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Xan Brooks

Headshot of Xan Brooks

Xan Brooks is a freelance writer and broadcaster specialising in cinema

April 2026

  • Rowan Atkinson in Mr Bean’s Holiday.

    Cannes did camera: how the film festival loves to watch itself

    From An Almost Perfect Affair to Mr Bean’s Holiday, there’s nothing the festival enjoys more than seeing itself on screen. The next season of The White Lotus is tapping into that rich tradition – can it capture the Côte d’Azur’s peculiar magic?
  • Woody Brown at Travel Town in Los Angeles, CA.

    Book of the day
    Upward Bound by Woody Brown review – extraordinary debut from a non-speaking autistic author

    This garrulous, charming story of a young man stuck in a daycare centre for disabled adults offers a vital insider’s perspective
  • Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas in a scene from Basic Instinct, 1992

    ‘Coke and booze didn’t help my creativity’: Joe Eszterhas on his wild times – and his supernatural, anti-woke Basic Instinct reboot

    He was the screenwriting colossus behind Flashdance, Jagged Edge, Showgirls and more. Now clean, ‘Hollywood’s Shakespeare’ talks about today’s scared studios, his refugee trauma – and taking acid with Hunter S Thompson

March 2026

  • 98th Annual OscarsHOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 15: <> Paul Thomas Anderson attends the Governors Ball for the 98th Annual Oscars at Dolby Theatre on March 15, 2026 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by John Shearer/98th Oscars/Getty Images The Academy via Getty Images)

    double quotation markPaul Thomas Anderson endured one snub after another. Now the Oscars have finally seen sense

    Xan Brooks
    In honouring One Battle After Another, Academy voters finally welcomed Hollywood’s prodigal son into the fold
  • Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another.

    Best picture Oscar hustings
    Why One Battle After Another should win the best picture Oscar

    Paul Thomas Anderson’s capering clash between a demented repressive regime and ragtag freedom fighters is both cartoonish and deadly serious – and perfectly tuned to its times
  • "La Grazia" Portrait Session - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalVENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 28: (EDITORS NOTE: This image has been converted to black and white.) Paolo Sorrentino and Toni Servillo pose for the photographer during the 82nd International Venice Film Festival at Hotel Excelsior on August 28, 2025 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

    ‘Our bond is private. Some things have to stay between us’: Paolo Sorrentino and Toni Servillo on smoking, cinema and secrets

    A drama about a president at the end of his career, La Grazia is the director’s finest film since The Great Beauty. As he reunites with his longtime collaborator, the pair discuss ageing, loyalty and the mysterious energy that has bound them for more than two decades

February 2026

  • Hollywood veteran Amy Madigan poses in a silver flower-patterned suit and tie.

    ‘I don’t wish anyone to fall down a sewer. Except sometimes’: TikTok sensation and Oscar-nominated star of Weapons Amy Madigan

  • St Paul's Cathedral.

    Book of the day
    Your Life Without Me by James Meek review – angel of destruction haunts a domestic drama

January 2026

  • A listless automaton … Melania.

    Melania review – Trump film is a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest

  • Alejandro Jodorowsky in his film Endless Poetry in 2016.

    ‘Soon I will die. And I will go with a great orgasm’: the last rites of Alejandro Jodorowsky

December 2025

  • Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally …

    Staying in with the old: the best films to watch on New Year’s Eve

  • Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

    ‘I could watch the final 30 minutes on a loop till the end of time’: Guardian writers’ favourite Rob Reiner moments

  • 'If You're Not In The Obit, Eat Breakfast' film screening, Arrivals, Los Angeles, USA - 17 May 2017Mandatory Credit: Photo by Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock (8823519cf) Dick Van Dyke 'If You're Not In The Obit, Eat Breakfast' film screening, Arrivals, Los Angeles, USA - 17 May 2017

    Elastic limbs, fantastical accents and crackling sexual chemistry: Dick Van Dyke turns 100

  • ‘Lone-wolf troublemaker’ … Hersh at the New York Times in 1975; was he in tears at the premiere of Cover-Up?

    ‘He’s a son of a bitch – but he’s usually right’: why did Seymour Hersh quit the film about his earth-shattering exposés?

November 2025

  • Ethan Hawke, left, who will play songwriter Lorenz Hart in the film Blue Moon, with director Richard Linklater. Shot at the Soho Hotel, London, October 2025.

    ‘It felt dangerous. You got naggy’: Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater on power, combovers and Blue Moon

  • Clint Bentley sitting down on a chair with Joel Edgerton standing next to him, both smiling

    ‘Studio bosses were like: it sounds lovely. We’ll pass!’: Joel Edgerton and Clint Bentley on their Oscar-tipped lumberjack tragedy

September 2025

  • Lindy-hopping in Shadow Ticket.

    Book of the day
    Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon review – his first novel in 12 years tunes into rising fascism in the US

    The 88-year-old’s jaunty whodunnit, set during the prohibition era, features clowns, Nazis and a missing cheese heiress
  • Blur.

    Meet your descendants – and your future self! A trip to Venice film festival’s extended reality island

    A flourishing lineup of immersive storytelling experiments are taking visitors into novels, nightclubs and outer space
  • Fabrizio Gifuni in Portobello.

    Portobello review – Marco Bellocchio’s glorious saga of TV stars, mafia prisoners and lace doilies

    In the first two episodes of a six-part series, the stardom of 80s primetime host Enzo Tortora is cleverly crosscut with the scramble of a mob secretary who implicates him – and his parrot – in drug trafficking

August 2025

  • Marianne Faithfull and George MacKay in Broken English.

    Broken English review – Marianne Faithfull’s last glow, as she recounts past lives

    The charismatic Faithfull is quizzed by a fictional ministry fronted by Tilda Swinton about a confounding career, from 60s It girl to art scene doyenne
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