The Latest Breaking News from Sam Mendes

“There’s been no shortage of stage portrayals of real life VIPs in the past couple of years,” said Clive Davis in The Times. Jack Thorne’s “thoughtful, often wickedly droll” new play, about the relationship between Richard Burton and John Gielgud during rehearsals for a 1964 production of Hamlet on Broadway,…

Sam Mendes reignites Gielgud and Burton’s Broadway Hamlet; a climate crisis play is powered by bikes (and eco-shaming); Timberlake Wertenbaker has fun with Jules et Jim; and Rhiannon Neads hits escape velocity

The Motive and the Cue depicts John Gielgud’s struggle to direct Richard Burton in Hamlet on Broadway. Its writer describes the task of putting his words into such celebrated mouths

This year has seen the release of a varied collection of nostalgic films about film making. Damien Chazelle’s Babylon looks at the excesses of 1920s and 30s Hollywood; Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans explores the position of film in the director’s own childhood in the 1960s, and Sam Mendes’ Empire of…

With cinematography by Roger Deakins and performances from Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward, Empire of Light captures the vintage splendour of England’s past

The film follows Hilary (Olivia Colman), the duty manager at a seaside cinema in the south-west of England in the early 1980s.

Disney Plus has some great new content dropping this week

In Empire of Light, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (1917; Skyfall) draws on his mother's experiences to craft an unusual love story and ode to cinema, set against the backdrop of Thatcherism.

British director Sam Mendes takes a stroll down memory lane, conjuring up the magic of cinema and the healing power of friendship in "Empire of Light", starring actress Olivia Coleman. Film critic Emma Jones tells us why the film deserved more attention at the awards ceremonies. We also discuss Michael…