The Sunday Times

The Harry Potter films are now available to stream on Netflix in the UK, meaning millions can watch and re-watch the classic series. It never got the credit it deserved. Eight films, with the same cast across a decade. The series, which began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone …

Graphic violence and dodgy power dynamics are a big part of the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon — it’s what the hit television fantasy series deals in. But when Matt Smith’s Daemon led his niece Rhaenyra, played by Milly Alcock, around his favourite brothel, before they removed …

Benedict Cumberbatch, Helen McCrory and Eddie Redmayne are all previous nominees of the Ian Charleson Awards. An impressive roll call. They didn’t even win — so take note of all 14 of our nominees. The winner is Rilwan Abiola Owokoniran, 23, for his role as Algernon in The Importance of …

PB: For the first ten years of my life I was in and out of hospital with the often-fatal prune belly syndrome, a rare condition that affects about one in 50,000 children. My parents went through a lot. I was a really sick kid who wasn’t allowed to eat. While …

First book I loved I still own the first book I fell for: an early 1960s copy of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. It’s still such a powerful read. I didn’t grow up in a literary family — my mother worked in accounts and my father was an electronics engineer …

Children’s books never really interested me, but when I was about 11 I discovered DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow on my mother’s bookshelf and became completely immersed. So I read all his others, even the fruity ones. When this information came out in a class discussion at school the teacher (a …

First book I loved David Jonsson Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger felt more mature than all the books I was meant to enjoy, but I’ve always wanted to be different. I was raised in Newham, the youngest of four siblings, and came from a household where we celebrated …

For more than two decades Derren Brown has been entertaining television audiences with his unique brand of psychological illusions. His live shows and TV programmes have tackled varied themes, from faith healing and Russian roulette to gambling, heists and even a zombie apocalypse. But one thing all of these fascinating …

First book I loved I wasn’t an especially academic child, but reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend when I was 14 felt like quite an awakening. First grown-up author I admired I’m not really sure how he did it but John Steinbeck made me …

Winning promotion demands more than just a glitzy publicity drive from A-list actors. It needs players who will deliver at the most important moments, when the spotlight is brightest and the pressure can be nauseating. Paul Mullin did exactly that, scoring the two goals that won Wrexham promotion from the …

When he’s not giving awkward red-carpet interviews, Hugh Grant, 62, stars in some of the best of British cinema. In the past four decades, he has flopped his hair through more than 40 films, from a gay lover in his professional debut Maurice to a vain actor whose best days …

How the 1930s semi became the new must-have home.

It has already been a great year for TV — from the extraordinary final season of Happy Valley to the incredible story of The Last of Us, fans of the small screen have had a lot to smile about. The good news is there’s plenty more fantastic television shows slated …

Dreamland (Thursday, Sky Atlantic, 9pm) Set in sunny Margate and shot in seaside-postcard pastels, this new comedy makes a breezy first impression at odds with its stormy family dynamics. Based on Sharon Horgan’s 2017 Bafta-winning short film, Dreamland unpicks the complex relationships between four sisters: catalytic agent of chaos Mel …

First book I loved I devoured every Enid Blyton book, particularly the Famous Five series. My mum, who worked at Gatwick airport, was keen on getting me to read, but it was hit and miss — if I found a book I loved, I would choose that over watching TV. …

First book I read Books weren’t exactly a big thing in our house. My dad was a financial adviser and my mum was a market researcher and they’re not big readers. I think I may have mild ADHD so I find reading difficult. When I was 18 I read Kill …

Goodbye fitted units — freestanding kitchens are in fashion now

Allan and Janet Ahlberg’s poetry collections were popular in our house in Nottinghamshire when I was growing up, particularly Please Mrs Butler. They inspired me to write a few poems at school. There was one about cobwebs, which I wrote when I was seven and which my dad, then a …

Do you spend too much time scrolling and not enough time watching? Are you fed up with being served algorithmically generated suggestions of the same things, with irritating autoplay trailers? Do you wish someone could help you to bypass the newest and most heavily promoted shows to find some hidden …

Tomorrow the biggest show of the year ends its first season. The Last of Us is a brilliant, raw zombie epic based on a video game. The series has more than 22 million viewers. Have we found the next Game of Thrones? First, for the uninitiated: The Last of Us …

First book I loved At school we read the greats — Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy. My dad, an engineer, often gave me poems and reading suggestions. Some of the books — War and Peace and Anna Karenina — are quite deep for 13-year-olds. I read them now and it’s …

Whether it’s caring for haute couture or dealing with the detritus of divorce, many of us are turning to self-storage to stash away our possesions.

The video game industry is bigger than ever — but what’s the best game of all time? We’ve gathered a jury of experts to compile a list of 20 of the best. On the panel are Charlie Brooker, television presenter, satirist and creator of the Netflix series Black Mirror; Lucy …

A chic take on sustainability is the ethos behind the LA home of Kathleen Talbot of eco-conscious fashion brand Reformation

Animation is just for kids? Think again — we’re living through a golden age of adult animated television, with a generation of shows tackling everything from poverty and mental health to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. That means we’ve seen horses drinking whisky, robots chain-smoking and dogs snorting cocaine — not …

How family and friends helped two newlyweds through a relentless DIY refurb

Michael lost whole days of his life to online pornography. He would skip through video after video to see “if the people were doing what I wanted them to do”, never watching one for more than a few seconds, desperate to find the best one, to get the best hit. …

Everyone loves watching a good heist. The thrill of watching an underdog steal millions — from Michael Caine robbing an armoured vehicle in Turin, to Viola Davis gathering a gang of widows to settle their late husbands’ hefty debts — has timeless appeal. And now there’s a new BBC drama, …

Everyone loves a good scare — and the power to visualise nightmares is one of the distinctive strengths of cinema. Film-makers have many ways to give us the heebie-jeebies — from subtle spookiness to grisly violence (and not forgetting that old faithful, the jump scare) — and often the scariest …

Stylist’s Amy Bannerman's guide to decorating your home with second-hand finds