings inspired by Tibetan thangkas, carried out on unstretched canvases and adorned with sewn fabric borders – and her remarkable story quilts, merging scenes from her own past with those from the collective history of Black life in America. These hang alongside a number of soft sculptures and performance masks which together reveal the myriad ways in which the artist “transformed fabric into a medium for storytelling and political expression”.

Polaraki: Thousand Polaroids by Araki Nobuyoshi at the Musée Guimet, Paris: Until 12 January, 2026

For another dose of Polaroid pleasure, head to Paris where a recently opened exhibition at Guimet Museum investigates the importance of instant photography for the prolific, and frequently explicit, Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi. Polaroids have formed “an almost daily ritual” for Araki since the late 1990s, the museum explains, “serving the photographer’s scopic and erotic impulses and fueling a kind of diary around which his entire body of work revolves”. Bringing together almost 100 snapshots, depicting reptiles, flowers and female subjects (and occasionally all three at once), the exhibition demonstrates Araki’s seemingly endless potential for experimentation, provocation and strange beauty.

Hajar Benjida: Atlanta Made Us Famous at Foam, Amsterdam: Until 25 March, 2026

At Foam in Amsterdam meanwhile, the ascendant Moroccan-Dutch photographer (and Foam Talent alumna) Hajar Benjida is currently enjoying her first museum solo exhibition, Atlanta Made Us Famous. The works on display centre on the influential Atlanta strip club, Magic City, “a cultural epicentre where hip-hop culture and entertainment converge” – and, more specifically, on the women who work there. Evidencing the strong connection that Benjida has forged with the community, these candid portraits shun stereotypes, depicting the successful, economically independent women who serve as the “unofficial gatekeepers” of the city’s eminent hip-hop scene.

Mia Wilkinson: Head of the Table at SLQS Gallery, London: 6 December, 2025 – 17 January, 2026

A chicken-headed woman straddles a ball of dough, dotted with writhing body parts. A wobbly green jelly is topped and surrounded by face-bearing glacier cherries. This is the weird and wonderful world of British artist Mia Wilkinson, whose works “invite viewers to confront what it means to consume and be consumed in the performance of femininity.” Wilkinson’s latest sculptures and paintings will soon go on display at east London’s SLQS Gallery for her new solo show Head of the Table. 

Valie Export and Ketty La Rocca: Body Sign at Thaddaeus Ropac, Milan: 16 December, 2025 – 28 February, 2026

Valie Export and Ketty La Rocca were two of the most radical feminist conceptual artists to emerge in the 1960s. Each called upon their own body as their primary medium – in tandem with performance, sculpture, photography and/or video – to rearticulate female identity and create new visual languages outside of the pre-existing patriarchal systems. And yet, working as they did in different cities (Export in Vienna and La Rocca in Florence), the two never met. Now, an upcoming exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac Milan brings the artists’ work into dialogue for the first time, highlighting their overlapping aims, approaches and achievements.

Theatre and the winter holidays go hand in hand, and there are lots of new productions to get excited about. From 4–6 December, don’t miss your chance to see a rehearsed reading of The Rights, the unpublished final play of American activist and writer George Whitmore, organised by the AIDS Play Project at London Performance Studios. Set on Fire Island in the summer of 1980, it is a sharp, funny and poignant work that explores “the tension between queer history and assimilation”.

Cole Escola’s Tony-awarded play Oh, Mary! has finally arrived in London, running from 3 December–25 April at the Trafalgar Theatre. Darkly comic and frequently absurd, it follows the sorrowful and stifled Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. For your chance to honour the inimitable Tom Stoppard, book your tickets now for the first major revival of his 1995 play Indian Ink, directed by Jonathan Kent and showing at Hampstead Theatre from 3 December–31 January. An evocative contemplation of art and love, it follows a noted Bloomsbury Group poet on a trip to India in 1930, where she catches the eye of a handsome painter.

At the Almeida from 9 December–8 January, be sure to see Christmas Day, the new play from Sam Grabiner (Boys on the Verge of Tears). Homing in on a Jewish family one Christmas Day in London, it promises to be “a viciously funny [musing on] identity, belonging, and the rituals we perform with the people we love.” For opera aficionados, there’s the return of Oliver Leith’s acclaimed work Last Days to the Royal Opera, from 5 December– 3 January. Adapted from Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film of the same name, it imagines the final days of Kurt Cobain, providing a haunting meditation on silent torment and alienation. For Led Zeppelin lovers, Robert Plant will be performing his brand new album, Saving Grace, at the Royal Festival Hall on 11 December.

First up among December’s must-see films is It Was Just An Accident, the Palme d’Or-winning thriller from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. It is the story of Vahid, an unassuming mechanic who encounters the man he believes may have been his torturer in prison, and sets out to exact revenge. Alex Russell, the US writer behind various episodes of The Bear and Beef, makes his filmmaking debut with the gripping psychological drama Lurker. Hailed as a modern day Talented Mr Ripley, it follows a young retail clerk as he befriends a popstar on the brink of fame and tags along for the ride. Meanwhile, Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier returns with Sentimental Value, a stirring tale of generational trauma centred on an egotistical film director trying to make a comeback and his two long-estranged daughters.

Chinese-American documentary filmmaker Bing Liu makes his accomplished narrative feature debut with Preparation For The Next Life. A heartrending love story, it shines the spotlight on an Uyghur immigrant new to New York, who takes on a job in a Chinatown kitchen and strikes up an unlikely connection with a troubled young war veteran. US director Josh Safdie is back with his anticipated comedy-drama Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as a hustler turned aspiring ping-pong champion in 1950s America. Sci-fi meets social realism in Animalia, the Sundance-winning film from French-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui, in which a heavily pregnant woman finds unlikely freedom when a supernatural event turns her new life with her husband and his family upside down. 

Documentary fans, be sure to catch Cover-Up, the compelling new film from Mark Obenhaus and Laura Poitras, which zooms in on the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and his coverage of the US Army torture scandals during the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Tamara Kotevska’s beautiful new film, The Tale of Silyan, sees a struggling farmer in rural Macedonia adopt an injured white stork, resulting in a real life fairytale. While in Bowie: The Final Act, director Jonathan Stiasny traces the last years of the revered musician’s life, revealing his unwavering determination to bust creative boundaries. 

For those in search of deliberately seasonal feasting, head to Michelin-starred Notting Hill eatery Caractère where Michel Roux and his daughter, Emily, are whipping up an extra special Christmas menu on select dates across December and January. The four course set offering is peppered with Le Gavroche classics and delivered with Caractère’s signature flair, like a glass of fizz and the finest canapés, followed by such delights as stuffed bronze turkey breast with black winter truffle and Madeira jus, and rounded off with plenty of petit fours.

If you’re looking to plan a holiday jaunt around an opportunity for opulent dining, why not book a trip to Hove for New Year’s Eve at Maré, the newly opened restaurant from two Michelin-starred chef Rafael Cagali and his partner Charlie Lee. On December 31, the pair will be serving up a unique sharing menu in two sittings (6pm and 9pm), paying tribute to Cagali’s Brazilian-Italian heritage. A teaser menu suggests an array of one-bite snacks like fried market oyster with hot sauce emulsion; porco tonnato; prawn rice, and Freedown Hills picanha with chimichurri, with a choux bun with chestnut and white chocolate for dessert. A sumptuous send off to 2025.

For truly tantalising northern Thai cuisine, make your way to Khao So-i in Fitzrovia. There, husband-and-wife duo Win Srinavakool and Por Haruethai Noicharoen – founders of Chiang Mai’s cult noodle bar of the same name – have just opened their first permanent iteration outside of Thailand. The restaurant takes its title from its signature (and exceptionally tasty) dish, Khao Soi, a curried soup made with fresh egg noodles, 32 Thai spices and house-squeezed coconut milk. This is served with your choice of topping – including braised beef shank and torched chuck eye, and a huge tiger prawn – and presented alongside a rotating menu of Glub Glam small plates like Larb Kua (spicy stir fried minced pork) and Tam Khanun (a jackfruit salad). We recommend the very refreshing Kaad Margarita as a perfect cocktail accompaniment. 

Following their acclaimed pop-up in Câv in Bethnal Green, chef Josh Dallaway and sommelier Sinead Murdoch of Tasca will soon take on their second residency at north London hotspot Giacco’s, inspired by “the conviviality and generosity of the Iberian Peninsula’s dining culture”. Plates will range from focaccia with whipped goat’s curdecina, Don Bocarte anchovy and pepper butter toasts, and fried almonds with celeriac honey to larger dishes like the Rojão Sandwich and Cornish mussel and chorizo rice. The residency will run until the end of January – the ideal antidote to the post-holiday blues.

The Royal Academy has just opened an exquisite dining space for its members – even more incentive, if any was needed, to sign up stat. The Keeper’s House, made up of a new restaurant, private dining room, café and bar, is helmed by chef José Pizarro, celebrated for his bold, authentic Spanish cooking. Current menu highlights include beef and pork meatballs with almond sauce and crisps; white wild prawns, garlic, chilli oil, fried eggs and triple-cooked chips; and baked seasonal squashes with pisto, pumpkin seeds and chilli dressing. Served with a slice of Frank Bowling and a sprinkling of Marina Abramović on the surrounding walls.

Last but not least, Notting Hill’s Mediterranean hotspot Gold has just opened a sister restaurant, Tower House, in Richmond. There, guests are met with cosy yet elegant interior design and a host of delicious dishes – from prawn agnolotti with vermouth and fennel, and roasted cauliflower with tarragon and pomegranate, to a whole wood roasted turbot, and a Veal T-bone steak with tarragon and anchovy butter. It is Christmas, after all.  

Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland at MOP Foundation in A Coruña: Until 1 May, 2026

For the biggest exhibition of Annie Leibovitz’s fashion photography to date, a trip to Spain is in order. At A Coruña’s MOP Foundation, visitors can experience “the dazzling breadth of Leibovitz’s photographic universe” through videos and installations and, of course, photographs – some iconic, others on display for the very first time. From an immersive look at Leibovitz’s longstanding relationship with the Rolling Stones to her many gorgeous fashion stories – reminisce on an oversized, Helmut Lang-sporting Natalia Vodianova in the guise of Lewis Carol’s Alice – there’s plenty to sink your teeth into.

Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream at MoMA, New York: Until 11 April, 2026

The Cuban-born artist Wifredo Lam famously described his art as an “act of decolonisation”. And indeed, his remarkable large scale paintings, which synthesised modern European painting styles, Afro-Cuban imagery and Caribbean tradition, proved vital in creating “a meaningful space for the beauty and depth of Black diasporic culture” within the history of modernism. So explains MoMA, where a major new retrospective of Lam’s work reveals the true scope of his trailblazing vision through an impressive array of paintings, works on paper, collaborative drawings, illustrated books, prints, ceramics and archive materials.

Luigi Ghirri: Polaroid 79-83 at Centro Pecci, Prato:  Until 10 May, 2026

Luigi Ghirri is perhaps Italy’s most famous postwar photographer, yet few are aware of his foray into instant photography, which began in 1979 when Polaroid handed him a generous supply of film and cameras. This is something that the Centro Pecci’s new exhibition, dedicated entirely to Ghirri’s Polaroids, looks set to rectify. Prior to 1979, Ghirri was famous for his immaculately conceived photographs, imbued with multiple layers of meaning and memory, which explored the very nature of the image and the photographic process. Through Polaroids, however, he embraced “unpredictability and immediate results” to playful new effect – albeit with all the same sense of lyrical nostalgia and subtle subversion.

Monument to the Unimportant at Pace, London: Until 14 February, 2026

Fans of Claes Oldenburg’s giant cherry-topped spoons or Elmgreen & Dragset’s upended swimming pools will no doubt enjoy Pace London’s new group exhibition. Titled Monument to the Unimportant, it explores the ways that artists use everyday objects as a jumping-off point for their work – to funny, surreal, political and personal ends. Spanning sculpture, painting and works on paper by everyone from David Hockney, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Rachel Whiteread and Erwin Wurm, it is a testament to artists’ ceaseless ability to render the ordinary extraordinary. 

Juergen Teller: You Are Invited at the Onassis Foundation, Athens: Until 30 December

If you’re in – or bound for – Athens any time soon, be sure to catch Juergen Teller’s marvellous mid-career survey at the Onassis Foundation’s new Onassis Ready space in the Greek capital. The show traces the German photographer’s rise to fame in the 1990s shooting early pictures of Nirvana and Kate Moss, through the many album covers, portraits, fashion editorials and personal projects that followed suit, right up to his more recent pursuits (like photographing Pope Francis in a women’s prison during the 2024 Venice Biennale), spotlighting the enduring themes and ongoing evolution of Teller’s influential practice.

Sea Garden at EMΣT, Athens: Until 8 February, 2026

Across the city at Athens’s National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMΣT), another show has piqued our interest. Sea Garden is the result of the museum’s second Open Call scheme in support of emerging Greek curators – in this instance, Danai Giannoglou and Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou – and takes as its focus “works that materially incorporate and depict natural landscapes and the subtle but decisive human interventions they reveal.” Featured names range from Claude Cahun (who famously donned a rock like a bedsheet, with only her arms revealed, in a bid to challenge society’s rigid understanding of gender and identity) and Ana Mendieta (who imprinted her own body onto landscapes only to erase the markings through a poetic harnessing of the elements) to contemporary Athens-based artists Dora Economou and Catriona Gallagher.

Danny Lyon: The Texas Prison Photographs at Howard Greenberg, New York: 5 December, 2025 – 31 January, 2026

American documentary photographer Danny Lyon is widely celebrated for his radically participatory approach, and his Texas prison photographs are no exception. From 1967 to 1968, Lyon gained rare access to seven Texas penitentiaries where he photographed the incarcerated in their cells, at work, during downtime, shakedowns and beyond. The resulting images are empathetic yet unflinching in their depiction of prison life in the US. First published in Lyon’s 1971 book Conversations with the Dead, they’re now on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York, alongside artwork by the prisoners, as well as letters, documents, interviews and film footage that further illuminate Lyon’s deep connection with his subjects. 

Faith Ringgold at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York: Until 24 Janurary, 2026

At Jack Shainman, New York, don’t miss your chance to see some of Faith Ringgold’s most exquisite textile works, courtesy of the gallery’s new exhibition – the first of many it will dedicate to the pioneering American artist and activist. The career-spanning curation includes Ringgold’s earliest “tankas” – paintings inspired by Tibetan thangkas, carried out on unstretched canvases and adorned with sewn fabric borders – and her remarkable story quilts, merging scenes from her own past with those from the collective history of Black life in America. These hang alongside a number of soft sculptures and performance masks which together reveal the myriad ways in which the artist “transformed fabric into a medium for storytelling and political expression”.

Polaraki: Thousand Polaroids by Araki Nobuyoshi at the Musée Guimet, Paris: Until 12 January, 2026

For another dose of Polaroid pleasure, head to Paris where a recently opened exhibition at Guimet Museum investigates the importance of instant photography for the prolific, and frequently explicit, Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi. Polaroids have formed “an almost daily ritual” for Araki since the late 1990s, the museum explains, “serving the photographer’s scopic and erotic impulses and fueling a kind of diary around which his entire body of work revolves”. Bringing together almost 100 snapshots, depicting reptiles, flowers and female subjects (and occasionally all three at once), the exhibition demonstrates Araki’s seemingly endless potential for experimentation, provocation and strange beauty.

Hajar Benjida: Atlanta Made Us Famous at Foam, Amsterdam: Until 25 March, 2026

At Foam in Amsterdam meanwhile, the ascendant Moroccan-Dutch photographer (and Foam Talent alumna) Hajar Benjida is currently enjoying her first museum solo exhibition, Atlanta Made Us Famous. The works on display centre on the influential Atlanta strip club, Magic City, “a cultural epicentre where hip-hop culture and entertainment converge” – and, more specifically, on the women who work there. Evidencing the strong connection that Benjida has forged with the community, these candid portraits shun stereotypes, depicting the successful, economically independent women who serve as the “unofficial gatekeepers” of the city’s eminent hip-hop scene.

Mia Wilkinson: Head of the Table at SLQS Gallery, London: 6 December, 2025 – 17 January, 2026

A chicken-headed woman straddles a ball of dough, dotted with writhing body parts. A wobbly green jelly is topped and surrounded by face-bearing glacier cherries. This is the weird and wonderful world of British artist Mia Wilkinson, whose works “invite viewers to confront what it means to consume and be consumed in the performance of femininity.” Wilkinson’s latest sculptures and paintings will soon go on display at east London’s SLQS Gallery for her new solo show Head of the Table. 

Valie Export and Ketty La Rocca: Body Sign at Thaddaeus Ropac, Milan: 16 December, 2025 – 28 February, 2026

Valie Export and Ketty La Rocca were two of the most radical feminist conceptual artists to emerge in the 1960s. Each called upon their own body as their primary medium – in tandem with performance, sculpture, photography and/or video – to rearticulate female identity and create new visual languages outside of the pre-existing patriarchal systems. And yet, working as they did in different cities (Export in Vienna and La Rocca in Florence), the two never met. Now, an upcoming exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac Milan brings the artists’ work into dialogue for the first time, highlighting their overlapping aims, approaches and achievements.

Theatre and the winter holidays go hand in hand, and there are lots of new productions to get excited about. From 4–6 December, don’t miss your chance to see a rehearsed reading of The Rights, the unpublished final play of American activist and writer George Whitmore, organised by the AIDS Play Project at London Performance Studios. Set on Fire Island in the summer of 1980, it is a sharp, funny and poignant work that explores “the tension between queer history and assimilation”.

Cole Escola’s Tony-awarded play Oh, Mary! has finally arrived in London, running from 3 December–25 April at the Trafalgar Theatre. Darkly comic and frequently absurd, it follows the sorrowful and stifled Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. For your chance to honour the inimitable Tom Stoppard, book your tickets now for the first major revival of his 1995 play Indian Ink, directed by Jonathan Kent and showing at Hampstead Theatre from 3 December–31 January. An evocative contemplation of art and love, it follows a noted Bloomsbury Group poet on a trip to India in 1930, where she catches the eye of a handsome painter.

At the Almeida from 9 December–8 January, be sure to see Christmas Day, the new play from Sam Grabiner (Boys on the Verge of Tears). Homing in on a Jewish family one Christmas Day in London, it promises to be “a viciously funny [musing on] identity, belonging, and the rituals we perform with the people we love.” For opera aficionados, there’s the return of Oliver Leith’s acclaimed work Last Days to the Royal Opera, from 5 December– 3 January. Adapted from Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film of the same name, it imagines the final days of Kurt Cobain, providing a haunting meditation on silent torment and alienation. For Led Zeppelin lovers, Robert Plant will be performing his brand new album, Saving Grace, at the Royal Festival Hall on 11 December.

First up among December’s must-see films is It Was Just An Accident, the Palme d’Or-winning thriller from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. It is the story of Vahid, an unassuming mechanic who encounters the man he believes may have been his torturer in prison, and sets out to exact revenge. Alex Russell, the US writer behind various episodes of The Bear and Beef, makes his filmmaking debut with the gripping psychological drama Lurker. Hailed as a modern day Talented Mr Ripley, it follows a young retail clerk as he befriends a popstar on the brink of fame and tags along for the ride. Meanwhile, Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier returns with Sentimental Value, a stirring tale of generational trauma centred on an egotistical film director trying to make a comeback and his two long-estranged daughters.

Chinese-American documentary filmmaker Bing Liu makes his accomplished narrative feature debut with Preparation For The Next Life. A heartrending love story, it shines the spotlight on an Uyghur immigrant new to New York, who takes on a job in a Chinatown kitchen and strikes up an unlikely connection with a troubled young war veteran. US director Josh Safdie is back with his anticipated comedy-drama Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as a hustler turned aspiring ping-pong champion in 1950s America. Sci-fi meets social realism in Animalia, the Sundance-winning film from French-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui, in which a heavily pregnant woman finds unlikely freedom when a supernatural event turns her new life with her husband and his family upside down. 

Documentary fans, be sure to catch Cover-Up, the compelling new film from Mark Obenhaus and Laura Poitras, which zooms in on the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and his coverage of the US Army torture scandals during the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Tamara Kotevska’s beautiful new film, The Tale of Silyan, sees a struggling farmer in rural Macedonia adopt an injured white stork, resulting in a real life fairytale. While in Bowie: The Final Act, director Jonathan Stiasny traces the last years of the revered musician’s life, revealing his unwavering determination to bust creative boundaries. 

For those in search of deliberately seasonal feasting, head to Michelin-starred Notting Hill eatery Caractère where Michel Roux and his daughter, Emily, are whipping up an extra special Christmas menu on select dates across December and January. The four course set offering is peppered with Le Gavroche classics and delivered with Caractère’s signature flair, like a glass of fizz and the finest canapés, followed by such delights as stuffed bronze turkey breast with black winter truffle and Madeira jus, and rounded off with plenty of petit fours.

If you’re looking to plan a holiday jaunt around an opportunity for opulent dining, why not book a trip to Hove for New Year’s Eve at Maré, the newly opened restaurant from two Michelin-starred chef Rafael Cagali and his partner Charlie Lee. On December 31, the pair will be serving up a unique sharing menu in two sittings (6pm and 9pm), paying tribute to Cagali’s Brazilian-Italian heritage. A teaser menu suggests an array of one-bite snacks like fried market oyster with hot sauce emulsion; porco tonnato; prawn rice, and Freedown Hills picanha with chimichurri, with a choux bun with chestnut and white chocolate for dessert. A sumptuous send off to 2025.

For truly tantalising northern Thai cuisine, make your way to Khao So-i in Fitzrovia. There, husband-and-wife duo Win Srinavakool and Por Haruethai Noicharoen – founders of Chiang Mai’s cult noodle bar of the same name – have just opened their first permanent iteration outside of Thailand. The restaurant takes its title from its signature (and exceptionally tasty) dish, Khao Soi, a curried soup made with fresh egg noodles, 32 Thai spices and house-squeezed coconut milk. This is served with your choice of topping – including braised beef shank and torched chuck eye, and a huge tiger prawn – and presented alongside a rotating menu of Glub Glam small plates like Larb Kua (spicy stir fried minced pork) and Tam Khanun (a jackfruit salad). We recommend the very refreshing Kaad Margarita as a perfect cocktail accompaniment. 

Following their acclaimed pop-up in Câv in Bethnal Green, chef Josh Dallaway and sommelier Sinead Murdoch of Tasca will soon take on their second residency at north London hotspot Giacco’s, inspired by “the conviviality and generosity of the Iberian Peninsula’s dining culture”. Plates will range from focaccia with whipped goat’s curdecina, Don Bocarte anchovy and pepper butter toasts, and fried almonds with celeriac honey to larger dishes like the Rojão Sandwich and Cornish mussel and chorizo rice. The residency will run until the end of January – the ideal antidote to the post-holiday blues.

The Royal Academy has just opened an exquisite dining space for its members – even more incentive, if any was needed, to sign up stat. The Keeper’s House, made up of a new restaurant, private dining room, café and bar, is helmed by chef José Pizarro, celebrated for his bold, authentic Spanish cooking. Current menu highlights include beef and pork meatballs with almond sauce and crisps; white wild prawns, garlic, chilli oil, fried eggs and triple-cooked chips; and baked seasonal squashes with pisto, pumpkin seeds and chilli dressing. Served with a slice of Frank Bowling and a sprinkling of Marina Abramović on the surrounding walls.

Last but not least, Notting Hill’s Mediterranean hotspot Gold has just opened a sister restaurant, Tower House, in Richmond. There, guests are met with cosy yet elegant interior design and a host of delicious dishes – from prawn agnolotti with vermouth and fennel, and roasted cauliflower with tarragon and pomegranate, to a whole wood roasted turbot, and a Veal T-bone steak with tarragon and anchovy butter. It is Christmas, after all.